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Star Trek Online shows off the new Tholian Lock Box
Fair warning for those of you who hate the Star Trek Online lock boxes: There's no good news for you in this post. Those of you who do like the system (or at least aren't actively unfond of it) will be glad to know that the release of Season 6 is bringing along a new box, complete with new rewards. That includes four new ships (the Tholian Orb Weaver and three mirror universe versions of existing ships) along with new cross-faction consoles and new duty officers. Players can also be rewarded with new purple-quality Phased Tetryon weapons or Fleet Credits to accelerate progress on fleet starbase projects. The lock box also contains a wider variety of crystals, ensuring that even if you don't get the drop you want, you can at least get something of worth. While the rewards won't please any fans of the game who dislike the existing box system, there's at least a variety of nice prizes within the box.
The Perfect Ten: The truth about lockboxes
Call them lockboxes, lootboxes, super packs, gift packs, treasure boxes, mystic chests, or Chupacabra's lunchpails, but these virtual boxes of mystery, fame, and fortune are all the rage in MMOs these days. Few studios have resisted the siren's call of such easy money, much to the dismay of many-a-gamer. The idea is that a game will dish out to players free locked treasure boxes that require purchased keys to open. The allure of the box's mystery prize is often too strong to resist, especially when there's the possibility of a huge reward inside. The result too often is strong buyer's remorse and studio glee. There's been a lot of conversation around lockboxes here on Massively, so I wanted to dedicate this week's Perfect Ten to dissecting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of these items for you.
Star Trek Online dev unconcerned with losing global playability for the sake of lock boxes [Updated]
Lock boxes in Star Trek Online -- love them or leave them, right? Well, now it may be more of an issue of Cryptic's leaving you if your country has an issue with them. When a discussion on the Jupiter Force forums noted that certain countries may have legal issues with lock boxes in the game, STO developer @borticus chimed in that the "most likely course of action here, if any is taken, is that STO becomes unplayable" in that country. When the conversation turned toward the loss of revenue from losing said countries, @borticus replied that probably less revenue would be lost from losing a country than abandoning lock boxes. Could lock boxes be making enough of a profit that losing an entire country's playerbase is a worthy trade off? It sounds like it. Anyone hoping that lock boxes were a temporary fad may want to stop holding his breath. [Update: Borticus has a response for our low-standard website's reporting of something he said in public.] [Thanks to "Some Guy" for the tip!]
Star Trek Online adds Ferengi lock boxes and in-game store
Thought that the Cardassian lock boxes and those ever-present "So-and-so opened a lock box and got a Galor-class cruiser!" messages were the end of Star Trek Online's foray into pay-for-treasure items? Think again! As of today, STO players will begin to see Ferengi lock boxes dropping in the game. As with the Cardassian boxes, the Ferengi boxes can only be unlocked with a special key that must be purchased in the C-Store. The contents of the boxes contain a mystery prize that ranges from the D'Kora Marauder Class starship to combat pets to Lobi Crystals. Gold lock boxes have a higher chance of delivering a better prize. In addition to proliferating lock boxes across the galaxy, STO's Ferengi are opening a store on Drozana Station that will sell a variety of fun items in exchange for Lobi Crystals. The store will offer Ferengi shuttles, photonic tactical bridge officers, costume pieces, and pets.
Moritz Waldemeyer's keyhole surgery box tests your nerves
Okay, so let's get on the same page here: Operation. Now that we're all focused on that goofy looking guy flat on a table before we all lost our innocence in this Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, let us introduce you to Moritz Waldemeyer's crafty little box. Simply dubbed keyhole surgery, the device is more or less a 3D version of the aforementioned board game, designed to see just how steady you can hold the key and complete the puzzle without brushing up against the wall. We get this idea this is one of those "easier said than done" thingamajigs, wouldn't you agree?[Via Unplggd]
Wrath lockboxes appear in Karazhan
We did a run through Karazhan last night, and not one but two of these popped up -- Froststeel Lockboxes apparently require 375 Lockpicking (the current limit is 350), and so we have no idea what this might hold. The Ashbringer? Frostmourne? It's Wrath gear for sure, but it could be anything!No, only joking -- of course it's probably just some Northrend green vendor trash (although item level 73... that might be pretty good). Too bad we won't know until someone hits level 75, as lockpicking's general skill formula is five times whatever your level is. But apparently the last patch added at least some higher level loot to the world drop tables -- any of you seen any Wrath greens or other gear randomly drop yet?
Breakfast Topic: Achievement Suggestions
By now, you've hopefully had a chance to look through all the Achievements that we'll be seeing in the Achievement system to be released with WotLK. There's definitely a lot of them, and they seem to cover almost every possible angle of the game. Still, there's bound to be one or two good ones Blizzard missed. In this Beta forums thread, which is apparently being watched by Tigole, people have begun offering some pretty good suggestions for possible achievements that could be implemented in the future. Gish of Lich King suggests that one could get achievements for collecting full tier armor sets. Pez of Lich King suggests class specific achievements such as number of Mage tables summoned or number of lock boxes picked. I'd like to hear your suggestions too. Is there an Achievement that you'd like to see in Wrath of the Lich King?
A Rogue's lock box request
Imagine with me, if you will... You're standing in the bank minding your own business. You have all your bags open, both in your inventory and in the bank. Everything is arranged perfectly, and you're comparing pieces of gear in the bank versus ones you've since picked up to see which items should stay and which should go. As you go to pick up the next item -- *BAM* -- all of your windows close. There is no warning before this happens, and you freeze mid-mouse move. You double-check your chat box, questioning if you've somehow overlooked a /say, a /whisper, even an /emote... There isn't anything. It then dawns on you that you're now staring at some random stranger's trade window. A window where they are hurriedly moving a lock box from the top trade slots to the "will not be traded" spot, as if even having that item in your vicinity means that you'll somehow steal it from them. As if this weren't enough, they then just stand there, silent. It would appear that the owner of this box is one of the myriad number of players who are laboring under the belief that Mind Reading is one of the first-tier talents in the Rogue's Subtlety tree that we all seem to spec into, just for reasons such as this. Welcome to the life of a Rogue -- especially one in a major city. No other ability or tradeskill in the game seems to garner people shoving trade windows in your face without so much as a single word. But every single day, across many different servers, people open trade windows with Rogues and wordlessly await the opening of their lockboxes. While I understand and appreciate everyone's desire to get their boxes open to get at the goodies inside, I must personally get on the pulpit here and just say "Ask us first, please?" I will happily open lockboxes if people ask first, and I don't even care about tips. The request makes me happy enough, frankly. So, please -- if you want your lock boxes opened, ask before you open trade. Any other Rogues out there with this particular issue? I know from talking to the Rogues in my guild I'm not the only one, but I'm curious just how widespread the problem is of people opening trade windows without asking is.
