Star Trek Online

[Zanagodly]

Anyone get a beta invite to this yet? I signed up but looks like a pre-order is necessary to ensure an invite.

[Zanagodly]

Well I'm told pre-order is open beta anyway.

[Ashliana]

Pre-order beta isn't out yet. January 8th, I think? Something like that. I pre-ordered from Bestbuy (the Tribble/Targ pet as the bonus). I think Amazon's bonus is a borg ship officer, which is pretty cool; GameStop's is a bonus constitution class starship like from TOS. No thanks.

The collector's edition lets you make characters with the DS9 uniforms, which were the best ones, IMO.

[Parkbandit]

So what's the buzz on this game.. anything worth playing seriously? Is it going to be more like EvE or more like WoW?

I know nothing about it.. so please, keep your nerd rage to a minimum.

[Sean of the Thread]

My brother is buying it for me so we can power level.

It looks pretty fun however the original concept was to have other players on board your ship. Now it's just you're the cap'n of your ship.

I'll give it a try just like I did Eve but this time from the start. Eve is almost impossible to enjoy coming in this late.

[Parkbandit]

My brother is buying it for me so we can power level.

It looks pretty fun however the original concept was to have other players on board your ship. Now it's just you're the cap'n of your ship.

I'll give it a try just like I did Eve but this time from the start. Eve is almost impossible to enjoy coming in this late.

I LOVE Star Trek.. but I'm not sure I will be that interested in playing a ship like EvE.

I'm hoping like hell that Star Wars meets my expectations when it comes out in 2083

[Sean of the Thread]

Well you can do like away missions and shit with your friends but I still don't think I'll like it much. They still haven't announced pricing plans either.

Star Wars Galaxies was a very big let down. They fucked it up bad. I think they have less than 170k subscribers now.

[Zanagodly]

It is difficult to really assess at this point. Everyone will have a ship but it takes game progression to command like a legit cruiser. Air battles etc promise to be interesting if they do it right. It would be nice to board other people's ships, etc. I am not sure if this will be an option. Time will tell if the socializing and economy aspects of the game will hold people's interest.

[Tordane]

I was really hyped about this game when the general idea was that "guilds" would command ships with NPC's filling in when needed. Crew members skills being in different fields, etc. Originally, the game wasn't going to be all about combat.

The new model for the game reminds me alot of Eve with away missions. Not sure I'm going to enjoy it, but I definitely would have enjoyed the original concept.

[Sean of the Thread]

Agreed and as far as I know there will be boarding parties but it should be fps in my opinion not automated. How cool would that be?

It could have been so much better. I'm worried they're dumbing it down.

Eve sucked when I played. I couldn't do shit without being smashed in 5 seconds by some 1 millionth level player with 6 gazbillionmillion credits.

[Revalos]

I ran into a guy today who had been part of the closed beta and he basically said that unless things change significantly before release, the game will bomb worse than SWG.

The big deal is that the game will be released with very little content and a monthly fee. This is ludicrously stupid as no one in their right mind will pay for nothing with the promise of potentially something later (after already paying $50 for the game to begin with) - see the failure of Tabula Rasa for what happens there.

2 Playable races (Klingon and Federation) at launch with the likelihood of other races and ships being brought on in expensive expansions over time. There will likely not be a galactic economy at launch, but the devs realize that there will need to be one at some point.

The biggest positive thing he said was about the randomly generated star systems. One guy on the Federation side found some seriously awesome system (NPCs that give bonuses in combat and elsewise, resources, and tactical advantages) and told his Federation buddies about it and they set about defending it once word got out about it to the Klingons. Sadly, since the entire game is focused on combat instead of diplomacy or espionage there was very little to do other than fight about it.

It seems like the Alliance/Horde WoW model is being applied to the Star Trek universe which is pretty silly, since most of Star Trek deals more with the politics and exploration than it does fighting.

Maybe things will change when the open beta opens in mid January, but I have a feeling this won't even make Age of Conan levels of following.

[Ashlander]

I wish they had gone fed/klingon/romulan in a dark age of camelot type rvr system maybe with future expansions. If any of you remembers earth and beyond the ship combat is kinda like that. can't say much more than that until the nda is gone.

[Revalos]

I wish they had gone fed/klingon/romulan in a dark age of camelot type rvr system maybe with future expansions. If any of you remembers earth and beyond the ship combat is kinda like that. can't say much more than that until the nda is gone.

