Our hearts go out to the family of Andrew Koenig. Depression is not something to mess around with. This is Bouvi and I suffer from depression. I really am not sure why I do. I have lots of friends, a wonderful family and have accomplished quite a bit in my life. I am a 6th Dan Black Belt, I have learned to fly a plane and dive deep in the oceans. I even played pro putt putt for awhile and before you laugh one tournament netted me $1,000. Not bad for 3 hours of play :). If you are feeling depressed talk to your family, talk to your doctor. I now take a drug called Budeprion daily. It helps me overcome the feelings of hopelessness. Do not let it go untreated. I beg you to get help. Walter Koenig has already said as much as well. He is a wonderful person for saying what needs to be said during his time of grief.
This is kind of big so thought we could talk about it up front. Atari has cut the price of the standard edition by $10 and not only that if you buy either the standard edition or the collector's edition you get 90 days of free play. Today they pulled the advertisement from the STO site and even on Atari's site.
Aprillian
Trying hard to get used to my G13. I know it's going to be great once I get it down pat.
Wasn't happy with the direction Apryle was taking, so I deleted her and started over with a Ferengi
Logged on Saturday and downloaded the patch. Quite excited to play my Ferengi. Funny how we can get attached to these characters.
Saved way points are important. Spent some time playing at work only to get kicked off and start over again, but good training.
Bouvi (bouvitrek@gmail.com)
Cryptic survey nets you 240 Cryptic points. Guess who has a new federation Klingon tactical captain? Bouva'tar.
Contrails as you go through some rings.
Grouped up with a bunch of Fleeters. Had an awesome time and a few of them really got a few good levels.
On a personal note, As I have said before I am into martial arts big time. Over 22 years now and hold a 6th Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo. This March at our national conference I will be receiving the USCDKA Medal of Honor which is the highest award our organization gives. In the 40+ year history of the international organization it has only been given out 6 times. It is truly a humbling experience and I wanted to share with my fellow geeks in the world.
Emails
Email A from Jayzan
I just started playing STO, and so far, so good. Just found your podcast! I'm gonna download them all and get caught up on what's going on. =)
Thanks,
- Jayzan
Part 2
I know you answered your emote question, but I know that if you type "/me dance" or whatever emote you want, it worked for me. /me is a command that is used in everquest for emotes that are not standard emotes like /cry or /bow or /cheer. So, Try typing /me emotename. This also works for doing emotes that there are not actually in the game. I like to do /me winks at whoever. For some reason there is never a wink emote in games, so if you want to wink at a cutie you have to do /me winks at whoever. But you put the persons name instead of whatever.
Email B from Tyler
Howdy guys (and gals),
Well I mentioned in my Itunes review (Ironhead5.0) that I would send an e-mail, and here it is.
First a bit about myself, I've played MMO's for around 11 years now, my friends got their start in Everquest, but I never could get into that. My first MMO experience was Ashron's Call which my roomate in college introduced me to when back in 99. I enjoyed the game for around a year or a bit longer, and I thought it was good times (how ignorant I was). After Ashron's Call, we all started playing Dark Age of Camelot and for the first time I was introduced to stealth players, and ranged stealth players at that. I never got to play one but I took many arrows to the face from unseen foes. Eventually, after only a few months, I quit DAoC, why I don't really remember. After DAoC I bought the collectors edition of Star Wars Galaxies, which I enjoyed for about 2 weeks and then quickly learned to hate. I must have blocked out the memories because I don't remember why I hated it, just that I hated it and I quit (most likely because I could not play sith right out of the box, which in retrospect is how it should be).
....And then there was WoW.
I purchased WoW about one week after the release date. I remember it specifically because it released at the same time (or within days) of Half Life 2, and since I LOVE shooters on the computer and Half Life was the best computer game I had played in my life up to that point...... I had to get Half Life 2 and beat it first. Which I did, and one week later, I joined my friends in WoW.
