This morning, a part of my childhood died. One of my favorite actors as a child, Corey Haim, died this morning from an aparant drug overdose. Toxicology reports are still incoming, but it was never a secret about Corey's drug problems. Best known for films like The Lost Boys and License to Drive, Haim was one of the "two Coreys", and was trying to make a comeback with long time friend Corey Feldman.

Haim's death is the latest in a line of celeb drug deaths, most recently Brittany Murphy, who's prescription drug problems compounded her medical issues. When will Hollywood wake up and see what they are doing to young stars? When will Hollywood take responsibility and stop stuffing their movie set trailers with all kinds of drugs and alcohol?

Anyways, the world will miss you Corey. Rest in peace brother...

Well, Star Trek Online's very vocal community has gotten to be way too much for the team. As of today, Cryptic has posted a ban on "I Quit" threads. Anyone posting such things will have their posts removed and receive an infraction.

"That being said, the "I'm Quitting" posts have gotten to a point where they are nothing but negativity. For the most part they are either posted with the intent to flame continuing users, or become the target themselves for attacks and flaming by continuing users. This has got to stop.
As a result, I will be immediately closing any "I'm Quitting" threads from this point on."
 
Sounds like damage control to me...

Today I became a first hand witness to chemtrailing. The video that follows is my own footage.

Star Trek Online is not doing well folks. Look, I like the game. I've been trying to support it since beta...but something wicked this way comes...The STO apocalypse is upon us, and here are the signs.

The state of the game as seen by the average gamer logging in amounts to a dead server throughout most of the day. If it weren't for the few vocal people in Zone chat (who are all bashing the game BTW), the server would seem super dead.

If you try to play at any time but primetime, you are met with a universe that is slowly emptying, like the water spiralling down the bathtub drain. PVP queues, which used to be packed, are now so empty no game ever gets started. Rooms where 35ish people used to wait in queue are now filled with 1-4 people usually on one side or the other, stuck waiting for...NOTHING...because the game will not properly start.

PVP is dead.

Auto-grouping is yet another sign of the STO apocalypse. Where a few weeks back, you could enter one of the auto-grouping levels at any time of the day and people would pop in immediately. Now, again every time but US primetime, the auto-grouping feature pulls in one person here and there, when it feels like it, usually when I am right at the end of the mission already.

Auto-grouping is dead.

The third sign has to do with Earthdock. Still more crowded than any other area in the game, but not nearly as much as before, SB01 is now lag free...why? Because either everyone is Admiral and has no need for SB01 anymore, or the game is dying. Maybe a bit of both. I went to SB01 at key points throughout the day DURING THE WEEKEND mind you, and it was practically a ghost town...again, Zone chat filled with gold spam and a few players talking crap about the game.

The fourth sign, not as much of a bad sign since it actually HELPS the game, is the exchange. There are far less items, and more reasonably priced items than just 2 weeks prior. You can explain it away as the community giving up on the exchange, but the truth is far more sinister. It's more like the players gave up on the game.

With only a couple of days left until subs run out, you have to wonder just how many will still be around. Many have left the game already, saying screw the remaining play time, and the evidence is quite obvious just by logging in for a while. The game is a ghost town mere weeks after it had claimed a huge super audience.

I have seen this same thing happen before, and not all of the games involved died. A lot of them did perish though.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - A great game that had great potential...the bugs destroyed it from the start, it never got off it's feet. Status: ALIVE (but barely)

DDO - A critical mess at first. No content, very poor performance, and a lot of bugs were what doomed this game. A revamp and relaunch on a different pay model, mixed with DX10 support and a ton of new content, have saved this game. Status: ALIVE

Auto Assault - A "Twisted Metal" style MMO that never even had a chance. Status: DEAD

Tabula Rasa - The second sci-fi MMO from NCSoft that completely flopped. The reason? NCSoft wouldn't let Garriot do his thing for one. Once he left his own product, it was over. Status: DEAD

WAR - Warhammer Online had a strong beta...lots of good praise. But for some reason, the game launched and took an immediate nose-dive. Bugs, poor performance, lack of endgame. Sound familiar? Status: ALIVE

Age of Conan - One of the worst launches in the history of MMO's according to some people. Nothing could save this game at first, not even all the toons running around with their tits hanging out. The active, vocal, and very angry Funcom community complained and withdrew subs to get what they wanted. Status: ALIVE (and about to get it's first expansion pack!)

