Hello Old Friend

Yeah, I know it's a Babylon 5 quote, but what the hell, it fits.

Those of you who read back in this blog will know that it's been almost a year since I posted here. It wasn't intentional or desired, just the reality of life taking precedence over gaming. In a way, it's a good thing. I hadn't logged in much over the last several months, and so, I really didn't have much if anything to say here.

Things are different now though. RL is now allowing me far more free time in front of my computer, and so I'm back in STO catching up on what I've missed while I've been gone. Quite an improvement from what I remember in some ways, not so much in others. Being a lifer makes things so much easier. If I were still having to pay monthly subscription fees I'm not sure STO would fit into my budget now.

And so, having returned to the fold after so long, here are some immediate impressions after about a week back:

One of the biggest problems I had when I began playing STO was that it launched with what I considered to be an unacceptably small amount of playable content. Sure, the content that was available was very good, and in fact that's what inspired me to take the plunge on a lifetime sub, but I all too soon reached a point in the game when it seemed that all there was left for me to do in the game was explore the B'Tran Cluster and similar areas over and over.

That, combined with some real life issues that had to take precedence over entertainment time, were key reasons why I ended up not playing STO with any regularity  for several months. Not only was my attention focused on other things, but I had no incentive to return. Frankly, had I been on an ongoing subscription plan, I probably would have just canceled my subscription and never looked back, just as I have with other games when I felt they were no longer worth the time and money I was spending on them.

As an STO lifer, however, having already spent around $300 on an STO Collector's Edition and a lifetime subscription, I also knew that whenever I found the time I could always return to the game when it recaptured my interest. I kept up with the game news and knew they were introducing more content and addressing some of the gameplay issues players had. I did log in a few times over the year just to see what changes, if any, I could see for myself, but RL kept me from making any serious attempt from getting really involved again. Then, a little more than a week ago, my schedule changed to one that allowed considerably more free time at home, so I decided it was time to see how the ol' Final Frontier had changed while I was gone.

The first thing I noticed was the most obvious: The content. Simply put, there was just a lot more to do in the game than there had been when I'd taken a break. The new episodic missions have kept me busy and I find them to be a lot of fun to play. While it seems that I somehow managed to join a fleet during my off-time (though I can't for the life of me remember when I did this), I'm mainly a solo player.

Even now, my schedule and available playtime, despite having more of it, are wonky and inconsistent. I play when I have time to play and I'm pretty unreliable in terms of being able to participate in scheduled events. In fact, that's the single biggest reason why I left Eve-Online. Once you reach a certain point in that game there's really not much you can do that's not done in concert with other players, and usually finding myself unable to coordinate my RL schedule with my corporation's scheduled events led to my eventually deciding that it just wasn't worth the $15 a month for a game I could barely play.

While I may catch up and find myself in the same place a while down the road, I've got plenty of content to keep me busy in STO for the moment, but there's one issue that's really bugging me about this game: Server stability.

It seems like the most common thing I do in STO these days is reentering my password. Just getting in is like breaking into Fort Knox. While that's a common and acceptable issue for an MMO still in beta, I don't think that should be the case for a game that launched over a year ago. It seems like almost every time I want to log in, leave or enter a system, take a lift, beam myself somewhere, or pretty much do anything that requires a map or instance change, I find myself kicked out and dealing with the login screen.

In addition, loading times can be slow to the point of ridiculousness. All too often, I find myself having to stop and rerun the game in order to get into the area I'm headed for in a reasonable amount of time. Again, while this kind of thing is acceptable in a game still in beta and perhaps even in the first few months, the fact that this is still an issue for STO over a year into it is not what I consider an acceptable level of quality or customer service. As enjoyable as the new content is to play, the STO experience can be all but ruined by having to spend several minutes at minimum having to enter and reenter my password over and over just to get into the game or continue playing.

I've spent some time reading the forums and so I know they're working on these issues. I just don't think they should still be this much of a problem this long after launch. Surely by now the devs have a pretty good idea of the size of their player base and what's needed on the back end to provide reliable service to their customers. The obvious question I have is why it seems things have actually gotten worse, not better, in this regard after all this time.

Despite these issues, I'm now enjoying myself with this game more than ever before, and remembering why I took the risk of shelling out for a lifetime subscription even before I knew if this game was going to be a long-term success or just a flash in the pan.

In my next post (and yes, there will be a next post, and another and another...), I'll talk about what I've been doing in-game and my thoughts on some of the new missions I've been playing. After that, who knows? I'm someone who enjoys writing about the games I play, especially MMO's, almost as much as I enjoy playing them, so stick around, there's lots more to come.

So, I won't say "Live long and prosper.". That seems a little too formal and a bit too final. Instead, I'll wind down this first post back with a different Vulcanism I find far more applicable to my own life (and maybe one day I'll tell you why). "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations".

And now, I've still got the better part of a free Sunday afternoon in front of me so it's time to post a quick note on the forums to let people know this blog is back, and then fire up STO so I can go destroy a dangerous comet and disable some 23rd century Klingons.

See ya next time.