season 2
Latest
Preview made available for Star Trek Online's Season 2
If the Season 1 patch for Star Trek Online pushed forward huge improvements to the game's engine, Season 2 looks to expand into several areas players have complained were lacking. Cryptic has just released a preview page detailing several additions, including added Klingon PvE play and six additional levels. The new levels let players reach the coveted rank of Vice Admiral in the Federation and Lieutenant General in the Klingon Empire, bringing improved versions of Tier 5 ships to coincide with the new maximum ranks. While it's not explicitly stated, it's implied that the new ships won't be mandatory upgrades, but rather options for players who want to fly some of the most iconic ships in the franchise's long history. Even with no other additions, the changes would bring new aspects of play, but the update also sees the launch of the Federation Diplomatic Corps (a separate leveling track of negotiation and social interaction) and a new minigame associated with anomaly scanning. Currently a passive form of resource gathering, scanning will be changed into a simple wave-matching game to help gather additional resources -- making it somewhat more interesting than walking to a node and pressing a button. That's still not getting into the special weekly content due to start arriving in August... there's a good reason Cryptic has made a large page to summarize it at a glance. Star Trek Online's second major patch is targeted to hit later this month, with a first impression from testing available from West Karana.
Star Trek Online bringing in old favorites and old unknowns
The Star Trek Online team has gone through some shakeups recently, not to mention a touch of controversy regarding the most recent addition to the game's microtransaction store. But the newest Ask Cryptic should buy them a little bit of good will, considering that they've announced the upgraded ships for Vice Admirals -- specifically, a Galaxy-class that can separate, an Intrepid-class with ablative armor, and a Defiant-class with a cloaking device. It's the sort of stuff that any fan of the series would be hard-pressed not to grin about. Most of the other questions are equally concerned with the upcoming Season 2, which promises to bring in the Federation Diplomatic Corps as well as the ancient enemies of the klingons, the fek'ihri. The latter hasn't been seen or mentioned prior, which suggests that there might be some very interesting story explanation for why the race has been absent if they share an old rivalry. Take a look at the full list of questions for more bits and pieces on Star Trek Online's future, up to and including Facebook integration. (Optional integration, that is. No one's about to start up the mess of the week again.)
New Star Trek Online patch structure looks forward
While you can fault the team behind Star Trek Online for some things, failure to plan is certainly not one of them. The development team has been very public about their plans for testing and release, which made a few people rather curious when Season 1.2 launched in early June rather than late May. What would that mean for Season 1.3 and the following Season 2 patch? The most recent Engineering Report on the official forums tackles precisely that, explaining that the team has adjusted their schedule slightly and will roll 1.3 straight into the Season 2 patch. That leaves us with an enormous list of features for Season 2, which is aimed at July. Ship interiors and a raise in level cap to 51 are the two most obvious changes, with the former offering a choice from several layouts and the latter promoting a player to the rank of Vice Admiral or Lieutenant General. There's also the addition of minigames, weekly episodes, officer trading, new episodes for the high-level band, a new fleet action, and a general surfeit of improvements to the game. Star Trek Online players are encouraged to check out the official thread and offer any feedback to the proposed changes.
Newest Ask Cryptic for Star Trek Online highlights gaps between series and game
The trouble with making Star Trek Online is that there are a lot of parts that work great in a dramatic television series that don't necessarily work as well in a game. As much fun as it might be to have your bridge officers get together for a poker game, there's a dearth of useful ways to integrate it into gameplay in a meaningful sense. That having been said, the team at Cryptic is clearly interested in trying to add as many iconic elements from the series as possible, as spotlighted in the most recent set of Ask Cryptic answers on the official site. A prime example are individual bridge officer stories -- they want to add them, but there are so many variables that the effort winds up feeling more generic instead of more personal. However, there are ideas and hopeful plans for adding more personalities to bridge officers, as well as the potential to respec your officers (although that also runs into minor problems). There's also some information about the upcoming Diplomatic missions to help spice up exploring the nebulae around the galaxy. Star Trek Online players are encouraged to take a look at the full list of answers, which covers quite a bit of space in both design and lore.
