This is ruining Star Trek (2009) for me.

In Space I'm going for Crowd Control, on the Ground Healing. My space problem was tied to the fact my ship parts were just a collection of hosh posh and so I wasn't really good at anything and my damage was pathetic to top it all off.

It is with sadness that I bring you all the news that our member, former Stonewall Fleet Fleet Captain and Admiral of Klingon Affairs Hillbane has passed away on April 4th.

Some months ago, Hillbane unexpectedly stopped logging into the website and into Star Trek Online. This was very uncharacteristic of him and it left us wondering what had happened to him.

I'm unsure of the exact specifics of what happened. I'm still trying to contact his family or find a copy of his obituary. What I do know is that during his tenure as a Fleet Captain, he had a heart attack and had to take some time of to recuperate. This may have been a contributing factor to his passing.

Hillbane was a retired Reserve Navy Medical Service Corps: Fleet Marine Force Corpsman: Second Fleet with the rank of Lieutenant Commander (LCDR). He severed in the Persian Gulf War August 1990 to February 1991 1st Battalion 7th Marines. Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001 to December 2002, Iraq War: Battle of Baghdad, Jan 2003 to May 2004. Operation Enduring Freedom: 1st Maine Command Element. Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan July 2009 to May 2010.

His current position was Senior Field Training Officer where he monitored other Field Training Officers and their cadet.

Hillbane loved Star Trek, Star Trek Online and our Fleet. His loss will be felt by his family, friends, and our community.

Hillbane, thank you for your service to our country and our fleet.

Science Captains can play two major roles: healer and crowd control. First, ask yourself what role you want to take on, both space and ground. My science captain does crowd control with minor healing in space and is a pure healer on the ground.

As for DPS, my space DPS is pathetic! But I get into STFs and run crowd control (e.g., probe guard on Khitomer) and find a very useful role. On the ground, I find tactics far outweigh DPS anyway. I heal my team and help keep everyone moving as a cohesive unit. That will beat out DPS every day and twice on Sunday.

Follow up with how you'd like to play it, and I'll be more than happy to give you more specific advice. *continues eating crayons*

... in 5 minutes! :)

I subscribed to this guys videos a little while ago and they're all awesome but I'm sure this one is extra special for a lot of us.

Quote by chemkarate

Quote by Seannewboy

The social experience, that would provide the tru MM sensation for mmo's."friending" should be based by player not character, private chat channels should be able to be made cross faction. Bottom line they made an awesome rpg and put a lackluster mmo social system on it.

Wait, hold up. I haven't played SWTOR, so this comes as a complete surprise to me. Friends are character-bound, not account-bound? You can't send private chats to someone in another faction?

That is some noob dev MMO mistakes right there. I thought those were all lessons learned this time last decade.

There are some that like to play without necessarily interacting with their friends. There are dozens of reasons why someone would want to do this.

This was actually the kind of system that was implement in games like Everquest and Everquest 2 and it worked extremely well.

Quote by Seannewboy

The social experience, that would provide the tru MM sensation for mmo's."friending" should be based by player not character, private chat channels should be able to be made cross faction. Bottom line they made an awesome rpg and put a lackluster mmo social system on it.

Wait, hold up. I haven't played SWTOR, so this comes as a complete surprise to me. Friends are character-bound, not account-bound? You can't send private chats to someone in another faction?

That is some noob dev MMO mistakes right there. I thought those were all lessons learned this time last decade.

Okay, I've been back a week or two now, and I think it is high time I actually sit down and rebuild/respec my abilities from ship to captain. Why am I telling fleet? Well, I might need some help, in a few areas. I've got an idea of what I'm going for, and have read some interesting guides on the desired setup I am looking for. Right now my DPS is laughable and I survive ship combat on pure luck. This shall change!

Going with increasing my DPS I am going to see about doing fore/aft weapons build of 1xCannon, 1xBeam and 1xTorpedo fore, and 3xTurrent on my butt. That way I have a more continuous less position based DPS for my cute lil ship. I'm piloting a Vesta class Sci vessel, and it should have the slots for this. If there are any other sci captains out there with some input into their ship builds and layouts, would be much appreciated.

The part that is going to absolutely slay me though, is going back through my captain's skills and gearing them properly... I admit to having a bad habit of "This sounds nice" when building out and putting points into skills. So right now I'm not even sure where I stand there. I would check, but I write this from work in a broom closet! Kinda. Again, if any sci captains would like to share their builds and ideas, I would most appreciate that. It's been so long since I've played and so much has changed, it is a little overwhelming. I don't want to get buy on the kindness of the fleet anymore, I want to actually contribute to the battles. I joke about it in chat sometimes with "I'm a science officer! Pew pew pew! -eats some crayons-" but it does get frustrating at times. So that I shall change.