When I started WoW I was neck deep in my career as a Police Officer, and loving it so my play time was somewhat limited by 60 hour weeks, calls all day and night (even when off-duty) etc. But I loved WoW, I was an undead warrior on the Illidan server, and I still have that toon on my account. I made it up to level 46 before the grind of leveling wore me out and I quit.
Not too long after I took 2 gunshots while serving a high-risk warrant on a suspected meth-lab (big problem here in Oklahoma). So suddenly I had alot of down time and was not really able to do much but lay in bed or sit for limited times. Enter WoW Act II.
By this time my friends had moved to Alleria server and were playing Alliance, so I joined them and created a Paladin, aptly named "TheLaw." I decided I wanted to be a paladin a long time before, when I ran into one in a pvp area on illiadin with my warrior. Despite my warrior being several levels above the paladin I could not kill him, 10 minutes, one bubble, then a lay on hands, later, he killed me. I was PISSED, but man I wanted to be one of those ;).
Anyway I used my downtime to get to lvl 60, raided most of the endgame content and had alot of fun, but I got bored and eventually tried out City of Villains. Very repetitive and very very awful after the first month (which made me nervous about STO and Cryptic).
Anyway I could write a very very long time about my WoW experience but suffice it to say I've played on and off since release, and I've raided all the endgame content from original, to BC, to WoTLK (I made it through the first 6 bosses in ICC so far). So I can relate to your WoW references.
I've been super casual and rabid hardcore and everywhere in between. My injuries ended my career, but WoW really helped me make use of alot of empty time that I could have spent full of self-pity and depression. WoW was not the only thing, but it filled alot of time for me and I'm grateful for that.
Now I'm making it by working full time in an office (not anywhere near as gratifying as a patrol car) and building hot-rods in my off time. My play time is limited but I try to make the best of it.
......now you are wondering, why is this random guy telling us all of this...
It's because I wanted to give you an idea of the experience I have with MMORPG's, and where I'm coming from. Maybe not your average listeners perspective, but I think alot of them were former WoW or other MMO players so referring to other MMO's should not be considered a sin in your podcast.
Also, I plan to try to correspond with y'all regularly since none of my MMO friends have any interest in STO, and therefore it would be nice to have someone to talk to about my experiences in the game. I'm not going to court two MMO's at one time, I don't have the spare time for it so for now I'm canceling my WoW sub, but I will down Arthur before the new expansion, just not right now.
I bought STO last Thursday and since I had the flu half of the week and the weekend, and still some, I spent the weekend playing. I'm now LCDR 1, with my beloved escort ship. I've been in love with escort class ships ever since I first saw the defiant on DS9, which was on the original air date of that episode i'm proud to say. I have always wanted to crack some skulls in space combat with an escort class ship, so I drove hard to get to LCDR, now i'm here and honestly I crashed almost right after I got it, but the one engagement I fought with it was AWESOME! Man that little ship can toss a beating, and I love it.
As I mentioned I have 3 guest passes from my collectors edition as well, and I'm willing to offer them to your listeners as part of your promotion. My friends don't want them and I'd rather see someone who actually wanted to try the game out to get a chance. All I ask is that they go to someone who honestly wants to try out STO and is considering taking the plunge to join the rest of us, rather than someone who might get around to trying it one day, if you get my meaning.
Anyway, I'd love to group up in game with y'all since I don't have anyone I know playing and y'all seem to really enjoy the group aspect of it. The open groups for me have been good and bad, it's nice to have some help, but as you said sometimes they run off and get stuff done before you even know why you are there. I have beamed down to a planet to do "something" and as soon as I landed received a thanks, and congrats for doing "something" that I never did, and I have no clue what they are even talking about.
I don't remember what my @name is in the game but I'll get it later and send it along to you so you can hopefully add me.
I'm sorry for the long e-mail, but I don't want to really post experiences and try to find people to share experiences with on the forums as I get tired of dealing with trolls, and I wanted to give you some idea of who I am and where I'm coming from.
