“So what did you do at the San Diego Comic-Con, Dave?”

Well, I did a whole bunch, and some of it I’ll try to blog here tomorrow (being finally home).  But in the interim, I’ll offer up this cinematic, which premiered at the Con panel on the DC Universe Online panel.

I would so pay for a full-length movie …

I have no idea whether the game will live up to the cinematic (but some comments on our quick experience on it … well, as I said, tomorrow) — but the idea that they have folks like Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman writing bible and content is … encouraging from that standpoint.

(Cross-posted from DDtB …)

So there was, like, y’know, some actual game being played here

Yes, it’s been a long dry patch.  Well, for me at least.  Margie’s been busy as a bee playing CoX, as well as [REDACTED DUE TO SOMETHING WE CAN’T TALK ABOUT OR WRITE ABOUT OR EVEN HINT AT, REALLY].

Still, on Wednesday night, we ended up going in and playing some CoX, and  I’ll admit I was totally embarrassed at some of the oohing and aahing I made at the New, Improve, Old-to-the-Rest-of-You Auction House interface. Eleventy-zillion percent better.

We ran around with Araware and Fazenda, had a fun time, leveled to 31, looked at the Storm Knights roster and were a bit sad, then whomped on bad guys.

Cue the trials and travails with my laptop.  Timing is everything. Rrg.

Sunday afternoon,  we spent a goodly chunk of time playing our first STO in a long time. (I think we didn’t play during any of Season 1.1, and now it’s 1.2, crikey!)  Finished the City on the Edge of Never arc (which was much easier in a duo than soloing), got up to LC4, good times had by all, etc.

Nothing wild or exciting or mind-bending (though getting eleventy-zillion accolades when we signed onto STO was kind of trippy).  Just some gaming fun.  About time.

Anyone got any video card knowledge out there?

hand shadow elephantMargie’s been having regular fits with her current Nvidia GT 220 video card — or, more properly, the drivers thereof. As she is a regular reader of the Nvidia forums, she’s well aware of all the ins and outs of what’s going on, and can remove and reload drivers (including the latest-greatest beta ones) at the drop of a hat.

Basically, her machine just keeps black-screening in the middle of games, esp. video-intensive scenes, in LotRO and CoX (she hasn’t bothered with STO of late). Driver changes and settings tweaks and following up on all the hairbrained suggestions from the forums hasn’t solved it, but it has given her a lot of extra gray hair (which, I hasten to point out, looks quite distinguished on her).

Sooooo … she’s looking at buying something new, and, disgusted with Nvidia driver-craft, she’s shifting over to ATI.

The current front-runners are in the ATI Radeon 5770 (maybe the 5850, if she can justify the price differential).

Two basic questions — three, maybe.

First, given that she only runs one monitor, and the nature of the games she plays, is anything over the 5770 really overkill?

Second, the three brands she’s looking at with the Radeon 5770 are the XFX, Sapphire, and MSI. Anyone have any particular personal opinions on those brands?

Finally, how the heck can you tell the difference between the versions of the same card from a given manufacturer? Even going to the manufacturer’s site — e.g., the XFX site at their various 5770 offerings — they all look different but the functional difference is unclear.

Any suggestions, guidance, or 1337 skillz advice would be more than welcome.

LotRO for Free? Three tiers for Elven Players under the sky …

So evidently folks are all a-twitter (and a-Twitter) about the announcement by Turbine that they are changing the payment model.

Effectively, it’s a Wizards 101 style of subscription added to the existing model.  There are now three tiers of play — Free, Premium, and VIP. These are described in the table copied at the end of the post.

Free is pretty straightforward.

Anyone can join the game for free when LOTRO Free-to-Play is available. To get started, simply download the game for free at www.lotro.com. No payment or credit card is required.