Earth and Beyond - Did this game even launch? Of course, but no one knew about it. All for the better, because it had more wrong with it than they could be bothered to fix or change. Status: DEAD

Matrix Online - This game never had a chance, and Warner knew it. SOE should have known it. I think we all had hoped that SOE would flesh the game out more and do more with it. Unfortunately they never did. MxO was their bastard step-child, and they treated it as such. Status: DEAD

These are just some of the high profile launch failures out there, and they all share the common thread of:

A.) lack of content
B.) BUGS/performance
C.) Devs that took the wrong steps/made the wrong changes
D.) Poor marketing
E.) a mass exodus of players

This may or may not mean anything for STO, but if you look at the signs of what has happened with other games compared to the true state of STO as it stands now, you may have cause for alarm. In my opinion the state of the game is bad, and needs some emergency action if it is going to survive the coming months.

Cryptic has finally lifted the veil on their upcoming STF raid-i-sodes for Star Trek Online. Below is the outline of all the content that you can look forward to in the next couple of months. All I can say is the last few days of communication from Cryptic to us, the playerbase, has saved my subscription. I hope this game can eventually give us all what we truly want out of a Star Trek MMO. From the looks of the below content, they are well on track!






STF: Infected

Starfleet has lost contact with one of its star bases. More than 400 officers could be lost, including a key member of Starfleet's Borg Task Force. Infiltrate the base and take the fight to the Borg!

• Retake the Sibiran system and shut down a transwarp conduit being used by the Borg to establish a foothold in the Gamma Orionis Sector Block.
• Investigate the strange new nanovirus the Borg are using to assimilate entire worlds at alarming speeds.
• Retake Starbase 89 before its fully taken over by the Borg, and save what is left of the Starfleet personnel that are still there.
• Locate Captain Ogen's Strike Team and Rebecca Simmons, the lead Borg Task Force researcher working on a cure for the nanovirus. Both went deep into the Borg infected starbase and haven't reported back in quite some time.
• It's a five-man mission. Players will not be able to complete it without teaming up with other players.
• The mission spans space and ground gameplay.
• Applies to level 43 +
• Encounters are daunting. Lots of enemies. Designed to be challenging.
• Releases this month.


STF: The Cure

The Klingon Defense Force has been conducting its own investigation into the Borg advance, and they believe that the Collective's next target is the Vorn system. Enemies may have to unite when confronted by a greater foe.

• Assist the I.K.S. Kang in a desperate battle with the Borg.
• Explore a planet that has been completely assimilated. Can you rescue the warriors before they are taken over by the Borg?
• Fight at the side of Ja'rod, son of Lursa.
• Free Klingon ships from Borg control, and gain their assistance in a final battle with a Borg fleet.


STF: Khitomer Accord

Finally, the mysteries of the Borg attack on Vega Colony are revealed! Why did the Borg attack there, and how was an unprepared Starfleet able to defeat them?

• Confront the Borg before they can use temporal anomalies to change the past of the Federation.
• Warp back into your own past, in the hours before the attack on Vega Colony.
• Discover a base where thousands of Borg drones are being held in stasis. What are the Borg's plans for this hidden army?
• Starfleet's not ready for the Borg. A defeat here could mean that the entire Alpha Quadrant falls. Balance the scales and fight the Borg for the preservation of the quadrant.
• Learn the fate of a missing Romulan empress.


STF: Into the Hive

The fate of the Alpha Quadrant hangs in the balance. Enter a unicomplex and confront the Borg Queen herself.

• Rescue civilians trapped on an assimilated world.
• Follow the trail to a unicomplex, and penetrate deep into the Borg stronghold.
• Confront the Borg Queen, and fight for the fate of the galaxy.


STF: Children of Khan
Amar Singh escapes from Federation custody, and he and an underground group of Augments steal the U.S.S. Asgard and race toward the remains of the Mutara Nebula. Can you stop them before they start a new Eugenics War?

