Star Trek Online

[Vostok 7]

I've been playing the beta as well and I like it a lot so far. My only gripe is that it seems it takes FOREVER to get anywhere on impulse power inside the star systems. If you get involved in a nice big furball and get whacked, when you respawn and head back to the fray, half the time, the fight is almost over. And I've got the power systems tweaked so that I'm dumping all my energy into propulsion and yet still I see guys blowing by at much higher speeds. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, iunno, but flying at impulse aint gettin' it for me.

Are you still on the starter ship? You can always purchase impulse drive upgrades but the starter ship is pretty slow. If you want something that's quick and maneuverable, shoot for getting an Escort when you hit Lt. Cmdr. (level 11) and get your free tier 2 ship.

[David Hingtgen]

I just started, then the 'net went out across half the state, so I just got to play again for the 2nd time for a little bit. Got the new patch, and ironically---THEN I started getting some big bugs, but the "bug" button is gone! Graphical, mainly. My character and ship keep getting switched. I've got a Miranda class skating around on the ground, and my captain swims through space... (and can fire phasers!)

[eugimon]

Got my first quantum torpedo launcher... mmmm... quantumy goodness...

[Vostok 7]

I just started, then the 'net went out across half the state, so I just got to play again for the 2nd time for a little bit. Got the new patch, and ironically---THEN I started getting some big bugs, but the "bug" button is gone! Graphical, mainly. My character and ship keep getting switched. I've got a Miranda class skating around on the ground, and my captain swims through space... (and can fire phasers!)

That's been a common issue hopefully they'll fix it. I believe it's related to lag though.

The bug button is still there, it's just small now. Click the "question mark" button and you'll get the same screen come up.

[Vostok 7]

Got my first quantum torpedo launcher... mmmm... quantumy goodness...

For some reason I get crap for drops. It's gotten a tiny bit better since the upgrade but still I pretty much just get batteries and maybe some MkII equipment I can't use anyway. Blargh.

[eugimon]

For some reason I get crap for drops. It's gotten a tiny bit better since the upgrade but still I pretty much just get batteries and maybe some MkII equipment I can't use anyway. Blargh.

It's feast or famine. I just got the quantum torpedo console to go with it but I'm usually selling off batteries every few missions to clear up inventory space

[eugimon]

So... now that there's a bunch of in tier 2 ships, starting to see tanks and DPS cooperation come into play. My cruiser has level IV shields so I take the beating while a bunch cruisers or escorts do the damage. Makes short work of even +6 mobs.

[Vostok 7]

So... now that there's a bunch of in tier 2 ships, starting to see tanks and DPS cooperation come into play. My cruiser has level IV shields so I take the beating while a bunch cruisers or escorts do the damage. Makes short work of even +6 mobs.

It appears that Cruisers got tweaked to be better tanks too. I can take on way more ships than I could before as long as I keep up my proper shield management.

[Ghost Train]

I've never played an MMO before and EVE is extremely tempting, though I've promised myself that I'll hold off until TOR comes out (next year?). But the more stories I hear about EVE's power struggles, the PvP that doesn't always involve ships and guns and lasers, and the player politics make me all the more determined that any game I play simply must have those. I hope to George Lucas that SW: TOR has those, because that sounds like fun

I think it's awesome that EVE's lore and history is predominantly written by the player actions, and said history is as rich as any established franchise - with epic events like The Great Northern war that involved thousands of ships and untold financial losses, and Goonswarm (gaming arm of Something Awful) skillfully dissolved BoB alliance. Wish I had started playing sooner....

EVE does have its own NPC back-story which was fleshed out about a year and a half ago. In the past, all the starting NPC states were basically in a non-aggression truce, but an expansion soon put all of the major NPC nations at war with each other, giving newer players a taste of PvP and epic fleet battles.

It's truly a sandbox and that's why I love it, and don't see myself going to STO. If you want to be a miner, there are dedicated mining ships and skills, if you want to be a pirate be a pirate, if you just want to run PvE missions all day you can do that - it's true freedom. The idea of just playing 1 faction, like Federation or Klingon is too restricting - but I guess STO was designed for people who love the lore... in contrast EVE is like RDM Battle frackin Star Galactica where everyone can frack anyone.

[mikeszekely]

The new patch is FANTASTIC. The game is a billion times better than it was.

I wouldn't know. I've been trying to log in for 10 minutes. It took more than five to retrieve my characters, and it's been "loading map" ever since.

[David Hingtgen]

Yeah, loading seems to be MUCH slower than the first time I played.

