Star Trek Online Impressions lvl 1-15 (warning: Long Read AND will have game comparisons)

NTRODUCTION:

You know,  I understand the decisions that they made, and perhaps the situation that Cryptic probably was stuck in.

"make a mmo with in 2 years or less because we need money now now now now now now NOW!" part of the fault is

in some way with perpetual, putting together an idea that many wanted to see be realized, eventually we end up getting an overly

ambitious vision and vaporware mist. So here comes Cryptic to save the day, to appease the money holders for a mmo long

overdue and to appease the fans in a literally No Win situation. So what other option is there? grab a already established engine,

pull the skins off of it and slap Star Trek Skins over. and BAM--- Star Trek Online. --at least thats what I "think" what happened.

For those who want my yay or nay answer for the game and want to read something else:

No, i will not support STO in its shape or form, the "Its beta moron" response can go only so far, when beta only usually covers, stress testing, bugs, glitches, and "hidden features" that will be in the retail game; but not the structure of the game..period, this "its only beta" didnt work for AOC, it didnt work for WAR, it sure as hell didnt work for planetside or Vanguard or Matrix. so for STO being a exception is futile.

Nero: "Star Trek Online was a great game...but that was another life"

i can think of 3 parallels you can find between STO and the latest ST movie:

1. the reviews of users are as mixed as the many colors of a bag of M&M's you hate it , or you love it

2. a number of very vocal star trek purists are plotting the destruction of said group to house such product (movie, game)

3. the vision of both projects were changed more than once, and took roughly 5 years to come to reality .

But enough of that--

I am not going to buy STO, but i am also not going to have my whole impressions bashing the game. The main reason I "Trek'd" along playing the beta from lvl 1 to 15 was to understand the formula of why others enjoy the game, and how the game itself will be a success.

Table of contests time!

1.the ship and crew

2.Sound and Music

3.Gameplay

4.the genesis system??

5.The game structure

6.Graphics

7.Closing

1.The Ship and Crew

From the get go, your treated with a big avatar head, giving you a small tutorial and story of whats going on, your on the ship as an ensign, and caught between a battle against the borg. Along the way some one rolled some bad dice, all the senior officers get iced, leaving nothing but a bunch of young ensigns to handle the ship. So the ensigns fend off the borg, go to another ship to fight off another set of borg, setting it self up to beam back to your ship to fight off the borg spheres for a final time, to conclude the tutorial and give you a feel of how the ship moves and your avatar moves as well. At the end of it, you are given a bridge officer, be it tactical engineering or science. Figuring my char is a engy, probably good to have a bit of tactical to give some self defense. The officer selected, we go to earth space dock to meet with the rest of the other ensign captains in our instance.

Of that point out I never really hit me until now, that I am perhaps moving away from themepark mmos . After having my experience from playing games such as Star Trek Bridge Commander, and the ever aging Star Quest Online, I as hoping and praying there was some sort of elements that would be in STO that I would enjoy; Like choices....

a quick dialogue:

Bridge Officer: Sir, There is a hailing transmission, its the klingons

Me: ignore them, we have a strict mission to carry the ambassador to vulcan and ---

Bridge Officer: Hailing frequency Open

Me: ....what the hell?

Klingon: Yo' dawg, your ambassador is a poser , givem up or else biatch..(he didnt really say that)

Me: well , um okay, but do you have any proof of what you speak of?

Klingons: ends transmission

Me: ..oooooooookay

Now yes, STO story is focused on War with the klingons, theres a lot of battles going on so thats a given, but to be treated by this formula of your bridge officer basically ignoring any of your orders when receiving hails of any kind is both comedic and depressing, its like having a crew of 200 onboard and all of them have ADD:

BO: Sir were being hailed by the ferengi

Me: Ignore them

BO: opening transmission

Me: I SAID IGNORE THEM D@$^@$^!!

Ferengi: Hai!! buy some Energy credits!!! ursa.com energy credits!