• Fight a fleet assembled by Princep Khan and his followers.
• Beam onto the Asgard, and battle through its corridors to save civilians and crew.
• Confront the Princep. Can you deal with his transporter tricks?
• Save the divided Asgard and give the saucer section a chance to escape!

In the first of two big STO stories today, we bring you the newest "state of the game" address from the devs. It simply must be read, as it should address any and all concerns with the immediate future of the game.

Pay close attention to all the acknowledgments of the community's concerns at large, and what they intend to do about it. It may be lip service at this point to counter-act all the forum trolling this game recieves. However, I believe CBS/Paramount will keep these guys on task no matter what.




STATE OF THE GAME ADDRESS 02/26/10

Welcome, you noble purveyors of Federation policy and fierce warlords of the Empire! Welcome one and all!

Wait now... Let's just take a moment to de-cloak, disarm and drop our shields, shall we? This State of the Game is of interest to you all.



So very, very much has happened over the last few weeks! It feels like every single time I began to write a new State of the Game, we'd have to quickly douse live shard fires, juggle major play tests and push critical late night patches. By the time the dousing, juggling and pushing was done, the outline of my State of the Game would be hopelessly out of date.

Given how tirelessly we've been working, if some ethereal, omnipotent resident from the Denorios belt hadn't stepped in and considerately put the breaks on space-time with a bit of temporal wizardry, I might have found myself eternally rewriting this single State of the Game.

Thanks to you, oh great wormhole-y one!



Support:
We. Are. Live. And so, supporting you -- yes, you, specifically -- is an effort that consumes us night and day.



Ask any bedraggled MMO developer about launch and they will inevitably assure you that it never, ever gets any easier. Crunch all you like, friend, it only gets harder after the game actually ships. STO is certainly no exception. Supporting a user base as large as ours requires dedication -- no, devotion! Our crew is, thankfully, more than up to the task. We are pushing the workplace warp core to maximum in an effort to better address any and every bug and issue that comes up in-game.



Our objective: Implement as many of the stability and gameplay adjustments you asked for as soon as humanoidly possible (as safe practices allow, of course). To this end, Community has put more effort into moderating the boards and CS has recently staffed up in order to get through your tickets quicker. The idea being, "we can hardly fix what we can't see."



We've also thrown a metric ton of hardware and man hours at getting the server capacity up. Our Network Operations crew has been performing admirably, to say the least. I won't begin to count the times I've heard, "Sorry, Captain! I'm giving it all she's got," come out of their work area, only to be quickly followed by a confident, Scotty-like, "It's done." Beautiful. Almost makes me want to demand them to, "fly her apart, then!" I might just because I know those boys and girls will hold it together in the end, whatever I say.



Bottom line: When -- if -- you see Queues, they should be much shorter and stability will be much better.



Game Adjustments:
Now that the game is out and in your loving hands, we're taking long, hard looks at everything each and every one of you is interested in seeing changed. Cruiser turn rates? Death penalties? More open auto-fire? All those topics and more are being scrutinized by the all-seeing eye of... um, us!



Some of the few things on the way:



Respec


Death Penalty


Difficulty Slider


More open auto-fire


Replayable missions


Improving Memory Alpha


Fixing those Commodity missions


And there are a bunch more. We’ve heard you and are working on all these issues, but we want to make sure that they come out clean and finished. We hate rushing out features – it inevitably leads to us accidentally breaking things we didn’t have time to test. I dunno – like the Red Matter Capacitor or something…

Tribble Coming

In order to better accommodate our players during the Head Start weekend, we merged the physical machines dedicated to our Public Test Shard (Tribble) into the live Shard (Holodeck). It has since been difficult to find viable hardware to test new patches on before pushing them out to you.

Well, we've got more hardware now and Tribble will be up pretty soon. Problem solved.

Once Tribble’s up and running (insert whatever tribble joke you’d like to here) – we’ll be able to start releasing those core game adjustments to you guys for deeper testing and feedback.