Realm vs. Realm would have been awesome...and they seem to be building in that direction, but it won't be there at launch. Hell, they won't have anywhere to explore on the ships except the damn bridges at launch! This has all the stink of a rush job trying to cash in on Star Trek euphoria without any thought into how to make this an actual good game.

[Ashlander]

yep I really wish they'd push back the release date another 2 or 3 months. There's still way too much to do and open beta is set to start in a couple more weeks.

[Numbers]

I remember Earth & Beyond. Fun game with absolutely no content. People literally couldn't reach the highest level because there was no content available at that stage of the game.

From the videos of the game that I've seen, it looks pretty terrible. Looks like it was rushed, which is a shame, since there's so much potential in a Star Trek MMO.

[Ashlander]

most of the videos that are out are from an older build of the game. it's in much better shape now.

[Zanagodly]

Ah this is disappointing to hear. I had high hopes for the game.

[Ashliana]

Beta starts tomorrow for all those that pre-ordered. /bounce

[Zanagodly]

Let us know how it is please.

[kookiegod]

Let us know how it is please.

diito, if i hear a positive review from someone i know, might give it a shot...

~Paul

[Loyrl]

diito, if i hear a positive review from someone i know, might give it a shot...

~Paul

I know quite a few people that want to play this too, I hope I hear good things. I need something new to play, and can't wait for SW, FFIV, SC2, D3.

[Parkbandit]

I'm actually back to enjoying WoW now that the Hounds are back in town.. but I had some pretty high expectations for Star Trek and would definitely play it if it was a good game.

[Ashliana]

First night impressions:

Somewhat impressed with character creation, though you'd think that the term "uniform" would preclude having so many uniform options. You don't create your ship when you create your character, but you do post-tutorial (basically you can mix and match parts from 3 similar looking Miranda-class ships). There were some server issues, but they had a lot of people logging on for the first time, and they brought it down for a patch and it seemed much smoother afterwards.

Graphics while you're on the ground, in environments, are pretty blech. Space station graphics are decent. Space graphics--once you're in an actual sector--are surprisingly good. Combat is fun, it's like a faster-paced "Pirates of the Burning Sea" in three dimensions. You can focus your power on weapons/shields/engines, and you have 3 bridge officers with special abilities in combat, on cooldowns.

I'm not sure I understand the leveling system yet; there are 5 ranks (Lt., Lt. Cmdr., Cmdr., Captain, Admiral) and each has 10 grades, for a total of 50 levels. You get skillpoints from missions--not gaining experience--and when you spend a certain number of skillpoints, you go up a rank, which gives access to further skills.

You seem to get bridge officer skillpoints through successful combat. Not sure how swapping them out works for skillpoints.

Overall, the warp effect (from a standstill, while inside a sector) is cool, but they desperately need to replace the "sector space" part where you fly through systems with an on-the-bridge kind of thing.

Also, when you're in space and you want to visit your own bridge.. you beam ONTO your own bridge. And when you're ready to resume control of the ship? You beam out. Beam out into what? Space?

There are little touches like that, that need to be fixed before launch. Also, seems kind of weird that the distances between places are relatively modest--I think the game says Vulcan is 6LY from Sol, but it says the speed you're going is 25LY/sec, which is ridiculous.

At that speed, you could travel the galaxy, from one side to another, in about 25 hours. But the game terms don't even agree with each other. Speed says 25LY/sec, but you watch the little "Vulcan: 6.00 LY away" go down slowly. Meh. It's little things like that, for the most part.

Ground combat is interesting, but doesn't seem terribly deep. I've only had one away mission (besides the tutorial) to judge it, though. I'll post more on it tomorrow.

[Cephalopod]

If you choose a red shirt as your uniform, do you automatically die within the first few levels?

Serious edit: Thanks for the info. I'm pretty interested in this and the upcoming SW:TOR, nice to hear some first-hand experience. I was honestly not expecting much from STO, though.

[Zanagodly]

I appreciate these insights.

[Ashliana]

Okay, so I've played it quite a bit more now. I'm actually liking it a lot; the space combat is actually very much like Pirates of the Burning Sea/Sid Meier's Pirates!.

Basically, you pick a class (either an engineer, tac. officer or a science officer) which mostly affects your ground, not space abilities. Most people choose to pick the type of ship that matches your class, but it doesn't matter, as I'll explain.

