Jan
13

STO: Open Beta Report

Remember that 16 year old girl you dated back in highschool? You know, the one with all of the acne and she really didn’t know how to kiss and…well..it all felt kind of awkward? No? Just me then? …ahem…

OK…let’s assume that you did have that kind of girl in highschool (…or that kind of boy for you ladies out there…but I’ll carry on with the girl analogy for now). Well, now, 20 years later, that girl looks like this (SFW). Big difference and now you’re killing yourself for not really seeing through the awkwardness and acne. Such it is with MMO Open Betas these days.

Let’s cut right to the conclusion, so that you can keep staring at the photo I linked above. Cryptic nailed the Trek feeling in STO. If you are a Star Trek fan, then there is a very high possibility that you will love this game. Seriously. The ship combat is a bit awkward to deal with in terms of camera and movement, but everything else about it feels bang on….at the very least, the ship combat that is in there right now is a great starting point for STO to grow from. Land combat is the black sheep, but why wouldn’t it be since it is Star Trek and we don’t see land combat that often in that universe….it’s all about the pew-pew in space. One thing that Cryptic didn’t do was pull an “Auto Assault” with land combat. When you are out of your ship, as weird as it is, it does not feel out of place to the point where it ruins the game completely. Everything outside of space seems to complement the space aspect of STO.

Technically speaking, the game needs some work. Keep in mind, that it is open beta…the FIRST day of open beta…so I expected the usual gremlins to pop in and say hi. Lag, disconnects, stutter-like gameplay, unfinished content. We’ve been through this song and dance before and we will again. Some are making conclusions based on this and again, we’ve seen that kind of behavior from gamers before too….but I’m thinking they will wish they stuck with the awkwardness at the end of the day. Unknown on how things will be at launch and I’ve stopped guessing at that since my Fallen Earth experience.

The one question I asked myself is “did I make a mistake in pre-ordering”, and the answer to that is “no”. Again, the game offers a solid Trek experience and that is what I was looking for. The offers very little in terms of new ideas for MMOs, but I’m not looking for them single handedly move the stars and moon for me….so I was happy with what I saw. STO is almost showing the same characteristics at LOTRO did back in the day and I think it’s on the same road.

So some other questions:

- Will it compete with WoW? No….now go to your room for even asking
- Will it compete with Eve? Yes.
- Will it be successful? It is on the right track to be.

So, yeah, I’m impressed with what I saw and now the only question is what to do now. I’m hesitant to play more than I did last night in order to keep the content I’m exposed to to a minimum. We’ll see.

I hope this helps out some of you in the decision making process. There is probably going to be plenty of opinions out there and this is just another one for you to read about

D out.

Posted in Editorial
20 Comments Posted by Darren

Vargen says:

January 13, 2010 at 10:02 am

I think Star Trek will compete with Eve the same way Everquest competed with Ultima Online. The people who just want any space MMO will move to Star Trek but the people who want a player-driven virtual world will stick with Eve. Hell, if the STO launch does to Eve what EQ did to UO, Eve could come out of this with more players as well.

Ben says:

January 13, 2010 at 10:59 am

Nice, positive review of ST:O. It’s not my cup of tea, but I was really surprised from the 2 hours or so that I spent on it. I was like… “Yeah, I can see the CO influences… but man, this is a lot better than CO was.”

Not sure if ST:O will steal from EVE though. From my experience in EVE (extensive), most people who actually play it — seriously — do so for the emergent, open-world gameplay. Not the space ships. I couldn’t see more then 5%-10% of EVE’s players seriously being drawn to ST:O, given the huge design differences between the games.

We’ll see though!

Carlosjuero says:

January 13, 2010 at 11:05 am

I am still holding impressions until I have more OB play time, but I am a little jaded w/ Cryptic after Champions Online. I currently don’t see STO changing my opinion too much – ground combat feels… awkward – and it is required for just about any mission you do. I think that is one of my sticking points, the pace tends to follow: Warp to location, fight enemy ships, beam to a ship, fight some baddies, beam back to your ship, fight some more enemy ships, etc.

If Cryptic actually keeps going at a good pace with updates/fixes then STO has a good chance of success. I don’t personally see it as a very likely competitor to EVE though – not until Cryptic gets its ‘One Server’ implementations down pat at least. I understand the _why_ of the one server model, but Cryptic isn’t very good about implementation of it (imo). That and EVE has a ton going for it community wise – right now in STO there isn’t much community focus (even though you are tossed into random teams when people enter an area you are in, or you enter an area they are in).

As I said, I will hold complete impressions until I have more play time under my belt – but I guess I was expecting more out of an IP as rich as Star Trek. Call me jaded but something feels like its missing (after a few hours of play) – I felt the same way with CO.

