So I got a pleasant surprise over the weekend while playing Star Trek Online (no really, I’m not obsessed with the game, I just like to play it). This is one of those things where a person could say “hey, that’s really cool” or “wow, now people can obsess about an MMO without actually logging into game”. I honestly don’t know if this is the first MMO that’s done this or if it’s been done before, but the easiest way to explain it is through pictures.
This is completely online and seems to be flash based. But the interesting thing about this once the loading screen finishes, is that this site will keep a list of your characters (don’t worry, it’s run through Cryptic not some third party).
Once you log in, there are you characters ready to be viewed. I clicked on my main character, my Federation Vice Admiral. As you can see, it has access to all the information about her, such as ship specs, personnel files, what accolades I’ve achieved with her and what fleet she’s a member of.
There’s the ship, the U.S.S. Ocelot, tactical escort retrofit, Defiant Class. And there’s all the systems that are used to help give the Ocelot her weaponry and defense.
This is the beam cutting weapon, and the basic information is given. It does not, however, give the information about it being part of the Omega set nor does it give the extra specs that comes with having each piece.
Personal page, giving all of the information about the character, such as rank, biography, weaponry, shields, armour, and so on. You can even click on each piece to get more information about it, just as you could on the ship page. Little disappointed that right now it has a generic figure displayed instead of my character.
You can even examine the bridge crew, clicking on each member for more information. This displays similar to the view of the main character, the one the player plays.
You can even take a look at your accolades, though it does not give you progression of accolades you haven’t completed, just the accolades you’ve fully completed.
You can even examine your fleet page, which can detail the roster, the fleet description, events that are going on (which is helpful if you want to check what’s happening with the fleet so you can work that around plans). You can also examine your star base construction progression.
This part’s rather interesting, because you can actually contribute to whatever projects are taking place without logging into game (I did not actually give over 10,000 dilithium to that project, I did that as an example, besides, I need that dilithium for personal projects). You can also view the leader boards for star base and embassy projects to see who is doing most of the work (or contributing most of the resources).
So this is kind of neat, but just so long as Cryptic decides to keep it as something you can look at and inspect and that’s it. Don’t make a mini game of STO with a flash based engine because that will just end up giving people the excuse to play at work (if they don’t already). There’s other things I could be doing at work.
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