From Lv1-10 (as a Lieutenant) you play as a Miranda class ship, regardless of your class. You can customize the ship (mix and match with 3 similar designs), but can equip the weapons of your choice as you find them, requisition them or buy them off the exchange. You earn Starfleet "Merit" points for completing missions/tasks useful to the Federation, which you can use to requisition bridge officers with different abilities and certain other things.

"Energy credits" are the other currency of the game. You get these for selling equipment, as a reward for missions/PVP/etc. You can convert random drops you find on missions to energy through your replicator (with a penalty) or tow them back to base and do it there for full price. You can use these to buy certain things, like healing items (food) for ground missions, batteries for various systems, or to use on the Exchange (auction house) to trade with players.

Once you hit Lv11, or Lieutenant Commander 1, you get to pick one of three branches; cruisers, escort ships or science vessels.

Cruisers are well-rounded ships, the biggest and best-defended. I suppose you could call these the "tank" ships, but the traditional roles don't really apply to STO. The Enterprises were all cruisers.

Escort ships are smaller, faster and have more powerful weapons. The Defiant was an example of an escort ship. DEEPS!

Science vessels are smaller, faster but have weaker weapons; instead, they get the ability to target specific subsystems (individual bridge officers can allow any ship class to do this), but have access to various utility abilities to either disable other ships, repair friendly ships/etc.

Your character's class doesn't affect what kind of ship you can get; in fact, you can (with enough energy credits) buy every ship. Nothing would stop a tactical officer from spending their points in the engineering/science branch if he wanted to pilot a science vessel but be a tac. officer in ground fights.

Most of the ship customization comes from the ship you buy, weapons you choose to equip, and the bridge officers you employ. You can replace their specific abilities and focus their training as you do your own.

PVP in the game is a lot of fun, but there's a massive population imbalance between the Federation and Klingons up to this point. The Klingons don't really have much PvE content, and you can't create a Klingon until you reach Lv6 with the Federation (don't know if this will be the case come launch-time). Klingons start off at Lv6, have easier access to equipment and mostly level up through PvP. Queue times make it somewhat difficult to get matches in beta--usually a 325-350 vs. 20-30 population difference in the queues I saw. PVP is very rewarding; you get badges to turn in for equipment, which is pretty good by PvE comparisons.

They implemented a feature I loved from Warhammer Online--the public quest (what STO calls a "Fleet Action"). It's an area where random people come together for an endlessly-repeating, but multi-stage conflict, and depending on how much you contribute, you are scored and get rewards. Think, eventually: repelling an enormous Borg invasion of Earth (like the beginning of First Contact).

I think the game has potential, and they're pretty rapidly rolling out the bug-fixes they need. Eventually they're going to add PvE content for the Klingons. Here's hoping the Borg eventually become playable. :X

(Note: If you buy the Lifetime Subscription before the launch on 02/02, you can play as a liberated Borg like 7 of 9. Costs $240. Blech).

[AnticorRifling]

Mmm 7 of 9.

[Deathravin]

It's funny she was fap worthy in that starfleet uniform with all of her implants... oh yes. But then she did other shows and stuff and she just didn't look as hot anymore... (at least to me).

*edit*
I was wrong. Looked her up. She is smokin freakin hot. It must just be that boston public show she was on. Something just highlighted some flaw with her face... probably that it didn't have borg implants LOL - those borg did a great job on her tits though.
*/edit*

[Trouble]

Your descriptons remind me of Wing Commander Privateer.

[Clove]

It's funny she was fap worthy in that starfleet uniform with all of her implants... oh yes. But then she did other shows and stuff and she just didn't look as hot anymore... (at least to me).

*edit*
I was wrong. Looked her up. She is smokin freakin hot. It must just be that boston public show she was on. Something just highlighted some flaw with her face... probably that it didn't have borg implants LOL - those borg did a great job on her tits though.
*/edit*See this is the kind of personal information you should be afraid of connecting to yourself, not the address of the home you purchase.

[Deathravin]

See this is the kind of personal information you should be afraid of connecting to yourself, not the address of the home you purchase.

Connecting to whom? Whole point of an online persona is I'm not connecting my disturbing personality traits to anything except my online persona which can be tossed away and a new one created very easily.

[Clove]

Connecting to whom? Whole point of an online persona is I'm not connecting my disturbing personality traits to anything except my online persona which can be tossed away and a new one created very easily.No shit sherlock. In addition to being paranoid, you have no sense of humor. Although I ought to point out, online personas are not necessarily the perfect cover someone with your 1337 "white hat/black hat" 5k177s should understand that.

