World of Warcraft was the MMO that broke the mould. The reasons for its success are too numerous and complex for this blog post, so let it suffice to say that it rode a perfect storm of factors and has maintained a strong presence for fifteen years. And as a result, subsequent developers have often sought to duplicate its success. Yet frequently the opposite has happened. In fact several MMOs have launched and experienced a brief time “in the sun” only for things to come crashing down thereafter. Perhaps the most well-known example of this was SWTOR which experienced a triumphant launch in December 2011, yet within three months the majority of players had left for pastures new. It took the game going F2P and a lot of hard work by BioWare to claw back the playerbase. It has also been argued that many MMOs have grown too big for their own good? It is true that a new player starting a game such as LOTRO today has a long slog ahead of them and some may simply find that too daunting.
The reason I mention these two points is because I think they are linked and reflect a shift in mindset towards MMOs. Many of the older MMOs were originally based around group content and the formation of guilds. As a result many titles have a sizeable community of players that have reached level cap with multiple alts. Players such as this have played through pretty much all the content that the game has to offer. They play within guilds that have lasted years and have strong social bounds. Now consider a new player that has just started playing LOTRO for example. They have a prodigious amount of content to play through before they reach level cap. Furthermore because many players now prefer to play solo, they have an even more arduous task ahead of them.
Now I know some will argue that it's not about racing to level cap but the journey itself. This is a fair point if you are a player who is content to work through content in this fashion. However many games developers are still focused on the so-called endgame and creating new content for those at level cap. If you start playing LOTRO today, the only way you can reach Western Gondor or The Grey Mountains is if another player summons you there. It's a shame that so many of the older titles are hindered by such a linear approach to landmass and content but that's the way these titles were created. I personally would like to see more of an open world approach like The Elder Scrolls Online where content scaled according to your level and you are broadly free to go where you want.
So considering these points, I am beginning to think that for many MMOs there is an initial window of opportunity as to when it is most favourable to start playing the game. I started playing LOTRO in late 2008, just after The Mines of Moria expansion launched. As I was playing through The Shire, Bree and The Lonelands, senior members of my guild were levelling from fifty to sixty in Moria. However because I was very invested in the game at the time (it was my first MMO) I managed to catch up within nine months. I am now part of the group of players permanently at level cap and I can therefore immediately enjoy whatever new content Standing Stone Games develops for the game.
The Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2 are both relatively new titles, so I think one could start playing these games and still be participating during the optimum window of opportunity. Plus they do not have such a difficult levelling curve or level cap that is extremely high. Is this the same case with EVE Online, Final Fantasy XIV or Black Dessert Online? I'm not so sure. These are games where the key to success is the investment of time. Some MMOs have mechanics or store items that will allow you to level quickly but does that really solve the issue? There is an inherent contradiction in selling an item to boost your level, hence paying money to bypass playable content. But levelling through intermediate level content can be a lonely process sometimes. Zones can be devoid of other players. At least in Guild Wars 2 the game downscales players to the zones specific level thus providing an incentive for the veteran player to return. Sadly many other titles do nothing to encourage players at cap to revisit lower level areas.
I also think this window of opportunity may be tied to wider factors, other than the games progression system. Many MMOs experience a period when the fan base thrives and produces a wealth of content. This can be blogs, guides, podcasts, You Tube videos or livestreams. However this tends to be cyclical. Due to the rise of the casual player and their migratory nature, this if often more pronounced. I remember sites like the LOTRO Combo Blog that used to aggregate fan related blogs. It has long since gone. Another example you can see is the way your Twitter timeline may be awash with content regarding a new title and then over time it simply fades away. Twitch TV is also another interesting litmus test. A look at the homepage will quickly tell you what is popular and what is not. Is the window of opportunity for MMOs therefore not only verifiable but also clearly getting shorter?
There are other genres and franchises that experience similar optimum windows of opportunity. Harry Potter and Friday the 13th are two examples from the movie industry. There was a clear period in time when both were immensely successful franchises. However, their transition from silver screen to multiplayer game took a lot longer and perhaps the proverbial boat was missed. The Wizarding World eventually found a home in the mobile gaming market and not as an MMO. Friday the 13th fared slightly better as a multiplayer game and captured a nostalgia wave. Yet it was ultimately hamstrung by legal issues surrounding the rights to the franchise. MMOs take a lot of time to develop and the market trends can change during that time. Amazon Game Studio appears to have halted the development of New World. Is this game now going to be repurposed to tie in with their Middle-earth themed TV show. If that is the case the game may launch during the optimum window of interest.
