I have had zero luck with "RP" fleets. Totally zero.

However I have had great success RPing with newer players fresh out of ESB as I tend to form a bond with some people teaching them to progress and master STO's gameplay in a canon RP format.

The 'tactical' RP is totally epic I agree, it resembles the Battle of Endor on max difficulty, deliberately over-levelled enemies and only your little band of Starfleet officers to solve the 'unwinnable' scenario.

If anything, they talking to me on a regular basis relieves the boredom of the leveling grind and allows newer players to catch up and eventually form our own STF group. I decided I don't want to join any big fleet for this as I can make my own style of teamplay work better.

Well I took time out on my one day off to play ToR. Hopped on a level 4 smuggler I created on the Iron Citadel and played him up to level 12. Now a scoundrel I have to say he is much more fun. The animations that were slowing the toon down had been fixed and the toon transitioned through it's different abilities in a much more fluid fashion.

Still spent more time on STO than I did on ToR and this is why, communication. That simple. I have great friends in STO and even though many of them play ToR I would hardly know it if they did not tell me so in STO chat. They all play on the Grand Master Zim server so you could say I shot myself in the foot, but that was not the experiment.

I made that toon on the Iron Citadel because I was told that a lot of players in the STO PvP community play on that ToR server. I'll be damned if I saw one.

But this is stuff I already knew. I knew from reconnecting with my friends that play STO on ToR how the ToR chat system actually blocks and hinders community formation.

It comes down to one, (as far as I know it's a Cryptic thing), innovation and that is tying everything to your @handle. Wanna shoot me an email in game but you only met me on the STO forum boards? Send an in game to email @piwright42 and I will get it whether I am on one of my many Klings or Feds. That is right you have access to me on 14 toons irregardless of faction. Can't do that via the ToR forums that's for sure. I do not have one toon named PiWright42 on any of the four servers I play on.

While not a Cryptic innovation shards are another thing I love about STO because they foster community. Does not matter where I am or what faction I play as long as I am subbed to the right chat channels I can help or be involved. One public channel supports both the Fed and Klingon arms of our fleet and allows those interested to monitor our chat and join if they so chose. I joined KDFassistance because I like to help and even when I am on my Feds I can give KDF advice if someone asks.

Can you do that in ToR? No because the servers block such cross communication. Worse yet even on the same server if I play Empire while all my other fiends decide to play Rep for the day I would never even know they were on because the private chat channels in ToR are faction specific. On Grand Master Zim we had to make two chat channels for Ten Forward one Rep one Emp.

Finally while I can use NetFlix to watch Top Gear UK vis-a-vis Windows Media Center, (WMC), while I play STO. I can't do it when I play ToR. Well I can I just can't hear the audio from Windows Media Center while I play ToR at all where I can when I play STO. Can't even do that on Skyrim. So far Cryptic games are the only ones I have found where I have my cake and eat it too. Given that Cryptic has gone out of the way to assure you can run your own audio in game parallel with in game audio and watch WMC at the same time while you continue to play I would be inclined to call that innovation.

Minor innovations to you maybe, but the kind of innovations that keeps me playing STO none the less.

I've been doing the audio thing in games before Cryptic was even made and since including TOR. The current Cryptic games just does it for you automatically while all the rest means learn how to configure your audio settings yourself.

Seeing that you have so much experience with this and it enhances my game play so much I would appreciate your advice on how to get Tor to let me hear WMC and the game at the same time.

I mean all I had to do with STO was put STO into window mode, stretch that to fill the whole screen and set WMC to always on top. Very intuitive really. Certainly required no audio changes, so my experience is lacking in that regard.

I can power up Windows Media Center (WMC) and have it run while playing the game. Music in-game is about gone but it nearly tries to drown out the voices so have to make it lower the volume a bit. WMC defaulted to be louder than TOR was. A bit too loud just powering up without touching any sound settings.

What STO does that TOR and many games do not is give an in-game control interface for something for music like Winamp and iTunes so you don't have to alt-tab out to do things.

I agree that STO's chat system is superior to TOR's. Custom channels, faction-spanning messages, the @username feature.

I suppose I should post this idea on the Suggestion forums in TOR. Maybe something good comes from that.

PS: I did post that thread while writing this post:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...57#post3054257

I agree, the @handle actuall turned out ot be one of the best features for STO, and TOR could use that too.

Ok here is my two sent
I like both games they have their pros and cons TOR hans a way better story line and each
class has it own story line some I would like to see in STO and if they had a better story
and a palyable Romulan faction STO would be the best game out there why do I say that
well Space combat is much better in STO you have control of your ship unlike TOR where
they do it for you, you just shoot things LOL, Ground combat I have to say is better
in TOR the mission are better the worlds you go to give you great feel for the story line
of the game.

So if you are a sci fi nut like me you will play both. well STO is FREE2Play.

I quit STO 2 months after release. I had a engineer and tactical officer capped and was bored. I played TOR at release and still do. I'm bored though and only log in at raid time two nights a week as there isn't anything to do otherwise in the game. This boredom brought me back to STO and I've been leveling a science officer when not raiding in TOR.

They both are good games with end game flaws. I'm just glad I can enjoy both of them now (without spending $30 a month).

I'm not surprised. I looked into RP in STO a bit, I wasn't too impressed with what I found. It seems to be all in three categories.

Type 1 -- the consoler
Girl: "I can't believe they're sending you to the front again!" -starts sobbing-
Guy: "I never want to be apart from you again." -pulls into a gentle embrace-
Girl: "I know what you mean, I ... I..."
Guy: "We'll work this out. I've traveled the whole galaxy, and never have I met a woman as wonderful as you, Alice." -looks into eyes-
Girl: "My name is Jennifer."
Guy: "Whatever. Shall we go back to my ship?"

Type 2 -- the writer
Hey! I wrote a 34,195 page backstory for my character!! My character is half-Q, half-human, half-Vulcan, half-Klingon, half....

Type 3 -- the strict
-beams to a bridge-
Admiral: Alright, let's begin the meeting.
-5 minutes of silence-
Admiral: The Romulan Empire has contacted us to investigate activities involving the Remans.
-5 minutes of silence-
Admiral: Are there any comments?
-5 minutes of silence-
Male Captain: This troubles me.
-5 mintues of silence-
Female Captain: Every time I think about Reman oppression, I feel sad.
-5 minutes of silence-
Admiral: (I don't think you would feel sad in this case. If you read the backstory I assigned to you...)