Special Task Force: Infected

We're in the final stages of testing the first STF (the five-man raids we internally referred to as "Raidisodes"). STF: Infected is just about ready to release.



You know, I might actually record one of our internal play sessions. The excited cries for more shielding and healing get the blood pumping. Although, once our testers reach the end room and the action really heats up... Well, it's not exactly "family friendly" in there. Definitely going to be an exciting, thrilling mission for our players, though.



After Infected, we'll roll out more STFs. "The Cure", "The Khitomer Accord" and "Into the Hive" are all coming along nicely. We look forward to regularly releasing these and seeing what everyone thinks.



Update 1: Classy Marketable Name Coming Soon

The first major update is receiving a final coat of paint, too.



There's quite a lot of genuinely cool stuff in Update 1: Classy Marketable Name Coming Soon. Expect to see it pushed to the newly revived Tribble Public Test Shard over the next couple weeks.



New Klingon ships? Oh, my yes. And they look...awesome. Re-specs are also coming, of course. All of Cryptic can't wait to see that particular feature out the door. New PvP maps and Fleet Actions are rather nice, too.



Beyond Update 1?

Right now, we're planning it. We haven't set the future of STO's content into stone because so much of it will be determined by you, but we're laying out what we'd like to focus on for the next 6 to 12 months.



Who are the Undine and what drives them?


How can we better exploit the Genesis System to create even more compelling content?


Where can we boldly go next? Where shall we take exploratory missions, as there's so much potential there?


Which faction should be playable next? Romulan? Cardassian? Pakled? Dominion? Horta? Okay, not so much the Pakleds.


And that’s not even the start of it! Ship interiors, more bridges, crew quarters, First Officers, Fleet advancement... You have subscribed to a service that delivers a universe unending, and we shall see that universe populated with compelling content or, by the Prophets, we will die trying.



Some people get that. Some people don't. We're here for those that do.



Throughout development, we guessed Star Trek Online might be polarizing. Some people don't get it and some people simply don't like it... But, others fall in love with their ships and captains and bridge officers. Those are the ones who can't live without beaming down to strange, new planets and participating in lively stories.



We guessed this and still we made a conscious decision to not water things down and go "mass market". Frankly, I think that's perfectly OK. Because, no matter what, there will be one single thing, now and forever, that drives everything we do: you.



We have a very healthy -- and healthily testy -- core community that gets it. And there's nothing we look forward to more than working together to make STO better.



Sad part is, you may not even know it. Far as I can tell, there're no hidden cameras and mics scattered about Cryptic's office. So, how would you know that we refer to our community almost as if it were an absent developer?



"Well, The Users think that we need to do more non-combat."



"Guys, I'm sorry to interrupt, but The Players really want ground auto-attack back. Drop what we're doing."

"We already know what you think about a death penalty, Craig – but The Community really thinks it's a good idea and their opinion is more valid than yours because they probably don't own goats."



It’s a little unnerving -- sometimes feels like we work with a giant multi-headed feedback monster that simultaneously loves and hates us. It whips even as it hugs! It rages even as it cries! And it fumes even when it's happy. It's unnerving, yes, but pretty freakin' rad, too.



What you guys post and say and do in-game and on the forums is the biggest factor we consider when making our decisions.



I am sorry if it ever appears that we're not listening to you or trying to make the game better. Because that is pretty much all we ever do.

Actor Andrew Koenig has been found dead today in a Vancouver park. The cause is apparent suicide. He had previously gone missing, leaving behind a grim note.

Koenig played "Boner" Stabone on Growing Pains, and he is the son of Walter Koenig, Who played Chekov on the original Star Trek series.

Rest in peace Andrew.

The Deftones are back folks, and in good form. Their latest single "Rocket Skates" has just debuted, and to top it all off, the band is giving it away free of charge! Anyhow, check out the song below, and if you like it, pick it up for yourself! The album, "Diamond Eyes, releases May 18th!

Former members of Evanescence teamed up with American Idol's Carly Smithson to create the awesome band We Are The Fallen. Of course, they controversially sound a lot like Evanescence. But seriously, did anyone not expect that anyhow? Anyways, they have released their first single "Bury Me Alive", and I think you should check it out!

