Monthly Archives: November 2012

Star Trek Online–Boldly Going Where No One Else Seems to Be Going

Computer Games, , ,

In my never-ending search for an online computer game to play, I ended up trying out Star Trek Online, a game I panned because I was much more interested in Star Wars Online: The Old Republic (SWOTOR). Having grown bored of that game, and recently grew bored of Guild Wars 2, I decided to take a spin on this game, just for the nostalgic factor of playing something involving a franchise I know way too much about.

And that’s probably why I like it as much as I do (right now). The gameplay is very basic. In space, it’s great, and you have great space battles. On land, it’s like playing a dorked down version of World of Warcraft, or Lord of the Rings Onlline, or any other variation of Everquest that has ever existed. Mostly, it seems like they added the ground stuff as an afterthought, even though it appears to be very much a part of the whole package.

So, here are some of the immediate thoughts I had after an entire weekend spent going where no man…I mean ONE…has gone before.

The GOOD:

1. It’s Star Trek. It is a universe that trekkies know well and love.

2. The lore seems to be very well catered to, meaning that important events in the Star Trek universe show up in the game. An example is the epic battle of Wolf 359, where the Federation’s fleet was decimated by the Borg in the movie, Star Trek: First Contact. There’s a memorial placed over the Wolf 359 system, constructed by Star Fleet engineers. As you fly through the system, you fly by the MANY starships that were destroyed in the battle. It’s kind of an impact-like experience to fly through there in a system that seems to have no other purpose in the game than to remind the players of the sacrifices that were made that day (in this make-believe universe).

Another example is the finding of important characters in the show’s history. The game is narrated by Leonard Nimoy, who I understand had a bit of history with Star Trek, although I don’t know what exactly that history is. Okay, obviously I’m being facetious here, but it’s kind of nice to hear Ambassador Spock telling us about all sorts of things in the Star Trek universe. At one point, however, while hearing a voice over from Nimoy, I remembered that his voice is also the voice over for Sid Meier’s Civilization series (think it was IV, although I could be wrong on that, and maybe it’s V). One of the first characters I came across (besides the voice of Spock) was Naomi Wildman, who in Star Trek history is the little girl who was born on the USS Voyager during Star Trek Voyager. She is now the commander of Starbase K-7. The grandson (think that’s what it was) of Lieutenant Sulu is a Starfleet leader in the new game and talks about how he spends most of his life having to live up to a lineage of Starfleet heroes. The nice thing is that I’ve just started the game, so I’m sure a lot of others will show up as well, considering the game takes place only about 30 years after our current knowledge of the Next Generation’s timeline. One thing they are hinting at is that the events that occurred in the reboot of the Star Trek movies is kind of on the edge of about to happen. The Romulans lost their homeworld, and the universe is in flux right at about that period of time.

3. It’s a space game. Too many MMOs are fantasy genre games, and they get really old after you’ve played yet another WOW clone, realizing that WOW was an Everquest/Dark Age of Camelot clone.

4. The Starships. My first starship was a light cruiser that didn’t really seem all that impressive. When I became a lieutenant commander (about level 10), I received an escort class fighter (my choice) that just seems so much cooler and more powerful. Although I was sucked into a battle once, and I died after one hit. So, it only seems powerful, I guess. There are so many different types of ships, and I’m looking forward to exploring that further.

5. There are a lot of players and ships flying around. That’s always cool. Of course, there’s only one server (that I know of), but that’s not a problem.

6. You can be a Klingon. After level 25. So that might take awhile as it takes forever to get levels in this game (my opinion). But when it happens, you can bet I’ll be starting up a Klingon and fighting for the empire! And honor! And all sorts of other geeky sorts of things!

7. It’s free to play (or you can do a membership at $14.99 a month). I went the membership route, although I can see how it mimics other free to play models in that it’s costly to add any extra features you’re going to want, so it ends up costing you a lot more, even if you subscribe. Oh well.

BAD

Nothing really. It didn’t sell well, so it’s lifetime might be limited, and that’s too bad.

So, I say give it a try, if you’re into Star Trek. If you’re not, chances are pretty good that you’re not going to understand the many geeky references that occur throughout the game. But for someone like me, it’s graet. And honestly, what’s more important than my personal needs being fulfilled? Ka’plah!

Bought the new Ipad Mini

Technology, , , , , , ,

I thought about it for a few weeks when it was first announced, and then I finally bought an Ipad Mini. Before buying this item, I owned an Ipad 2. The interesting thing is that the Ipad Mini is not that much different than the Ipad 2 (same resolution and such), but I had needed a larger storage space than my 16GB Ipad 2, so I went with a 32GB Ipad Mini.

