Pumping Irony

Just to get this out of the way, I knew TERA (which stands for The Exiled Realm of Arborea) was in development, mostly due to the “upskirts” posts on Massively and other comments. I honestly had no plans to waste even a moment’s thought on the game since I am still mostly burned-out on traditional MMOs. But after everyone on Google+ was suddenly having so much fun, I figured what the heck and tried it out. And am I glad I did!

What TERA is:
Let’s make no bones about it, TERA is a full-on traditional vertical progression themepark, complete with the Trinity (Tank, Healer, DPS). You move in a linear fashion from one level-bracketed zone to the next, from one quest hub to the next. You pick up quests that are mostly the Kill N Monster variety. It could be considered “grindy” (and who knows, maybe it is at high levels?) since you’re doing so much combat, but the combat is the #1 attraction to the game! It’s why you are there in the first place.

What TERA is not:
Anything remotely resembling a “real” virtual world with meaningful crafting, economy, PvP or whatever else someone might be tempted to apply the “sandbox” label to. If you’re looking for that, and only that, then this is yet another of thousands of MMOs to skip over. These are not the droids you are looking for. Move along.

So why play?
Bluehole and En Masse claim TERA is the “first Action MMO” which is a highly debatable statement (hello over there, Vindictus and Dragon Nest) although to be fair it could be debatable just how “MMO” the two I just mentioned are, so… six of one, half-dozen of the other.

Linear theme park it may be, but make no mistake: TERA is absolutely gorgeous! The graphical quality, the art design, the colors, the effects… everything comes together and really pulls me in and I enjoy seeing everything. Unlike your typical Western game these days all about semi-realism with constantly killing wolves, spiders, and boars (oh my!) (with a healthy glance toward LOTRO in particular) the monsters in TERA are all bizarre creations that make you wonder what the modeler was smoking, but in a good way.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the character models already, especially the female ones. I normally have at least one female character in an MMO, but I’ve already deleted the female Castanic Archer I made. No idea where my personal line in the sand is, but that character crossed it with the whole “upskirts slut” thing. To be totally forthright, just before writing this I created (but not yet played) another female Castanic character, this time a Mystic. Not sure if it will take or if I end up re-rolling as a male Mystic.

TERA has seven races, and eight classes. Every race can be every class; there are no forced racial choices, unless you’re trying to min/max your build with racial abilities.

So far I have a Lancer and a Priest up to level 13 or so, fully completing the story on the Island of Dawn (ie. “noob island”) and moving onto the mainland. I have a Berzerker (two-handed axe melee DPS with block ability) and as mentioned above I have the not-yet-played Mystic (support and backup healer) and also a Warrior (dual-wield melee DPS or evasion tank; both very challenging but fun and rewarding).

Your two primary vitals are Health Points (HP) and Mana Points (MP). The way combat and class abilities work (so far) is balancing the two. Obviously you want your HP up or you’ll die, but I’ve seen certain skills on certain classes spend HP to pull off a devasting move, for example, much like the Necromancer in Guild Wars 1 (and presumably 2?).

For example, my Lancer comes with a full MP bar. Using hotbar skills spends MP but using his main attack gains MP to spend. Blocking spends a little MP as well. So it becomes a balancing act to gain and spend MP.

The Berzerker, on the other hand, starts off with an empty MP bar and I have to use my main attack to build it up so I can use hotbar abilities. Blocking also spends MP, and I think it costs more than blocking on the Lancer does?

The Priest starts with a full MP bar, but none of his attacks regain MP like the melee classes do. Instead he gets one ability early on that lets him regain a chunk of MP out of combat, then another around level 12 that lets him move full speed while recharging more MP.

TERA does play like a normal third-person MMO except the normal mode is similar to a third-person shooter (actually, think Tabula Rasa if you played that) where you have a fairly wide targeting reticule you have to aim. Mostly this is pretty easy and fun. I did have concerns about the Priest, however, trying to aim a heal at a player who is probably dodging or jumping all over, but this morning I took the Priest on the final quest on noob island which is an instance to fight a big demon monster and it was actually fairly easy. I activate the directed heal spell, then aim at my target, then click the heal again to cast it.

All the classes have some very unique play styles to them, even the more traditional ones, and they are all very fun to play so far. I haven’t had a game promote altaholism in a long time, but TERA is doing it.

Crafting
Unlike some MMOs you’re not restricted — at least mechanic-wise — to a tradeskill. Everyone can gather every type of material, and everyone can craft in every profession. The catch is that currently crafting is extremely expensive. I’ve been gathering everything that isn’t nailed to the floor though so I can craft later, and also because gathering gives not only a tiny bit of XP (I’ve actually leveled twice just from gathering) but also a very slight 10-minute combat buff! People in chat say quest rewards are generally better at low levels, and crafting doesn’t start to make sense until you’re in your 30s where you’re making enough money to afford it.

Campfires and Public Buffs
This part of the game reminds me of Star Wars Galaxies. Towns and outposts will have campfires, but players can buy them too and set them up in the wilderness. Standing around the campfire will overcharge your Stamina (Stamina seems to mean HP and MP together) — I’ve been to 130% so far —
plus you can get “charms” from mob drops or from vendors and burn them in the fire. Everyone standing around the fire gets the charm buff, up to three (one of each type)! Very nice touch!

Summary:
I’m enjoying the hell out of TERA so far, mostly because the classes and the combat is so well-done and it’s just pure entertainment. You know, FUN! The reason we play games to begin with. I’m almost tempted to liken it to a traditional MMO version of Diablo (or perhaps Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckonging would be a better example) in the sense that you’re not there for the story, like you were with SWTOR, you’re there to be a badass beating the crap out of crazy monsters and get loot! You’re there simply because it’s fun, which I can’t say of SWTOR… /cough

The captain must brave the vacuum of space and Kar’ukan’s forces to save DS9!

Commander Mesi Achebe contacted Arwellyn aboard the Arkenstone with orders to report to Deep Space Nine to convince Loriss and Kar’ukan to relinquish control over control of the station and return to the Gamma Quadrant.

[Voice of the Gods]

Once arriving near DS9, Arwellyn transports over to Eraun’s ship and at the bidding of the Founder, contact’s Loriss who immediately defers to the wishes of the Founder. She beams aboard Eraun’s ship as well and orders Kar’ukan to stand down. Believing the Founders have abandoned them, Kar’ukan refuses and goes rogue; only through death in battle can they regain glory. Arwellyn contacts Captain Kurland who is commanding the Defiant and explains the situation. Even when the allied forces arrive, Kar’ukan simply has too many ships at his command and allied casualties will be heavy. Arwellyn believes that if Kar’ukan himself is removed from the equation, his men will fall in line with the Founder’s will. The classic “cut off the snake’s head” scenario. However, there is no way to dock or transport aboard the station without being intercepted. Arwellyn suggests spacewalking to an entry portal and entering the station using Kurland’s security codes. Everyone agrees on that plan, so Arwellyn gets fitted into an environmental suit and exits the airlock onto the surface of DS9.

