Star Trek Online

[Kithop]

Star Trek Online

So, I've been playing in the open beta for this, and have my pre-order in and everything (actually taking a break from WoW) - it's not perfect, but despite rumblings that Cryptic is going to drop the ball, even in the beta alone, the sheer number of patches, new content, and activity both in-game and on the forums seems to show that there's a lot of people interested and a lot of work going into it.

For those that don't know, this is basically a scrap-and-restart of the old Star Trek MMO project Perpetual started way way back in 2004 before going bankrupt in '08.  Cryptic took over, and basically reused their Champions Online engine with new art and content, for better or worse.  The game revolves around you being captain (though not necessarily 'Captain' in rank) of your own ship, doing missions for either the Federation or Klingons (who now, 40 years after Nemesis, are at each other's throats in open war again), with the occasional away team mission where you bring some of your bridge officers or redshirts with you and scan objects talk to people basically just shoot stuff. ( :/ ) Over and over again, until finally someone dies.  You know, 20 phaser blasts later. o_o;  Yeah, you can say I'm not a fan of ground combat right now.

However, the space combat is amazing - not perfect, but if you've ever played Star Trek: Bridge Commander, it's like a simplified version of that.  You don't quite have full six degrees of freedom (you're limited in how far 'up' or 'down' you can tilt, and there's no barrel rolls or anything, but the game space DOES have a lot of 'height' to it; if you're at the top and an enemy's at the bottom, you can't see each other on sensors or anything..), and you're missing dorsal and ventral shields, but you do have the other four quadrants to manage and route power to, along with managing power between your energy weapons, shields, engines, and 'aux' (turning rate, etc.).  You can equip different front and rear weapons with varying arcs - phaser and disrupter arrays have nice fat 270˚ arcs (meaning you can broadside people with both your front and rear at the same time), or you can get the TOS-style 'pair-of-beams' that have a 90˚ or 45˚ firing arc - good for high mobility escorts (think the Defiant) where you can keep circling in and pummelling people with your forward weapons.  Photons, quantums, plasma, tricobalt (!) and a bunch of other fun torpedoes and mines with varying stats on shield penetration vs. hull damage vs. reload time, with optional DoTs and all sorts are all available as well, and you can mix and match beam weapons and torpedoes in any generic 'weapon' slot for an all out beam ship or torp boat if you so desire.

Three main ship classes that are supposed to correspond to the old archetypes of tank, DPS, and support (heals/buffs/debuffs/CC) - Cruisers (Constitution, Galaxy, Sovreign, etc.), Escorts (Defiant, etc.), and Science vessels (Intrepid, etc.), and to a lesser extent, the same for your actual career path - Engineering, Tactical, and Science.  You can mix-and-match careers and ships (and if you have the energy credits, have /all/ the ships to pick and choose from as you want, though the officer career path is 'set in stone' from creation), and said ships are broken into 'tiers' to go along with your rank: every 10 'levels' you gain rank, which unlocks the next tier of ships, amongst other things like new skills.  There's no 'experience' per se, but skill points, and spending X amount of skill points = your level/rank up.

Gameplay is sharded (think Guild Wars) - you're all on the same 'server'; there's no playerbase splits like in WoW, EQ, or many other MMOs, and you can friend, talk to, and play with anyone and everyone else, worldwide (yes, even the poor bastards in the far-flung reaches of Europe and Australia have to connect to Cryptic's servers in - I believe - Boston), but each sector or region of space is limited to 20-50 people at once, and you have multiple 'instances' (for big numbers of 'multiple' in some cases... :O ) that you can either pick from at zone-in or switch manually to from the map.  If you're grouped up with someone, though, of course it's smart enough to always keep you in the same instance together.

There's also the occasional big 'fleet action' that's kind of the equivalent of a huge multi-person raid, except it's currently a lot more wide-open drop in/drop out (though I don't think there's anything stopping you from putting together your own fleet of friends and jumping in as a group).  Speaking of which, there's your typical MMO support for an 'auction house' (Exchange), 'guilds' (Fleets), all sorts of vendors for upgrades with various currencies involved (typically Federation energy credits for items vs. merit points for 'buying' officers vs. exotic raw materials for upgrading existing items vs. exploration and PvP tokens, etc. etc.).

