Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
I’ve deliberately waited before writing this as the game is only a few months old. They say a good review chooses three things you like and three things you hate then write about them. So, here’s my effort.
First I’ll tell you the three things I hate about the game, providing I can think of three. Unlike WoW, LotRO and some other games in this genre that have persistent open worlds ST:O is heavily instanced. Every time I want to change areas I have to go through a loading screen and even in safe social areas there is a maximum population of fifty players. This to me isn’t very massive, so the first “M” in MMORPG is gone.
Resistance is not so futile..
My second gripe is that the game isn’t very Star Trek. By this I mean we plough through space, phasers at maximum, solving every problem with big guns. Don’t misunderstand this is fun, but not very Star Trek I expected a few diplomatic missions here and there.
My last gripe is the distinct lack of content and difficulty. You can easily play from start to the current level cap in less than 100 hours, alone, never having to group up at all. This makes it more like a single player game with multi-player elements than an MMO in my opinion. Enough with the bad let’s move on to the good stuff.
OK, the good bits. The ship to ship combat is excellent, I don’t think I’ve played a game with space or aerial battle that has done it better. The UI for your ship and abilities is well laid out and responsive. From the beginning, as you level up, the combat becomes more tactical with enemy ships using similar skills to you. This of course requires you, the player, to adapt your own tactics.
Sometimes ST:O is outright gorgeous
The level of character customisation is very good allowing for a near infinite variety of player characters. You can play as many of the known and loved species from the show, such as, Betazoid, Trill, Vulcan and Bajoran and more are becoming available by micro transaction all the time. Ships are also customisable with a choice of three basic patterns for each ship. From there you can mix and match parts, such as, hull and saucer from these three to make a unique ship of your own.
Though many aren’t keen I like the skill tree and how it works. Unlike, for instance, LotRO where as you gain experience and level up you are given a particular skill at certain levels. ST:O skill tree where you choose your own skills and interchangeable kits, each of which, has a different set of abilities. This allows the player to specialise in, for instance, tanking while having the option to change kits at a moments notice and use a different specialisation.
I give the game a solid 75% and believe it can only improve with time.
good review, but it just sort of stops – maybe needs a good summary at the end ?
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Looks like a pretty good MMO on the balance of things – I’m trying to stay away from the evil lure of MMOs at the moment, otherwise I’d probably be tempted to give it a go
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I was really tempted to try Star Trek: Online – but decided against it as something didn’t feel quite right, I can’t quite put my finger on it.
My main question really is, how much FUN is ST:O? Is the PvP any good?
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Good review, I agree with you on most points.
I gave the beta a go when a friend gave me a spare key. Maybe it has improved since then as it was insanely buggy, but then again, it was a beta.
Aside from that, it kind of felt like City of Star Trek: Online. City of Heroes/Champions Online engines, same gameplay, same instancing, even the same system font. The character design was nice, though, I definitely have to agree with you, there.
It probably doesn’t help that I hate Star Trek with a passion, either. For now, I’ll stick to WoW and keep waiting anxiously for SW:TOR.
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We’re probably making a guild in SW:TOR, so we will definitely see you there
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Thanks for the comments guys, James you’re quite right I did omit a proper summary. I’ll try harder next time, promise ;-P
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STO gets better with every patch and PvP(space) is a lot better than WoW so I will continue playing.Gear is not very important and it has little impact on your performance + there are no forced boring raids,arena and other craps,if you want the best gear in the game you can get it(all of it) with doing what you like to do(PvP or daily quests or fleet actions or STFs).
The weekly episodes are awesome(so far featured the Breen and Devidians with 5-5 episodes) so if you miss the Star Trek TV shows you can get your weekly Star Trek fix in STO until some1 will come out with new ST series.
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I would give it 85% because the game has potential and the devs care about the players opinion and feedback(they talk with us daily),they are not ghostcrawler like “I rule the world and you are nothing” egos.
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+with season 2 we got diplomatic corps where you can earn ranks with doing diplomatic missions so its no longer all about beamt to planet—>kill them all—>beam back to ship,now you can do different diplomatic mission(aid the planet.diplomatic investigations,first contact missions)
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It does sound pretty interesting, I must admit.
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