This marks the introduction of the environmental suit and its mechanics to Star Trek Online. We first (I think?) saw EV suits used in Star Trek: First Contact when Picard, Worf and Lt. Hawk spacewalk on the Enterprise-E to disable its navigational deflector to prevent the Borg who are assimilating the Enterprise from calling for reinforcements. EV suits were also used in an episode of the  Star Trek: Enterprise series. NASA refers to them as EVA (extravehicular activity) suits (though they have several varieties each with its own acronym) and I’ve been calling them that all along but according to the venerable Memory Alpha wiki, Star Trek calls them EV (environmental) suits, so I’m adjusting my phraseology for this post and hopefully beyond.

The item fits into the armor slot on your character sheet and once equipped, adds a new two-slot power bar to the top of your power bar interface. The first power is a toggle to activate or deactivate the suit. Once active, the environmental and lighting system turns on, and you’re ready to exit the airlock into the cold vacuum of space. The other power is reaction thrusters which are used to provide faster movement between navigation points, small pylons built onto the surface of the station. Lock onto any navigation point within 45 meters and activate the reaction thrusters to jump from point to point.

[Black Ops]

After putting on the EV suit, Eraun’s ship gets as close to the station as possible and Arwellyn drops out of the airlock onto the surface. Kurland sends a quick message calling for as much radio silence as possible to avoid detection. Probably would have been a good idea to say that beforehand, but whatever. First thing’s first: disable the local external sensors from the console nearby then activate the safety posts (navigation points) that maintenance workers use. Once that’s done, Arw jumps to a few navpoints when Kurland sends another message that she needs to reroute the external sensors as she moves using the nearby maintenance hatch, leading to the first “mini-game.” This one is easily accomplished with a notepad. There are a few sensor processor nodes nearby. Simply interact with them and note the filter positions of each sub-processor, then return to the maintenance hatch and manually set the filters to reroute them. The filter positions are different each time the mission is replayed, hence the notepad.

A cut-scene shows a Klingon ship being shot down and it crashes nearby on DS9’s surface, venting plasma and causing electrical discharges along the station surrounding the crash site. Arwellyn jumps to a navpoint, walks around a discharge area then jumps to a few more navpoints when the crashed ship’s engine explodes, sending Arwellyn flying through space and using the reaction thrusters to land a few levels lower on the station’s surface. A few more navpoint jumps, one across a large gap where electricity discharges periodically so some very basic timing is involved in that jump, then a Jem’Hadar fighter comes close to investigate the Klingon crash. Arwellyn could be seen visually or by the ship’s sensors so Kurland has her quickly move to an overhang where she can use a computer control junction to do something about the ship. Aligning three isolinear chips (another “mini-game”) allows her to override the station’s weapon targeting systems and fire a few volleys at the ship, causing it to back off so she can continue her journey toward ops.

Finally, Arwellyn uses her suit’s reactive thrusters to power-jump on top of the Promenade, where she overrides the security protocols with Kurland’s codes and enters the station through a hatch. There are several nearby Jem’Hadar soldiers so she stays out of sight while she removes the EV suit and prepares to fight her way to Ops.

[Intruder]

In “Second Wave” we also fought our way through DS9’s Promenade, but we had help from S’taass, and possibly one other NPC ally if the profession optionals are completed. This time, however, we’re all alone so the ground combat can potentially be a little more touch and go. I only had difficulty on the very first fight, and was incapacitated a couple times in that room before being able to move on. Once in the Promenade proper, I had no difficulties with the groups (usually three at a time) of Jem’Hadar. There are a few optional objectives in this phase of the mission. One is simply to locate some supplies, which are located in one of the vendor stalls. Another is to hack a computer panel to rig one of the environmental control systems to explode, taking out one of the groups of Jem’Hadar. Finally, once you take the elevator up to the Ops level, you can use a nearby panel to momentarily remove the emergency force field sealing off the damaged Promenade roof and defenestrate – yes, it actually uses the word “defenestrate” so congratulations to the writers at Cryptic for increasing our vocabulary – another group of Jem’Hadar, sucking them out into space then quickly re-engaging the force field. That one was fun to watch! Completing all three optionals gives the “Alert Intruder” accolade. Finally we enter Ops itself where Kar’ukan resides. Arwellyn confronts him but after a brief melee, he knocks her to the floor and beams off the station to his ship where he will lead his fleet against the few allied ships that remain.

[Fight of the Angels]

Arwellyn quickly beams back to the Arkenstone where a chaotic space battle is already taking place. The Arkenstone quickly moves into position and begins firing at smaller Jem’Hadar ships first then moving up to gradually larger ships. This isn’t necessarily an “easy mode” fight, as the Jem’Hadar ships are numerous and quite well-armed. On my first play-through, the Arkenstone was destroyed roughly six seconds after loading into space simply through bad luck of the draw – one of their ship’s torpedo volleys had refreshed and the Arkenstone appeared right in front of it and it fired before I even had time to engage the impulse engines, much less activate a defensive power. There are a lot of Jem’Hadar ships and I tend to fly all over the place rather than pick a “camping” spot so there were several times when the Arkenstone was the second-most popular target for the Jem’Hadar. Their number one target quickly became:

The brand-new shiny U.S.S. Enterprise-F which warps in a few minutes into the battle! The Enterprise is the new flagship for Starfleet and is the new Odyssey-class cruiser. This is important for two reasons: it marks the first time Star Trek Online has its own Enterprise in-game. If I recall (and not saying I do) the Enterprise-E and Captain Data are lost and presumed dead. I believe this was due to licensing with CBS, who did not want to commit the likeness of Data or the Enterprise-E to the game in case they could use it further with their own properties. Despite Brent Spiner saying he’s just too old for the Data makeup to work anymore, but whatever, we’ve gone two years in STO with no Enterprise. The Enterprise-F is also the first time a non-human has commanded the Starfleet flagship – this time it’s Captain Va’Kel Shon, an Andorian. We first met Captain Shon in Episode 1 “Second Wave” then he made an appearance in Episode 4 “Facility 4028” where his ship, the U.S.S. Belfast, was destroyed. I had thought he and his crew were killed in the battle but at the end of the mission, Shon thanks you for helping to save his crew even though the Belfast was lost, and several of its crew are now on the Enterprise.

The Enterprise and Defiant (flown by Captain Kurland) have an interesting mechanic in battle. Obviously, they are canon ships and cannot be destroyed willy-nilly like the other ships. Instead, when they are damaged below 10% (I don’t have an exact number but that seemed to be the trigger point, or close to it) the ships were disabled for awhile while the crew frantically went about repairs. A “Repairing…” progress bar would display over the ships, along with all the “oh shit!” defense power animations being used. Once they were above whatever threshold is set, they were back in the fight. Some players are asking for a similar mechanic for our own ships rather than being fully destroyed and forced to respawn. I’ll take the middle ground and just say I’d be curious to see how it would work out if implemented for players. It would certainly give me more time to decide if I wanted to self-destruct or other tactical decisions which I don’t even have the option of making currently due to my preferred power bar layout. On the other hand, so much of STO is already “easy mode” and that could make it even easier.

Summary

“Boldly They Rode” does a fantastic job of bringing “The 2800” to a climatic conclusion. The series started off with a lot of diplomacy and “boring” Star Trek stuff with little combat, but in addition to the new EV suits and a couple quick mini-games, once inside DS9 it’s almost constant solo combat plus triggering the two optional traps then frenetic space combat to finish it off.