Finally there is an odd codicil to this question. We have seen recently a trend towards “Classic” servers which strive to serve up a broadly comparable experience to that of launch and the first year of an MMO. Is nostalgia the key to successfully creating a second window of opportunity for a game. Is it sustainable? Or is it going to have an even shorter arc? So far, the LOTRO Legendary Servers seem to be ticking over and I have not at present seen any data pointing to a decline in population. Perhaps the launch of World of Warcraft Classic on the 27th August will provide a greater insight into the longevity of nostalgia. In the meantime there is much to reflect upon, as the points raised here have barely scratched the surface of the matter. Because when we talk of a window of opportunity for an MMO, there is the player perspective and then there’s the business perspective. For all the market research and data analysis, I suspect that there are also some other factors that are much harder to quantify.
Upon starting up the Battle.net launcher this evening, I was confronted by a message stating that I needed to uninstall the Beta version of World of Warcraft: Forever, now that the testing had finished. So I clicked on the icon and off it went. I didn’t spend as much time in the Beta test as I would’ve liked but certainly enjoyed what I did. I familiarised myself with the UI and controls and endeavoured to get a feel for the way the game handles. I tried three classes during this Beta. Hunter, Warlock and Warrior. However, I haven’t spent enough time with each class to make any sort of decision as to which one will become my main. Having no history with WoW is in some respects a bonus, because I have no inherent prejudices and I am completely oblivious as to the prevailing game meta. I made sure that my research did not overwhelm me with information as this game is very much a dream for spreadsheet aficionados.
On Thursday the news broke that BioWare, the “legendary” video game developer behind such titles as the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises, has been closed down. The Canadian developer specialising in role-playing games was founded in 1995 and found millions of fans with its complex, branching narratives systems. Its parent company Electronic Arts decided to close the studio as part of a wider financial restructuring across their entire business. The closure of BioWare after 31 years, means the loss of 400 jobs. It is this aspect that saddens me the most, as the current job climate is poor enough but the entire video games industry is contracting at present so finding work within the same field is a challenge. The time or year doesn’t help either but then it can be cogently argued that there is never a good time to become unemployed. Naturally there has been an outpouring of sympathy, sadness and opprobrium from fans.
I began work on Project Questa on the 27th of September, because I couldn’t get Khazad Voice TTS to work on my PC. Since then I’ve spent several days a week working on my AI narrator utility and have made steady progress. Last time I wrote about the project the production pipeline ran as follows. DXCam, OpenCV, Windows OCR and Microsoft Speech API (SAPI). Over time, I determined that Tesseract was a better OCR and that Kokoro TTS produced superior narration. However, in the last week I found that constant fine tuning across different aspects of the production process was not really producing any significant improvements. The main problems were capturing text from dialogue windows that required scrolling, as well as overall latency in producing narration. A delay over 5 seconds is too long in my assessment. Hence I decided to fundamentally change the overall approach to dialogue capture.
I started playing MMOs in late 2008 by which time the genre was clearly established and dominated by one particular title, World of Warcraft. I chose to play The Lord of the Rings Online, mainly because of my love for the intellectual property the game is based upon. I still play LOTRO today. However, I was very aware of popularity and significance of WoW at the time. It pretty much set the rules for how you design a MMO and it did much to move on from the previous gameplay parameters set by such titles as Ultima Online and EverQuest. It was also the MMO that every other developer was trying to beat. Another compelling factor regarding WoW is that everyone I knew at the time was either actively playing it or had done so at some point. It was for many gamers, the go-to title for socialising. Finally around early 2010, I tried a free trail of WoW to “see what all the fuss was about”. Simply put, I felt that it wasn’t for me.
Over the course of the last 16 years, the MMORPG Star Trek Online has changed greatly. What started as a disjointed, rushed game with unfinished systems and a lack of overall cohesion has now evolved into streamlined MMO with clearly defined systems and very strong narrative arcs. Let it suffice to say that STO makes very good use of its license and the intellectual property it is built upon. Although new content has been continuously added to STO over time and refinements are regularly rolled out, the developer’s have also removed content from the game in the past, that they feel is substandard or too dated in it presentation. Hence in October 2018 Cryptic took out the following eight missions from the game, with the proviso that they would be updated and replaced at a latter date. Until fairly recently, STO players had given up hope on this ever happening and the episodes being reinstated. Eight years is a long time.