Premium …

You are automatically upgraded from Free player to Premium player status with your first purchase of Turbine Points in the LOTRO Store. LOTRO grants all Premium players 2 extra character slots, extends the maximum amount of gold you can carry from 2 gold to 5 gold, and provides you with a higher login priority, more mail and chat options, full access to all of LOTRO’s Community features, and 30 days of full customer service from the time of your last purchase.

Are you a former subscriber to LOTRO? Did you purchase and play the game in the past but never subscribed? In either case, you are automatically upgraded to Premium status when you come back to play.

And VIP …

For a monthly fee, the VIP program offers the best value and the most options for players who like the convenience of having unlimited access to all game content and features. VIP players also receive 500 Turbine Points per month and exclusive benefits like priority access to servers, 5 character slots per server, a 20-slot wardrobe for cosmetic items, full customer service, and much more! You can upgrade to VIP at any time by visiting https://myaccount.turbine.com once LOTRO Free-to-Play is available. If you are already a subscriber, just maintain your active subscription to be automatically upgraded to VIP!

In other words, if you’re currently a subscriber, you end up with having VIP status, meaning you get access to pretty much everything.  If you’re Lifetime subscriber, you’re a Lifetime VIPer.

This all goes live this fall.

So, this all sounds pretty straightforward.  Current subscribers see no apparent change (I’m not clear enough on the current subscriptions to know all the details, but VIP looks pretty in-line with what I recall).  But for occasional or casual players, or former players who maybe just want to re-dabble, there’s now an avenue for them to do so. And micro-transactions should mean a better revenue stream for Turbine, which can only be good for the game, right? Indeed, Free-to-Play / microtransaction model actually seems to increase regular subscriptions (via Doyce).

Avo IMed that this has a lot of LotRO people crying “DOOOOOOOOOOM!”  Per the above article, some thoughts:

The big fear is that this will somehow ‘ruin’ the game by doing one of two things. First, it could break the game mechanically a la SWG’s NGE. This comparison was actually brought up over there, but I think it’s fantastically unlikely. Nothing in the announcement or in the existing model that Turbine is already using implies that sweeping changes will be made to the underlying mechanics, and it’s hard to see why Turbine would think such a thing desirable with what’s already one of the top games in the market (assuming WoW to be an aberrant exception, which it is.)

The other feared outcome is that the move to FTP will result in a large influx of additional players, presumably increasing the asshat factor. This is more likely than an NGE-type catastrophe. It’s possible, but I think any such effect is likely to be mitigated by LotRO’s nature – LotRO is a slow-boiling, casual-friendly game, and asshats aren’t likely to stay long.

I really don’t see this the latter is an issue.  If the early, heady, startup days of the game survived with higher crowds, I don’t see it being brought down by this. The “asshats” aren’t going to join an “old” game. There will likely be more noobs, but that should be considered a good thing.

Even at the VIP level, it does look like there will be more microtransactions, which is the sort of fiddly stuff I dislike in such a model.  But overall, I think this is positive for LotRO.  And it certainly makes it more likely that, at such time as we choose to return to it — it will be there for us to return to.

Below: the detailed table of “what you get at different levels”:

