There are some exciting crafting changes in store for those of us who enjoy that aspect of the game. Check out dstahl's comments here (linky).
Also, we're working on setting up a Lotus Fleet Foundry team. This team will be making some user-generated missions, and we hope to make content that will be top-notch. If you want a sneak peek at what those might look like, check out some of our RP stories in our Fleet Role-play section (linky here).
At our last fleet meeting, there were a number of awards and promotions announced.
BLZBUB was promoted to Lt. Commander! Woot!
Snowfire was promoted to Senior Chief Petty Officer. Congrats!
Commander Storm Windfall graduated Command school--that is awesome!
Fleet Cpt. Battle Lion and Selcar both received newsletter awards for their contributions to the Lotus Fleet Newsletter.
We're looking forward to episode replay coming out today--if anyone would like to join us for replaying some of the early missions, come visit us. We'll get started around 10pm EST, barring any problems with the update/server.
Our fleet meeting is tonight at 10pm Eastern on Teamspeak. Capt. Pagliaro is stepping down as our Fleet Affairs Officer due to Real Life attacking him, so tonight we are congratulating him on his retirement (even if we don't want him to leave the post!) and saying 'Thank You!' to him.
The greatest fun of RP, be it in forum form as here or the more classical tabletop format or even LARP (Live Action Role Playing), is to build an imaginary personality and biography and make it a moving part of an ongoing story, with main plot elements (like finding a solution to the plot) as well as little details on the side (like things from personal flashbacks to thoughts, dreams. personal logs etc).
Our Lotus Fleet Star Trek roleplaying format is most ideal for this: instead of having random individualistic and unrelated characters haphazardly meeting in a tavern for some supposedly common goal (the classic ''starting dungeon set up''), we have dedicated and similarily focused characters (Starfleet officers) not only working towards the same overall goal (serving the Federation and its ideals through Starfleet) but each having a definite and crucial role within the story (starship rank and duty) and, most of all, a beleivable and implicit reason to be together and work together.
Sorripto tells us he knows about engineering, science and Trek and use this knowledge to contribute to the story; I am also a lifetime Trekker with knowledge in martial arts, History and sciences: this allows us both to enrich stories through our characters and thus build fun for ourselves by sharing what we love, and thus the fun, with all, players and readers alike.
But such extra knowledge is NOT mandatory for both fun and meaningful contribution: this is the computer age. Anyone can become a Trek expert and a credible-sounding tactician, historian, engineer, doctor or scienctist in minutes, at least enough to RP one. The internet provides all the information you might want to write interesting posts with just a few clicks. Just using things like Memory Alpha and Wikipedia will instantly provide ideas and content for posts in a Star Trek story.
Writer's block in LF Star Trek RP is the easiest thing to break : the setting is well established already; then, take your job description (i.e. security), take the plot (i.e. rescue operation) or even just the ship (i.e. tactical sensors), look something up relevant to one (i.e. Memory Alpha: Ambassador class starship) or the other (i.e. Wikipedia: naval rescue operations) or both (i.e. watch some relevant Trek episode) and write it down as your character would say and do it (i.e. ex-convict Andorian shen soldier hard at reforming herself). Et voila! Instant quality post!
Star Trek is richly detailed and expansively developped. It talks about RL science, projected technology and the Human experience (even if you are playing an alien: you're still talking about the human experience but from a specific imaginary angle). Much easier to talk about than some undefined ''magic,'' anachronistic equipement (bola-using druid...) and weird imaginary creatures (what's a Merrow? How does it think, feel? what does it want, do, cope with? etc).
By assuming a specific role in one starship crew, LF RP allows the easiest, most convenient and believable setting for RP. Moreover, the established Starfleet rank structure is easily transposed as, not just some imaginary ''XP points'', but actual goals and rewards for the player as well as their character: through successive stories, the character rises in rank, build both RP experience and character experience, personality, relationships and history until ready to captain a ship (lead a RP story as GM) and bring other players into the fun... or, like Spock, keep to his specific field and become '' teh best First officer in Lotus Fleet and best science officer in Starfleet'', as one might prefer.