One of the things that I enjoy when playing a new video game is character customisation or character creation. I will spend hours trawling through settings, changing the most minute and consequential aspects of my avatars appearance. I am certain that there is a psychological aspect to this particular game mechanic and that it says something about you as a person. Are your creations shaped just by a need to look good in-game or is there more to it? Are they external manifestations of your sexual preferences or thoughts on body image. Do you treat them as characters from a book that exists in your mind. Do you aspire to recreate the likeness of people you know or admire? Do you strive to make your avatar look like you? Whatever the reasons, it would seem that character creation is something that a lot of gamers enjoy. Hence I am not alone in my borderline obsession. What you look like in-game is equally as important as your character’s name.
I was playing Battlefield 6 recently and was experimenting with the mortar. If you stick with it and take some time to become familiar with its foibles, it can be an effective weapon. It can suppress the enemy, destroy equipment and provide useful cover for your own team. I remember thinking “I wonder if artillery could sustain a game on its own”. Artillery is an interesting feature in Hell Let Loose, although it is a little more complex in its game mechanics. I believe artillery is also available in Wardogs. I therefore spent a while looking online to see if there was a dedicated artillery simulator available or at least a game where it was a key feature. There nearest thing I found was Iron Nest, a dieselpunk heavy artillery game which looks interesting but isn’t quite what I seek. So I parked this idea and moved. Tonight, while perusing YouTube, I stumble across a teaser trailer for a game called Flak Simulator, currently under development by Horseman Interactive. It appears to be exactly what I am looking for.
I recently tried to use DLSS 5 Manager with the MMORPG, The Lord of the Rings Online. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out. Today I undertook a similar experiment with AMD Neural Rendering, which is a broadly comparable product. Both utilities use 3D-Guided Neural Rendering, an AI technology that alters how lighting, reflections, and textures look in a game. Instead of just upscaling the image like older versions, DLSS 5 uses an AI network to instantly "re-render" lighting and material responses over the game's layout, achieving photorealistic details that would normally negatively impact a graphics card's performance. Or to put it in less fancy terms, the game graphics are enhanced and modified, although it is highly subjective as to whether the end results are an improvement. However, as a game such as LOTRO is unlikely to ever receive a major graphical overhaul, tools such as these are the nearest players will get to revised graphics.
The core game code and engine for the MMORPG, The Lord of the Rings Online, is about 24 years old. LOTRO began originally as Middle-earth Online, developed by Sierra On-Line in 1998. Turbine took over full development of the project in 2003/2004 when their parent company, Vivendi Universal Games, acquired Sierra. The content that had already been developed by Sierra was abandoned and Turbine created a new game using structural elements such as the UI and game engine from their previous release Asheron’s Call 2 from 2002. The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar was officially released in April 2007. Hence, the active public release code is 19 years old. Despite continuous expansion and updates, along with a recent migration to 64-bit architecture, the foundations of LOTRO retains a nearly twenty year old legacy framework. This frequently contributes to modern technical hurdles and engine constraints.
A few years ago, there was a fan created project to provide voice narration of NPC dialogue in the MMORPG, The Lord of the Rings Online. This mainly involved capturing the text in the quest dialogue windows and then sending it to OCR software, before using a text-to-speech program to read it. LOTROVoice as it was known, broadly worked but the creator stopped developing it as it proved troublesome to maintain. However, I recently discovered Khazad Voice TTS which is a separate project that does pretty much the same. I went so far as to install this “immersive AI narrator for LOTRO” after seeing a YouTube video of it being used successfully. Sadly I ran into issues configuring Khazad Voice TTS, because I have two monitors and LOTRO runs on the secondary (by my choice) and not the primary. I couldn’t “lasso” the dialogue windows in LOTRO during the calibration set up, which effectively prevented me from completing the process.
