Day One:impulse

So once I was in , I was prompted to create a character , name it etc .
Theres an option for nickname , first name surname etc : I used the nick drbob in wow so I went with that , I gave the character a full name of bob moylan (an Irish sounding name I thought) and went down the human engineer route . I usually start out by creating an avatar that looks a bit like me (later alts tend to look waay different though) , so I faffed about with the creator to try and make "myself" .The end result wasnt too far off , although the beards look a bit weird for some reason ( half beard half black designer stubble seemingly) , so it looked like my engineer was a bit vain and dyed his face fuzz a different colour from his hair.) So a few more clicks and I'm into the tutorial.
Actually no , I'm in the intro , its Spock (Nemoy spock) talking us through the events of Star trek (the new movie) and then ...hey he's telling us about what happened in the Original Trek universe after he went back in time and ended up in the new timeline How he knows what happened since he left is a mystery but hey! anyway on with the tutorial.
Its 30 years after star trek nemesis , (i.e. about 45 years after TNG) and the federation are pretty much at war with everyone.
So you're basically given a few basic levels killing a gimped borg invasion fleet , first on foot , then in your ship , then on foot again.The "land" parts are similar to Wow , although they feel a bit more like Cryptics other games such as city of heroes/villans .WASD to move , space to jump , abilities on a taskbar down the bottom.After some resizing and movement of the various bars/maps/chatboxes and huds I had things to my liking.There was some chat going on in the zone (more on that later in the blog) and most of it seemed intelligent enough (i.e. not Barrens chat/trade level stuff) , although if dips after full launch I wouldnt be suprised.A lot of chat was about getting the perks mentioned earlier.After a few minutes you're given a science officer who seems to be analagous to a preist in say WoW/W.H.O. , in that he heals/buffs you.The AI isnt bad , and you can give him different stances etc similar to a pet in Wow , although the game is a bit vague about these.The combat feels a bit more "actiony" than wow you can dodge blows/shots etc , and positioning can increase damage done (i.e. shots from the side/back hurt more).Its not bad but it doesnt feel as solid as WoW's controls and movement , at least not yet
The Space combat is similar to the older ST:Bridge commander or ST:Academy games , W&S basically point the ship up or down , A&D turn it left or right. Q&E control speed.Your initial quests unvolve beaming survivors from damaged ships and I had a hard time finding ships at first , and the ship seems to handle very poorly .Apparantly later ships in some classes handle a lot better though.Further missions had me destroying probes , culminating in a fleet battle against the Borg.The problem I found with this was that by the time I'd fly to a ship , get within weapons range and fire , the AI Federation ships had destroyed it! so I ended up floating in space waiting for one to spawn near me and then attacking that.Finally I was given orders to return to Earth for a pat on the back.
Rather than Earth though , you actually end up in a generic space station, which could really be part of any space game.Why you dont get to go somewhere icon like Star fleet in San fransisco or Deep space nine I dont know.After a "we're screwed for captains at the moment so you'll do , even though you rank below wesley crusher, heres the keys to billion gold press latinum worth of ship , toodles" speech you're free to wander the station.What bugged me though is that I was addressed as Ensign Doc Bob! (the nick name I'd chosen), rather than ensign moylan.Why bother asking for all those details if you're going to have the NPC's call me something as immersion breaking as that! Now in Wow I dont mind that kind of stuff , but its really a deal breaker for a game that uses the star trek IP..So ..name change ...except ...you cant! Its greyed out and tagged with something about it being bought from the N-store (the in game shop)which isnt supported yet.

So I give up , and create a new character whose nick is the same as his surname ..except I now have to go through all the tutorial missions again...doh!
So 40 or so mins later I'm back , on generic space station alpha , being called Ensign Moylan...better.
So first impressions ..well I'm undecided...
It feels a bit rough , and it doesnt feel like star trek yet (the borg who barely damaged me , the lack of any iconic characters or ships at the start.hopefully this'll change.
We'll see how it goes over the next few days....

day one:drydock

My wife is a star trek fan , she's never really been into gaming (bar a flirtation with Gauntlet:dark legacy co op on the PS2 ), I'd never really been able to get her to try Wow , so part of the appeal was the >slim< chance she'd try it .
I'd toyed with the idea of picking up a copy in game etc , but in the end went with a digital copy from STEAM , as I've got a few games there before and its not too bad , I went with the Digital Deluxe version which consists of:


S..such bonuses as five exclusive in-game items as well as the ability to play as a “Joined Trill” – a symbiote that grants you several lifetimes of experience. The five exclusive in-game items include:

• Original Star Trek Uniform Set: Three uniforms from the original series (blue, red, yellow).
• Exclusive “KHAAAN!” Emote: An unforgettable moment from the second Star Trek Film. This exclusive emote allows players to relive Kirk’s unforgettable moment of fury, with the timeless cry… “KHAAAN!”
• Exclusive Klingon Blood Wine Toast Emote: Raise a glass like a Klingon! Greet other players with an exclusive Klingon gesture –the blood wine toast.
• Unique Registry Prefix: Give your ship the coveted NX prefix, seen only on a handful of elite Starfleet vessels like the Defiant, 22nd century Enterprise, and Prometheus.
• Unique Ship Item: Automated Defense Battery. This Tactical Module grants any ship a passive 360 arc attack power with a short range.
• (not listed anymore on steam but included when I bought it) Chronimetric Armor
  

I basically paid a tenner extra for those , plus the early start , I'm impaitent so not having to wait a few extra days was the main reason I paid extra.

The Steam download was 10gbs! Although this only really took an afternoon (I let the laptop do its work while we took my daughter to the playground!) .I'd had a look at the steam STO forums and saw a LOT of people having issues with steam deleting the entire client.Since I was worried enough that steam was initially referring to the Program as star trek online beta , the first thing I did once the game had back it up.I have an Ok'ish for its age laptop ( an inspiron 1720) and a decent enough desktop so I plan on running it on both , so I'd probably have backed up the files anyway)
Once the baby was in bed , and we'd settled down for the evening on the sofa I fired up the laptop and delved in.After a brief patch (which oddly enough seems to reapply itself every time I run ST:O albeit only for a few seconds) I was in..

Bodly gone

SO... I'd stopped blogging anything pretty much for the past year or two , I've a blog called
http://lostarcade.blogspot.com/ lost arcade that dealt with general stuff going on , my love of retro games and some thoughts on World of warcraft .I'd often wished that I'd kept a proper diary of my WoW progress, and kept meaning to do it whenever I rolled an alt , but sadly I never did.
In the meantime myself and my lovely wife had a baby girl , who is fantastic (even when she thinks its more fun to bounce around rather than sleep), and I had feck all time to myself.
Anyway , I'd been following the progress of Star trek online http://www.startrekonline.com/ for a while .I'm a huge star trek fan , the original movie was the first film my dad took me to as a nipper , I watched the original series with him when it was repeated on BBC in the early 70's , and grew up with the next generation DS9 and I even liked Enterprise! (yeah I missed voyager there, the wife likes it though).I'm also a fan of gaming .So the idea of an online version of Star trek always appealed to me , even if its something that would be hard to do without either being unplayable or not feeling like the show (theres a fairly strict chain of command in ST so either you end up taking orders from other players [no fun] or get to be a captain who does whatever the hell he wants , and goes where he wants , when he wants {which is great , but is more 'Wars than 'trek}.So despite being the only gamer on the net who couldnt find a free key for the beta , I decided to try the game come launch day.I'm going to try and keep a journal of what I do , until I get bored , or forget , whichever happens first.