My psycho-dimensional rift

I’ve come to some conclusions lately:

1) University life is detrimental to STO playing.

Since I started at TRU last September, the amount of time I’ve had to playing the game and running a fleet has been practically none. I’ve made it into playing the Featured Episodes, and pretty much nothing else. Pledging with the Fraternity, studying for exams, being invited to parties, moving out from my old place, getting in a fist-fight with my brother, and now getting a part in the next play being put on by the theatre dept… The lack of time for STO really sucks. Or, it would, if not for my next point…

2) The current STO end-game content is too limited and boring as shit when attempting it solo.

So far, there’s a couple of interesting dailies from the Breen series, though I haven’t tried the daily from the Devidians yet. Other than that, it’s PvP and Exploration missions over and over and over and over and over and over. I’m not good at PvP, and the exploration missions are just way too easy and/or repetitive. It’s the same few mission scenarios with just randomly generated but overly similar areas and sector-specific baddies to slaughter. Going trough all the missions again with a new character is kinda dull when done solo. On top of all that, STFs can only be done in a group, which is a problem because…

3) I absolutely suck at meeting new people to play with regularly and at building a fleet.

Let’s face it; PUGs suck. The most common way to do missions and most PvPs in a group when you aren’t in a fleet is via PUG. When I joined Canadian Federation, I found them not through in-game, but through the official forums.I checked out their site and I was welcomed in immediately. I rose up the ranks (I feel) not so much because I was skilled and the best for the job, but because I gave a shit and put some effort in. The problem I have with most STO players is I’ve yet to meet any that are as dedicated as I am (especially that aren’t already in a fleet). My problem is I’m not good at introducing myself to people; not IRL, not in-game. I might try recruiting a bit just by standing in ESD and shouting an open invitation, or even for PvP matches, but I don’t like the idea of doing that; the chances of finding like-minded players is slim. When I was doing Open Grouping in missions, people rarely spoke to me let alone RPed back, and I get bored of soloing pretty quickly these days. The Featured Episodes for The Breen were a break in my lonely, repetitive existence, but…

4) The “The Devidians” Featured Episodes series wasn’t really to my liking, not nearly as much as “The Breen” was.

STOked raved about the episode with Bones and bashed the episode with Scotty. I feel that’s backwards. Personally, I found the majority of this episode series had a lot of gameplay and story that just felt either half-assed or overly wordy. The Halloween episode was beautifully done, and I really enjoyed it; However, the first one felt short and the last 2 were just aweful in comparison.  The “Bones” episode I found annoying and confusing, especially with the Jefrey’s Tube. Trying to lock the security team in a side room just didn’t seem to work as they kept hounding me too closely and their phasers are hella stronger than the “newer” ones. Then the encounter with McCoy was irritating because he gives you the info at the start, then you gotta scan the others anyways, and the dialog was pretty dry in my opinion. The last episode was pretty good in it’s dialog; I fond the puzzle with Scotty funny and entertaining. The battles with the Devidians on the station at the beginning f the mission were a bit confusing when I first landed as to who I was supposed to be attacking, but I felt they weren’t bad. The final space battle pissed me off royally, though. I don’t think there’s a single person that tried it that didn’t die multiple times. The Klingon weapons were massively overpowered and even the guys over at STOked got pissed off about it.

So in short, I guess I won’t be posting as often as I wanted to for a while, at least until after the play gets out. Season 3 should be released soon, though, and believe me, I’m MAKING time for THAT. 😉 As much as I bitch, I love this game, and s0me of the season 3 changes I’ve gotten to try on the Tribble test server are awesome. Just might be enough to get me to make more time for STO again.