Star Trek Online

rippling said:
are you still a huge fan of the game? i have cancelled my pre order with steam , although they havent got back to me yet?
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I wouldnt say a huge fan. The game looked better in closed beta. I have bought a lifetime sub. I will play it for the first 30 days and see how much I enjoy it at later levels - if I find I am not enjoying (or expect to stop enjoying it soon) I can still cancel my lifetime sub and will just sub on a month to month basis.
 
rippling said:
oh dear not good reading but for me sums it up preety well .......


Star Trek Online Heading for MMO Graveyard?
Posted by Jack Devore | January 14th, 2010 | No Comments »

FILED UNDER: All. Games. Opinion.




I really don’t have it in for Cryptic, the designers of Star Trek Online, though it may seem so if you happened to read my impressions of the Champions Online beta last August. Many called me out for being overly hostile, for being too critical of a beta, blah-blah-blah. Folks, I’ve been around forever and I’ve played every MMO ever designed. I can spot a loser from a mile away and no amount of polishing and tweaking can fix fundamental design problems. I pegged Champions Online as a complete loser of a game and the ensuing months have proven me correct.

So it is with a heavy heart that I must slam Star Trek Online, which I have been slogging through for several days now.


First, the obvious: Cryptic is over-extended as a company. Making a solid MMO is a mammoth undertaking, a chore made all the more difficult by an ever-expanding market and increased competition. If you can’t deliver something as good as or better than the competition then you are doomed. When one considers Cryptic is a relatively small company, it’s utterly amazing they opted to take-on Star Trek and Champions Online at the same time. This business decision spelled disaster for both products as neither has received the attention they require.

In terms of Champions Online, Cryptic didn’t face a rabid fan-base full of demands and expectations, so its failure was barely visible to the gaming public. But with Star Trek, Cryptic is messing with a popular brand and its failure to deliver a compelling experience will be far more devastating.

The Star Trek Online graphics engine is stale and runs like crap, much like Champions Online. This can be attributed to a lot of players piling on the servers, which in turn hurts the frame-rate, but still: on a powerful Quad-Core machine there is no excuse for the choppy, unacceptable frame-rate I am experiencing.

Graphics can be optimized and streamlined, so that’s no big deal. The big deal arrives in the form of gameplay, the same area Cryptic dropped the ball in Champions Online.

There is nothing new in Star Trek Online you haven’t seen before and seen done better, especially in a game like EVE Online, a title the designers of STO may have wanted to investigate. Same derivative introductory sequence you played in City of Heroes and Champions, same skill mechanics, same interface, same everything, just decked out in Star Trek aesthetics. Same body, different suit. On the upside, Star Trek Online appears to be more group friendly, but that plus is also a negative for gamers who tend to play solo, which represents the overwhelming majority.

Death has no bearing on anything, so if you and your team are on a space-based mission, everyone can die endless times with no impact on your mission. You can trick yourself into thinking tactics will have some kind of impact on the outcome of a space battle or you can be a realist, cut to the chase, and plow your craft into the enemy, rinse and repeat. Zero sense of accomplishment or purpose. Empty and hollow, two things I did not want in a Star Trek MMO.
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I really hate these people who have "x, y and z MMO experience". Most of his argument is that it doesn't run well on his PC - great, buy a better one. Just because it is a "quad core" doesnt mean it will run well. I have had no problems with everything maxed out.

This MMO will be around for a long time - it is Star Trek after all.

Just sounds like he wants to go back to EVE.
 
oh why didnt CCP take on Star Trek with the eve engine, i cant beleive that a new game looks so dated gfx wise already , i know its a MMO but where is the state of the art gfx and new gameplay , the game could have been so much more
 
Bit of an unfair review? I've been enjoying it, levelling BOs making decision about their future upgrade abilities as well as my own have been fun. As well as developing tactics in space and on the ground in terms of what weapons/abilities compliment each other.

Space combat can be a bit samey, but I have had a lot of fun on some missions, today I was jumped by 6 BOPs at 0 and +1 level, i took an absolute pounding but survived to kill them all using all my BO abilities as well as getting lucky with decloaking them in combat and taking 2 out with one kill (one exploding killed another BOP)

It will get stale fast, don't get me wrong. But I am going to be playing this a lot in the first month. The storyline is decent and I enjoy the overall experience. There are a lot of problems granted, not enough customisation for the ships (easily corrected in future content patches) instancing is not very nice in my eyes in term of being instanced in sector map, I can understand encounters and missions being instanced though.

Gfx it is fine, don't know what that review was talking about, have had zero issues with frame rates and the like, even in fleet actions, he must have a bug or the drivers may be causing an issue like the early nvidia bug.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
I really hate these people who have "x, y and z MMO experience". Most of his argument is that it doesn't run well on his PC - great, buy a better one. Just because it is a "quad core" doesnt mean it will run well. I have had no problems with everything maxed out.

