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Star Trek Online explores new Captain Specializations
There are only three classes for players in Star Trek Online, and they all cover broad fields of potential abilities. That's part of the charm of the game. When Delta Rising launches, however, players will be able to specialize their characters a bit more with the introduction of specializations. Specialization trees allow characters of all disciplines to become a little more focused on a specific area of play, unlocking new traits and abilities for use in various scenarios. Players can have one primary specialization and one secondary specialization active at any given time; while abilities can be bought for inactive specializations, they cannot be used until that specialization is made active. At launch, the game will have one primary tree (Intelligence) and two secondary trees (Pilot and Commando), all of which provide different functions and can allow a character to focus in on unique areas of play. Take a look at the full rundown for more details on how the new powers will work when the expansion goes live in mid-October.
The Daily Grind: How important are options?
Saying that a game is linear is almost a dirty word in the field of games, at least when it comes to RPGs and their close genre relatives. The advent of games that allow you to decide whether to trek through the Desert of Certain Doom or the Forest of Inevitable Demise has spoiled us a bit -- we expect to have a choice. MMOs are hardly exempt, and in some ways even worse off, with players who want to choose which quests they do, which abilities they learn, and what their character likes in a pie. Of course, by the same token, it's better to have one path that's fleshed-out and interesting than a half-dozen with hardly any expansion to them, whether it's a path to the level cap or just a chain of learning abilities. So the question is, how important is the power of choice? When leveling, would you prefer variety of zones without as much quality to each area, or a full dint of quality in far fewer different places? Do you want your characters to learn anything even if there's not much to learn, or do you prefer a single path that has been expertly balanced?
The state of Engineering in 3.1
In case you missed the memo, the short list of changes to the Engineering profession that have been posted for patch 3.1 are all you are going to get come patch day, like it or not. Bornakk confirmed that Blizzard feels that the "perks work out" compared to what other professions offer, and that they "have no changes planned at this time."The relevant forum thread has grown to over 1300 replies and more than 50,000 views, suggesting that while Blizz might be satisfied, much of the Engineering community is not. In fact, many are threatening to drop the profession and take up Jewelcrafting, which is something I hear about a lot. Of course, if your profession is really, honestly inferior to all others, then why is everyone trading up to the same one? Pass through the break for a list of the upcoming changes, the major gripes, and a comparison of Engineering to other professions in order to put this all into perspective.