The character creator is insanely detailed, and you can mix-and-match parts from pretty much every alien race in the game (or just pick from the existing standard Trek fare), tweaking every dimensional aspect of them, and even change your appearance (for a game-currency-fee) afterwards if you desire.  This also carries over, to a lesser extent, to the ships - right now there's 3 main models per tier and class of ship, but you can mix-and-match parts from them (e.g. have the hull from an Excelsior look-alike, but the saucer and nacelles from a Constitution) and recolour them, change the window styles, etc., as well as the obvious name-and-number (within a certain range).  As part of the deluxe edition I preordered, for example, I'll also get the option to make my ships registered as 'NX-#####' instead of the standard 'NCC-' prefix. :p  Klingons are 'IKS' I believe.

So - is anyone else interested / planning on joining this one? :P  Could always get together and build our own fleet in-game.

Videos:
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Edit: Also, really?  'C l a s s' gets censored?  Nice fail. c.c

[H u nn Y]

Edit: Also, really?  'C l a s s' gets censored?  Nice fail. c.c

HAHAHAHH, CENSOR FAIL FOR THE WIN!! XD

[Wyrd-Hotd]

I want to play this game SO HARD you have no idea ha ha XD

[Emcew]

I was in the open beta as well. Defiantly want to purchase it when I get more of the monies thing.

[Wyrd-Hotd]

Annnnddddd... i have it ha ha, been playing the headstart its great, so much fun ^.=.^

[Kithop]

Alright, then - add me up and we can make our own fleet if you're interested, or at least be on friends lists or whatnot.  I'm the stupidly obvious @Kithop  (or when I'm on my char, 'Kithop@Kithop' lol). :D

[Wyrd-Hotd]

Alrighty ^.=.^ im largen on STO and i added you

[Kithop]

Okies - wanted to see who it was as I've been getting lots of goldspammers lately. XD  Accepted. o/`

Just got Commander 2, trying to get to Captain just so I don't have this fugly Research vessel any more. ;.; I want my Intrepid...

[Wyrd-Hotd]

Ha ha im still a lieutenant XD i have not been playing a copious amount or anything though

[Kardrack]

I've had friends in closed and open beta and have been checking up on this game.  I refuse to touch it because of all the breaks in canon.  I get the "it's just a game" stuff but when you make a game based on a franchise, do some fact checking.  Non-klingons in the empire.  Being able to put romulan weapons on a federation ship.  Ferengi in the federation.  Hell, the federation is using currency in this.  I'm sure it's a good -game- but it is not a good star trek game.  And the only reason cryptic took over from that previous company, was because they were taking too long trying to make the game actually fit the canon.  Hell, in this game they removed the Command tier.  Now it's just Science and Tactical and Engineering.  No more command.  Sure all three colour shirts are there, but that's only because they didn't want engineers and tactical wearing the same colours like in all the tv shows and movies.  Oh and tribbles are a common creature in this.  Watch DS9.  Tribbles are extinct because the klingons wiped them out.  Also, why is there a war between the Klingons and Federation?  Just because?  So all those peace treaties and ambassadors between both sides mean what?  Kinda odd since klingons hold honor above all else and the Federation saved the entire empire back in DS9, thus securing trust and an alliance.  Oh, and the federation and klingons have decided to waste resources by building ships that were decomissioned about 100 years ago for being obsolete.  Heck, you can actually get shuttlecrafts that are totally unarmed.  Yeah that's a good thing to have in a time of war.  As I said, it's a good game, but it is a terrible Star Trek game.

[Kithop]

Oh yeah, definitely don't come near this if you're worried about canon. :P  I've been going through some of the missions and they've tried to tie it with the new JJ Abrams' remake in a way... sort of.  The JJ Abrams stuff happens in an alternate timeline, but the cause of that divergence exists in the STO 'original' universe.  I don't know how to format a spoiler well on here considering people have different themes, but yeah - let's just say that these guys have taken some creative liberty and put things way into the future (40 yrs. after Nemesis, I believe).  You deal with Sulu's great grandson early on, and Tom Paris' and B'Elanna Torres' kid plays a big part in one of the story arcs, and there's a mission where you get to go back in time and fix something, meeting up with the original Enterprise-A (complete with Leonard Nimoy providing some voice work in the form of audio-only hails during said mission).