[Warmaker]

I think it's awesome that EVE's lore and history is predominantly written by the player actions, and said history is as rich as any established franchise - with epic events like The Great Northern war that involved thousands of ships and untold financial losses, and Goonswarm (gaming arm of Something Awful) skillfully dissolved BoB alliance. Wish I had started playing sooner....

EVE does have its own NPC back-story which was fleshed out about a year and a half ago. In the past, all the starting NPC states were basically in a non-aggression truce, but an expansion soon put all of the major NPC nations at war with each other, giving newer players a taste of PvP and epic fleet battles.

It's truly a sandbox and that's why I love it, and don't see myself going to STO. If you want to be a miner, there are dedicated mining ships and skills, if you want to be a pirate be a pirate, if you just want to run PvE missions all day you can do that - it's true freedom. The idea of just playing 1 faction, like Federation or Klingon is too restricting - but I guess STO was designed for people who love the lore... in contrast EVE is like RDM Battle frackin Star Galactica where everyone can frack anyone.

I've never done EVE but I've played Sandbox MMOs in the past. This is exactly why I love and miss Sandbox MMOs. They are an extremely rare breed ever since WoW's success.

[Uxi]

Anyone wants to throw a beta key my way, I'd appreciate it.

[eugimon]

bought me my first escort class ship. will try it out tomorrow

[David Hingtgen]

Levelling up seems to take a while---I swear my missions are giving me LESS stuff, but taking longer. I may not get a new ship before the beta ends at this rate. (also, I'm getting real sick of the "find randomly located ships/anomalies/planets" missions--which is like half of them)

[eugimon]

Levelling up seems to take a while---I swear my missions are giving me LESS stuff, but taking longer. I may not get a new ship before the beta ends at this rate. (also, I'm getting real sick of the "find randomly located ships/anomalies/planets" missions--which is like half of them)

once you get a cruiser leveling goes really fast. Those starter ships just suck, a cruiser will let you go through 4-5 frigates in the time it takes a starter to kill 1 or 2.

you can also keep going back for the "secure sector X" missions from Sulu. Find a good group or add me "aramina@eugimon" and I'll help out and you can go through those pretty quickly and get some loot

[Mechamaniac]

Are you still on the starter ship? You can always purchase impulse drive upgrades but the starter ship is pretty slow. If you want something that's quick and maneuverable, shoot for getting an Escort when you hit Lt. Cmdr. (level 11) and get your free tier 2 ship.

Yeah, still on the starter ship and I've upgraded the impulse engines but it's still pretty slow. Poor Miranda class

I may not get a new ship before the beta ends at this rate.

I wouldn't sweat it. I think they're resetting everything and deleting the beta characters at the end of the beta period anyway.

[Roy Focker]

once you get a cruiser leveling goes really fast. Those starter ships just suck, a cruiser will let you go through 4-5 frigates in the time it takes a starter to kill 1 or 2.

That what I don't understand. Why do they games start you off with equipment that sucks? Eventually this will be a game that you Pay to Play. They don't have to give you the Enterprize but they can do you better than suck. What are paying for then? Why pay money to be a poor person doing mundane jobs in a fanasty world when you can do that in real life? When you buy a hamburger they don't just give you a patty in bun and make you clean tables to work for a piece of cheese and ketcup. That stuff comes with it. Cause they know the hamburger would suck otherwise.

[mikeszekely]

That what I don't understand. Why do they games start you off with equipment that sucks? Eventually this will be a game that you Pay to Play. They don't have to give you the Enterprize but they can do you better than suck. What are paying for then? Why pay money to be a poor person doing mundane jobs in a fanasty world when you can do that in real life? When you buy a hamburger they don't just give you a patty in bun and make you clean tables to work for a piece of cheese and ketcup. That stuff comes with it. Cause they know the hamburger would suck otherwise.

Would you have felt like playing Final Fantasy VII if you started the game at level 99 with the Knights of the Round materia?

At least then, while the game would be mind-numbingly easy, you still have FFVII's unintelligible story to murk through. MMO's tend to be a more deficient in the story area, especially since they don't really have endings. Your character's advancement winds up being the prime motivator.

[kung flu]

I think i'll take the plunge and put in a pre-order, if i'm ever gonna try a mmo it might as well be star trek instead of the usual orcs and elves stuff which never really apealed to me. How would the "Head start" or "beta" work if i don't have the hard copy to install?

[mikeszekely]

I think i'll take the plunge and put in a pre-order, if i'm ever gonna try a mmo it might as well be star trek instead of the usual orcs and elves stuff which never really apealed to me. How would the "Head start" or "beta" work if i don't have the hard copy to install?

