Polarizing Sarcasm

Sort of a silly STO in-joke I made. Although, it is a matter of pride (if one can be proud of an achievement in a video game).

You see, in the process of converting Star Trek Online to free-to-play they changed the entire economy. There used to be level specific “currencies” in the game - they were called Marks, Emblems, Medals, Badges and Merits. Yeah, it was ridiculously complicated, plus - once you’d passed a level, you had no use for the currency for that level - equipment bought with it was not powerful enough to be used as a Vice Admiral, and it was bound to your character so it could not be sold or swapped even with your own alternate characters. They changed all that by making one universal currency for buying equipment for your character: dilithium.

When they launched “Season 5” all the old marks and stuff had to be converted. The problem was that there were a small number of people that if given the full amount in dilithium they could have potentially screwed up the new economy… so instead they discarded some of the excess and gave us☨ a unique Veteran Bridge Officer with very elite equipment, and some Holiday Gift Boxes. The total number of players who got this treatment? About 0.77% of those playing the game.

I’m happy that the character that I’ve played for a year and a half is among the top 1% in the game. I put a lot of time and effort into it, even if it’s “only a game”. I only wish I’d put in more time into my alternate characters as well.

So here she is on my bridge. I call her Buffy the Romulan Slayer.

☨Of course, this has led to a certain amount of whining among the have-nots, but considering the amount of whining that already goes on in the STO forums it doesn’t make me feel bad in the least.

During the F2P launch party, my daughter pulled a Jake/Nog at Deep Space Nine.

She’s never even WATCHED DS9.

Also, you’re up VERY HIGH when overlooking the promenade.

Tuesday (17-01-2012) they held an in-game party to celebrate the launch of Free-To-Play in Star Trek Online. There was an emote “dance” contest, a trivia contest, and this - a costume contest. The winner received 1000 Cryptic Points (the equivalent of about $10-12).

You could separate the long-term people from the newbs pretty easily, as we lifers had the party-popper given to us for the first anniversary (02-02-2011) celebration. It randomly puts on a laser show, shoots confetti, makes mist like a fire extinguisher and when you’re really lucky, shoots TRIBBLES.

The tiny little ferengi girl(?) in the 4th pic just stood in place dancing the whole time. A couple of people made great use of the character editor, especially the Tick (who also had an extensive in-game bio attached that spoke of gender-reassignment surgery undertaken to calm the Tick’s clumsy, misguided hero activity).

And, like all good parties, there was something dirty going on like the apparent cunning linguist trying to get at that Doctor Crusher-looking avatar behind the purple girl in the second-last shot.

I would have posted these right after the party or even yesterday, but I was actually tired out from attending with my baby girl. Lame - I can’t even go to a VIRTUAL party without getting worn out - thanks CFIDS/FM.

I’d sure like to be able to party like its 1999. Again.