Thank you Adm. Kheren! It's so nice to have the encouragement, because I was one of the biggest chickens when it came to getting involved in RPing. I finally tried it out, and now I'm having a blast RPing not just one character, but several.
Just as a heads up for everyone--there is NO Lotus Fleet meeting tonight, since so many of our officer-members are enjoying the holidays with family and friends. However, we are still gaming together, and I suspect we'll have an impromptu game night tonight for those of us still at home. Please join us on Teamspeak no matter what game you're playing--it's fun to chat with our fleetmates!
We continue to welcome new members, regardless of level of experience in STO or other games. Our goal is to have fun together in and out of the game, and share our enjoyment of all things Star Trek. We're mature and casual, and we understand that Real Life and deployments sometimes take our members away for extended periods.
We have a very active role-playing forum on our boards and offer a variety of activities in and out of the STO game.
Our Academy is open to all--it is our contribution to the Star Trek community. If you enjoy Star Trek and Star Trek Online lore, you'll find the Academy to be a lot of fun.
Feel free to contact me here or on the Lotus Fleet forums at Jae Onasi.
Suffice to say I have been absent of late. The holiday schedule and moving will do that to one! :P
The Fleet RP, Dark Reflections, is coming along nicely and has already surpassed 75 posts and is underway to be the most popular role play on the forums at the moment. By this I am pleased, and also glad to be a small, independent part of it... so far.
That may change once the ITS B'Zal meets up with Doctor Bindo and learns what it is she has to offer Rogers. :cool:
For anyone reading this that is military and thinking of joining a fleet I say look no further. I am a 27 year old male in the Navy on my way home from deployment. The family that Lotus Fleet has been since before the game even launched has been one of the few things I have had to look forward too being all the way out here. The forum role play especially, but just the chats have really made my day sometimes. They are an adult, mature, and fun group that make being in the Fleet more fun at times then playing the game.
I did not mean to go on a rant, but if anyone out there reading this wants a fun, well established, very active, and mature family to call home in STO and elsewhere then you my friends should become one with the LOTUS.
At risk of sounding like a cheesy sales ad, I can attest to Lotus being friendly and receptive. The fleet I had been in dissolved as various people decided they did not want to pay anymore, eventually leaving myself and only one other person who was not even in my time zone. I remembered Lotus from some pre-launch stuff I had done and looked them up again. The fleet as a whole is very active even if they are not specifically playing STO. This does not usually matter though because there are typically plenty of people on when you want to play and they are always willing to group up and fly with you for a while.
Congrats to Lt. Brigham, who's won the monthly Trek Trivia contest 5 times! That's awesome!
If anyone has any questions about our activities in STO or on our forums, please feel free to contact me. We have quite a bit of fun RPing going on in our forum RP section (including a very interesting Mirror Universe thread), we have our Trek Trivia (I'm hoping Brigham lets the rest of us get a chance now!!), the Academy, and a variety of other activities going on in STO and other MMOs.
I must say that after being off line for only about 24 hours, and logging into a forum to find over 30 + posts have gone up in your short absence makes being a part of Lotus Fleet a joy to behold.
Not many fleets could boast that kind of activity per day, and this only attests to the comradeship and dedication that Lotus Fleet members bring to our forums.
Well ... that, and "Mama Jae" would deny them their cookies if they didn't show up for her meetings! :rolleyes:
Greetings Lotus Fleet, fellow STOers, and Star Trek fans,
In addition to being active in STO, Lotus Fleet has an extensive Star Trek starship-based Roleplay section in our Forums. With the start of the year 2011 comes several exciting changes to our RP Department and Forums.
If you're interested in joining Star Trek RP, I encourage you to come join Lotus Fleet to take advantage of what we have to offer.