EA have destroyed so many great franchises, like Simcity. I'd have some serious worries as a star wars fan.

The lack of server support in the beginning, the lack of anyway to queue with others who would be interested in doing a flashpoint, etc... The game is getting better but it could have been amazing at launch and it wasn't. Like I said they had a baseline from which to draw by looking at the experiences of other MMO's and determining what a player base would like. Just because someone is disappointed with something doesn't mean they don't enjoy it.

Quote by Gravity

I disagree on SWTOR i think it turned out pretty damm good, they provided the best levelling experience of any MMO yet.
When it was released the end game wasnt amazing but the release schedule for end game content has been good compared to alot of MMOs.

The levelling experience for SWTOR is good, the PvP is better than more and and the endgame content is fairly decent with a good selection of hard mode instances and operations.

What is there to be disappointed about?

Quote by Gravity

I disagree on SWTOR i think it turned out pretty damm good, they provided the best levelling experience of any MMO yet.
What is there to be disappointed about?

The social experience, that would provide the tru MM sensation for mmo's."friending" should be based by player not character, private chat channels should be able to be made cross faction. Bottom line they made an awesome rpg and put a lackluster mmo social system on it.

Quote by Gravity

I disagree on SWTOR i think it turned out pretty damm good, they provided the best levelling experience of any MMO yet.
When it was released the end game wasnt amazing but the release schedule for end game content has been good compared to alot of MMOs.

The levelling experience for SWTOR is good, the PvP is better than more and and the endgame content is fairly decent with a good selection of hard mode instances and operations.

What is there to be disappointed about?

For starters, the F2P model. It's just crap.
I got to play during the free trial last November and absolutely loved the class stories. I'd love to continue to level my toons but I won't pay a sub. I feel I get more bang for my buck if I put $15-$20 in a month.

On the Star Wars matter - Like you said, "I'm going to have a "wait and see" attitude". Hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

I joined Saturday morning, and I must say it's been great fun so far. In my head, I call the game "Lord of the Champions," because it reminds me of Lord of the Rings Online as if it were created using the assets of Champions Online. But I like this better than LOTRO for the sole reason that I have my fellow Stonewallers to talk with and ask help from. You guys really do make all the difference in my gaming experience.

Noviere: The facial costuming is the same as Cryptic uses for Champions, if that clarifies anything.

I disagree on SWTOR i think it turned out pretty damm good, they provided the best levelling experience of any MMO yet.
When it was released the end game wasnt amazing but the release schedule for end game content has been good compared to alot of MMOs.

The levelling experience for SWTOR is good, the PvP is better than more and and the endgame content is fairly decent with a good selection of hard mode instances and operations.

What is there to be disappointed about?

SWTOR could have been an amazing game, I'm extremely disappointed with it, and it's not like EA didn't have other games to use as a baseline and example. That does not in my eyes bode well for any future SW games.

I am not necessarily against this, EA makes mistakes for sure but they do actually get it right plenty to.
When it comes to star wars we want to see "AAA" titles i suppose, and there are only so many companies out there that might be able to deliver this.

So until EA make a mess of things im going to have a wait and see attitude.

The reaction divide on my social media feeds has been telling. Supporters of EA (mostly current and past employees of EA and its subsidiary studios) are cheering this, while Star Wars fans are about talking about putting their mouths around shotguns.

The only thing people seem to be hopeful about is that DICE will make a new Battlefront game.

Personally, I'm 'meh' about the whole thing. Haven't been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid and I'm refusing to buy EA products (including Mass Effect games) after how they handled SimCity.

I'm shocked! As some of you know, I just came back from a long hiatus from the online world. I was a former contributor to the Stonewall Times and a regular reader. I've always loved the fact we have a magazine and love all the former editors for pushing the boundaries and making the Stonewall Times so great and informative!

My shock is about the sheer quality of the magazine as it is today. I would pay to subscribe, even though I am a cheep Irishman. Ali, you have a great talent for this and I hope you can use this experience in your CV to produce more in the future. I would subscribe to whatever you publish! (I would even pay)

Thank you!

http://kotaku.com/ea-snags-exclusive-deal-to-make-star-wars-games-493178983?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

So what does everyone think about this? SWTOR isn't horrible but it could be better but there had to be a huge payoff to LucasFilm to get those rights considering EA's less than stellar year. I guess money talks and will always drown out the shouts, cries, sobs and wails of a disenfranchised fan base.

Having said that, EA has released some amazing titles in the not to distant past and their stewardship of the IP is going to be under the heaviest scrutiny so it would behoove them to make some Epic games soon.

Just finished the first episode! starting the second.