OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

[Pattern Ghost]

Looks like STO went FTP on the 17th. I'm downloading it now. Anyone else try it out yet? Opinions? Is the FTP model as liberal as the CO one? (IE, lots of stuff to do for the freeps.)

[RexMundi]

Actually far more liberal in a lot of ways. Tried it, and it tends to occupy more of my time then the CO which I am paying for. Considering reversing that situation.

~Rex

[sinanju]

I'm playing with it. I tried the FTP Champions Online and only played around with it once or twice. (I've spent more time designing costumes in it than playing it by far, though there's no good way I've found to export useful pictures).

STO has been more entertaining, though I have very little idea what I'm doing compared to what I think I _could_ be doing. Still, it's been fun. The space battles are fun. The ground combat is less so. I've been slavishly following the tutorials so as to learn as much as I could until recently. Now I'm just tooling around the universe in the USS Heavy Metal seeing what's there to be seen.

[Greywind]

I've been fiddling with it, but the laptop I get online with has been overheating. CO is bad. STO is a lot worse. I can only assume that it's the graphics pushing one of the processors.

[dmjalund]

I'm playing with it. I tried the FTP Champions Online and only played around with it once or twice. (I've spent more time designing costumes in it than playing it by far, though there's no good way I've found to export useful pictures).

STO has been more entertaining, though I have very little idea what I'm doing compared to what I think I _could_ be doing. Still, it's been fun. The space battles are fun. The ground combat is less so. I've been slavishly following the tutorials so as to learn as much as I could until recently. Now I'm just tooling around the universe in the USS Heavy Metal seeing what's there to be seen.

Boldly going forward 'cause you cannot find reverse

[cptpatriot]

I'm playing with it. I tried the FTP Champions Online and only played around with it once or twice. (I've spent more time designing costumes in it than playing it by far, though there's no good way I've found to export useful pictures).

STO has been more entertaining, though I have very little idea what I'm doing compared to what I think I _could_ be doing. Still, it's been fun. The space battles are fun. The ground combat is less so. I've been slavishly following the tutorials so as to learn as much as I could until recently. Now I'm just tooling around the universe in the USS Heavy Metal seeing what's there to be seen.

The new powerhouse has a green screen room, so you can do your screenshots and set your alpha channel to the background color. Just remember to turn antialiasing off to make separating the background easier. Another piece of advice is to try using screenshots with TGA instead of JPG to eliminate JPG artifacting.

[Pattern Ghost]

I had Malwarebytes alerts on a Moldovan IP address trying to gain access through Pando Media Booster today, after installing the game last night.

I already had Pando Media Booster installed, but it was set not to run in the background. Apparently, the good folks at Perfect World saw fit to turn that setting off for me.

PMB is allegedly safe, and it's possible the IP address is a dynamic one that some legit user (or even a scammer legitimately playing the game is possible I suppose) got it today.

Either way, it's annoying that the bastards are stealing my bandwidth without asking. Turbine backed off on leaving the thing run in the background after taking flak for this issue. Some people have very limited plans, and have found themselves on the receiving end of very large bills or having their access cut off or restricted for exceeding their bandwidth because of this program. (Not a huge issue for me, but folks in other countries have been burned by this.)

[Pattern Ghost]

Got my Vulcan science officer, T'Pau of the USS Heart and Soul through the tutorials last night. Pretty interesting game. Lots of stuff to keep track of and lots of keybinds to remember.

[sinanju]

USS Heart and Soul, eh?

I'm flying the USS Heavy Metal (named after that ship in others of my games, named after the movie).

I've seen the USS Peter Venkman, which amused me greatly.

[Pattern Ghost]

Yeah, I can't believe another smart-alec didn't think of it already. =)

[Pattern Ghost]

Speaking of ship names, when you get a new ship, do you have to get a new name? Or can you reuse the same name on the new ship, either by repeating it or just renaming the first ship to something else and renaming the new ship to the first name?

[Pattern Ghost]

Boldly going forward 'cause you cannot find reverse

I tried some space battles today. I drive like a drunken maniac, but it was pretty fun.


Do the things have a reverse? 'Cause that'd help.

[Greywind]

Speaking of ship names, when you get a new ship, do you have to get a new name? Or can you reuse the same name on the new ship, either by repeating it or just renaming the first ship to something else and renaming the new ship to the first name?

Eh, not sure. I've got a ShiKahr-class U.S.S. Cumberland and an Excalibur-class U.S.S. Defiance.

[Greywind]

I tried some space battles today. I drive like a drunken maniac, but it was pretty fun.


Do the things have a reverse? 'Cause that'd help.

Keep mashing Q. Otherwise, there's a double arrow underneath the speedometer.

[Scott Heine]

Yeah, I gave it a try. I didn't enjoy it for some reason. It's not that I dislike the genre or anything, and I think they've done a creative job implementing Trek into an MMO. But gameplay itself just felt cumbersome, and I often found myself trying to figure out where I was, what I was supposed to be doing, what were my long-term goals, etc. By the time I was stuck chasing around the academy trying to beat out other players in order to click on these floating blinkies with absolutely no idea why, I kinda lost interest.