[AnticorRifling]

Connecting to whom? Whole point of an online persona is I'm not connecting my disturbing personality traits to anything except my online persona which can be tossed away and a new one created very easily.

See now we're getting somewhere. You're afraid to be you. I gonna go buy a couch and a pipe, we'll talk this thru.

[LordBacl]

For anyone who does not already have this, here is a free code that you enter into your account (same way you entered your registration key) and it will unlock the Star Trek 2-6 movie Uniform to use on your characters.

The code is: JIH MUSHA SOH

I had thought most people had it already, but have been hearing not everyone got it in. So here you go! And I'll see you in space!

[Sean of the Thread]

Is it worth playing?

[LordBacl]

Is it worth playing?

My wife and I have been playing both the beta and now are in the headstart. Here are my thoughts:

The game is very rough. It needs expansion, and development. It is also having server crashes that really remind me of the AOLHELL days of Gemstone. During said crashes, everyone piles into a single chat room and bitches so strongly about the company, Cryptic, that it makes Simutronics bashing look reserved and tactful.

That being said, the game is also really, really, really fun. My wife and I are both hooked. How long we stay hooked depends on their development efforts, but for now, it is a lot of fun.

You begin by choosing your race. As a Federation faction, you can choose between human, Vulcan, Bajoran, Trill, Bolian, Betazoid, Benzite, Saurian, or just design your own race using one of those incredible character creators. Different races have different traits.

You also need to choose if your Starfleet profession is one as in Tactical/Command, Engineering, or Medical/Science. There are a lot of training paths within these careers, but the basic breakdown is Tactical = Attack, Engineering = Defense, Science = Buff/Debuff/Heal.

The has two types of areas: space, and ground. In space, you are in your command of your spaceship. You gradually gain officers and assemble a senior staff. You have some choice in their own races and careers. This also effects your ship. You can have a bunch of tactical or science officers, or a nice even distribution. They add powers to your ship, such as proton torpedo spreads, evasive manuvers, etc.

If a mission requires you to beam down to a planet, you select your away team from your staff (including the option for nameless redshirts if you don't want to risk anybody important) and beam down. You equip both yourself and your senior staff with everything from weapons to personal shields to science and engineering kits.

You can also form fleets, and instead of beaming down with your NPC, auto-firing, auto-healing staff, beam down with your friends to complete missions together. Obviously, in space you can join your fleet mates on missions.

The missions are a lot of fun. They have a very good star trek feel to them, and while most involve "pew-pew" several are investigative and non-violent. Some are a long saga of both. If you are a big Star Trek fan and have always wanted to have a good simulation of life in Starfleet, then you'll really be pleased with this game.

They also have a Klingon faction. The game is set 21 years after the Star Trek reboot movie, but it is 21 years in the Prime timeline future (if that makes sense to you. Sadly, it does to me). Since the destruction of Romulus, the Klingons used the opportunity to not only attack what was left of the Romulan Empire, but also to aggressively expand their territory. After years of tense relations as a result of this expanded conquest, the Federation and the Klingons once again went to war.

If you select the Klingon faction, your get to captain a Klingon ship and the intent of said character is a heavy PvP focus (but there still is some PvE). You can choose between the races of Klingon, Gorn, Orion, Lethian, ad Nausican, all of which were presumably conqured by the Klingons and brought into the Empire.

The Klingon Faction needs a lot of work, but it holds great potential. Also, they are promising that "real soon now" factions such as Cardassians, Romulans, and Dominion will all be playable.

My final thoughts: If you are willing to deal with the rocky start (the game literally launches tomorrow) then go ahead and play. If server crashes and some buggy content drive you crazy, then give it a few months and let them smooth it out. They do appear to be working hard on these issues...for now.

Star Trek fans...by which I mean the kind that sit around and talk about who they'd want on their senior staff of their own starship...will likely find this game more addictive than crack. Being able to set a course to Vulcan, beam down to the surface and just explore is amazing. They have a real freedom of exploration in the game. They completely built Deep Space Nine, and walking around seeing a 360 degree 3-D perfect rendering of the station, and then just going into Quark's to drink some Cardassian kanar is well worth 14 bucks a month to me.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Hope to see some of your folks over there. Let me know and we can go blow up some Borg or Romulans for laughs...I mean...to protect the Federation.

[AnticorRifling]

If I can't be a tribble I don't want to play.