Throughout yesterday and early today, there was an issue logging in to the MMORPG, The Lord of the Rings Online. Upon starting the game launcher, it would attempt to connect to the patch server to download the latest game update. This process would start but then subsequently stall at 33%. The launcher would then attempt to reconnect to the patch server every 60 seconds but could not make any further progress. Some players found that if they left it long enough, it would eventually complete the download and the launcher then progress to the next screen where they could input their username and password. However, for the majority of LOTRO players the problem would simply persists and the launcher would be stuck in a loop. Some players attempted to reinstall the game or use the repair data facility in the launcher but neither of these proved to be successful workarounds. The patch sever needed to be bypassed to resolve the issue.
I’ve been playing Fall Guys since its launch in early 2020, during the start of the pandemic. It is a fun, family friendly multiplayer game which is has proven popular with my grandchildren. Despite the game’s acquisition by Epic, it has maintained a sufficient level of popularity that has seen it ported to all major gaming platforms. Fall Guys is free to play but like most multiplayer games, there is a season pass and an in-game store. However, these monetised aspects are not essential to enjoy the game and the overall marketing of emotes and skins is nowhere near as invasive as it is in Roblox. In fact many of the players I see while in-game have default skins, indicating a regular casual player base. However, although game seems to be maintaining its popularity, it has several bugs that appear to be be persistent. Bugs that the developers claim have been resolved. Some can be addressed by players. Other at present cannot.
I find the concept of in-game radio stations fascinating. They’re an enjoyable aspect of open world video games and I have discovered several artists this way. They’re certainly a big deal as far as Rockstar Games are concerned, because the music selected for GTA VI is another important facet of the overall marketing campaign. So far, between two trailers and the sprawling extended look on Netflix, it has been determined that Tom Petty, the Pointer Sisters, Sexyy Red, Depeche Mode, Phil Collins, Birdman, Lil Wayne and the Bellamy Brothers are all part of the game soundtrack. That’s a very eclectic selection so far. Furthermore, there will be a 34 track album released on physical media (vinyl and CD) in conjunction with Atlantic Records.
Two years ago I wrote a post about fine tuning your graphics in the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online. Apart from installing ReShade and using AMD Adrenalin, the options were somewhat limited, due to the game’s age and multiplayer status. Since then, I’ve been playing LOTRO with the game settings maxed out, a custom ReShade profile to make the colour palette more vivid and Radeon Image Sharpening enabled within the AMD software. The game looks clear, crisp and the draw distance is pretty good for an ageing game but I still wish the graphics could be tweaked further. Hence, I’ve been trawling the internet in a vain attempt to see if I can find any third party utilities that could be used to enhance LOTRO further. During the course of my search I stumbled across DLSS 5 Manager. This is an open-source, intelligent utility and one-click mod installer designed to inject and manage Nvidia's DLSS 5 neural rendering features, ReShade, and OptiScaler into PC games.
Hellraiser (1987) was one of he most innovative and intelligent horror films of the eighties, with its cerebral and sophisticated exploration of pleasure, pain and the supernatural. Sadly what was a great concept for a single film was turned into yet another horror franchise. The resulting series of increasingly inferior sequels ultimately diminished the central idea. However, in recent years several horror “brands” have found a new lease of life via the medium of video games, so the announcement of Hellraiser: Revival last summer piqued my interest. The fact that author Clive Barker was directly involved certainly raised my expectations. However, even though video games have a history of depicting sex and violence, would the medium be able to fully embrace the true nature of Barker’s original novella and original film. Having played through the newly released demo for Hellraiser: Revival, I believe the answer is a yes.
Are video games becoming easier? It’s a perennial subject that is frequently discussed by those who play them. Often the question of whether they have actually become easier is not the focus of the debate, as it seems to be broadly recognised that it is the case. Instead, discussion of this matter tend to drift into the rectitude of this change. Debate’s of this nature are usually awash with subjective opinions and personal preferences which are then put forward as objective facts. It’s not just a question of video games becoming easier, it’s the fact that making them easier is “wrong” and those who want them as such are “not proper gamers” etc. The hours that have been lost to this pointless, tedious debate are uncountable. However, I digress. Let us return to the matter of video games becoming easier, because although fans discuss this a lot and have plenty to say, you don’t often hear from the developers on this subject.