The voice acting is about the same as it’s been all along. Again, staff members and podcasters providing the voice talent rather than actual paid actors so… you get what you pay for, I guess. It’s sufficient enough since there’s less of it, at least it seemed that way.

Sounds like the STO team is already hard at work focusing on Season 6, so I’m eagerly looking forward to whatever new content and surprises they unleash on us then, and in the interim.

Oh, and here is the Arkenstone decked out in the full three-piece Jem’Hadar set rewarded from “The 2800” series:

At the beginning of the month, I wrote that the Xbox 360-exclusive real-time strategy title Halo Wars, turned three years old. Some of the former Ensemble developers, now working at Robot Entertainment, agreed to answer a few questions about their experiences building the game.

Disclaimer: I am not a journalist, and this is my first attempt at “interview-style” questions. I did not want to ask the same questions they answered three years ago during all the pre-launch hype. Those are still out there on the ‘net to read today, so I purposefully came up with a handful of questions I don’t recall ever seeing.

What units were most difficult to implement in Halo Wars?

Juan Martinez, Animator:
From an art perspective the Warthog was the most difficult unit to create. It basically had all the features of all the other units combined into one. Physics, Driver, Passenger with grenade launcher, another Passenger on a mounted turret or gauss cannon.

Something like the Scarab was actually pretty easy, but we needed to add inverse kinematics for the legs to plant on the ground.

We also had a lot of trouble with building constructions. The final solution of rising out of the ground was pretty simple. But for the longest time the game designers wanted all the buildings to come from space like the Command Center.

Dusty Monk, Programmer:
I moved onto the project about halfway through its development, and one of the main things I was tasked with was pathing and AI movement.  And the coordination between Scorpions and troops was problematic from the get-go.  Trying to produce formations that looked halfway decent and actually resolved into lines when moving through narrow gaps produced all kinds of crazy difficulties.   Also, as Juan mentioned, we spent an extraordinary amount of time working on the Warthog to try to get it as close to the signature Halo Warthog as we could in its movement and physics.

I remember reading the Flood was originally going to be a third playable faction but it kept playing out too Zerg-like, which was not the intent of the Flood so that idea was scrapped. Was that a final decision to scrap the Flood or were there ideas that could have salvaged it but time constraints on the project did not allow it to be worked on?

Joe Gillum, Content Designer
There were a couple of legitimate reasons:

- Can we cram another full civilization’s worth of content onto the disk, and/or run all that with the memory available on a 360?
- We were trying to budget the game to finish the content we had planned. Adding another civ was a big risk.

The pitch I threw out to deal with the memory issue (and the fact that not all 360 owners had hard drives) was a USB Flood Infection Form dongle toy. “Infect your XBOX with the Flood, this fall!”

Prior to notification that Ensemble would be dismantled at Halo Wars’ launch, were there any discussions or plans of DLC beyond the multiplayer map packs? Any potential for additional campaign/co-op DLC? A Halo Wars 2? (Many fans are still hopeful 343 doesn’t forget this franchise.)

Eric Best, Programmer:
We had a good framework in (code-wise) for a lot of future map packs.  We also had a system so that for each matchmaking bucket (1v1, 2v2 Teams, etc.) we could rotate out the map sets and tweak the matchmaking connection values for each one (as well as just adding in new buckets without a patch).

What features were left on the "cutting room floor" either because it was totally justified (just wasn’t working at all) or because of time constraints and "cutting the fat" so to speak? Were there features that were cut that you really wish had been able to get in the game?

Bart Tiongson, Concept Artist
The feature that was cut that I was truly hoping for, speaking as a very biased concept artist, was having interacting wild alien creatures throughout the levels.  We had conceptualized a TON of various creatures that never made it into the game and the ones that we had in there never "reacted" to the player like we were originally hoping.  It was really just a matter of not having the time and bandwidth to do it because of higher priority features. Here are a few concept art designs that were not used:

Juan Martinez, Animator
At the beginning of the project we wanted a Forerunner civilzation. The idea was rejected because it would interfere with the main Halo story line, including pieces we didn’t know about at the time. Other than that, everyone was pretty flexible and even integrated a few of our ideas into the Halo canon.

From my perspective, most of the fat that was trimmed came from the cinematics. There were many more characters to compliment Forge and Anders. But budget and disk space chopped a lot of that down.

Eric Best, Programmer
Splitscreen was working in the renderer and sim, and the network layer was redone so that it was decoupled from the "one player per box" setup that we started with.  But time ran out and there wasn’t enough time to finish the feature.  This was a painful one to not see come to completion.

Additionally we had a system which could pull down a MP balance tuning file where the designers could tweak the movement speed/DPS/etc. on all the units.  The game would check it every time it connected to Live so we could balance stuff without having to patch the game.  But once it was clear that designers wouldn’t be around to make the changes – we had to drop the system.

Thanks again to the fellows at Robot Entertainment who took a little time out of their day at work to answer these questions, and to Dusty Monk in particular who forwarded the questions to everyone then got the official clearance to send the answers back to me! Here’s hoping the team gets the itch and the opportunity to try their hand at another console RTS on the next generation of hardware in a few years.

When you visit a mysterious Federation holding facility to seek aid from an old enemy, you’ll find that you aren’t the only one that wants her blessing.

Commander Mesi Achebe informs Arwellyn that the Federation Council has authorized the release of the imprisoned Founder to meet Eraun’s terms so that he will help recover Deep Space Nine from Kar’ukan’s Dominion fleet.

Commander Achebe thinks someone who both Eraun and the Founder respects should handle the prisoner transfer, and Arwellyn in the obvious candidate. She transmits coordinates located in the Ayala system of the Regulus sector block, and Arwellyn immediately orders the helm to set a course. While enroute, Science Officer Lusura tries to research the Ayala system to provide Arwellyn with background information, only to discover that all records have been redacted by order of Starfleet Intelligence.

Arriving at the designated coordinates, sensors detect a large structure built inside one of the large asteroids nearby. A single Jem’Hadar vessel – Eraun’s – is also orbiting the station. The station’s Warden hails the Arkenstone, informing Arwellyn that her authorization to visit the station has just come through from Starfleet Command but refuses to admit the Vorta, pending further investigation. Arwellyn and one of her officers are authorized to beam to the station to speak to the Warden and release the Founder. Putting Lt. Commander Carem in command, Arwellyn and First Officer M’rilana head to the Arkenstone’s transporter room.

Facility 4028, as the prison is known, is a classified high-security prison reserved for the most dangerous criminals or those who are known to be major political targets, such as the Founder we are tasked to release. As such, the station is nearly fully staffed by photonics to avoid being manipulated by the prisoners. Only five humanoids work on the station, and only part-time. Arwellyn and M’rilana are instructed to meet the Warden in Isolation Zone A.

Arriving at the office in Isolation Zone A, Arwellyn interacts with the computer terminal and meets ISIS – the Inmate Security and Information System – which is the virtual brain operating the station. She acknowledges Arwellyn’s visitor authorization and access, then lowers the force field into the office where the Warden awaits.