Evanescence has unveiled their newest single, "Together Again", on their official Myspace. The song, an unreleased track from "The Open Door", is soft and haunting, and a reminder to us all that Evanescence will never be the same again...



How will the new stuff really sound? Will the original band members joining We Are The Fallen (with American Idol's Carly Smithson) give us the true Evanescence sound once again? Who knows. What is certain is that Amy is not giving up. As troubled as the band has been, she always seems to come out on top.

Today, Cryptic launched a new feature on it's website, asking players what they though of the game as it stands, what they'd like to see in the future, and how long they plan on sticking around. In addition to the couple of pages of multiple-choice questions typical to a survey, Cryptic rewards each player 240 Cryptic Points (for their in game real money store) just for taking the time to finish it.

There is a catch. You need to be a curent subscriber in good standing with Cryptic to complete the survey and qualify for the free 240 CP.

Head on over to the SURVEY PAGE for more info!

It seems Kevin Trudeau can't stay out of trouble with the law. His entire history with the federal government comes from investigations of crookery. Basically he knowingly hocks products on television he knows to be fake, and most importantly "cures" for just about everything that he knows do not work. Every time the man is on television he is trying to steal your money.

So to this I say HOW DARE YOU media for even calling this criminal a "pitchman". If you think Trudeau is pitchman, you have no idea what a real pitchman is.

That being said, look for this criminal to continue to be a crook despite even more jail time.

Some really cool history for anyone interested. ABC7 out of Chicago recently did this story explaining the origins of the now popular snowboard. Definately check this one out!

The long awaited care package glitch fix has arrived via the Modern Warfare 2 1.09 patch. The patch rolled out to the UK and EU regions first, followed by the US the day after. I haven't heard word yet from the asian community on whether or not this patch hit them yet, but I can bet it has.

Patch 1.09 carries with it the fix for the "care package glitch" which has pretty much ruined the atmosphere of games since it was discovered. I'm kinda perturbed that it took them this long to get a working fix out, but hey, what can ya do, right?

Anyways, here are the official 1.09 patch notes:


We've updated the PS3 & Xbox 360 version of Modern Warfare 2, including the following fixes:
- Care Package, Emergency Airdrop, and Sentry Gun marker grenades sprint speed normalized.


- Fix for "infinite care package" exploit.


- Sentry Guns: Improved placement detection, preventing cases of Sentry Guns inside geometry.


- Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s.


- Fixes to prevent various XP hacks (including the prevention of negative XP)
Note to PS3 Player: The PS3 still needs to receive one additional fix, regarding the infinite care package exploit which is going out today (Feb 16th 2010). EU Players should be receiving it first, with Sony NA going out later.

Something struck me as completely odd the other day, when comparing the review round-up both on StarTrekOnline.com and on MetaCritic. Now, I understand that developers want to keep the game image clean and fresh, and that unfavorable reviews aren't usually showcased (such was the case with Age of Conan). However, in this case, Cryptic has posted their negative reviews.

Of course, the featured reviews on the main page are not the unfavorable ones, like GameSpot and IGN's reviews for example. But they did indeed list them. The problem at hand is not whether or not the negative reviews were given screen space, but instead the average review percentage.

On the STO website, they list a "Total Adjusted Score" of 72% out of 100%.

This doesn't match up with the same exact round-up on MetaCritic, who estimates an average "meta score" of only 63, and a user rating of 6.4.

So, are the folks at Cryptic fudging the numbers a bit? Is the MetaCritic scoring system just weird? What would YOU score the game personally? Let us know in the comments thread below, and stay tuned for my "review" of Star Trek Online coming over the weekend.

A small "fix-it" patch came down this morning for the Star Trek Online community. Not a whole lot to say about this one as it stands, so I'll let the notes speak for themselves.



Some issues were found after last night's patch that were preventing some players from turning in missions or viewing some remote contacts.

While it is our goal to help clean up your remote contacts list so that at higher levels you do not see every repeatable mission at every level, there was some confusion about how this worked and led to many people thinking they could no longer do missions (when in many cases - but not all - they still could).