After finding a case for the device, I’m pretty happy with it. My only concern is that some of the apps that I had on the Ipad 2 don’t seem to be available. It’s not because the Ipad Mini can’t run them, but for some reason some of the apps I originally installed on the Ipad 2 just don’t seem to be available any more. An example is Okcupid’s app, which I always liked. The app store can’t seem to find it. The same thing happens with my retirement fund app, which was on my previous Ipad and on my Iphone. The app store doesn’t think it exists.

Other than that, there’s really not that much different, other than it is a bit smaller than my Ipad 2 and a lot lighter. To be honest, I like the idea that it’s a lot lighter; the Ipad 2 was always a little bit too heavy for the kind of device that it was.

The resolution, the biggest complaint most reviews have, doesn’t really matter to me. It seems to be one of those complaints people have if they’ve already had a device that uses the retina diplay. My Ipad 2 didn’t have one, so I’ve not been swayed by how great such a display might be. I suspect if the Ipad Mini sells well enough, we’ll see a retina display in Ipad Mini 2. Until then, I’m quite fine with what it does.

My biggest desire for this device is to read my Kindle books. I have a Kindle Fire, but it constantly has problems downloading books that I buy. You’d think Amazon’s Class A product would be able to do everything it needs to do. I finally gave up on it when it wouldn’t download a copy of the book, The Hot Country by Robert Olan Butler, after I bought it directly from Amazon’s site. My Ipads did it just fine. The Kindle Fire just can’t see it in the cloud or on its device. Such a crappy product (the Kindle Fire).

So, I finally have the device I’ve been waiting for, and it wasn’t really that expensive. Not often you can say that.

Homeland Season One…not sure if I liked it or not

Television, , , , , ,

Over the weekend, I finished watching the first season of Homeland, the series about an obsessive, medically (kind of insane) CIA analyst/operative who suspects a returning POW of being with Al Qaeda. The show itself is kind of ho hum, although it does have great performances from the main actress and the former Indigo Montoya of Princess Bride fame (much older and still a great actor). The show really goes off the rails with its attempts to be “accurate” in intelligence work, which to put it simply is MASSIVELY inaccurate. But having said that, one of the things it does REALLY well is to showcase a person who is medically compulsive to the point of insanity. And THAT it does really, really well.

They are into the Second Season now, which makes me sort of wonder as the end of Season One kind of put the main actress in a position that shouldn’t EVER give her an opportunity to be doing what she was doing in the first season. But knowing Hollywood, they’ll write themselves around that one in a really corny way, kind of like 24 used to do over and over again.

So, I’d advise watching it for the drama, the surprise turns and for one of the best performances of someone acting crazier than me.

“See Price in Cart” is a crappy business strategy that needs to go away very fast

Business, Technology, Television, , , , , , , ,

I received an advertisement from Sam’s Club today that listed a television on sale, but in order to see the price, you had to click it (as it listed “see price in cart”). One click later, I was now on a screen that told me to “add item to cart” AND NO PRICE. That took me to another screen with the wording along the lines of “complete transaction” and a button, AGAIN WITH NO PRICE. The next screen was a couple of listings of what the price used to be, and yet another button to make the sale (without the price yet). Look, I get the idea that you’re trying to get people to want to buy the product and are doing all sorts of psychological games along the lines of “well, if they click this many times to get to the price of the tv, they’ll eventually just decide they have to have it.” This is fine if we’re all multi-millionaires shopping in some boutique where “price is not a concern” but this is freaking Sam’s Club, not some posh place in Beverly Hills.

If you want me to buy your crap, tell me how much it is. If it’s cheap enough that I find it to be a bargain, I’ll buy it. If it’s not, then no amount of “keep clicking until you’re so worn down that you’ll buy it JUST TO GET OUT OF THIS NIGHTMARE” is going to make me pay more money for an item that I’m just curious about.

Companies really need to stop this crap because it so annoying. Customers aren’t lemmings, nor are they people who want to be herded towards your sales. Customers are people you should be trying to attract with good prices, good service and excellent products. Otherwise, your company and its business practices suck. Simple as that.

Wow, I’ve completely eliminated spam from my comments…also the start of NANOWRIMO

Social Networking, Technology, , , , , ,

I made a change last week to my comment system, where someone now has to put in an answer to a simple mathematical question (like “What is eight – 5?). The last few days, I’ve had zero spam in my comments section, whereas I was receiving about 30-50 a day.

On other subjects, yesterday was the start of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) where writers (or wannabe writers) spend the month attempting to write at least 50,000 words of a novel (or a novel in 50,000 words). I’m 4182 words into my novel right now, and it’s a part of the Tales of Reagul series I’ve been writing for most of my adult life. This one is called A Season of Kings, and it begins during the year 180 or so BCE near Rome and then continues on the planet of Reagul (which is what most of the novels have been about). For those interested, this is the series that actually involves the name that’s part of my website: littlesarbonn.com. One of the central characters in this series is Sarbonn, the Sorceror, and his two apprentices Walner and Chandlin. Anyhoo. Have a great Friday.