Star Trek Online Beta #2
Totally not surprisingly after writing the last segment, I got locked out of the server by that very same bug they had allegedly already fixed. Currently the game has gone through a major overhaul with a 700MB patch and I make it my duty for all you fellow gamers and nonbelievers to actually get a new ship in this game. And this must be done soon as the beta ends in about 30 hours.
A bit later...
In order to get a new ship though, I have to level up a bit. This wouldn't be much of a problem if most of the XP wasn't given by quests (normally I like this system as it encourages questing rather than grinding). In this game, however the quests are so bland and impersonal that I couln't be bothered with them. The fact that there are no voiceovers makes it even more of a "click to accept - look for system name - kill everything in system - beam down - kill everything on site - finish quest" affair. The good thing is that I don't have to go bac to the quest giver to claim my reward and get a new quest - The "Hail Starfleet" button is a lifesaver. The bad thing is that some quests are still bugged and some important characters are not spawning correctly. I know... I know... beta.
I also discovered that there is almost no feel-able falling damage. I only once managed to damage myself and that was like a 30m fall off a small cliff and it took about one tenth of my health bar away. There is one other thing that baffles me almost as much and its called "Traya" or something similar. It's some sort of Klingon drink that almost every fucking Klingon drops when he dies.
My very own Klingon character
One of the good things however is the Anomality Upgrade System as I call it where you can trade in the anomality samples you scan in missions for upgraded parts of the ship or personal equipment. Somehow though the whole crafting thing is missing. I always thought that they had replicators that allow you to make anything but that would kind of remove the whole point of getting rewards.
Even more later...
Still haven't managed to get a new ship, but the missions are REALLY starting to annoy me. The whole teammate thing in open-instances is fun for a while, but in the end you find that sometimes you're doing a mission that you just can't complete it alone (or maybe you can, but it takes like 30 minutes and this might be only the space segment and I just can't be bothered). And if you find a good group then you'd basically still like to specialize in something, something like taking down shields, blowing up hulls or crowd control. The game doesn't really support it since you can't have weapon groupings that are saved so you could push a button and have your general solo load-out swap for your combat group load-out. This wouldn't make much sense, since starship weapons aren't really that easily changeable, but you CAN do it when not in space combat section of the game. bah, humbug.
Speaking of missions, there is nothing about the Starfleet mandate of exploration and diplomacy. Suuure, there are missions called explore this space sector or whatnot, but all this involves is moving to a new area and then doing 3 mission in that area and I'm willing to bet that at least 2 of those three missions is killing something and the third is about something you don't understand anything about.
My awesome team!
The AI is crap too, it can only beat you if it swarms you with superior numbers and firepower. On their own, they don't maneuver out of the way or use any special powers (at least in the space). The ground combat is a bit better in that section as the enemies do try to knock you down, but strangely I haven't noticed any ranged abilites. The fact that all ground combat occurs in the distance of 30 meters is rather annoying. Why the hell would I want a sniper rifle then? And no, the sniper range is also 30 meters.
Oh no, my sniper can't fire that far!
Now a bonus round of player names! w00t!
My favorite might be Tinkerbell =P
Oh and check out the whole screenshot album right here on P3 Gallery.
Star Trek Beta #1
hmm... Never had any trouble logging in, but just abruptly finished another play-session because getting kicked out from a game is perfectly normal. Also, there is a huuuuuge lag issue in public hubs, but thankfully the most of the game is instanced (like quests in DDO or basically the whole Guid Wars series) so in there the lag is much less of a problem, though there is some stuttering.
First impressions: "Wow, finally a Star Trek game!" (please note that I'm not a huge Star Trek fan, I haven't seen all the movies and I've barely seen 10 episodes with Kirk in it and some with the bald guy) and "I have no idea what these buttons do!"
First comes character creation which is quite extensive for a MMO. You get to choose between many skins (races) and even their idle poses (favorites are Robot and Creature) you really have to see them in motion to really appreciate them. Then you are thrust into the most difficult decision of the game - class choice. Since you will play a federation character to at least level 6 then this will be same for all players. You can choose between Tactical Officer, Engineering Officer and Medical Officer. And if you're like me then you have no idea how that will change your game experience, which can be quite a problem if this choice will affect your whole game. To be honest then the game does give you some descriptions and stats, but if you're a starting player then this information tells you almost nothing of importance.
Hence, I picked an Engineer Officer class (I think this was affect by the fact that I was a Cleric in Aion and I really enjoyed just healing people and not doing anything useful beyond that). You are thrust into a very unlikely tutorial scenario that besides its absurdity does teach you almost everything you need to know about the game controls and skills you currently have.
All in all the game feels like two very separate games rolled into one.
First is the away-team ground combat game. That part looks like every other MMO out there where you shoot and wait for the hot-bar skills to cool down. Note here that this is not good like the late Tabula Rasa, but more like Aion or Lineage 2. And movement controls are awful. Also, somehow there is more lag in the ground combat section.
Second part is the quite immersive space combat section of the game, which is unlike your ordinary space-sim and more like Age of Pirates or the old Pirates of the Caribbean game. If you have played those then you'll feel right at home here. It requires some tactical thinking as all hot-bar actions take a lot more time to cool down and weapons have different firing arcs and uses (either against hull or shields). This is quite enjoyable experience. One gripe with it I have - you get reinforcements as other players who do the same mission and sometimes you are faced with overwhelming odds as the scaling system is not yet quite balanced. For example on one mission three players were participating and we were getting slaughtered every 50 seconds or so. Thankfully I didn't detect any death penalty and I could re-spawn back at the mission start (which coincidentally was where the enemies were amassing at this point).
The two games are tied together very neatly too, with option to beam down to planet or back up, but I don't understand why couldn't you beam closer to your objective or beam the bloody guy you were supposed to save just up to the ship. I'm guessing there is something in the lore of the series that explains it, but I've heard that the lore says nothing about ships and enemies dropping loot. A choice which allegedly has outraged many fans, but is still essential for a MMO game.
Two other annoying things. In the middle of some missions a dialog popup is displayed even during action sequences and while it doesn't affect your usage of keyboard shortcuts, it does hinder your visibility.
And the fact that you don't auto-attack once you've attacked a target once already. I heard from the 4Guys1Up podcast that this is intentional and I can see where they're coming from, but it is still damn annoying.
Not to mention the bug where you spawn into a ground combat area as a starship or enter space battles as a HUUUGE (I'm talking Xbox size here) character and firing phasers from your thumbs or something. Awesome though immersion breaking.
One thing I had to get used to was the fact that the server is called "Holodeck" so when a GM broadcasts a message that the holodeck will be offline in 5 minutes you know what it means unlike me, who I was expecting to see some opportunity to use the holodeck on my beautiful ship USS Ess Ess (Yes, I know I ripped it from Hot Shots, but it was really late at night after I finally logged in for the first time after downloading the EIGHT GIGABYTE CLIENT). In hindsight the holodeck would seem kind of pointless.
PS. I'm pretty sure this whole post is in some way breaking the terms and conditions of the EULA, but you can't silence the press and all that first amendment bullshit.