The big problem with it right now is it feels rushed, and kind of forced.  It's stupid that through the course of the game, if you go the Cruiser route, for example, you end up having a (refitted-to-not-suck-so-much) Constitution and Galaxy class ship on your way to the Sovreign, or that everyone starts off in a Miranda (!).  At the same time, though, that's what people want - they don't want to see just some vaguely Trek-like futuristic Federation ships; they want to see their favourites from the TV shows represented - you can get the aforementioned cruisers, an Intrepid-class science vessel (which isn't that old story-wise), a Defiant-class escort, and even the Prometheus (! - though no multi-vector assault mode yet, or saucer seperation, nor even the variable geometry pylons or planetary landings on the Intrepid :( ).

So yeah, it takes some huge liberties with the canon for the sake of fan service and gameplay (the energy credits thing in a Federation socialist utopia does seem silly - but if it's any consolation, it's hard not to be literally rolling in the stuff by the time you're half way through the level grind.. I feel rich right now and I can't even buy any upgrades until I get my next rank! XD).  The concept of the Starfleet merits makes the most sense to me - you spend those to get your Bridge Officers retrained in new skills, to promote them under you to new ranks (to unlock new tiers of skills), and - a bit more weirdly - when re-customizing your character or ship's appearance (or ship name and registration) beyond the original freebie at each rank.  There has to be some control in giving out promotions - you gain ranks with your missions and skill points, and you spend some of your own earned merit to promote your bridge officers (up to the rank below you; e.g. as a Commander, my first officer is a Lieutenant Commander - when I get to Captain, I can promote him to Commander and possibly move up an Ensign or two to Lieutenant).

It's one of these games that feels like it could be something great, but it's still early on.  It's not quite as buggy to be still in beta (though there are a few broken missions here and there), but it also feels like it's just the base framework for something more.  Cryptic has been talking to people over the official game forums and via Twitter, soliciting ideas from people with where they want to go with the game - a bunch of furs actually clamored for tail options in the character creator, and the inclusion of the Caitian feline-humanoid race, and the devs responded saying they would definitely look into it and try and get it in an upcoming update for us.  They already added in the option to be a Ferengi on the Federation side shortly after launch (along with Federation Klingon a la Worf - who ironically in the story actually defected to the Klingon side proper after a disagreement with the Federation about one of the main baddies central to the current storyline).

Without going into too much detail as to why the Federation and Klingons are at each other's throats, from what I'm gathering in-game, it looks like it's to do with Species 8472 ('the Undine') trying to infiltrate both factions' governments and turn them on each other.  The Klingons caught them before it happened and started a campaign to kill them (finding the Orions, Gorn, etc. also heavily infiltrated and 'liberating' them - that's the other race options on that side), while the Federation seems to have already partially fallen under their sway and is acting a bit strangely, refusing to condone genocide, of course, etc. etc.

So far I'm actually playing more against the Romulans and Remans, who alternately work together to try and kill me or are at each other's throats, and drag the Hirogen in for good measure.  I believe the next area is Cardassian space (yes, you can visit DS9) and there's also Ferengi space on the map, but I haven't actually figured out how to get there yet. :p

If you want to know more of what Cryptic's trying to do story-wise, they've started posting stuff called 'The Path to 2409' on their site: http://www.startrekonline.com/fiction, and there's a couple videos related to it as well, including the whole Klingon backstory.  Again, maybe not perfectly canon, but IMO they're no worse than some of the novel writers that make crazy shit up way way in the 'future' of the series.

[Kardrack]

I can get most of that, but Orions were already part of the federation.  And why would they add the Ferengi?  The Ferengi didn't want to join because the feds don't use currency and the whole basis of Ferengi culture is commerce.  And don't get me started on bad Star Trek books.  One published novel had dolphins in the federation.  Actual dolphins.  Even had a dolphin as a ship captain.  Now that was retarded.  But yeah Paramount hired a different company that had four years to make the game.  Paramount got mad that they were taking to long because they were making it canon and actually putting in a tutorial section which was actually Star Fleet Academy.  They got fired and Paramount hired Cryptic, giving them only two years to do the job.  Great job giving Cryptic the work, since they are still working on another MMO they just released called Champions Online.  Stretching resources a bit thin, eh?

[Kithop]

...aaand I already got to Rear Admiral 5 a few days ago (aka 'max level' currently) on my Science main.

XD

They did just patch in 'dailies' fighting the Borg for epic lewtz.  They even ripped the WoW white/green/blue/purple colour coding on item rarities. :p  Except instead of 'Epic' it's just 'Very Rare'.

[Kithop]

Also, if anyone is looking for a furry-friendly fleet, I'm hooked up with the 'Starfleet Furry Alliance' - http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=88433