This MMO will be around for a long time - it is Star Trek after all.

Just sounds like he wants to go back to EVE.
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going buy your spec you shouldnt have a problem with the game lol
 
Runs fine on my PC too 60 fps constant, although it did cost over 2 grand (no, but seriously, cpu is e8400 - I run it at quite modest settings although I don't use AA, which is by choice rather than forced too).
 
VaderDSL said:
Bit of an unfair review? I've been enjoying it, levelling BOs making decision about their future upgrade abilities as well as my own have been fun. As well as developing tactics in space and on the ground in terms of what weapons/abilities compliment each other.
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Just sounds like a critic trying to get attention for himself (as most do). There is no doubt that there are a lot of unknowns, but this won't be another Champions Online - it is a lot more fun for one thing :)
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Just sounds like a critic trying to get attention for himself (as most do). There is no doubt that there are a lot of unknowns, but this won't be another Champions Online - it is a lot more fun for one thing :)
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Yup :) I play games to have fun, I have fun playing STO. That's all I need to know. If other people don't have fun then that's cool, horses for courses and all.
 
rippling said:
oh dear not good reading but for me sums it up preety well .......


Star Trek Online Heading for MMO Graveyard?
Posted by Jack Devore | January 14th, 2010 | No Comments »

FILED UNDER: All. Games. Opinion.




I really don’t have it in for Cryptic, the designers of Star Trek Online, though it may seem so if you happened to read my impressions of the Champions Online beta last August. Many called me out for being overly hostile, for being too critical of a beta, blah-blah-blah. Folks, I’ve been around forever and I’ve played every MMO ever designed. I can spot a loser from a mile away and no amount of polishing and tweaking can fix fundamental design problems. I pegged Champions Online as a complete loser of a game and the ensuing months have proven me correct.

So it is with a heavy heart that I must slam Star Trek Online, which I have been slogging through for several days now.


First, the obvious: Cryptic is over-extended as a company. Making a solid MMO is a mammoth undertaking, a chore made all the more difficult by an ever-expanding market and increased competition. If you can’t deliver something as good as or better than the competition then you are doomed. When one considers Cryptic is a relatively small company, it’s utterly amazing they opted to take-on Star Trek and Champions Online at the same time. This business decision spelled disaster for both products as neither has received the attention they require.

In terms of Champions Online, Cryptic didn’t face a rabid fan-base full of demands and expectations, so its failure was barely visible to the gaming public. But with Star Trek, Cryptic is messing with a popular brand and its failure to deliver a compelling experience will be far more devastating.

The Star Trek Online graphics engine is stale and runs like crap, much like Champions Online. This can be attributed to a lot of players piling on the servers, which in turn hurts the frame-rate, but still: on a powerful Quad-Core machine there is no excuse for the choppy, unacceptable frame-rate I am experiencing.

Graphics can be optimized and streamlined, so that’s no big deal. The big deal arrives in the form of gameplay, the same area Cryptic dropped the ball in Champions Online.

There is nothing new in Star Trek Online you haven’t seen before and seen done better, especially in a game like EVE Online, a title the designers of STO may have wanted to investigate. Same derivative introductory sequence you played in City of Heroes and Champions, same skill mechanics, same interface, same everything, just decked out in Star Trek aesthetics. Same body, different suit. On the upside, Star Trek Online appears to be more group friendly, but that plus is also a negative for gamers who tend to play solo, which represents the overwhelming majority.

Death has no bearing on anything, so if you and your team are on a space-based mission, everyone can die endless times with no impact on your mission. You can trick yourself into thinking tactics will have some kind of impact on the outcome of a space battle or you can be a realist, cut to the chase, and plow your craft into the enemy, rinse and repeat. Zero sense of accomplishment or purpose. Empty and hollow, two things I did not want in a Star Trek MMO.
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Load of rubbish its a good game, the space combat is fun as hell. The performance issue is fixed in one of the latest patches for me. The game seems huge for me and will only get bigger. Playing with mates is fun.

Sure some things could be better like item sorting, skills tree, etc but im sure it will be addressed.

This game will be good when its out if i had the money id buy a lifetime sub now.
 
you will need to spend a certain amount of skill points on yourself to level up :) if you hover over the XP bar it will tell you how many :p
 
Their getting ready for launch. Reminding that we are all going to get our accounts wiped and have to start again.

headstart for advance buyers.
 
I am working on the assumption that headstart will begin this Friday at 6pm (the time they always switch their servers on for anything) - post here if you hear different!
 
I'm hoping they switch them on when either the EU or US is mostly going to be asleep so the servers aren't crushed due to tens of thousands of people trying to log on at once. Such as something like midnight PST or midnight GMT.
 
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