Here are the changes that we have implemented:
1) First thing that is probably most evident is the changes to the Role Play forum structure. For one thing, we've moved up the section on the main forums page to put it right below Starbase 10 Promenade. We also expanded the section to show all sub-forums and rearranged the sub-forums into 3 categories:
RP Information and Applications: For veterans of Lotus Fleet RP you will be familiar with this section as previously being 2 different sections - "RP Administrative Offices" and "Open Positions, Applications, Personnel Files". We streamlined these 2 sections into one to provide a single place to reference all OOC information about Lotus Fleet Starship RP.
Fleet Starship RP: This section simply contains the sub-forums for Lotus Fleet starships, and Starbase 10, and is where the actual RPing happens.
The Holodeck: A new General RP section that we recently added to allow members to do non-Star Trek RP as well as play Forum Games. It should be mentioned that, although I didn't put it in its own numbered section, this was another big addition and a new thing that will most likely go through several iterations before we get it just right, so please bear with us during this process.
2) We also rewrote the RP 101 guide which is important to read in order to learn the different rules and guidelines involved in Lotus Fleet RP, as well as to give new RPers guidance on how to join up. It is located in a convenient place -- directly under the "RP Information and Applications" section. A link to it has also been placed under each starship's sub-forum so you should always be able to easily access it as needed. We encourage even existing RPers, in addition to new ones, to read over this to refresh their memory of what is involved and expected of our RP members.
3) Finally, we created 3 forms that can be accessed either from the "Steps to Join" section of the RP 101 or from the Roleplaying section of links on the left side of the Forums. The RP Personnel File and Starship Application Forms must be filled out for any new members interested in joining RP. The Species Specification Form is optional, but it is requested that you fill it out when introducing a new species, or to provide more information on a species from Star Trek canon, if not already located in our Species sub-forum under "RP Information and Applications".
Wherever your adventures take you, I wish you well and Live Long and Prosper!
Congratulations to Adm. Ross Ellis, who was promoted to Operations Commanding Officer, and Adm. Joester, who was promoted to Operations Executive Officer. I'll miss you in Command Division, Ross!!!
We welcome the following folks to Command Division:
Lt. JG Snowfire, who has come on board as one of our Newletter writers, and Lt. JG PringleMan, who has joined us as our STO recruiter. Thank you both very much for taking on additional fleet responsibilities and helping us provide an outstanding, fun place for our fleet!
We welcome people to Lotus Fleet. If you would like to join us, please check out our website at www.lotusfleet.com. The Academy is open to everyone. If you enjoy Star Trek and STO lore, you'll have fun with it. We hope to see you on our site soon!
First off, congratulations to Admiral's Ellis and Joester for stepping into the demanding and wearying Operations Division. Although we will miss Admiral Ellis in Command Division, it only really means that there is more cookies left over for those of us left! :cool:
But, to the real meat-and-potatoes workers ... congratulations and HIP, Hip, Hooray! ... to Lieutenant's Snowfire and PringleMan on undertaking their respective posts.
And by the way ... no cookies until your full lieutenants! :rolleyes:
Sorry for the late reply. Classes just started back up so it has been a tad hectic.
Hello, I am PringleMan, now a Lt. JG in Lotus fleet. I have been around STO since closed beta. For anyone reading this, as Jae mentioned I am now a recruitment officer for Star Trek Online. If you have any recruitment questions feel free to ask me or Jae and we will get you squared away as fast as possible.
We do still maintain a relations office with other fleets, however right now we are revising that section of the fleet. We are still open to inter-fleet communication so if you have any ideas for a fleet event or something (perhaps war games?) then again feel free to PM Jae or really any of our officers.
I hope to slowly convince everyone to join Lotus. We have cookies!
To all fleet members--remember that there is now a forum link to request crafted items. Any of us who have reached the level to create the item you need will be happy to help you. The fleet bank will provide data samples as needed.
My deepest apologies to the person who contacted me last night. I was in the middle of doing City on the Edge of Never with a fleet mate when you sent me a tell. I don't know if it was a problem with the STO server or my router, but I got disconnected repeatedly. Your name included a number, and I could not for the life of me remember what it was so that I could contact you back!
