Yes, I am still playing Star Trek Online. The reason for my silence on the game is due to the fact that I was playing very casually alongside a bunch of other games. Does this mean I’m not enjoying the game? No, I still think it’s great. I’m actually at an odd crossroads with the STO right now. Since I started playing Age of Conan alongside it, I’ve come to understand how much time I want to put into the game, but realize that pace is very unproductive. I played for around two hours this past weekend and finally broke into level 10 (yeah, pretty low I know). Doing so really gave me a moral boost to keep moving forward to my immediate goal of getting a new ship.

Fast forward to Tuesday night; I had intentions of sitting in front of the television for the rest of the week in order to knock out Red Dead Redemption. I’m on the last act of the game and really want to see how everything ties together in the end. But before I headed out to my comfy chair, I sat down to check my email and twitter. Steam was open by chance, and I saw that John (a.k.a. Pazz) was playing Star Trek Online. My ass was already planted in a seat, and there was someone who I could play games with, so I chose to abandon my RDR plans for one night. I hopped in game and started chatting. Turns out, John was on the verge of hitting Rear Admiral in the game. So the rest of the evening consisted of us chatting while I knocked out a couple missions, ending with my journey to Lt. Commander half way complete.

The next night, I chose to play Star Trek Online again. There’s no way I could just leave my character that close to a new ship, my first new ship for that matter, but this time John was able to help a brother out. He joined me, and together we wiped away some of the missions I had on my log for too long. I have to say, I love grouping with friends in MMO’s, but even I get into a mood where I would rather solo in most cases. I’ve found though, that after grouping with others in STO, it makes me kind of hate flying around solo.

About an hour and a half after we started, level 11 and a new ship was mine. I’m playing as an Engineer, and I went with a Cruiser because I wanted to be able to take craploads of damage. I know that using an Escort ship is better for faster leveling, but I want to be a space tank damnit!

Click on the pics to enlarge:

Thanks again to John for helping me out!