One quick question, is there a way to organize items in the exchange by price? I know how to search for the items I want, but I need to organize them by price so I can see what to price my items at and what is a good price to buy something at, and I hate looking through 10 pages of stuff to find a good price.
I have not found a way to organize by price yet. If anyone out there knows shoot us an e-mail at ctrlalttrek@gmail.com.
I'll admit it, I'm LOST without auctioneer. Do cryptics MMO's generally support Addon's or not? or do we know? I'd love to see a torpedo timer.....
Cryptic has said they will eventually support addons however there is no API in place right now to create any.
...I can't count the number of times I have beaten a enemies shield nearly to zero, activated max yield, and launched two torps just before the shield goes down and either have them arrive JUST before the shield goes down or JUST after it BARELY pops up agan and intercepts both of my torpedoes. Although with my new escort I just fly straight at them (major front-loaded damage), burn down shields and launch torps at nigh point blank range, and for the 10% of ships that does not kill right away I have the turning now to flip a bitch (pardon my language if it offends), fly a circle around the enemy and finish them off.
I am gonna try the mine strat that Bouvi mentioned though. It will take away any non-front damage I have, but think of it.... fly in, twin phaser beam arrays, and cannons blazing, burn shields down, two torps (from high-yeild) go in unshielded and then mines dropped in the hole as you fly past them. That's gotta be a NASTY combo.
Fitting for a ship called the U.S.S. Ironhead (named after my RL race car).
Anyway, keep it up guys and hopefully I'll hear from you soon. Feel free to e-mail me here or in game (once I get you my @name), but I can't check the game e-mail at work as STOnline is one of our banned sites at work as are any and all game sites.
Part B
I used your mine strat last night and, when it works, I love it. Do you typically drop your mines at point blank range? or a little further out? I'm having some trouble getting them dropped and timed correctly. I have found if I drop them at point blank, the ship i'm attacking flys past them or has time to change direction and by the time they activate they hit the ship in some shielded area rather than the section where i've battered the shields down. On the other hand if I drop them further out while they will impact the correct section of the enemy it's usually after their shields have barely started to regenerate so they all impact the shield.
I'll get the timing down eventually, but I was wondering if you had any imput on what range to drop them or how you time it yourself.
I usually pound the heck out of the shields, when close hit tractor beam and hit my Dispersal Pattern Alpha this way I drop two sections of mines. I start the first one just a little bit away and the 2nd one tends to drop in its lap. While the tractor beam holds it in place, the closest group slams in and stops any shields from reforming as the group further out homes in. Double whammy.
Thanks,
LCDR Reaper U.S.S.Ironhead (most folks call me Ironhead)
aka
Tyler
Email #C from Caption Ludgood
My name is Michael Captain Ludgood, I have two ships, One is the USS Obama, and the other is the Uss Alice named after my late mother. I am a Lt. grade 8. This is my first MMO, I am a console gamer and thought that computer gaming was to complicated with all of the expensive upgrades. When I found out about STO I had to play it. So to make sure I had the right computer I purchased an Alienware M15 laptop with an intel I7 chip and all of the bells and whistles. I have been playing since the Beta and I have the special edition from Gamestop that came with the original enterprise from the old series and Red matter. Just wanted to say that I like your show, it's very informative. I hope that they eventually release a hin guide because that would help. I am rambling but I just wanted to say hello and I like the show keep up the good work.
News
h2orat, a cryptic team member, posted this on the forums in response to the shield rings around your ship. Craig and the team has added this to the "feature to be added" list for the game - it will be an option if you want them or if you don't so both parties are happy.
State of the game came out on the 25th. Here are some of the few things on the way.
Respec
Death Penalty
Difficulty Slider
More open auto-fire
Replayable missions
Improving Memory Alpha
Fixing those Commodity missions
More can be found with the link on the show notes. http://www.startrekonline.com/node/1182