The Warden is unaware that Arwellyn was sent to speak with the Founder – her initial authorization from Starfleet was simply permission to visit the station – and he assumed she was the representative he had requested to speak to Inmate 53160 some time ago. Since it’s been so long, and the Warden will need a few minutes to receive additional authorization from Starfleet for Arwellyn to speak with the Founder, he asks if she will take a few minutes to listen to the inmate’s grievances. With an exasperated sigh, Arwellyn agrees, but tells him to make it quick – ending the standoff at DS9 is more important than a prisoner unsatisfied with his meals.

The Warden engages the photonic walkway to the holding cells, and calls Starfleet as Arwellyn and M’rilana walk across to Inmate 53160’s cell, where they discover he is none other than Amar Singh who, some time ago, they had arrested on Ha’toria where he was conducting illegal genetic experimentation on Gorn and Klingons and had allied with Klingon Ambassador B’Vat. [Mission: “The Ultimate Klingon”]

Singh is still obsessed with creating his idealistic “perfect” race, but wishes for Arwellyn to ask Starfleet to allow him to complete his research and augment Federation crew members and troops to be stronger, faster, and more resilient fighters in the Federation’s multi-front wars. Arwellyn is strongly against Singh’s ideas but agrees to at least mention his pleas to Starfleet, though she doubts they will think any differently.

Returning to the security office, the Warden has verified Arwellyn’s authorization to speak with the Founder and has also allowed Eraun to transport to the station, though security protocols dictate he must remain outside the isolation zones. The Founder is held in Isolation Zone B, which is the next level below and through another processing area. Arwellyn and M’rilana gather Eraun outside Isolation Zone A and proceed downstairs to speak with the Changeling prisoner.

After thirty years in captivity, the Founder’s feeling about solids are unchanged. We are irrational, fearful and untrustworthy. She only surrendered to Starfleet so that Odo would return to the Great Link himself to provide the cure for Starfleet’s deady virus that was killing the Changelings. She knew if he returned to the Link he would never return, and she could not bear him staying with the solids… specifically with Kira Nerys. She has no interest in Starfleet’s current situation with DS9 but agrees to meet with the Vorta who accompanied Arwellyn to the facility.

Outside Isolation Zone B, Eraun prostrates himself in worship of the Founder but she has no time for his sycophancy. Suddenly, Kar’ukan and several of his Jem’Hadar soldiers reveal themselves! Kar’ukan wants the Founder’s praise for his capture of DS9 and her blessing to continue the campaign against the Federation. She denies, refusing to give him a second chance after his failure thirty years ago was the reason they lost the Dominion War. Kar’ukan flies into a rage and orders his soldiers to kill everyone except the Founder. Eraun has other ideas – he also secretly brought his own Jem’Hadar soldiers as protection. Fighting ensues, and while the Changeling eagerly joins in on the melee combat, Eraun turns out to be quite cowardly and spends his time quaking in fear. Kar’ukan immediately beams out of the station, leaving his men to fight.

Afterward, M’rilana informs Arwellyn that all contact with the Arkenstone has been lost. Something is blocking the signal, but we’re close enough to the secondary ISIS core that we should be able to investigate. Reaching the secondary core, Arwellyn brings up the terminal. The primary ISIS core is offline, and the secondary core has only limited functionality. Emergency protocols have put the station in lockdown: holomatrices are offline, communications are blocked, a transporter inhibiting field is active and the shuttle bay’s force fields are up. With the holomatrices offline, all photonic officers on the station have dematerialized, and the inmates being processed are now freed. Attempts to override the security protocols fail and the secondary core is unable to reboot the primary core until order is restored. Only two protocols will allow the primary ISIS core to reboot after a catastrophic failure: One, subdue the loose prisoners and tag them for emergency site-to-site transport back to their holding cells, or two, Starfleet Command has authorized the use of lethal force to regain control of the facility. Not wishing to outright murder the inmates, Arwellyn engages the non-lethal protocol then she, Miri and the Founder, accompanied by the cowardly Vorta, fight their way back up to Isolation Zone A and the primary ISIS core.

Finally arriving back outside Isolation Zone A, Amar Singh is waiting. He does not fight back but has no wish to return to his cell. However, Arwellyn convinces him to cooperate as Singh lists off his escape plans, none of which are currently viable. Once he is back in his cell and order has been restored to the facility, Arwellyn is able to reboot the primary ISIS core, restoring all functionality back to Facility 4028. The Warden and all the other photonics rematerialize. After completing a brief diagnostic routine, the Warden thanks Arwellyn for her assistance then requests an engineering team from Starfleet to get the station back to peak operating capacity. Arwellyn takes her people to the station’s transporter room and everyone beams to their ships.

However, Kar’ukan has his fleet ready, and this time orders them to destroy everyone including, to the Vorta’s horror, the Founder! Just in the nick of time, some Starfleet ships warp in, led by Captain Shon of the U.S.S. Belfast, one of the members of the Borg conference on Deep Space Nine where this all started. Their presence was enough to buy the Arkenstone and Eraun’s ship time to escape but from all appearances, the Jem’Hadar fleet was too much for the few ships Starfleet could afford to send. As the Arkenstone warped out, the last thing Arwellyn saw appeared to be the destruction of the Belfast. Shon and the other captains sacrificed their ships and crews so that Arwellyn and the Founder could escape to Deep Space Nine and end Kar’ukan’s occupation.

To be concluded…

Summary:

This was a really fun episode to play! Much like The Vault was a very impressive interior space environment, Facility 4028 is another impressive ground environment, containing multiple levels and some very cool features. Plenty of computer voice informing you of your present location and directions to other wings of the facility, and a decent approximation of Majel Barret, who voiced the ship’s computers in every Star Trek series and film until her death in 2008. In addition to the computer voice and the colored lines we’re instructed to use, player’s can also click a navigation button and for a few seconds a glowing pathway will point us in the right direction, tech first seen in “Cutting the Cord,” the final mission of Series 3. All these are handy on your first play-through of Facility 4028 as it can get a little confusing which way to go and how to get from one point to another.

I am unsure why Amar Singh was included in this mission, other than merely to show up as a recurring villain. Only, he wasn’t the villain and since he voluntarily went back to his cell, will not be the villain for the conclusion in Episode 5. Maybe something will come of it later, but until then it just seemed like he was a “remember me?” deviation to take up a few extra minutes of time. At the end of the mission, Singh is also a plot hole: all the other prisoner groups were being processed by the photonic officers, so it makes sense that when they dematerialized those prisoners were loose. However, Singh was already in his cell which not only had its own force field but was also separated by the photonic walkways. To my memory, all force fields remained in place while the ISIS core was offline and even if they had failed, I don’t think even the augmented Singh would have been able to leap the chasm from the cell block to the security office when the photonic walkway was offline. But I’m sure that’s what the excuse will be.

While I do enjoy the newer, faster ground combat in Star Trek Online, the story that a supposedly super-advanced virtual intelligence computer cannot reboot until loose prisoners are captured or killed seems contrived, to put it mildly. That and the fact that the backup secondary core is pretty much useless. For role-play purposes, I chose the non-lethal protocol with Arwellyn, so that things played out as I wrote here. That turned out to be more time-consuming because I had to defeat the prisoners, then tag them for transport before the force fields to the next security area would lower. Problem was I didn’t always see where prisoners were defeated. Some were inside doorways that had already closed or behind columns, so I ended up having to backtrack through most of the facility to find them. Even though they are “interactable objects” in the sense that the prompt to tag them comes up within a close radius, they are not the “glowy interactable objectives” which respond to tricorder scans, so attempting to use the tricorder to find them was fruitless. When I played on my Klingon, I just killed them all and that was a much faster and smoother way to do it. Also, choosing lethal or non-lethal protocol seems like one of those “moral choices” that would have been a perfect opportunity to provide an Accolade for each decision, yet there are none.