[Sean of the Thread]

Interesting.

My little brother is debating on doing the lifetime subscription and if he does I'll be able to use a character slot. Otherwise I can't play.

I also don't see anything posted about a trial period? Oh well.

[LordBacl]

If I can't be a tribble I don't want to play.

You can get tribbles, and petting them can give you certain effects, like a life point heal, etc.

If you have two tribbles in your inventory, they breed like horny motherfuckers. Their traits, as well as color and pattern, can be bred too. So you can try and breed yourself a pink tribble that gives you a temp defense boost, etc.

You can also take them out and pet them, etc.

[Sean of the Thread]

If I can't be a tribble I don't want to play.


With a beard you actually look like a tribble.

A tribble that can munch his junk... scary.

[LordBacl]

Interesting.

My little brother is debating on doing the lifetime subscription and if he does I'll be able to use a character slot. Otherwise I can't play.

As a lifetime subscriber he'll get several extra character slots (standard accounts can make four characters). He'll also get the option for a unique playable race: freed borg (think 7of9).


I also don't see anything posted about a trial period? Oh well.

Yeah, they appear not to be offering them, which is pretty stupid.

[LordBacl]

Alright, they are still being stupid about trial periods, but the game is A LOT of fun and they seem to be adding content and listening to users, etc.

If anyone here wants to try for 10 days, free, here is a trial code:

STBX539G9QPTHCV44KYGLRB7W

Activate the key at http://www.startrekonline.com/activate

The game client can be downloaded at http://www.startrekonline.com/download

This key will only work for one person, which means it is first come, first serve. If I get more keys, I'll post them here.

[Sean of the Thread]

Thanks to Sile my brother and I started playing last night on my old ass computer amazingly.

I've gotta say it's pretty fun so far. Not what I expected at all and it runs on my 6 year old box just fine.

My problem is getting disconnected all the time but I think it's because I'm using the neighbors wireless signal.

*my other problem is I have to give up the computer for him to play when he's done at the school :(

**I'm installing a pci wireless card with an adapter later to see if that outperforms the usb one. I didn't even realize our broadband was turned off. Both networks were named the same :/

[Ashliana]

I'd recommend trying out the game with a trial, but definitely not buying the game. I'm already capped (Rear Admiral 5), two weeks post-launch and there's almost nothing to do. Tier 5 PVP is deserted because the Klingons have no content and level slowly (queues are usually about 250-300 Federation players to 1 Klingon player at cap) and the few that do play are basically the same people who love the Arena in WoW.

A few people in my guild are "abandoning ship" already--Cryptic is refunding lifetime subscriptions within the first 30 days that come with the game. Can't say I blame them. I'm not planning on renewing my sub.

[upperguy]

I'd give it a shot, anyone else have a trial key?

[shadow34]

i preordered the game with game stop, chose store pickup so I got a key emailed to me for the open beta, used that to try it out. after they closed it for the 2 days before opening up the headstart I just didnt go back, and never went to pick the game up so didnt have to pay for it. it was ok at first, but it got pretty monotonous real quick. just questing over and over.

[Revalos]

I'd recommend trying out the game with a trial, but definitely not buying the game. I'm already capped (Rear Admiral 5), two weeks post-launch and there's almost nothing to do. Tier 5 PVP is deserted because the Klingons have no content and level slowly (queues are usually about 250-300 Federation players to 1 Klingon player at cap) and the few that do play are basically the same people who love the Arena in WoW.

A few people in my guild are "abandoning ship" already--Cryptic is refunding lifetime subscriptions within the first 30 days that come with the game. Can't say I blame them. I'm not planning on renewing my sub.

Wow...that's too bad. I had a feeling that the lack of content would kill this thing. Why they didn't choose to wait to release the game (since they already had a lot of time between the movie coming out, which was IMHO the only reason to release it any earlier).

I can't believe that they would refund those lifetime subscriptions at all. I mean, if you were going to look for a dedicated fanbase, the best bet would be to use all that dough and put some damn content in the game (or at least discuss that potentiality) instead of just letting people who dropped over $200 on it just walk away with their money. Sounds like a piss poor business model.

[LordBacl]

Here's another trail key: STBX5-4FQJM-NTXYE-M9P4V-WNPQQ

[Jarvan]

Extremely sucky Game.

People were capped on day two of release.

So many bugs it makes me sad. Only redeeming factor, flying a starship. And the Sulu jokes SUCKED.