Star Trek Online: A Brief Beta Impression

I pre-ordered Star Trek Online as it is one MMO that I have been awaiting for a long time.  The open beta has started a few days ago and aside from some technical issue which I’ve seen in just about every beta I have ever played (server downtime, a random crash here and there, some goofy animations that are clearly not quite done yet), the game is great.

The ground combat is nothing to write home about, but the feeling of being with an away team (red-shirts and all) is pretty cool.  You get to zap bad guys with phasers and pulse rifles, go hand to hand and coordinate fire with other team members.  Overall, a pretty decent experience based on the source material’s rather blase ground combat.

The space combat is where the game really shines.  You have to consider your shield, the placement of your weapon arrays, reload time and  the shielding of the enemy vessel.  I have found that the best way to beat someone is to pound on one section of their shields and then hit them with a torpedo.

The combat looks like Trek, sounds like Trek and feels like Trek.  Overall, a really good job there.

The interface is a little confusing, but you do get used to it pretty quick and it is just a beta, so I cannot really complain.

You can also customize your ship’s look and color scheme, which is pretty neat, although not really that important in my opinion as I personally want my ship to look like a Federation vessel.

The uniform customization is pretty neat as you get a big variety of styles and colors to pick from.  So, if you want to walk around in formal wear all the time, you can.

I am really hyped for the release of this game, when we will hopefully have a lot more servers up so the server issues that have kept me from playing the game more get resolved.

Mockups: A Guide to Visual Design

A picture is worth 1000 words.  We have all heard this expression before and there is a lot of truth to that expression.

When going through the initial phases of any project, vision is important.  In fact, I believe that vision is the most important part of all projects.  If you know what it is that you are trying to make, you know when you get there.  If your vision is blurred, you can never be sure that you have achieved what you set out to do.

I decided to refer to the goal of a project as vision since words are such abstract things.  You might think that words are fairly absolute things, but think about their usage.  Inflection, context and culture can warp and change the meaning of a given word to the point where the root is lost and its meaning is totally changed.  However, pictures are more absolute.

At this point you might be thinking that I have lost my mind.  You might think that I am suggesting that pictures should replace words or something along those lines.  That is not the case.  However, pictures should be present to re-enforce and clarify words.

What do I mean specifically?  Well, let’s say I am describing something to you.  It is an object, has tufts of cotton coming out of the top, a floral pattern over most of its surface, is covered in a plastic wrap for protection and can only be used a given number of times before it should be discarded.

Based on that description you might thing that I am talking about some sort of medical scrubs or pillow for senior citizens.  However, I am referring to the facial tissue box on my desk.  In this example, I could have just said facial tissue box, however, what about new ideas, processes or products.

How does one describe a MacBook Air in words.  Well, it is doable, but if you have ever seen the whitepaper for a complex product, you know that it takes a lot of words and most whitepapers contain diagrams to aid comprehension.

Wireframes, mockups and pre-visualizations all help in getting concepts across to your customers.  And from a business standpoint, if you can get signoff on pictures that show the product, you at least have a vague idea of what the customer wants.  Otherwise, you risk scope-creep and loss of money on every project.

Holiday Travel: A Postmortem

The holidays have come and gone and so have I.  Travel was again in the cards for me this year and it was an unpleasant experience.

The first clue that I had that this was not going to be a good travel season came on my first day of travel.  I bought a ticket online like most people do these days.  The ticket was a US Airways flight.  I had never flown US Airways, but it also mentioned something about United Airlines, so I assumed they were some sort of United Airlines subsidiary.

The day of the flight comes and I go to the area near the gate from which the flight is supposed to take off.  It is a United Airlines check-in area.  I ask one of the agents in the area if this is where I am supposed to check in and am told that I need to go to the US Airways check-in area.  OK, I have never flown US Airways before, no problem, I’ll just walk down to the US Airways area.  The US Airways area is 30 gates down (about a 20 minute walk in the spacious DFW terminal).

I then queue in line at US Airways and after a long wait (expected due to holiday traffic), I am told that I am actually on a United Airlines flight, so I need to make the walk back to the United Airlines area.  After rushing back to the United Airlines area and checking in as quickly as possible I barely make it to the gate as boarding is happening.

My issue with the whole episode is the person who told me that I was to check in at US Airways.  I did not see them when I came back, but word to the wise, US Airways flights operated by United Airlines are simply United Airlines flights, just forget that US Airways is even mentioned.

On my way back to Dallas, I sat in abject anxiety waiting to hear that my flight would be cancelled.  It turned out that my flight was not canceled, not late, but in fact early.  However, the fact that up until 30 minutes before takeoff, they were not sure if it was going to be ready or not.

So, moral of the story, don’t fly, it sucks and apparently the fine folks at all the airlines barely know what they are doing after being in business for almost 100 years.