One of the reward choices for “Facility 4028” is a Jem’Hadar tactical bridge officer. That’s cool and all, but after running around the station and seeing those awesome-looking photonic guards, I think I’d rather have one of those instead! They look like mildly Borg-ified Spartans (the Halo kind) or at least ODST with Starfleet emblems instead of UNSC. Want! But I also want my photonic science officer to “flicker” like these guys do, too. Otherwise he just looks like another human bridge officer.

Wouldn’t that guy be a sweet bridge officer? Boldly seeking out and kicking the ass of new civilizations, just like Master Chief? C’mon!

The crew sets out to find a friend in the Gamma Quadrant who can lead them to the Dominion.

Commander Mesi Achebe has a plan. If Loriss and Kar’ukan are unable to contact the Dominion, then perhaps we can, and hopefully convince them to make Loriss believe that the Dominion War has been over for thirty years and release Deep Space Nine. She assigns Commander Samuel Winters to the operation, under Arwellyn’s command.

However, Kar’ukan has his fleet guarding the Bajoran wormhole. The Alpha Quadrant allied forces will send ships nearby to create a distraction while Arwellyn pilots a shuttle close enough to DS9 to disable its scanner systems, then enter the wormhole into the Gamma Quadrant.

Each of DS9’s lower pylons has a scanner cluster, and they must be disabled in order. But every time one is disabled a worker bee drone launches to repair it, accompanied by a few Jem’Hadar fighters. If a worker bee manages to repair a scanner cluster, we’re back to square one starting all over again, so it is imperative to focus on those drones first then focus on the fighters.

Once DS9’s scanners are offline, one of the smaller Jem’Hadar ships breaks off from the battle with the alliance fleet to investigate and engages our shuttle. It packs more firepower than the fighters but is less maneuverable so our shuttle’s phaser beam hits more often too. Once that last ship is destroyed, the path to the wormhole is clear. To the Gamma Quadrant!

Inside the wormhole, Commander Winters tells us our contact is a Ferengi trader, Farek. She has dealings with the Dominion and could point us in the right direction to contact them and plead our case, but being a Ferengi, the price of that information won’t come cheap.

The shuttle exits the wormhole in the Idran system. Farek’s ship is not at the specified location but sensors detect a nearby nav beacon. Nearing the beacon, Winters detects a ship on long-range scans that match the description of Farek’s ship but indicates it has been heavily damaged. Arwellyn has him set a course to investigate. The ship is located inside one of the large asteroids and protected by a shield. Science Officer Azlen notes that the asteroid cluster is teeming with cozmozoan life forms who, while hostile, are not actively hunting at the moment. She postulates they are the reason Farek is hiding inside the asteroid. But we need information and we need it fast, so Arwellyn orders the shield generator targeted and destroyed then sets carefully pilots the shuttle into the asteroid to park near Farek’s ship, the Krannek.

While her crew goes about repairing the Krannek, Farek lays out her terms: she desires some highly valuable – and profitable – materials contained within this asteroid cluster. If Arwellyn is willing to gather them, she will tell us where her Dominion contact can be located. As a Science captain, Arwellyn is able to extract rare particles from traces within each of the large asteroids.

However, upon transporting the particles to the Krannek, Farek attempts a double-cross and orders her crew to escape! Her warp drive has not been repaired yet, so as the Krannek exits the asteroid Farek initiates a resonance pulse which sends the nearby cozmozoan swarmers into an angry frenzy! Groups of swarmers… uh, swarm… Arwellyn’s shuttle.

Barely escaping with the shuttle, and their lives, intact, the crew goes about locating the Krannek again. Commander Winters finds the ship’s signature with long-range scans. It’s been damaged again, all systems offline except minimum life support. Dominion ships are parked nearby. Arwellyn is contacted by the Vorta, Eraun, who is aware of DS9’s occupation. As a test of Arwellyn’s mettle to cooperate, he asks that she destroy the Krannek. Arwellyn declines, giving Farek a chance to escape. Eraun is angered but there is something more important that he desires: Starfleet has been holding a Founder captive for thirty years since the end of the Dominion War. In exchange for her return, he will gladly cooperate and ensure Kar’ukan’s forces no longer threaten Deep Space Nine.

To be continued…

Summary

“Operation Gamma” is a fairly short-ish mission overall, though is lengthened somewhat by the cut scenes. Like in “The Vault” this episode relies on some suspension of disbelief – namely that sensors don’t notice small craft like shuttles or fighters – to succeed at the greater goal of telling its story. Star Trek Online is a Trek game not a Trek sim, so there are some things we just have to mentally gloss over.

I did find the combat more difficult than in “The Vault” namely because we’re almost always fighting groups of very fast-moving, hard-hitting ships (or cozmozoan life forms). Actually the combat below DS9 wasn’t as bad though there were some close calls. But those swarmers destroyed the shuttle quickly a time or two before I was able to finish them off. So, a part of your strategy ahead of time is planning which small craft to take on this mission. With Arwellyn, I chose the Captain’s Yacht because I’d never had a reason to fly it before. However, it only has a single universal bridge officer slot which I assigned to an ensign tactical officer who had the Tactical Team I power. It’s shield regeneration ability was great while it lasted, but waiting for the cooldown cost me. When I played the mission on my tactical captain, I used a Runabout which has two bridge officer slots and I was better able to handle the swarmers.

Voice acting was decent this time. On the forums there are already requests for Farek as a bridge officer or duty officer complete with voice overs. Myself, I wasn’t fond of Farek but that’s because I’ve found nearly the personality and voice of nearly every Ferengi on Star Trek television to be highly annoying so I was already biased against Farek before she even opened her mouth.

The profession-dependent material gathering minigame was a nice addition. It’s similar to the Starfleet Academy event where you run around scanning particle traces. Once you’ve identified which type of particle you’ve found, you’re presented with two choices of how to attempt to extract the particles. For this mission, there are three types of objects to interact with, and three choices for each interaction which must be accomplished before the scan completes. Luckily, the designers left a tab to bring up your science officer’s analyses which provides the correct order for each interaction. Still, bringing up that tab, reading the order, then accomplishing them within the time limit cuts it close enough to provide some sense of tension.

“Operation Gamma” is a nice continuation of the story, and it’s great to see more content utilizing the small craft!

Derek Smart — yes, that Derek Smart — just gave an interview over at RPS that’s getting people attention because he mentions CCPs upcoming PS3 shooter DUST 514.

I read the interview, and while I’ve never thought very highly of Derek Smart himself, due to his outbursts and his overall online persona as being a supreme douchenozzle, but for the most part this interview was pretty toned down, I thought. At least considering it’s Derek Smart we’re talking about.

Dust 514, that’s just going to fail. There’s no ifs, maybes or buts about it. The proper way I think that would have been done would have been to do an Eve sequel and bolt Dust 514 into it. That’s the problem when you start in one direction, your user base clamours for something they’re expecting and you can’t shoehorn it into what you have right now and you really can’t go back to the drawing board.