Next time, I'll remember to write it down right away so that if I get disconnected and all my tells disappear, I'll at least be able to contact you back when I re-connect.
Please join us in Earth Spacedock (instance TBD) at 9:30 pm EST (UTC-5) as we promote Admiral Ross Ellis and Admiral Joester to the positions of Operations Commanding Officer and Operations Executive Officer.
Thank you very much to Admirals Spawnner and Tom Wallace for their service in Operations, too. We'll miss you!
The promotion ceremony has been rescheduled to this coming Monday, 24 Jan 11 at 10:30 pm EST (UTC -5) in Earth Spacedock, instance TBD. Come join us!
I would also like to announce that Command division has a new Executive Officer, since Admiral Ross Ellis got promoted from that position to Operations Commanding Officer. I'm pleased to announce that Admiral Kheren is joining Command division as our new XO!
Thank you all for your service, and I look forward to more gaming with everyone.
Comments
Also, we're working on setting up a Lotus Fleet Foundry team. This team will be making some user-generated missions, and we hope to make content that will be top-notch. If you want a sneak peek at what those might look like, check out some of our RP stories in our Fleet Role-play section (linky here).
At our last fleet meeting, there were a number of awards and promotions announced.
BLZBUB was promoted to Lt. Commander! Woot!
Snowfire was promoted to Senior Chief Petty Officer. Congrats!
Commander Storm Windfall graduated Command school--that is awesome!
Fleet Cpt. Battle Lion and Selcar both received newsletter awards for their contributions to the Lotus Fleet Newsletter.
A number of people received longevity awards:
Captain A. Pagliaro: 1 year, 3 months
Lt. Commander Jureth: 3 months
Lt. JG Mindblade: 9 months
Lt. JG Sorripto: 9 months
Provisional Admiral Dominik Kale - 2 years, 9 months longevity.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Calcyon - 3 month longevity
Provisional Captain Gryffin - 2 years, 3 months
Rear Adm. Crist - 1year 9 month
Fleet Cpt. Teancum 1 year 6 month
Ensign boyce - 1 year, 9 months longevity
Chief Petty Officer Elliago - 1 year, 6 months longevity
Provisional Captain Samual Fisher - 1 year, 9 months longevity
Lt. Brigham- 6 Months
Congratulation to all and thank you for your service and time given to Lotus Fleet!
Congratulations to Storm Windfall, who was promoted to Captain tonight!
Promotions this week:
Red Nomad was promoted to MCPO
Awards given this week:
Provisional Ensign Talon - 2 years, 6 months longevity
Ensign James Picard - 9 month longevity
Petty Officer 1st Class MRall - 3 month longevity
Provisional Vice Admiral Niomo Lire - 2 years, 9 months longevity
I'll be in game tonight at some point if anyone needs to contact me for more info: @JaeOnasi.
Our Lotus Fleet Star Trek roleplaying format is most ideal for this: instead of having random individualistic and unrelated characters haphazardly meeting in a tavern for some supposedly common goal (the classic ''starting dungeon set up''), we have dedicated and similarily focused characters (Starfleet officers) not only working towards the same overall goal (serving the Federation and its ideals through Starfleet) but each having a definite and crucial role within the story (starship rank and duty) and, most of all, a beleivable and implicit reason to be together and work together.
Sorripto tells us he knows about engineering, science and Trek and use this knowledge to contribute to the story; I am also a lifetime Trekker with knowledge in martial arts, History and sciences: this allows us both to enrich stories through our characters and thus build fun for ourselves by sharing what we love, and thus the fun, with all, players and readers alike.
But such extra knowledge is NOT mandatory for both fun and meaningful contribution: this is the computer age. Anyone can become a Trek expert and a credible-sounding tactician, historian, engineer, doctor or scienctist in minutes, at least enough to RP one. The internet provides all the information you might want to write interesting posts with just a few clicks. Just using things like Memory Alpha and Wikipedia will instantly provide ideas and content for posts in a Star Trek story.