Some video games lend themselves to being set aside and resumed at a later date with zero consequences. These are often casual games with no major goals other than having fun while playing them. Fall Guys is a great example of this. You have a cartoony avatar that participates in zany group races, filled with obstacles. You run, jump, climb but the controls are far from difficult. You may well become skilled but such things are mitigated by the other players as they stumble around. You’re not at the mercy of apex players or “try hards”. It is not a game about winning and mastering techniques. The fun comes from playing it and the unique experience you have each time. I’ve been playing this game, on and off, since it’s launch in 2020 and in that time I have only ever won once (winning requires you to win a series of 4 to six individual races). However, whenever I pick up my controller and play Fall Guys, I have fun and the game lifts my spirits.
I recently completed the main story in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. In total I spent about sixty hours playing the game. I began at the start of the year, then took a break for a while but returned to it recently because I wanted to see if I could unlock a specific ending. I did manage to do this. Like so many other RPGs, Tainted Grail: the Fall of Avalon has a central storyline, along with a wealth of side quests, based around factions in specific zones. I think I possibly completed about a two thirds of these. However, once I finished the main story, my interest in the game began to wane. I finally left my character in the last major quest hub in case I wish to return at a future date. I then logged out of the game and uninstalled it from my PC to free up space for whatever I was to play next. In this case its The Sinking City 2. None of this is a negative reflection on Tainted Grail: the Fall of Avalon. I enjoyed the time I spent playing this quirky RPG. I simply had my fill and left to play something else.
On Tuesday 11th April, Aspyr Media rather surprisingly re-released The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, a co-op action-RPG from 2011. This game was delisted in late 2019, possibly due to changing rights ownership or a license expiring. Hence, I was somewhat discombobulated by the return of this title to all major gaming platforms. Mind you, the Embracer Group (through its subsidiary Middle-earth Enterprises) still controls the worldwide commercial and video game licensing rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Furthermore they have explicitly stated that they have plans for more games. It would appear this also means re-releasing and updating old favourites. It is also worth noting that they own Aspyr Media, which is also a bit of a giveaway. Let it suffice to say that this re-release and sparked enthusiastic online debate as to whether any other he Lord of the Rings themed games from the same era will receive a similar makeover. Judging by the internet chatter, there’s potentially a market for them.
The next expansion for the MMORG, The Lord of the Rings Online, was announced on the 1st August, via the gaming website MMORPG.The Wolves of Mordor, which will launch later in the year, appears ambitious in scope as it will include two new game systems as well as the obligatory story update. This expansion takes place in Draugardh located in the North East of Mordor, beyond the Plateau of Gorgoroth. It includes the new zones of Heledhris, Parth Rhavas and Nan Ogol. These vary environmentally ranging from the arid, volcanic and semi-tropical. Players will encounter the Daugrim in these regions, Werewolves but not in the modern sense. This is not the lycanthropy of Eastern European legends but in the established Tolkien idiom of fell spirits inhabiting the bodies of Wolves. The region also sees the return of the Woses and players can expect to encounter Elves and scouts from Gondor. As ever with LOTRO expansions, there will be new instances as well as a raid.
This is a post about the power of nostalgia and how sometimes, interacting with something from your past, be it physically or mentally, can produce a very strong and tangible emotional reaction. In some instances, this can be the result of something that you have specifically set out to do. On other occasions you can wander into a sense of nostalgia purely by chance. Today I experienced a very strong sense of nostalgia while watching a YouTube video and then again when I sought to replicate what I had seen. The video showed someone installing Windows 95 on to an old 486 PC from that era. The Window’s start up sound really touched a nerve (but in a good way) and then when the guy in the video launched Space Cadet 3D Pinball, a game that shipped with the operating system, I felt a strong compulsion to track down a copy and install the game myself, thus revisiting something that was an integral part of my life in 1995.
RV There Yet? is possibly the most entertaining game I’ve never played. My vicarious pleasure regarding this title has come exclusively from watching two popular YouTubers, JackFrags and WillFromWork, play through the game over a series of videos. It has been immensely amusing to watch and I have empathised a great deal as the group of four players has struggled with the game’s unpredictable mechanics and their own team’s dynamic. I could go and buy RV There Yet? myself but I doubt if I would ever have a gaming experience anywhere close to what I’ve watched online recently. So in some respects watching these videos has been an interesting alternative as I’ve been entertained, which ultimately is the point of video games. Perhaps there is a deeper philosophical point here that the game developers should reflect upon, as they’ve lost a potential sale. However, that is separate discussion for another day.