He continues on about how CCP is “tacking on” DUST 514, which I totally do not get. It’s not like EVE is suddenly getting a ground game “tacked on” that plays nothing like the EVE space game. DUST 514 is a totally different game, totally different genre, totally different platform. It happens to interact in some manner with EVE, which I think is very cool, but that’s pretty much where it begins and ends.

Thing is, I suspect he’s absolutely correct about DUST 514 failing. It’s CCPs first attempt at a shooter and first attempt on a console. However, that isn’t in and of itself singularly damning, after all World of Warcraft was Blizzard’s first attempt at an MMO and look how that turned out? Same could be said about BioWare and its overall success with The Old Republic, despite its lack of longevity among the older-school MMO crowd.

The console crowd tends to view anything outside the scope of Battlefield and Call of Duty with wary eyes. But so does the PC crowd. Meanwhile players on both platforms whine on forums and social media how they want something new for a change, yet they keep helping to make sure only the same franchises and same gameplay is successful. Rather like MMO players, eh? But I digress…

The major challenge CCP faces is one of longevity. I don’t get the impression they’re in this to be making annual or biannual releases of DUST games. In a market where the customers begrudgingly and angrily expect, or at least tolerate, annual releases they tend to shift from game to game just like MMO players do. The only game anywhere similar to DUST 514 is MAG, also on PS3, and I don’t hear much about that game anymore so I’ll walk out on a limb and assume it’s not doing phenomenally well at the moment. On the 360, the trifecta of Battlefield, Call of Duty and the Halo franchises still rule supreme in the first-person shooter genre, with everything else coming in dramatically lower on the ladder. The Gears of War franchise has always been top dog in the third-person shooter category, again with anything else ranking well below it. From the little I read of the PS3 market, the same appears to be the case over there, with just a few franchises holding the top marks and everything else scrounging for leftover scraps.

DUST 514 is also coming in late in the PS3′s life span. The next generation of hardware will be out within the next two years from all reports, and the PS3 will be left in the dustbin at that point. So even if CCP was hoping for an EVE scenario of starting out slow and growing to be “successful enough” like EVE, once the PS4 becomes the de facto Sony console, what then?

I hope it does well, after all I was very interested myself until it ended up being PS3-exclusive. But I just think it has too much stacked against it. And I only hear MMO players familiar with EVE talking about it. In the console-exclusive crowd, there is little to no awareness of it. So, I tend to agree with Derek Smart (mark this on your calendar, it probably won’t happen again) in this one regard that DUST 514 will very likely fail hard, and end up as an expensive lesson for CCP. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I’m wrong.

The swan song of beloved developer Ensemble Studios was the console-only RTS Halo Wars, released March 3, 2009 in the US. (The week prior saw its release in Australia, Japan and PAL territories.)

The game sold over 1 million copies its first month, which I thought was pretty impressive for a console RTS.

Halo Wars has the distinction of being only the second RTS I’ve ever actually played all the way through the campaign, and the first I’ve ever replayed a second time plus playing skirmishes against AI. I’ve always been horrible at multiplayer RTS so I don’t bother wasting my time or my teammates’ time online here either. However, out of pure curiosity I have popped onto the multiplayer lobbies at random times over the past month just to check the population, and at any given time there has been anywhere from 700 for the lowest I’ve seen to slightly over 9,000 players online in Halo Wars! I think that is absolutely incredible for a three-year-old console-only RTS to have that population. I see many other newer and more mainstream titles fade away much faster. Players say they never have difficulty finding a match. I had joked several weeks ago that I found it distressing and sad that I could find a match in Halo Wars so much easier than finding a group in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

One reason, aside from the wildly popular Halo franchise it is part of, that Halo Wars did so well is that Ensemble wisely decided to design the game from the ground up around controller inputs rather than trying to shoehorn all the features of a PC RTS into those same inputs like EAs RTS titles did. That decision caused the hardcore RTS critics to sneer at the “dumbed down” game, but bottom line is that Halo Wars plays much more fluidly as a result. I like PC RTS too, but I don’t believe any one platform is best served duplicating another platform, rather than each platform having its own strengths utilized to the fullest.

I keep very few game music songs on my MP3 player, but Halo Wars also has that honor. I love long-time Ensemble composer Stephen Rippy’s haunting theme which easily stands on its own merits while using enough familiar elements from Martin O’Donnel’s Halo soundtracks to keep listeners immersed in that universe.

So Happy Birthday, Halo Wars, and congratulations to the guys formerly of Ensemble, now at Robot Entertainment, who created the game which continues to thrive! I just hope 343 Industries doesn’t forget this IP and I also have my fingers crossed that Robot Entertainment may someday wish to take the lessons learned here and all the community feedback over the years and try their hands at an original console RTS someday.

DS9 has been conquered by the Dominion! Fall back to Bajor and plan a counterattack!

This episode is going to be difficult to write from a play-by-play because there are so many “optionals” involved. There are six primary objectives or phases to “Of Bajor” each doled out one at a time, but each “phase” has two or three “optional” objectives. Only one need be completed to move to the next phase, so completionists will be back to replay the mission and seeking the objectives they didn’t do the first time.

In “Second Wave” last week, the Dominion fleet emerged from the Bajoran wormhole 30 years after the Prophets “moved” them through time. The Dominion quickly took the station, and now Starfleet and the KDF are allies working together to retake DS9. A temporary base is being set up in the Bajoran city of Hathon, much to the dismay of the citizens.

[Note: I ran out of time this morning, so I'm finishing this from my tablet. I will add the rest of the screenshots next week when I get back home from work.]

Commander Mesi Achebe is coordinating the efforts on Hathon and will direct you to visit your faction NPC as well as the Bajoran militia leader.

Phase 1 is helping setup the base on Hathon, and there are objectives for both your faction (Starfleet or KDF) or your captain’s department (Engineering, Science, or Tactical) to choose from. Starfleet wants to smooth over relations between the peaceful and spiritual Bajorans and the hot-tempered and argumentative Klingons. KDF players receive a secure communique to plant listening devices in Starfleet’s equipment. This alliance won’t last forever, after all, may as well get an upper hand now. Engineers can choose to help repair various pieces of malfunctioning equipment around the base. Science captains can choose to escort injured personnel who just beamed down from DS9 to the local infirmary for medical treatment. Tactical captains may examine the network protocol and upgrade the firewall of several consoles on Hathon.

Phase 2 and 3 are holodeck combat training sessions at the makeshift holodeck operated by Lt. Jirelle Kav. First is ground combat training, giving a choice of either fighting waves of Jem’Hadar soldiers or a Changeling. Next is space combat where you can fight either Dominion capital ships or smaller fighters and escorts.

Phase 4 and 5 has us appeasing the Bajoran population, who are distraught at the presence of Starfleet and the KDF, at the behest of militia leader Colonel Kubus Pohl then learning more about the Bajoran people and culture. Bad memories of the Cardassian Occupation and all… We can either talk down a Bajoran protester or visit the temple and search through several books for passages that will calm the citizens, then show your respect for their religion by lighting incense at several altars.