Star Trek Online warps to the next frontier in the latest State of the Game
Like dogged engineers in Jefferies tubes, Cryptic's crew have been working feverishly to tune up Star Trek Online to optimal performance. They haven't been quiet about communicating their accomplishments and intentions, either. As part of their ongoing efforts to keep players in the loop regarding STO improvements, a new State of the Game announcement was released yesterday to look at the past, present and future of the title. After listing their accomplishments so far, Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich runs down a bullet point list of imminent additions to the game. Season 2 is almost here, and with it new minigames (such as Dabo), the Federation Diplomatic Corps (non-combat missions), weekly episodes, a level cap increase to Vice Admiral 1 and ship interiors. Many other features that are "coming soon" include the Accolade feature and the Squad system -- the latter giving players of different levels the ability to temporarily adjust levels to facilitate grouping. Perhaps the most intriguing part of this already-packed State of the Game is a look at the not-so-distant future of STO, as Zinkievich teases a new faction (although no decisions have been made) and "user-generated content" of an unspecified nature. Read the full report and let Starfleet know how they're doing!
Ship interiors planned in the near future for Star Trek Online
It's been an interesting process to watch the growth of Star Trek Online over the past few months, with Cryptic clearly making a concerted effort to pack a great deal more content into the game as fast as possible. They've stated prior that they would like to go no more than three months between major content updates, with smaller updates happening on a monthly basis. In the most recent Engineering Report on the official site, we get more details about what's being planned and worked on for the near future -- and the many players eagerly awaiting ship interiors don't have to wait that much longer. The report outlines the rough plan for the next three months, for the Season 1.2 patch, the followup 1.3 patch, and the Season 2 update planned in July. 1.2 is aiming at adding a "sidekick" system a la City of Heroes, new playable races, and social improvements. 1.3, targeted for June, is adding Dabo, the option to trade bridge officers, and weekly episodes. And as could be expected, Season 2 is packed to the gills with new features -- including Klingon episodes, "neutral" episodes for all factions, and ship interiors. Take a look at the full report for more looks at what's on the table and being tested for Star Trek Online.
Dabo, Klingon missions, and diplomacy heading for Star Trek Online
There are a lot of things to expect out of Star Trek Online, including things that weren't in the game at launch which made some people rather unhappy. The game has passed its three-month mark, however, and seems to be doing fairly well for itself with updates coming at a steady clip. Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich recently sat down for an interview in which he discussed some of the upcoming content for the game, including the ever-popular pastime of any Deep Space 9 occupant: Dabo, the nebulously-defined gambling game that involved large sums of money and attractive Bajoran attendants. Beyond that, the staff is working on Memory Alpha and tweaking the difficulty of the special task forces, which they felt were just about right for the high end and a bit too difficult for the average player. They've also got the beginnings of plans for Season 2, including a raise to the skill point cap, Klingon Episodes, and a Federation diplomatic corps. The next update is tenatively scheduled for July. For more details on what the future is currently slated to hold for Star Trek Online, take a look at the full interview.
The Daily Grind: Attending the 1 vs. 100 season premiere?
It's massive. It's multiplayer. And it's adding achievements! 1 vs. 100 is back again on Xbox Live, and the live version of the online game show where you can win real prizes is starting up again on November 19th. While the game doesn't exactly generate a cash cow of news, it is a lot of fun to play. Plus, you know, it is free if you have yourself an Xbox Live gold account (which almost every Xbox 360 owner does, otherwise you're doing it wrong.) So we want to know are you going to be there? Will you be jumping in with your friends online, or are you assembling yourself a 1 vs. 100 premiere party? Are you going to be aiming for prizes, or are you going to be shooting for all of the achievements you can grab? Dropping your thoughts in the comment box below and clicking send is way easier than pushing A, B, or X on your Xbox controller! (Ok, so maybe it isn't, but you should really do it anyway. It's fun!)
1 vs. 100 Achievements revealed, you'll need to be smarter
Feeling a little miffed at your lack of compensation for playing 1 vs. 100? That is, unless you're one of the chosen ones, who, at some point during their lives, were anointed by unknown entity who deemed them worthy to appear in the big show. If you're not part of this esteemed group, you'll still be able to collect rewards for your playtime -- yes, we're talking about sweet 'Cheevos, the full list of which can be found after the jump. Fortunately, there's no Achievement handed out for landing in The One's seat. That might push the community's more dedicated Achievement hunters to the brink of madness.