I don’t keep up with gaming news as much as I use to but several noteworthy announcement have come to my attention of late. Firstly, there’s an expansion, Songs of the Past, coming for the Witcher III: Wild Hunt in 2027. No doubt this is to pave the way for the Witcher IV. Next, I also found out about Hand of Fate: Horde. I liked this franchise and was saddened to learn that the original studio, Defiant Development, closed. Hence is was a pleasant surprise to see this new game being developed by members of the original studio. The third announcement was regarding Guild Wars 3. A new MMORPG in active development by a major studio is no small feat and is certainly good news for fans of this franchise and the genre per se. However, once you look beyond this news this announcement raises several questions and has certainly given me pause for thought. Let us take a few moments to consider them.
Star Trek Online has many in-game systems that are common to the MMORPG genre. The reputation system is one such example. In STO there are 13 reputation factions. Once a player has reached level 50 they may start progressing through the 6 reputation tiers of each one. Players gain progression through daily projects (20 hours in duration). Hourly projects are also available though they yield less reputation advancement and are limited to three times a day. Hence 20 hour projects are consider by default the most efficient way to gain rep. Projects require 30 Faction Specific Marks (earned via various activities in-game), 15,000 Energy Credits (standard in-game currency) and 2000 Expertise points. The most efficient way to tackle the reputation grind is to build up the necessary resources in advance and then at a designated time each day, start all 13 respective projects. Upon completion projects yield a player bound lockbox containing a random space or ground weapon, a console or Elite Marks which can be used to acquire faction gear.
I was recently perusing my archive of old blog posts, when it struck me how much I’ve written about the MMORPG genre over the years. Naturally, there was far more material from between 2008 and 2012 as that was period when I immersed myself in the genre and was very enthusiastic about it. I was at a point in my life when I had the time to dedicate to such games and I was happy to participate in the social aspect of they offered. I would regularly play through group content and spend time socialising online with fellow guild members. My experience remains a textbook example of how online games can be more than the sum of their parts and that where you are at in your life has a major impact upon your overall enjoyment. As I read though various old posts it became clear that my experiences where specific to this particular part of my life and that they cannot be repeated. My relationship with the genre is very different now and that’s fine.
Creating alts is an integral aspect of the MMORPG genre. Many players will create a character of a specific class or faction, play it for a while, lose interest in it or they may decide that it is just not for them. Fortunately it is no effort at all to simply re-roll a new alt and set off once again. Furthermore, lots of players never reach level cap of the MMORPG that there playing. When the going get’s tough, so to speak, you can either soldier on for another 50 levels or simply create a new alt and return to the comfort of tried and tested content. Alts also give you the chance to secure an accolade or achievement that you previously missed. They are also of great benefit to the genres social aspects. Creating a new alt so you can play along with a friend who is just starting is great fun. Developer’s love them too as it means you’re still playing the game.
I recently took a break from Crimson Desert choosing instead to to play something familiar and easy going. As I’ve been logging into Star Trek Online daily to participate in the anniversary event, I decided to look through my various alts and see how far they had progressed through the game and what resources they had. At present I have twelve alts. My primary Captain was created in 2015 during the original Delta Recruit Event. I had previously played STO intermittently since its release in January 2010 but I never kept any of those characters. Hence this decade old Tactical Federation Captain has been my main focus when playing. The other eleven alts are the result of other recruitment events or whenever I wanted to try something different, such as playing a specific class or faction. I obviously played a lot of STO during the lockdown as several alts date from that period. Several had maximum reputation across all factions.
2026 is proving to be a good year for the MMORPG, Star Trek Online. After wrestling control of their game back and reassembling “the band”, IE as much of the original development team as possible, Developers Cryptic are slowly but steadily addressing the games multiple flaws. This is a much needed undertaking as STO has stagnated for a long time. However, over the last twelve months Cryptic have revised multiple elements of the game such as a general overhaul of Deep Space Encounters and the Endeavour system. These improvements have been well received by players but the jewel in the crown of this ongoing project has been the reinstating of several classic Episodes back into the game, all be it in a revised format. STO needs more story content because sadly what has been released in recent years has been of a lesser standard compared to the halcyon days of the Agents of Yesterday and Victory is Life expansions.