Writer's block in LF Star Trek RP is the easiest thing to break : the setting is well established already; then, take your job description (i.e. security), take the plot (i.e. rescue operation) or even just the ship (i.e. tactical sensors), look something up relevant to one (i.e. Memory Alpha: Ambassador class starship) or the other (i.e. Wikipedia: naval rescue operations) or both (i.e. watch some relevant Trek episode) and write it down as your character would say and do it (i.e. ex-convict Andorian shen soldier hard at reforming herself). Et voila! Instant quality post!
Star Trek is richly detailed and expansively developped. It talks about RL science, projected technology and the Human experience (even if you are playing an alien: you're still talking about the human experience but from a specific imaginary angle). Much easier to talk about than some undefined ''magic,'' anachronistic equipement (bola-using druid...) and weird imaginary creatures (what's a Merrow? How does it think, feel? what does it want, do, cope with? etc).
By assuming a specific role in one starship crew, LF RP allows the easiest, most convenient and believable setting for RP. Moreover, the established Starfleet rank structure is easily transposed as, not just some imaginary ''XP points'', but actual goals and rewards for the player as well as their character: through successive stories, the character rises in rank, build both RP experience and character experience, personality, relationships and history until ready to captain a ship (lead a RP story as GM) and bring other players into the fun... or, like Spock, keep to his specific field and become '' teh best First officer in Lotus Fleet and best science officer in Starfleet'', as one might prefer.
So people: enjoy!
Just as a heads up for everyone--there is NO Lotus Fleet meeting tonight, since so many of our officer-members are enjoying the holidays with family and friends. However, we are still gaming together, and I suspect we'll have an impromptu game night tonight for those of us still at home. Please join us on Teamspeak no matter what game you're playing--it's fun to chat with our fleetmates!
We continue to welcome new members, regardless of level of experience in STO or other games. Our goal is to have fun together in and out of the game, and share our enjoyment of all things Star Trek. We're mature and casual, and we understand that Real Life and deployments sometimes take our members away for extended periods.
We have a very active role-playing forum on our boards and offer a variety of activities in and out of the STO game.
Our Academy is open to all--it is our contribution to the Star Trek community. If you enjoy Star Trek and Star Trek Online lore, you'll find the Academy to be a lot of fun.
Feel free to contact me here or on the Lotus Fleet forums at Jae Onasi.
The Fleet RP, Dark Reflections, is coming along nicely and has already surpassed 75 posts and is underway to be the most popular role play on the forums at the moment. By this I am pleased, and also glad to be a small, independent part of it... so far.
That may change once the ITS B'Zal meets up with Doctor Bindo and learns what it is she has to offer Rogers. :cool:
I did not mean to go on a rant, but if anyone out there reading this wants a fun, well established, very active, and mature family to call home in STO and elsewhere then you my friends should become one with the LOTUS.
If anyone has any questions about our activities in STO or on our forums, please feel free to contact me. We have quite a bit of fun RPing going on in our forum RP section (including a very interesting Mirror Universe thread), we have our Trek Trivia (I'm hoping Brigham lets the rest of us get a chance now!!), the Academy, and a variety of other activities going on in STO and other MMOs.
Not many fleets could boast that kind of activity per day, and this only attests to the comradeship and dedication that Lotus Fleet members bring to our forums.
Well ... that, and "Mama Jae" would deny them their cookies if they didn't show up for her meetings! :rolleyes:
Hehehe--I'm only a little sinister now and then.
In addition to being active in STO, Lotus Fleet has an extensive Star Trek starship-based Roleplay section in our Forums. With the start of the year 2011 comes several exciting changes to our RP Department and Forums.
As always, our stories are available to read for anyone! Please check them out at http://www.lotusfleet.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=344
If you're interested in joining Star Trek RP, I encourage you to come join Lotus Fleet to take advantage of what we have to offer.