Finally, Phase 6 has us using the base communications to scan various frequencies, searching for a way to communicate with anyone still on DS9. Several frequencies are available, from the local temple to a local restaurant’s ordering channel, to classic references like Vic Fontaine’s lounge. Eventually, you find a private channel used by Hadron the bartender at Quark’s bar. He tells us the status of the station and remaining personnel, as well as identifying the Jem’Hadar Alpha serving under Loriss.

The episode concludes with by hailing Deep Space Nine with Captain Kurland to try to convince Loriss the Dominion War has been over for 30 years, and they are no longer enemies. An interesting addition is that after the initial dialogue, you’re put back into the game where you suggest different topics that Kurland can persuade Loriss with. Choosing one shows an appropriate cut scene, then back to the dialogue UI where you can either continue further into that topic or choose another.

Summary

All in all, “Of Bajor” is mostly a mission involving a lot of reading, lore, and Fedexing as its primary gameplay. The only combat is during the two holodeck sessions, so the more pewpew-minded players will be bored. But despite the entire series being focused around Bajor, my overall sense is that this episode is putting more “Trek-iness” to STO, probably moreso than any mission or series to date. As I mentioned last week, doing “Trek stuff” can be boring if you let it, or if you’re only an action player. Certainly, I’m looking forward to kicking some Dominion ass at some point in this five-part story arc as much as the next player. I definitely get the impression the story is building up something special, and I hope it plays out as epic as it has the potential to. So, I’m fine with adding more “boring Trek stuff” into the game if it offers something I can enjoy and learn from aside from pewpew after pewpew.

The voice work was much better for this episode, with the exception of some of Loriss’ lines. As with last week, I am attributing this to two factors: none of the actors are actors at all. They are staff members and podcasters. Plus they recorded their lines months ago, and I doubt the cut scenes were done for them to watch and they probably had little to no directing for their parts.

The highlight to “Of Bajor” is its location, however. Hathon is a brand-new social zone, with all the amenities you would expect (bank, exchange, mail terminals and vendors) and the town is absolutely gorgeous. Hathon is also the first zone added to STO that has a day/night cycle, which is very well done. Now I’m impatiently wanting the artists to retrofit the existing ground zones with day/night plus eventually add a fuller weather implementation into the game.

Warning: Spoilers!

Note: I will add screenshots later. The new Picasa 3.9 client botched my sync settings and created a new album with all the images but they’re not viewable for some reason. Once I get this mess figured out, I’ll edit the post with a couple screenshots.

After a full year of no episodic story content, the new Series 4 launched this past Saturday with Featured Episode 4.1: Second Wave.

The official summary for Episode 1 is brief:

The powers of the Alpha Quadrant gather at DS9 to plan a defense against the Borg when an unexpected guest arrives.

The series gets its title from a Deep Space 9 Season 6 episode “Sacrifice of Angels” (which itself was the conclusion of a six-episode story arc) where the Dominion had 2800 Jem’Hadar warships hiding in the Bajoran wormhole ready to launch a surprise attack on Starfleet and win the Dominion War. Due to “divine interference” by the Bajoran Prophets, those 2800 ships vanished. Now, roughly 30 years later, they return. But, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves…

The U.S.S. Arkenstone received a priority communication from Starfleet to report to Deep Space 9 for a diplomatic conference with the major powers in the Alpha quadrant – the Federation, the Klingon Empire, the Cardassians, and the Deferi – to discuss the recent increase in Borg attacks.

Upon arriving a DS9, Captain Arwellyn is informed the conference will be delayed because the stations commanding officer, Captain James Douchebag Kurland, is busy after an incident in Cargo Bay Three. Taking the elevator up to Operations, Arwellyn meets with DS9’s First Officer, Commander Karen Andrews, who asks if Arwellyn would be able to meet with the other delegates in person and inform them of the delay. A junior officer could do it, but as this is a diplomatic meeting perhaps face to face with one of the attendees would be better.

Back on the Promenade, Arwellyn runs into Cardassian Ambassador Rugen Skyl who, in the course of discussion, asks if we happen to know where he could get a bottle of Bajoran-distilled Kanar, a favorite beverage of his mentor, Mavek. Accepting this opens an optional task to locate the kanar for Skyl, which can be accomplished by asking a few knowledgeable people on the station.

Proceeding towards the shipyard, Arwellyn meets Captain Va’Kel Shon of the U.S.S. Belfast who is representing Starfleet at the conference. The Belfast’s crew is depleted and the ship is in need of repairs after being deployed for over a month, so he asks if Arwellyn could spare a few crewmen to handle some of the minor repair jobs. Accepting opens up three Duty Officer assignments, each with a completion time of five minutes. All in all, a good story-based way to include the new Duty Officer system into a Featured Episode.

In the Medical Bay, Arwellyn finds the Gorn ambassador to the Klingon Empire, S’taass towering over, and glowering at, everyone. Arwellyn informs him of the delay and leaves. S’taass isn’t the friendly sort, and he’s looking a bit hungry too.

Finally, Arwellyn finds Ambassador Surah of the Deferi (prominently featured in Series 3) at the Dabo table in Quark’s bar. He would like to take advantage of the delay to sit a historical holoprogram about the Mutara Nebula in a Holosuite, but the barkeep Hadron says there are none free. After asking a few of the bar patrons with Holosuite reservations, Arwellyn finally meets one, Zar, who is here at DS9 to try to sell self-sealing stem bolts, which have unfortunately had a drastic drop in market price. Remembering that Captain Shon needs repairs to the U.S.S. Belfast, Arwellyn heads back to the shipyard to ask if he could use any stem bolts. Turns out he needs all he can get! Zar makes her sale, Shon gets his stem bolts for repairs, and Surah gets his Holosuite. Win-win! (Optional “Lobes for Business” accolade if you don’t talk Hadron into lowering his Holosuite reservation fee below 2,000 gold-pressed latinum.)

Commander Andrews sends a message to Arwellyn’s combadge informing her that Captain Douchebag Kurland has finished and is heading to the conference room, but would she first mind finding Admiral Trem who has his combadge off while he relaxes at the Bajoran Temple. Off to the conference!

After taking a seat at the table, a lengthy cinematic plays with each faction’s ambassador stating their separate views. Everyone has their own agenda, and Douchebag Kurland expresses his frustration that we’ve all come here to work together but no one seems willing. This is where Arwellyn, also maximum-rank in Diplomacy, comes in. Talking to each of the delegates there is a dialogue tree to work through, or simply press the [Diplomacy] option to win! Convincing all four delegates to commit to working together gives the “Smooth Talker” accolade, which is story-based and cannot be missed.

Suddenly another cinematic begins, this one showing ships emerging from the wormhole outside DS9. It’s the missing Dominion fleet, who immediately attack the station! Then Jem’Hadar warriors begin boarding DS9’s interior. One beams into the conference room and kills Admiral Trem. The huge Gorn, S’taass lunges across the table and slays the Jem’Hadar. Douchebag Kurland tells Andrews to begin an evacuation – get all personnel to escape shuttles and prep the Defiant for launch. The Jem’Hadar invaders have cut off access to Ops so we’ll have to make our way around the docking ring. Arwellyn is the only member of the delegates who kept her weapons, though S’taass doesn’t need them; he is a formidable melee combatant. Douchebag Kurland, Surah and Skyl stay behind while Arwellyn and S’taass fight through the Jem’Hadar towards the bay that the U.S.S. Arkenstone is docked to.