1 vs. 100 Season 2 details dished on dev blog
New information on Microsoft's still free for now Xbox Live-based game show 1 vs. 100 has been a bit on the light side since the game's initial release so many moons ago. The official 1 vs. 100 Blogs have detailed some new features of the game's second season. For one, rather than Avatars amorphously apparating on-stage, "The One" will strut down a central staircase right after dropping a fancy pose on the plebeians below. Players in the hot seat will also have their Xbox Live statuses automatically set to "Busy," so as not to knock their concentration from the mind grape squeezing at hand. No details were revealed on when we might actually get to play more 1 vs. 100, unfortunately.[Via Destructoid]
WoW.com meets Michele Boyd of The Guild at E3
World of Warcraft isn't actually at this year's E3 -- Activision Blizzard has a great big booth with lots of cool games in it, but none of them are Blizzard's. We guess they're saving everything for the big event at BlizzCon. But we still found someone cool to meet on the floor -- The Guild's Michele Boyd (you can see her here in the last Season 2 episode) was working on the show floor for THQ, and was kind enough to stop by and talk to me before she went off to actually, you know, see some videogames (we heard there's some here, but we've been too busy writing about all the cool stuff we're seeing on Joystiq and Massively).As you can see above, she's hosting a series on Discovery Channel (and she's got the science chops to do it), she's currently rocking an Enhancement Shaman (in Outland, not Northrend -- what can I say, I was confused by her awesomeness), and she's got some good thoughts on what's up in the next season of The Guild. Big thanks again to her for chatting with us, enjoy the video!
Jace Hall Show Season 2 now on Xbox Live and Crackle
If you enjoyed the irreverent gaming industry news coverage featured in the first season of The Jace Hall Show, you might want to check out the second season premiere, now available on Xbox Live and Crackle. For the uninitiated, Jason "Jace" Hall is a television, film and video game producer (he founded Monolith Productions). His weekly ten-minute program features interviews with nerd culture icons and game developers, and frequent narration from acclaimed television actor Gary Graham. Yeah, it's pretty strange.If none of that sounds up your alley, know this: Jace's program was one of the first sources of new footage from Duke Nukem Forever. If you're keeping a watchful eye for further proof of the Duke's existence, tuning in to The Jace Hall Show might just be your best bet.
The Guild: Episode 10 of Season 2
In this week's Guild, now up on MSN and Xbox Live (and Zune, if you're into that sort of thing), we get better acquainted with the stunt guy's *cough* buddy, who turns out to be named Riley, and is actually a gamer. Though not in the way you might expect. And Vork (last seen here -- you didn't forget about that sight, did you?) turns out to have a new skill, to Bladezz' disappointment.Lots of fun. Do you think there really is a division among gamers like Riley and Codex? I'm a big fan of both genres, so I'd never have seen it, but do players of one type not get along with players of the other? We're all just gamers, right?And we'll remind you, too, that there are only two episodes left this season. Only two more weeks of new episodes with Microsoft, and then in March, they'll start appearing back on YouTube again (pending another agreement, or whatever Felicia and those folks decide to do).
Arena tourneys need more Blizzard support?
Here's an interesting post on GotGame that sounds different from almost everything we've heard about professional Arena tourneys and Blizzard so far. Whenever we've talked to anyone involved with Arena tournaments, they've always told us Blizzard is very supportive of the events. But this post alleges otherwise -- they say that Blizzard is falling short of professional Arena support.There are two main complaints: first, that Blizzard doesn't supply any onsite Arena servers. We know this is true -- Blizzard has event servers that they use for events like this, kept offsite so they don't have to set them up all the time. But GotGame claims that this causes problems -- as much as 300+ ping, which in the quick world of Arena matches, is practically unplayable. We're not sure why Blizzard doesn't allow setups on site, but that seems like a reasonable step to take if they're serious about making professional Arena big.The second is a little tougher: this post claims that Blizzard has brought the pro Arena servers up to the Season 4 patch, but locked the gear down at Season 2. Our own Zach Yonzon says he's not sure where the Arenas are -- he doesn't believe that official Arena matches are underway after Wrath yet, and if that's true, then Blizzard may already be updating this (bringing the gear on the realms up to level 80 levels to match the talents). But either way, it's strange to hear someone say that Blizzard isn't supporting professional Arena matches correctly. You'd think that if they were as into supporting WoW as an e-sport as they say, that they'd address some of these concerns.