Me: ...............

its not as bad as it sounds, when dealing with quests, its all part of the mechanic, it moves the Quest or (episode along) from start to finish, but the nagging feeling that your only there for the ride is quite visible in every episode; and the giant box with a avatar head plus dialog cements that notion everytime.

The crew themselves are customizable, which I did spend some time making them look good, I asked myself, if it would be interesting to have bridge officer specific quests that you can complete that had a small story dealing with said bridge officer , much like in the Star trek episodes, it would be a interesting mix to put some spotlight on your bridge officers now and then instead of just a flying ship blowing up the gorn and orions every 10 minutes. Bridge officer interaction is limited and leaves much to be desired, the kind of interaction to make you care about your bridge officer is non existant, but only through giving them skill sets and leveling them up, anything beyond that you will not find it in this game unless “its only beta and will be released in retail durrrr” ...

Again, about the ship, you cant walk around inside of it, for a matter of fact the only part of the ship, or your ship you can see is the bridge. The bridge itself is nothing more than a lobby, but from other impressions you have read, I wont go any further... ya, and sitting on the captains chair you have to emote sit and not click on it other wise your back to your space ship avatar.

Along the way, I believe around episode 10 or 11, I actually boarded another federation ship, and walked its halls fighting off klingons, it was a beautiful feeling—and very sad when it all ended from the quest.

The ships movements perhaps resemble something from a arcade wiiware game or some call it Pirates of the burning sea in space. The ship as a whole banks and turns either port or starboard, capturing a nice fluid feel that you are indeed commanding a massive hulk of steel in space, but the controls are simple and perhaps streamline to a certain degree, it moves as if your controlling a airplane, but you cannot do loops, rolls or pitch a perfect 90 degrees up or down. Moving downward you spiral and upward, same thing, turning with no impulse power make you turn very slowly, but with a bit of impulse your turning speed is slightly faster.

The customization of your ship is perhaps a strong point of the game, being able to work on the paint job, nacells, saucer section, switch pieces out to make your ship a hybrid of two types of ships ( like say a Constitution, nacells and wing, with a Excallibur hull and Saucer section) the real ship improvements are in its Tier, not what type of ship you select via the Cruiser, Escort, Science section, such as A Vesper Class (cruiser) ship will work the EXACT same way as a Exalibur (cruiser) Class ship. So any idea of certain ship classes with in the Ship's roll to play some what different than another is moot and non existant, if you wish to play a different roll, obtain a ship that is outside its Ship Roll (Cruiser, Escort Science).

2.Sound and Music

this being short due to not having too many problems, I like what they have done with STO's music.

For both in and out of combat, the music blends well with the game most of the time. Some songs however felt they took some inspiration from older Trek movies, while others perhaps outside of other games. The in combat music is where STO shines well, setting the tone of battle while banking your ship around over and over rotating its shields to brace for a slew of torpedos coming to smash your hull in.

3.Gameplay

I mentioned some of the game play earlier in the ship and crew section, such as lack of freedom in choices, yet I forgot to mention scanning of any kind of the game is a afterthought (ya..i know retail..).

Again, one of the bigger elements in Star Trek has been with scanning or the tricorder, searching different kinds of elements or clues due to the tricorders ever advance capabilitiy of almost finding anything---------all automated. Scanning is all automated, no need to even bother fine tuning for frequencies, that would turn players off to work for their clues or more over, frustrated them. Space Combat in STO in the beginning is slowly and repetitive, but the further you go along in the game it gets better, but to a extent.

STO space combat involves the higher the Tier you are in, from lvl 1 to 10 you are in tier 1, through out that whole time your subjegated to a limited number of abilities and moves, all pretty much with cool downs and buffs and debuffs , Just like any other mmo. When you finally get to lvl 11 tier two, you are opened up for more options, like a second Lt. Station and more bridge crew capacity and of course..more abilities-- to put it bluntly, if you have played any other mmo that has a hotbar, you will have a slim to none chance of getting confused, moreover youll pick it up if its second nature and run with it, the learning curve is small and direct.