After a brief firefight with a few Jem’Hadar there are three optional tasks, one for each Captain profession. Arwellyn is a Science captain, so she is able to heal an injured security officer, which adds one more armed person to the group, and unlocks the “Security Savior” accolade. Engineer captains can bypass the security system and release a security officer as well, for the “Liberating Locksmith” accolade. Finally, Tactical captains can retrieve a weapon from a downed security officer and give it to Douchebag Kurland. Playing solo, doing the optional will give one extra combat-capable NPC to the group, and if you can get a team of real players of each profession, now you have three additional NPCs to help you fight, plus all three accolades!

Reaching the docking bay, there are several more Jem’Hadar soldiers and one Elder commanding officer. Arwellyn leads her combatants while the unarmed delegates remain safely outside the docking bay. Once the Jem’Hadar are defeated, everyone runs inside and boards the Arkenstone.

Outside Deep Space 9, chaos rules the day. Escape shuttles fly everywhere with Jem’Hadar fighters in hot pursuit. The Arkenstone engages the Jem’Hadar so the shuttles can flee to safety. We manage to punch a hole in the Dominion forces for the shuttles to escape through. Along the way, we rescue four more Starfleet vessels who were taking a pounding from the Dominion; each joins the Arkenstone attempting to save the others. Saving all four Starfleet vessels gives the “Champion Chaperone” accolade.

Now that the shuttles are free, we turn our attention back to DS9 where more Dominion ships are approaching, this time larger battleships and dreadnoughts. We are badly outgunned and outnumbered. A cinematic plays showing Commander Andrews as one of the handful who dutifully remained on the station to oversee the evacuation. She informs Douchebag Kurland that the Defiant just launched but the Jem’Hadar forces on the station are overwhelming; Deep Space 9 will fall! At that moment, a rather large and beefy Jem’Hadar warrior beams into Ops and kills Andrews. Another person, a woman identifying herself as Loriss, beams into Ops and tells us DS9 is now under Dominion control.

To be continued next week in Episode 2: “Of Bajor.”

Summary:

Some people did not like Act I of “Second Wave” where you’re running around the station doing essentially odd jobs. It’s a lot of running and dialogue and no action. Tipa and Werit, for example, each expressed their dissatisfaction with it. “It’s boring, it’s pointless, blah blah” were frequently-heard complaints. This from a player base who complains that Star Trek Online is too much “pew pew” and not enough “Trek…” Newsflash, folks: doing “Trek stuff” is boring. It’s why there’s always some type of conflict, and often battle, in the television series and movies. Now, getting down to specifics, I can see where the “meet face to face with the delegates” would totally fit into a Star Trek episode. It’s all about the character interaction and building the story rather than sending some random junior officer or a combadge message, which would technically be the most efficient method. However, some of the running about for odd jobs, like finding a bottle of Kanar for the Cardassian ambassador, did feel like something my captain – who was also scheduled to attend the conference – should not be doing. He wouldn’t be asking Kurland or the Gorn to get him a beer, so why me? I know, RPG “heroes” often do the most mundane tasks of all, but still, I don’t think it needs to be that way, especially not in episodic content like this.

The voice acting. It’s bad. It just is. The worst parts seemed to be again, during Act I running around the station. Aside from just overall poor acting and I suspect poor direction as well, the actors speak just a little bit too slowly, which only aggravates things and puts emphasis on their poor acting. Once the conference cinematic started, things actually improve because the actors speak at a slightly more normal pace and there’s a little more emotion to them. My own personal rating would be Surah is the best, followed very closely by S’taass at the top end of the scale. The entire middle of the scale is blank, then at the bottom I’ll give Shon as best of the worst, followed by Kurland, and then Admiral Trem is just gawdawful no matter what he says or when he says it, so in that respect I was happy that if one of the delegates had to die for the story, that it was Trem. As Werit said, “it sounded like they used people from around the office.” Thing is, that’s exactly what they did. It’s usually the developers and officer workers themselves doing the voice work. They’re not actors, but they’re doing what they can, so knowing that I tend to give them this much of a break.

Despite being its own instance for this episode, you do play effectively on the real DS9. The vendors work, the bank and exchange works. Local and zone chat works, which can get a little strange if you take your “immersion” that far. Also, DS9 prohibits the use of engineer fabrication kits, so you cannot use turrets or support exocomps at all, which seems to be the preferred kit for most engineers. It’s done so that engineers can’t spam turrets, generators and force fields all over the station. I would like to see some sort of toggle for whether you’re on the “public DS9” or a “story instance DS9” and enable the engineer abilities when not in the public instance.

The space segment was fun, and from the “immersion” angle, pretty cool seeing all the tiny shuttles trying to flee DS9 while the Jem’Hadar fighters pursued and fired on them. Then the battleships and dreadnoughts starting coming out of the wormhole, I look around and it’s just me. One of the times I played through “Second Wave” I was circling one of the Jem’Hadar fighters a little too wide and got into firing range of the battleships! They weren’t messing around, so a few defensive abilities and full power to engines got the Arkenstone the hell out of there!

All in all, “Second Wave” was pretty good. Parts of it were good, some not so good, but that’s par for the course with this type of content in almost any MMO. I am very much looking forward to where the story goes, and what we end up doing. The trailer video implies we’ll be wearing EVA suits and walking on the outside of DS9 at some point, so hopefully that is well done.

Series 3 gave us some very well-done daily missions that have what I’ll call “random” or “rotating” objectives. You’re always on whatever map for any given mission, and often there are three objectives, but which objectives you get seem pulled from a pool so any given day your daily mission might differ just slightly. I’m hoping Series 4 ups the ante with even more “dynamic” (if I dare call them that) daily missions which are entertaining and able to be completed relatively quickly. Maybe an EVA suit daily?

Today over Twitter then on the official Star Trek Online website, it was officially announced that former Executive Producer Dan Stahl will be resuming that position, while the interim Executive Producer for the past five months Stephen D’Angelo will be stepping down and resuming full-time to his position as Cryptic’s Chief Technical Officer working on tech for all three of Cryptic’s games and the Foundry (a position he’s been doing the past five months in addition to the EP job).

I was – and still am – a huge fan of Dan Stahl as Executive Producer last year. I really enjoyed his openness and transparency with the player base and his willingness to discuss his wish list for Star Trek Online. Therein also lied the problem: players being what they are, they took his every word as a "promise" and naturally, given how extensive his wishes are, that was taken as "over-promising."

So it was no surprise to me when Stephen D’Angelo took over as Executive Producer, he took a much more conservative approach. He only committed the team to two Featured Episodes this year, plus a few other additions and fixes. I saw that as rather than over-promising the universe, D’Angelo was pulling "Scotty Time" and under-promising, that way when (hopefully!) the team was able to over-deliver they would be viewed as heroes instead. But no, now the players whine about how "depressing" D’Angelo was being instead.

I am happy to see Stahl back in the position, but I’m also a big proponent of change and giving people a chance. I enjoyed seeing D’Angelo growing into the Producer role over the course of his short tenure and I’ll be sad to see him go. Hopefully – and ideally – both D’Angelo and Stahl gained new perspectives from their differing roles recently and will apply them to the new-old roles they are resuming.