Angry Gamer says:

January 13, 2010 at 12:08 pm

Ugh no. Eve is way more open world and has a thriving economy whereas STO is basically a mission system with very little contact and a crappy chat interface taken right from Champions Online. I don’t feel the ability to explore or openly go anywhere at ALL in this game so far

As it stands right now Eve only has to fear the people that will play STO because they don’t get Eve Online or hate PVP.

STO is also very repetitive, give it a few levels and I have a feeling you will not be judging an entire MMO on a tutorial.

I mean maybe that is what people like, I don’t know. It is a good side diversion but I could not see myself logging in every night as my main MMO. I also feel like I am fighting the interface constantly. I have a feeling this open beta will cost them more subscribers than attracting people. It feels like Champions Online in space and that is a bad thing.

However I will say this: I do like the phaser combat despite what people say (my video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqTTK7R7zaM ) but I think you are jumping the gun getting this excited this early on. I can play a LOST video game with music and the characters from the show but I dont want to crown it King

Darren says:

January 13, 2010 at 1:02 pm

@Ben: Don’t think I said “steal”, but there will be competition between the two for sure…at least, there should be.

Don’t see CCP changing their game at all as these new Space MMOs come out

@Carlo: I did not like CO either and I didn’t play it past the beta…but I don’t really get the CO feeling from the ground or space combat….but taht might be because I didn’t play CO very much. However, I do see the this “STO is just CO with a different skin” all over the web, but it’s simply not the case really.

Randomessa says:

January 13, 2010 at 2:22 pm

I did play CO for a month (~20 levels and multiple alts) and I don’t see this overwhelming similarity with STO ground combat, either. I’m not sure in what way the comparison is being made to come to that conclusion. FWIW, I don’t see it competing with EVE either, unless it wins over people who were starving for a space MMO and were wary of trying EVE, as Vargen said above.

Sente says:

January 13, 2010 at 3:00 pm

The common points with CO are in the infrastructure and the engine, but gameplay is quite different I would say. If the there were no knowledge about which company made CO and which made STO I do not think there would much of these comparisions.

Combat is very different in both games, missions are different enough that there are plenty of other games that could be suitable to compare with also.

I like both games, but for different reasons.

January 13, 2010 at 3:42 pm

They have a lot of work to do is all I am saying. Especially if people on the forums keep pointing out things like this:

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=59477

The game at heart is in big trouble if they do not shore this stuff up and fast. AFK exploiting basic in game mechanics is a joke.

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January 13, 2010 at 10:33 pm

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Salaryn says:

January 13, 2010 at 10:52 pm

I like STO alot, and will play it when it goes live. It is not, however, anywhere near how remarkably well put together LOTRO was at launch.

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Colin says:

January 19, 2010 at 8:50 am

I don’t really think there is a likely hood for this to compete with EVE. I think most of the people who play EVE (myself included) will see this as a very limited restricted game, I tried the open beta just out of interest because I am a Star Trek fan and having played it I certainly wont be moving from EVE.

Brad says:

January 20, 2010 at 12:28 pm

The space combat is beautiful but its more like flying a fighter around than a capital ship…or maybe…its like helming a capital ship instead of being the captain. There really isn’t much to do during a space battle other than turn your shields toward your enemy and press the fire button. (or am I missing something?) I’m enjoying it though…but probably just because I like seeing Star Trek space combat. A better game, insofar as the “realism” of captaining a starship was Starfleet Command and its reiterations. Remember that little Interplay/Taldren line of games? If the enemy succeeded in knocking out a shield and hitting your ship specific damage could be done…a phaser bank might be knocked out, tractor beam, transporter, shuttle bay, etc and you could open your engineering tab to order certain parts fixed. You had to prioritize because you only had so many spare parts. But there was much more to do than that. Amonst these, you actually had to manage your ship’s power because it effected the time it took to recharge weapons or reinforce shields (amongst other things). I still have Starfleet Command 2 on my computer and I still play it after all these years. In STO, no specific functions of your ship are affected no matter how much damage your ship takes. This seems silly to me.

On the other hand, the combat goes at a pretty fast pace in STO compared to SFC so you might not have the time to manage things like you have to in SFC. The advantage of STO combat is that you can attack from any direction…from below, above, etc. SFC is all on only one plane and 2 dimensional. And like I said, STO is absolutely beautiful to look at. I’d prefer that the universe be more open ended.

Ground combat…so far is kinda lame but I’m really playing it for the space missions. Ground missions can make for a nice break from the space stuff though. I wish the combat better and there was more to do in this regard.

I do enjoy the game though and I think you’re right in that the game does give you the Star Trek feel. Might buy it for lack of something more interesting to play. I’m about WoW’d out, thank you. In fact, I’m sword&sorceried out. EVE is very time consuming and my life doesn’t allow for that. STO will likely draw the casual gamers away from EVE…y’know…the guys that love playing EVE then get married and/or have kids and no longer have 5 hours at a stretch to devote to a game? Yeah…those guys.

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