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Captain's Log: Fleets for new players in Star Trek Online
Once again it's time to delve into tips and tricks for new players in this week's Captain's Log. I'm quite happy to say that many of these previous columns are still very popular and generate a lot of feedback. This week I will endeavor to help new Star Trek Online (and MMO) players with questions I've received via email about the pros and cons of joining a fleet. All MMOs have social groups, most called guilds. In Star Trek Online these groups are appropriately referred to as fleets due to the naval structure of the factional militaries. These social groups are extremely diverse, as diverse as the people who play the game. The trick is finding the right fit.
PlanetSide 2 revises membership benefits
As players get ready to start blasting away for control of the landscape in PlanetSide 2, the question becomes whether you want to be a subscriber or just an occasional visitor. Players weren't entirely happy with the original list of membership benefits put forth a couple of weeks back, so the team behind the game has put together a revised list explaining what players will get for the price of a monthly subscription fee. Increased resource pool caps have been removed from subscriber benefits, as it was felt by the team that this could potentially give subscribers an unfair advantage in the long run. The increases to resource gain, XP gain, and cert point gain have also been revised; these benefits start at 25% and increase by 5% for each consecutive month, capping out at a 50% increase after six months. Priority login access and early access to microtransaction items remain unchanged. Players looking for a more thorough explanation can view Matt Higby's post on the revised subscriber benefits.
It's the end of EverQuest's 51/50 server, but players feel fine
Generally, MMO players don't like giving up even the smallest advantage -- but sometimes having a special server isn't as important as having people to play with. That's certainly the case for EverQuest, and it's resulted in a scenario where the game's special Mayong server is being merged with the Tunare server on September 6th. Mayong is generally known as the 51/50 server, as a character starts at level 51 with 50 AA points already earned. The intent when the server was created was to allow players who wanted to skip the level grind a chance at getting straight into the meat of the game. As it stands now, however, the server is dramatically underpopulated. After several community discussions, the development team made the decision to merge the server, preemptively shutting down the special creation rules on Mayong. Player response has been almost universally positive -- few players are upset by the potential slowdown this implies. While the server merge itself isn't due for another month, the days of creating 51/50 characters have already ended, and players are able to get slightly discounted transfers off of Mayong if they want to move early. [ Thanks to Jason Davenport for the tip! ]
Massively Hands-on: The first five levels of Champions Online Part 2
Yep, that's right, you get your travel power at the end of Champions Online's tutorial. Jet Boots is very cool, and will please many an Iron Man fan -- myself included -- right down to the hands and feet pointing forward to stop animation. For Jet Boots, you'll hold 'T' to charge up your bar.