We're reverting the remote contact changes for now, as it was blocking progression for some players, until the system is working as intended. So temporarily - no restrictions at all on remote contacts.

A few other bug fixes were resolved today, and we're taking this opportunity to include them as well.

Thank you for submitting bugs and for the many detailed threads in the Bug Forums. They are invaluable in helping the dev team track down corner cases.

Release Notes
•Repeatable missions are again no longer level restricted and will show up on your remote contact list at all levels if avaialable
•Fixed an issue where teams could not switch instances in Deepspace maps. Note - this only fixes the instance button on the map screen. The mini-map instance button will be fixed in a later update.
•Players should be able to complete the Badlands and Treasure Trading Station missions regardless of the order they complete certain objectives in, and regardless of dialog options at the end of the mission.
•Addressed an issue where a full list of remote contacts would appear when you first map transfered, but would then prune down to only a few contacts. Remote contacts should now be visible regardless of the progress made on the mission thus far.
•Prior to last night's update, some players were able to take and progress Borg sector missions before completing the intended initial hand-off from Quinn to 4 of 10. This put some players in an odd mission state when we then required the hand-off mission from Quinn before you could talk to any other contacts. We've made some fixes to help alleviate this issue. For now, if you feel you are still in this state, drop the mission from Quinn in the Omega Fleet, go back to Risa and retake the initial hand-off mission from Quinn to rendezvous with the USS Victory where you will talk to 4 of 10 and put yourself back to the intended mission flow. In addition to fix people in this specific state, we've updated DVak, 4 of 10, and Karbo so that players can contact them to turn in a complete Borg sector mission even if they hadn't completed the initial handoff mission.

In an interview recently with the Wall Street Journal, James Cameron revealed the release date for Avatar on DVD and Blu-Ray, and detailed a second release for the 3D version later in the year.

"It's all right on schedule," Cameron claimed. "We'll do the Blu-ray and the standard def DVD April 22nd, that's our plan as of right now, and that'll be pretty much bare bones. And then we'll do a value-added DVD and a 3D Blu-Ray in I think November sometime."

Fox would not confirm or deny these dates, but I will take Cameron's word for it. Look for more on this as it breaks!

Funny and weird news today out of the Palestinian protests of Israel. It appears several Na'vi have come from Pandora to join the fight! WTF? Are these idiots serious?

Let me put this in perspective. Imagine showing up to a protest dressed as Spock, Darth Vader, Garfield the cat, or Charlie Brown...GOOD GRIEF!

On the bright side, the brightly painted idiots managed to get front page exposure on the biggest news site on the net. No, not mine silly lol...CNN.com.

James Cameron, are you seeing this shit?

ABC recently revealed the secret behind the "flash sideways" scenes in this season of LOST. According to ABC, "A flash sideways is not a flashback, flash-forward or an alternate timeline. It posits what would have happened if Oceanic flight 815 didn't crash on the island but instead landed in Los Angeles".

So basically, the "flash sideways" scenes imagine what the islanders' lives would be like had Jacob not meddled in their futures. This is a big reveal from a company that is usually tight lipped about such things. However, this is the last season of the show, so closing as many threads in the quilt as possible is a welcome thing.

Stay tuned for more on LOST's final season!

In a surprise move, Cryptic has already initiated a buddy key trial program. This is in the face of massive gold spam already present in the game and in the forum mailbox. According to reports, Cryptic claimed over 1 million players in the retail head start. This is a pretty nice starting number for ANY fledgling MMO, so why they would feel the need to increase it further this early on is beyond me.

For example, complaints flood the forums about the queue system and how the server is always full at prime time in the US. One would think the company would take the time to increase ppulation flow through and stability before initiating a buddy key/trial program.

Besides that, other companies that have offered early buddy key systems or "invite-a-friend" programs have also offered rewards for converted accounts. Not the case here. It's just a 5 day key, and you must have a retail copy to claim the key, which you will pass on...hopefully not to a gold seller/spammer.

I don't mean to be so critical about this, as it may turn out to be good in the end. It just had a couple of points that rubbed me the wrong way, and I thought I'd share. Let me know what you think in the comments!