First, in regards to the novel continuity: STO does not follow the recent Borg in 2381 plotline. And Dulmer and Luscy from DS9: Trials & Tribbles I believe are the agents in that scene. I really liked the idea that temporal psychosis can explain some of the discontinuities between series, novels and revamp -- rationalizes having a whole department of temporal integrity etc. Got half-way through Needs of the Many before playing the game itself took over my free time.
And secondly: I've had STO for a week or two now, and I'm loving it! The missions haven't run out on me yet (haha...) but I worry one day they might. Hope the writers make more non-combat missions soon, this diplomatic thing sounds intriguing. And honestly, I just want to run around and look at things like the Symbiont Caves of Trill, run the streets of Shi'Khar and explore Deck 8 section 23 of my ship more than actually go on adventures. I'm lame, I know.
The first portion of the
Season 2.0 update is on their Tribble server for anyone who's interested. The new
Federation Diplomatic Corps. (dsiplomacy/non-combat missions) includinng the new 'First Contact' mission type are in; and, as someone who originally though 'meh, they'll suck...", I have to say, I LIKE what they did a lot. It's not just 'click, read, and move on'; but click, read, pay attention, beacause on some if you don't you'll fail (but you can drop and re-take the mission); and on others you actually have to make a choice that blocks other options after its made one way or the other; and one has you experimenting to make an antegin in a medical lab where you HAVE to experiment to get the right combo.
They also added 'Dabo' (the game) to DS9 (you can bet EC amd win Gold Pressed Latinum, whith you can use to buy other stuff from a new vendor in Quarks) - plays kind of like a bastardized version of Roulette - but with some wierd rules. There's also a new tricorder mini-game that pops up when you scan resouce anomolies in space or on the ground (you have to 'match' a waveform). if you're successful, you get ore resources, and a chance at 'special rare' resources. If you fail, you get a normal/standard resource drop; and it's completely optional (they are considering putting in a setting that allows you to not have it pop up for those that don't care for it. Again, reading itr, it may sound dumb; biut imo, I like it (breaks the 'Press F to scan monotony; and I've already got to rare 'blue level' resources so far. The items that these new resources are tied to, aren't in yet though.
What's still not in yet on Tribble (but coming over the next two weeks) are:
- More ship interiors (Bridge Ready Room, Sick Bay, Engineering and the Observation Lounge.) And Sick bay will have mini-games for healing injuries on your chatracter or BO from Ground missions; Engineering will have a mini-game to repair ship damage from being blown up on Space missions. (Assuming you play on a mission difficulty seting higher than Standard).
The Observation lounge is used in the First Contact missions, so you can see what it'll look like if you do one. Right now, you just get 'beamed' into it when the mission starts, and you beam off of it after the mission ends; but I think you'll take a turblift from the Bridge and walk down a corridor once te new interiors are added.
There is more stuff, but I'm not RA5 so I haven't tried the new 'special refit' ships or have seen the new high level sector block they added either. And again, what's on Tribble is just part of the whole Season 2.0 update. they'll be adding more as it passes their internal QA testers.
But, nyway, if you do think STO is currently all 'pew, pew'; that'll change a fair bit once Season 2.0 is pushed to the Live servers. (They expect to test it on Tribble for 3 more weeks or so beforre putting it to Live/Holodeck). they also said the do plan to keep expanding the FDC if the playerbase likes what they're doing.
