Full Impulse Ahead! Oh Wait, Scratch That

I’ve learned that part of being a good spouse is to not go all out in Star Trek Online and end up out-leveling your better half by an entire rank. Work has kept him especially busy as of late, so understandably he has less time to play. While I want to be an Admiral as much as the next Starfleet officer, I also love being able to quest with my husband, so I don’t mind waiting for him to catch up at all. And in some ways, slowing down a little might be for the best.

Before I go on, I want to congratulate my fellow starship captain over at Fire Phasers! for reaching the rank of Admiral 5! He wrote an interesting article the other day regarding his experiences upon reaching max level, as well as some of his apprehensions about running out of content. Most opinions I’ve read also echo his concerns. There are a lot of other Admirals out there right now struggling to find things to do, mere weeks after the game’s release. These players didn’t even necessarily rush through all the content; many are casual gamers like him who’ve tackled the leveling process at a steady pace.

While I’m not max level yet, I can still understand where he’s coming from, and I too share his hopes when it comes to the future of the game. From the sounds of it, the endgame experience in STO is still a little sparse right now, which is why I’m not too concerned about the decision to rein in my leveling pace at this time. On one hand there’s the matter of waiting for my husband to catch up, and on the other is the fact that I don’t ever want to find myself running out of things to do. Ideally, I would like a reasonable amount of time between reaching Admiral 5 and the release of another major content update, because when it comes to online games, I need a healthy dose of content to keep me interested.

Taking some time to enjoy the scenery.

When Online Games Become All About ME! ME! ME!

MMO gamers are a funny lot. How many times have you seen complaints on a forum about how a game isn’t “massive” enough, or that community is lacking, or that it plays out like a single-player experience? But when it actually comes down to it…for a group that’s often so vocal about such matters, we sure can be an individualistic bunch. I’ve found that this is especially true during the first few days of any MMO event, and the Allods Online open beta (essentially, the “soft launch” of the game) is no exception.

Times like these seem to bring out the worst in people. Everywhere I look, I see examples of the “everyone-for-themselves” mentality, the most common one of course being the dozens of players running back and forth on their own across a zone trying to kill snakes or deer or lynxes or what have you whose spawn rates just can’t keep up with the raging demand.  And yet…no one wants to group up to help each other out or even interact with one another! It’s mind-boggling. It would make more sense if this soloing helps one progress or level faster in any way, but it doesn’t. You waste more time traveling to look around for an untagged mob than anything.

Even more appalling are the instances of kill-stealing. Now, we all know that kill-stealing is not cool, right? Especially when it’s one of those “beat mob down to less than 30% health, then activate some debuff on them” quests. You don’t stand around watching and waiting for someone else to do all the work then steal the credit from under their nose. But earlier this evening, I saw in zone chat that not only was this behavior being practiced, it was being encouraged. Several of my own guild members admitted that they did it because it was the best option and advised another guildie to do so when he expressed his frustrations at being KS’ed. Well, call me uptight or priggish or goody-two-shoes or whatever, but I still assert that this whole “everyone-else-is-being-an-ass-about-it-so-why-can’t-I?” attitude does nothing but destroy community.

Anyway, I read all this and I just don’t know what to think. While it may be tempting to say “Screw it!” and sink to those levels, I refuse to do so and disrespect my fellow players. I’m still a firm believer of common courtesy, and I’ll always try to do my part in fostering a good community. There are always other alternatives around the self-seekers, the most obvious one being to GROUP UP! We’re all playing an MMORPG for crying out loud, it’s not that hard. I take the initiative to start a party whenever I can, and we always finish the quest much faster than if we were all separately waiting around for a mob to spawn. The social aspect is such a huge component of an online game, so I don’t know why people don’t make the most out of it.