When time comes to battle it out in space, you have your torpedos and phasers, depending what load out you have, and your shields, the name of the game in STO is this:

watch your shields and where there being hit, use your positioning to your advantage, if your good enough, to plan two or three steps ahead to take down your opponent, use your debuffs accordingly, and spam the fire at will key—after completing that, repeat the process.

Changes in tactics vary depending on how damaged you are, or what position you are in with in the battle field, but other than that there no need to work about what system needs repairing the most, if my life support is going to fail, will I have to manually repair some of my consoles to keep my ship at efficent rate, etc. etc. etc. these ship system damages come in as debuffs, and like all debuffs you have your heal button (engineering team, science team 1, polarize hull, hazard 1) from there its all automated, keeping you focused on your primary goal of rotating shields, positioning and spamming the fire button until the other ship goes boom.

Dying in the game is trivial but im told that will change in retail. When you die you respawn, something similar to playing a arena Team fortress 2 game, and your back in the action in no time, if your in a team, as long as the team is still fighting, the enemy will not reset and your back to finish them off on the second, or third, or fourth, or fifth run.

Common tactic im certain will not work in retail (...hopefully) is being on a team, suiciding the enemy til you die, though your dead and respawning, they are severe damaged, all thats left is to finish them off....if that by chance stays in retail..then all there is left is just spamming the fire at will button for the I win victory.

Gound Combat:

Ground combat to me is solid, plays like a hybrid FPS but with auto aim autofire command, the movement is fast pace, having your character doing rolls and taking cover to a certain degree brings in a nice element, one draw back is the enivornments and enemies after a while becoming stale...AGAIN I know, klingons, war, fire everything! Pew pew... but for you to get to the really good missions you have to tread through all the repeitive ones.

THE BEST MISSION EVER WAS THIS ONE: (Spoiler alert skip if you dont want to read it)

Having to go back in time to stop B'vat you encounter that teleporting talking mirror of time, the same one from Star Trek the original series, I had a laugh hearing the mirror talk so much trash while finally letting you step into the portal of time, from there you encounter the klingons..but of the time line of the 23rd century, where you see the USS Enterprise of the original series and the original series klingons. The episode progresses where you save the enterprise and the enterprise hails you.

Bridge Officer: sir were being hailed by the enterprise

Me: oh for the love a god..please dont pick up that phone.....

BO: due to time travelling it would be unwise to give any kind of communication to that ship.

Me: ........................................there is a god.......

Almost forgot, B'vat's reasoning to travel in time had something to do with Lt. Miaril Paris (Daughter of the two key officers in Star trek Voyger, Tom Paris and Lt. Torres) , the klingon B'vat captured her because she is the suppose chosen one for the klingons that will lead them..or cure them of that diease that cause their foreheads to get big (I guess hence that the TOS klingons are far different than the movie and TNG klingons). The quest soon comes to an end where you fight B'vat BUT B'vat from his younger years or B'vat from the past, he tells about a time travelling race that wanted to klingons to join their crusade, a piece of info that is certain to carry over to later quests for those who play past this portion. While the past B'vat was walking, my teammate ( I was in a group btw) asked.

“if we kill B'vat here would it end the quest and make everything normal”

“ya..and probably screw up the timeline abit”

“ya but Paris would be saved”

“......if cryptic didnt put it in the game, its not in the game”

the conversation ended there, but I saw where he was coming from as far as ending it.

However the most funniest thing was that Lt. Paris and FUTURE B'vat were across the hall..so we killed future b'vat and saved paris that way instead.

It was perhaps one of the very few, interesting quests to experience in the game that kept me playing just a bit longer..i only wished it was around at lvl 5 instead of lvl 9 or 10 or further just to play it.

4.The Genesis System

I wont say much on it, mainly because of many people strongly contesting that it is not finished or not in the beta, or whatever..from what ive experience, it should never be in the game in the first place in its current form, beta or retail..period.

This is the Genesis system in a nutshell.