Here are the changes that we have implemented:
1) First thing that is probably most evident is the changes to the Role Play forum structure. For one thing, we've moved up the section on the main forums page to put it right below Starbase 10 Promenade. We also expanded the section to show all sub-forums and rearranged the sub-forums into 3 categories:
RP Information and Applications: For veterans of Lotus Fleet RP you will be familiar with this section as previously being 2 different sections - "RP Administrative Offices" and "Open Positions, Applications, Personnel Files". We streamlined these 2 sections into one to provide a single place to reference all OOC information about Lotus Fleet Starship RP.
Fleet Starship RP: This section simply contains the sub-forums for Lotus Fleet starships, and Starbase 10, and is where the actual RPing happens.
The Holodeck: A new General RP section that we recently added to allow members to do non-Star Trek RP as well as play Forum Games. It should be mentioned that, although I didn't put it in its own numbered section, this was another big addition and a new thing that will most likely go through several iterations before we get it just right, so please bear with us during this process.
2) We also rewrote the RP 101 guide which is important to read in order to learn the different rules and guidelines involved in Lotus Fleet RP, as well as to give new RPers guidance on how to join up. It is located in a convenient place -- directly under the "RP Information and Applications" section. A link to it has also been placed under each starship's sub-forum so you should always be able to easily access it as needed. We encourage even existing RPers, in addition to new ones, to read over this to refresh their memory of what is involved and expected of our RP members.
3) Finally, we created 3 forms that can be accessed either from the "Steps to Join" section of the RP 101 or from the Roleplaying section of links on the left side of the Forums. The RP Personnel File and Starship Application Forms must be filled out for any new members interested in joining RP. The Species Specification Form is optional, but it is requested that you fill it out when introducing a new species, or to provide more information on a species from Star Trek canon, if not already located in our Species sub-forum under "RP Information and Applications".
Wherever your adventures take you, I wish you well and Live Long and Prosper!
Regards,
Captain Evshell
Lt. JG Snowfire, who has come on board as one of our Newletter writers, and Lt. JG PringleMan, who has joined us as our STO recruiter. Thank you both very much for taking on additional fleet responsibilities and helping us provide an outstanding, fun place for our fleet!
We welcome people to Lotus Fleet. If you would like to join us, please check out our website at www.lotusfleet.com. The Academy is open to everyone. If you enjoy Star Trek and STO lore, you'll have fun with it. We hope to see you on our site soon!
But, to the real meat-and-potatoes workers ... congratulations and HIP, Hip, Hooray! ... to Lieutenant's Snowfire and PringleMan on undertaking their respective posts.
And by the way ... no cookies until your full lieutenants! :rolleyes:
Hello, I am PringleMan, now a Lt. JG in Lotus fleet. I have been around STO since closed beta. For anyone reading this, as Jae mentioned I am now a recruitment officer for Star Trek Online. If you have any recruitment questions feel free to ask me or Jae and we will get you squared away as fast as possible.
We do still maintain a relations office with other fleets, however right now we are revising that section of the fleet. We are still open to inter-fleet communication so if you have any ideas for a fleet event or something (perhaps war games?) then again feel free to PM Jae or really any of our officers.
I hope to slowly convince everyone to join Lotus. We have cookies!
We're happy to help you make whatever you need!
Next time, I'll remember to write it down right away so that if I get disconnected and all my tells disappear, I'll at least be able to contact you back when I re-connect.
Thank you very much to Admirals Spawnner and Tom Wallace for their service in Operations, too. We'll miss you!
Congrats to our new Officers!
I would also like to announce that Command division has a new Executive Officer, since Admiral Ross Ellis got promoted from that position to Operations Commanding Officer. I'm pleased to announce that Admiral Kheren is joining Command division as our new XO!
Thank you all for your service, and I look forward to more gaming with everyone.
Your new duties will put you in harms way, so always leave your cookies behind in the office.
That way we won't run out nearly as often!!