The Guild episode 7 of season 2, and new t-shirt
Episode 7 of The Guild's second season is out now, and it should be out on Xbox Live and the Zune Marketplace soon, and it's revelations for everyone: Codex tackles some issues, and Zaboo and Vork end up learning a little something about themselves. And at the end of the episode, there's a new twist, which will probably end up being pretty timely to those of you who've been suffering on your own lately. Great show as always.And in other Guild news this week, the gang is showing off their new t-shirt over at J!nx. The t-shirt marks you as a "Knights of Good" guildie -- that's the in-world name of The Guild itself. Kind of cool -- subtle enough to get away with wearing it without advertising that you're a huge nerd, although the emoticon might still give you away. If you're interested, it's on sale over at J!nx right now.
The Guild: Season 2, episode five
Just in case, like me, you missed last week's Guild episode, you get not one but two episodes of The Guild today. In last week's episode, we found out more about the eye-dentity of Mr. Eyepatch, and now episode five is out today, ready to watch.This week, Zaboo continues trying to become a man, with the usual creepy results, and Tink shows a new side of herself -- Felicia promised us a while ago that we'd see new relationships sprouting up between the characters, and that's exactly what we're getting. Plus, the stuntman, who seemed like he might fit right in with the gang, might not actually be on exactly the same page.And this episode also shows off the show's bigger budget in a pretty exciting way (not to mention that the cinematography is looking really good lately). We almost can't keep up with all of The Guild coming out this year. Is it possible to have too much of a good thing?
The Queue: Trial and error
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Hello, everyone! Did you all grieve for me yesterday when The Queue never showed up? Yes, I apologize. My internet connection going down for 14 hours sort of caused some problems. But I'm back and better than ever! Well, I'm back at least. That second part is still up for debate. Spoonman asked...I have been hearing that the price for epic flying mount is going to drop to around 2500g, have you heard anything about this?
First episode of the second season of The Guild now live
You can watch the first episode of the new season of The Guild over on MSN videos today. The video is not available for embedding currently because it's MSN, so you'll have to head over there.In the episode there's some cuteness between Zaboo and Codex as Zaboo taunts her with a T1 line, and we're introduced to Clara's husband. The gang also gets a rare drop and are all contemplating spending their DKP. The drama unfolds...Be sure to watch the video the whole way through. There's an easter egg at the very end featuring Zaboo.And after you're done watching it head back here and let us know what you think. Keep an eye on WoW Insider as Felicia Day will be joining Mike Schramm on the next WoW Insider Show.
Arena Junkies looks at some Gladiator statistics
You have to be real careful about how you put together statistics. As Gregg Easterbrook said, "Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything." So, grain of salt, people. That being said, Arena Junkies has put up a pretty interesting compilation of numbers. They took a look at their (fairly substantial) membership, and figured out the approximate class makeup of each Arena season's Gladiators. The results aren't exactly a surprise, which supports the analysis's validity. Warlocks -- once the Arena juggernaut to the sounds of much QQ -- have lost 8% of their dominance in the Gladiator ranks. By comparison, Rogues have picked up 6.5%. Druids are the big winners, though. Only 7.5% of Season 1's gladiators were druids, compared to 16% of Season 3's. And yeah. There's a lot of metagame interpretation that could be done regarding these numbers. Melee have slowly risen in power over the span of three seasons, and Paladins -- once the bubbling unstoppable -- have really dropped in performance. Druids used to be unremarkable, but now the "science" of Line-of-Sight and Mobility has taken the day. Arena Junkies promise to further update their analysis when the Hall of Fame is updated for Season 3. But I agree with Tyveris: I think the current sample is indicative, and we're not going to see any huge differences between these numbers and those.
Season 3 in World of Warcraft grinds to a halt
Season 4 begins Tuesday, June 24th, leaving World of Warcraft players one last day before the ultimate PvP time-sink resets. What comes with it is a brand new ruleset that makes the grind for gear a lot more competitive and inaccessible to the battleground bots because many of the new battleground items that are purchasable with honor will require an Arena rating also. As for the soon to be obsolete Season 1 gear, Gladiator's items will be moved to Sun Reach's Harbor on the Isle of Quel'Danas and will no longer be purchasable with honor but with Tier 4 tokens instead, ironically these are acquired by PvE raiding. The idea was recently introduced in the 2.4 patch and you can also turn in Tier 5 tokens for Season 2 gear. Speaking of Season 2, the Merciless-Gladiator's gear will be the new clearance epics purchasable with honor points and have no arena or personal rating requirement.