After you have your beta key, you plug it into startrekonline.com (you'll need a Cryptic account), then you download a 7GB file. After you install that file, you wait even longer for the game to patch. Then you can play. And AFAIK, Cryptic said you'd be able to patch the beta version the retail version, so no hard copy will be necessary until your computer crashes, forcing you to reformat and reinstall later.

[David Hingtgen]

FF VII was shorter, and once you bought it, you could take as long as you wanted. You weren't paying each month and feeling a need to "justify" the montly expense. Also, 10 hours in, you were proportionately much more powerful, compared to STO.

[eugimon]

I dunno, i think the drop rate on STO is pretty liberal.

[mikeszekely]

FF VII was shorter, and once you bought it, you could take as long as you wanted. You weren't paying each month and feeling a need to "justify" the montly expense. Also, 10 hours in, you were proportionately much more powerful, compared to STO.

That's a solid argument for a traditional RPG over an MMO, but that doesn't really negate my point: progression is kind of the point.

[kung flu]

I just bought the digital deluxe version from steam, should finish downloading by tomorrow i hope. Its my first purchase from steam so hopefully it all goes well.

[David Hingtgen]

Actually, I'm kind of getting bored with it already. Missions are repeating. Last 3 space ones in a row were:

"Circle around a planet. Eliminate the 5 groups of enemies. 1 group is a battle cruiser, 2 are a pair of destroyers, and 2 are a trio of frigates". Sometimes Gorn, sometimes Orion, sometimes Klingon.

Ground missions are also all the same---"dispatch several groups of enemies---the leader of each group has shields, and most groups will also have some alien dogs to hassle you too". Klingons have targs, Gorn have saurs, dunno what Orions have.

And I'm already running into missions that I simply cannot complete with a Miranda class. Like any with 3 Negh'var class cruisers at once... Yes, I realize it's an MMO, but these are "starter" missions I'm being given that are 10x what some of the other ones are.

Again---early levelling is too slow. I don't want to do the same 4 missions another couple dozen times to get another ship. Also---is there a plot, or is the goal of the game simply to acquire a Sovereign class while reading tidbits of narrative?

[mikeszekely]

Actually, I'm kind of getting bored with it already. Missions are repeating. Last 3 space ones in a row were:

"Circle around a planet. Eliminate the 5 groups of enemies. 1 group is a battle cruiser, 2 are a pair of destroyers, and 2 are a trio of frigates". Sometimes Gorn, sometimes Orion, sometimes Klingon.

Ground missions are also all the same---"dispatch several groups of enemies---the leader of each group has shields, and most groups will also have some alien dogs to hassle you too". Klingons have targs, Gorn have saurs, dunno what Orions have.

And I'm already running into missions that I simply cannot complete with a Miranda class. Like any with 3 Negh'var class cruisers at once... Yes, I realize it's an MMO, but these are "starter" missions I'm being given that are 10x what some of the other ones are.

Again---early levelling is too slow. I don't want to do the same 4 missions another couple dozen times to get another ship. Also---is there a plot, or is the goal of the game simply to acquire a Sovereign class while reading tidbits of narrative?

You actually read the narrative?

Yeah, I'm noticing that repetition too. Last two missions I did were the ones were you fly around in a circle around a planet, eliminating five enemy groups. That seems to be the bulk of the patrol missions Sulu gives you. The plot missions come from Admiral Quinn... they're more fun, but you've got to do a bunch of other boring missions to level up.

Also, I was under the impression that when I hit 10 I'd move up to Lt. Commander and get a new ship. I hit 10, but I'm still a Lieutenant. If I'm reading the info off the bar thingy right, I don't need any more XP to move up, but I need a little more than 500 Skill Points. Is that right? I mean, is that normal? Looking at the skill point rewards for the missions that I have, and comparing that to how fast I seem to be getting XP, I think I'll actually hit 11 before I have enough skill points.

[David Hingtgen]

New ship seems to be level 11, not 10.

[Vostok 7]

Actually, I'm kind of getting bored with it already. Missions are repeating. Last 3 space ones in a row were:

"Circle around a planet. Eliminate the 5 groups of enemies. 1 group is a battle cruiser, 2 are a pair of destroyers, and 2 are a trio of frigates". Sometimes Gorn, sometimes Orion, sometimes Klingon.

Ground missions are also all the same---"dispatch several groups of enemies---the leader of each group has shields, and most groups will also have some alien dogs to hassle you too". Klingons have targs, Gorn have saurs, dunno what Orions have.

