Like many people, my zeal for Star Trek Online dropped precipitously after I hit the level cap in a few months. There simply isn’t much to do. Kill 6 groupings of X. Scan four anomalies after eliminating the hapless baddies standing inertly near each. Be the first to discover D’arsay ruins about 20 times. Rinse, repeat. Not even the occasional new “raidisode” (ugh, that word) was enough.
The RP community atrophied, too. There’s only so much standing around Quark’s pretending to get drunk you can stomach before you realize you’ve done all this before in City of Heroes’ Pocket D, only with capes and Spandex.
But lo, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Season 2 is the sun.
Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I spent a few hours with the new Season 2 content that was just released, and while I can say without qualification that it’s a great step in the right direction, there’s still a long way to go. If this is a sign of things to come, however, I am cautiously optimistic.
So, let’s talk about what I like. The level cap has been raised from 45 to 51, allowing you to rise to the rank of Vice Admiral. That’s fine, provided you can do more than the same handful of dailies killing Borg and scanning anomalies in the Gamma Orionis Sector. Yes, yes, I know there’s the endlessly shifting landscape of PVP, but let’s not kid ourselves. PVPers are in the minority, bless their violent hearts.
There are some new missions to do. Yes, indeed. The Undine are making a show of it again. I played through two of the new missions last night, and I must say, this is the kind of content the game needs. It’s not on the same level as “City on the Edge of Never,” but they’re enjoyable. Though Mein Gott, “Assimilation” is brutal. Wandering through a down-but-not-out Borg Cube, praying your trigger-happy bridge officers don’t blow their gaskets and start blasting every inert drone they see in spite being set to passive mode would you people stop shooting there are now 20 drones touching me in ways that feel uncomfortable!
Sorry. “Assimilation” requires a light touch if you want to get through it with minimal fuss. Which is another thing — it’s actually challenging. After so many missions where the worst that could happen is watching one of your bridge officers falling through a hole in the earth, encountering true difficulty is still new and strange to me.
And hey, am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? These missions have branching conversation options. You mean, if I choose to say or do this instead of that, it affects the outcome? It’s not a straight line from start to finish? Now that’s something. I haven’t explored all the options to see whether things truly happen differently, though I know when it comes to a whole new category of missions, the wrong choice will make you fail miserably.
That category would be the highly anticipated diplomatic missions. These are strictly non-combat missions (as far as I know, this is Picard diplomacy, not Kirk “I punch you in the face then sleep with your wife” diplomacy), and they’re talky. Of course. There are layered conversations, investigations, and lots of running between contacts. What, you want me to run up that mountain to get to the temple? I have a Sovereign-class assault cruiser in orbit. Where’s my transporter chief with that site-to-site transport? That useless drunk.
It’s nice being able to resolve missions peacefully, and it’s a nice change of pace. Diplomatic XP is different from regular XP, and while I don’t fully understand the system yet, I’m intrigued. You gain diplomatic ranks that are separate from your military rank. And I see the much maligned “Aid the Planet” missions give you diplomatic XP now. Cryptic really, really wants us to do those missions. At least now, you can buy the provisions you need from your ship’s replicator instead of lumbering around with cargo holds full of self-sealing stem bolts. I may actually do those missions now instead of warping out of the system the moment someone starts saying they need supplies for their malfunctioning pornographic holoemitters.
Speaking of holoemitters, there’s a holo Leeta in Quark’s now, running the dabo wheel. Yes, you can actually play dabo and win gold-pressed latinum. Cryptic got Leeta’s actress, Chase Masterson to give voice to her character, and it’s very cute hearing her explaining the rules, offering encouragement and advising you to keep your eyes on the wheel, not the girl. She purrs quite a bit.
You’ll now have a mattress under which to stash your latinum, too. Your city-sized starship is now more than a bridge the size of a hockey arena, because ship interiors are here. You have a ready room connected to your bridge with an actual human-sized door, proving once and for all that not every door and passageway needs to be large enough to accommodate a school bus. From the crew deck, you can visit your lounge and sick bay. You can finally invite to your captain’s quarters that nice Caitian ensign you met on Spacedock who is played by an unemployed dockworker from Newark. You can gaze longingly at your warp core in engineering and pretend to experiment on universe-destroying chemicals in the research lab.
The operative word there is “pretend,” as these areas are purely social. There’s no functionality in them. I hear you can place trophies you’ve earned in various parts of the ship, and the potential for future expansion is palpable.
Let’s see. Oh yes, once you hit vice admiral, you get the option to fly around in a non-gimped Galaxy, Defiant or Intrepid. That’s a nice touch. The Tier 5 Galaxy even separates into the saucer and stardrive sections. I saw it for myself last night. Not sure how useful it is but it looks cool –
Hang on. I saw it last night. Which means I was watching a vice admiral flying around. Which means, within days of Season 2′s release, people have already hit the new level cap.
*muffled screaming*
OK, so, some things haven’t changed.
Note: I didn’t touch on a number of other features, including the Klingon PvE content from which Season 2′s tagline, “Ancient Enemies,” is derived.
You mentioned the ship interiors are social. Does that mean one can have other players on your ship? (for all I know that was always the case, but I thought I’d heard ein ship, ein captain, ein lonely trip through the stars)
You’ve always had the ability to invite players to your bridge, and now (I believe) that’s extended to the rest of the interior. It’s purely for social/rp purposes though.
You know, this was a very fun to read review, and you have an excellent eye for what passages to bold. Well done, good sir.
Thank you very much for the kind words.