PLAYER TIER VIP PREMIUM PLAYER FREE PLAYER
TURBINE POINTS 500/month Free
(can purchase more) or earn thru gameplay		 Purchasable
or earn thru gameplay		 Purchasable
or earn thru gameplay
CONTENT
World Access* Free Free Free
Epic Story* Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Races 4 4 4
Classes 7 7 7
Premium Classes* Purchasable Purchasable Purchasable
Level Cap* 50 50 50
Character Slots*/** 5/server
(can purchase more)		 3/server
(can purchase more)		 1/server
(can purchase more)
Quest Packs* Eriador Ered Luin, Shire, Bree-land
(can purchase more)		 Ered Luin, Shire, Bree-land
(can purchase more)
KEY FEATURES
Inventory 5 bags 3 bags
(can purchase more)		 3 bags
(can purchase more)
Gold Limit Unlimited 5 Gold
(can purchase cap removal)		 2 Gold
(can purchase cap removal)
Priority Login Priority High Standard
Chat Unlimited Limited Limited
Auction Unlimited Limited Limited
Mail Unlimited Limited Limited
Rest XP Automatic Not available Not Available
Shared Bank** Purchasable Purchasable Purchasable
Skirmishes* 9
(More in Mirkwood Expansion)		 4
(can purchase more)		 4
(can purchase more)
Legendary Items* Requires Moria Expansion Requires Moria Expansion Requires Moria Expansion
Traits All 1 or 2 slots per trait type
(can purchase more)		 1 or 2 slots per trait type
(can purchase more)
Crafting* Tier 1-5 available Tier 1-5 available Tier 1-5 available
Crafting Guilds Unlimited Limited
(can purchase more)		 Limited
(can purchase more)
Housing Available Available Available
Music Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Hobbies Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Cosmetic System Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Wardrobe 20 slots
(can purchase more)		 Purchasable Purchasable
Destiny points Can earn and spend Can earn but cannot spend Can earn but cannot spend
Monster play Unlimited Not available Not available
Community Features Unlimited Unlimited Limited
Customer Service Full access Full access for 30 days following the purchase of Turbine points Self-service online

STO: A Table of Captains (the new Captain Database)

Star Trek OnlineActually, I’m not sure what the collective noun for a group of captains is, but since we have a Captain’s Table in STO, I’ll go with that.

Anyway, as BD pointed out to me this morning, the Captain Database is now online at the STO site, under “Community”.  Woot!

Well, mostly woot.

Though the table you start with has Captains and Handles, you can only search by the former.  Once you have a captain found, you can click on the @ handle and see all the captains that person has.  That display gives a rather dim headshot of each captain, their short name, rank, current command/ship, and a link to their profile.

(You can also go directly to “My Characters“, which looks the same as drilling down to your own handle’s set of toons, except you’ll be asked to choose one as your “main” — what this means isn’t explained.)

The profile page gives a larger version of the headshot, short name, species / gender / class, and their current command/ship name.  The biography section gives the online biography for the character, with a sidebar for the current ship (including name, class, registry, crew complement) and a list of bridge crew (but no info on them beyond name, rank, and class).

The captain’s log tab duplicates the online captain’s log, registering (with date stamps) all Missions and significant Activity (e.g., a bridge officer promotion).  You can also put in manual Captain’s Log entries, and supplemental entries / comments on all activities.

The system is nice so far as it goes, but could use some improvements:

  1. There’s no searching by @ handle.  Hope you can remember your friend’s captain names.
  2. The search is a bit wonky.  One of Margie’s toons is “B-47” but that search doesn’t come up with anything (though that’s the name on her profile page, once I manually went to it).
  3. There’s no backlink from the captain’s log to the profile page.  Once in a profile, there’s no reference to the @ handle or way to get back to the captain list for that handle.  If you’re going around inside your own toons, you can go back to “My Characters” from the Community menu, but, still …
  4. The generated profile photos are awfully dark, to the point of being difficult to see in some cases.
  5. The individual entries and logs and comments do not have their own URLs (let alone RSS), so it’s not easy to incorporate them into a creative activity outside the walled garden of STO.
  6. Given the (creative) importance of Bridge Officers, there’s no reason why we should not be able to pull up more info on them — mug shots, at a minimum.
  7. We should also be able to see a picture of the ship.
  8. CO had a clever (but horribly implemented) profile picture generator/editor.  STO should learn from that, rather than just creating a static head shot.  We love our uniforms, not to mention stances.
  9. Actually, I’d love to be able to do a “group picture” of my captain and his/her bridge crew, perhaps with the current ship in the background.  Yes, I can do that manually.  No, I don’t want to.

So, a good start, and an easy way to create a linked reference to your STO captains — but not much more than that.  Kudos for what it is, and hopes for what it could be.

(If nothing else, this demonstrates how many bad captain names there are out there.  And I’m not even counting the folks who have been forceably renamed “BadName 54123” and the like.)