Have the computer generate a random mission (a tour of click on four computers through the map with a story of a away team on that planet dying or screwing up., Killing klingons, or a planet relief mission)

tack on a generated play field (of random trees, environment and a couple of non interactive huts)

and you got the genesis System.... Think of it as Mass Effect's side quests without the Mako, and a very very small play field. Rotate the same elements in a mix and match and viola..

Perhaps down the road Cryptic will add more to the system, but we'll see

5.Game Structure

This also very short because, but not in a good way. The game Is instanced, if you thought Age of Conan was instanced, this game has got it beat hands down, it perhaps rivals the instancing of a CORPG of guild wars, and beats the tar out of Any Neverwinter Nights game I can think of, but such a game involves zoning only not instance. So STO has both Zoning and Instances of Zones. Everywhere you go expect to be in a instance, from the earth space dock, to vulcan, to travelling on a zone map, to even your bridge.. you CANNOT plot a course to said area of the map, and port over to your bridge just to goof around or look at the bridge interrior, all it will do is stop your ship to a halt until you go back to your ships avatar state....because it is a instance.

With the game being completely instanced, there is also loading screens, again a'la neverwinter nights, Age of Conan and other mmos that have loading screens via zones. Prior to loading screens and instance towards your episodes, if by chance you appear in the same instance of another few players you automatically get invited into a team, this in a way eliminates part of the need to look for a group, but also surfaces of a problem of people getting into group automatically, and receive free xp from all the hard work that the other players have done, while your away from your computer playing Mass Effect 2 ( coming January 26!!!) ...ya im guilty, I did it a few dozens times while managing the transporter consoles on th U.A.S. Hammer in Star Quest Online.-- my bad.

6.Graphics

Cryptics choice of graphics, something also a mix bag, but I approval greatly, it is a style that some say is cartoon, but shows a mix of stream line style and up to date special effects thats both easy on the eyes and easy on the computer. From my whole time in Star Trek Online, I only encounter very few game breaking bugs that have been fixed during the course of beta. Other than that STO uses perhaps what they call a KISS method in graphics but still enjoyable to look at. And not over bearing in textures and polys that only a ATI 5790 card or GTX 280 can handle—that would make no sense, esspecially how the game is put together currently.

Running STO on my nividia 9600gt was a bigger suprise, no sign of black screen of death (due to nvidias screw up of manufacturing the card in general and not fixing it with a bios update) the 9600 worked flawless, even on high settings.

7.Closing

In Closing, with everything that has been said about STO, cryptic will make their money and their fanbase, they already have with the audience they have targetted, I myself do not fit within that audience, and have no plans on converting myself to try to fit in; but that also means I have any plans on walking about on every forum post of STO and bash the game like the common keyboard warrior looking for their daily e-street cred from their peers.....really...The fact is, People enjoy this game and the ones that enjoy it have their own responsibility of supporting the game by voting with their wallets, not how many words you can type in a post. Secondly, The very beginning of the STO beta I wanted type up my impressions then and their on how much I hated cryptic and they should die in a fire, but later the more I played my hate calmed down abit, and attempted to look at things in a more rational view; sure many enjoy the current set up of STO, and there are many that desired STO to be much more indepth and interactive, to play the roles that they desired, their scotties, their mccoys and sulus, and yes even the Uhuras- and believe it or not, the Red shirts too..because by god, some of those damn red shirts did survive through out the course of history of Star trek; And picard was their savior by being a red shirt and commanding a ship, making all colors equal!

To digress from that piece of rage, I moved on else where to find what I was looking for, which also helped me type these impressions in a more, less hate filled tantrum, a small game called StarQuest Online, where basically everything that many people asked for in STO which are not in STO, are in Star Quest Online. The ship interiors, the away missions, the explorations, the ship roles and responsibilities, and abilities of each role.-- StarQuest Online to me, is what Star Trek Online is not, despite both games having Many many many problems and faults...and many many many many things that people do not agree with, both games also have many many things that gamers, on both sides of the specturm are looking for.

For the Current players that plan on Subscribing to Star Trek Online, enjoy and live long and prosper.