And I'm already running into missions that I simply cannot complete with a Miranda class. Like any with 3 Negh'var class cruisers at once... Yes, I realize it's an MMO, but these are "starter" missions I'm being given that are 10x what some of the other ones are.

Again---early levelling is too slow. I don't want to do the same 4 missions another couple dozen times to get another ship. Also---is there a plot, or is the goal of the game simply to acquire a Sovereign class while reading tidbits of narrative?

New ship is 11, and you get your first one free.

After you get a new ship you start leveling and making money pretty quickly.

And yes, it is relatively boring and repetitive but do as many of the story missions as you can (not the patrols or the secure or the exploration missions, but the one that progresses your story) and it's MUCH more interesting. Also, now that the different sectors are opened up there's much more interesting stuff to be found. I'm on the Romulan front right now and it's an absolute blast. Just had a mission where I was double crossed by a "federation" agent. There's also a very cool time travel mission. I've even had to repeat a couple missions due to a bug and I didn't even get bored with them.

So, in a word, it gets better.

[Vostok 7]

You actually read the narrative?

Yeah, I'm noticing that repetition too. Last two missions I did were the ones were you fly around in a circle around a planet, eliminating five enemy groups. That seems to be the bulk of the patrol missions Sulu gives you. The plot missions come from Admiral Quinn... they're more fun, but you've got to do a bunch of other boring missions to level up.

Also, I was under the impression that when I hit 10 I'd move up to Lt. Commander and get a new ship. I hit 10, but I'm still a Lieutenant. If I'm reading the info off the bar thingy right, I don't need any more XP to move up, but I need a little more than 500 Skill Points. Is that right? I mean, is that normal? Looking at the skill point rewards for the missions that I have, and comparing that to how fast I seem to be getting XP, I think I'll actually hit 11 before I have enough skill points.

Make sure you apply your skill points. It will say you've leveled up to 11, then apply your skill points through the skill window and the Admiral will ask you to return to Starbase and after you talk to him you will get your new ship (well, you have to go get it from a vendor but it will be free).

[CoryHolmes]

So, in a word, it gets better.

That's three words

Have the developers made any indications which way they'll take the player community? Will it be WoW-like player politics or the aforementioned EVE-like player politics? I'm hoping for the latter, naturally.

[Vostok 7]

That's three words

Have the developers made any indications which way they'll take the player community? Will it be WoW-like player politics or the aforementioned EVE-like player politics? I'm hoping for the latter, naturally.

Not a clue, but there's a lot to expand on.

Currently playable are the Federation and the Klingons. At the moment, the Klingons are pretty much PvP/PvE only with no real storyline. The Cardassians and Romulans are planned playable factions that should be opened in the near future and will more than likely be similar to the Klingons though some have rumored that there will be a fleshed out story with at least one of them. At some point fleets (STO's version of Guilds) are supposed to be able to have their own starbases and custom ships and custom uniforms and the like but we'll see. Full ship interiors are supposed to be mapped out at some point as well.

So really, this is a pretty early version of the game, like any first release MMO. If there's enough support, there's MUCH expansion that could be made. I doubt it will ever be like EVE as far as the sandbox-ness goes but IMO it's better than EVE in many ways.

[David Hingtgen]

I think I'm going to stop now. Last mission just sucked, to the point that I didn't finish it.

A. It shouldn't take longer to bring down a FREIGHTER than a Bird-of-Prey.

B. Smugglers and bar patrons shouldn't have more HP and better weapons than high-ranking Klingons.

C. There's a force field blocking my away team, but there is NOTHING to interact with in this corridor--and I can't go back the way I came.

[mikeszekely]

I hope they can keep their servers up a bit longer when the game goes live for real than they can now. I mean, I know it's still beta, so I know they have to fix bugs and tweak things for retail, but they put a notice in the launcher about how this is the last weekend and we should be play as much as we can. Meanwhile, the server is down for something like the fourth time since Thursday night.

[eugimon]

I think I'm going to stop now. Last mission just sucked, to the point that I didn't finish it.

A. It shouldn't take longer to bring down a FREIGHTER than a Bird-of-Prey.

B. Smugglers and bar patrons shouldn't have more HP and better weapons than high-ranking Klingons.

C. There's a force field blocking my away team, but there is NOTHING to interact with in this corridor--and I can't go back the way I came.

re: C, once you find all the stuff to scan in the bar the bar owner dude lowers the force field for you

I hope they can keep their servers up a bit longer when the game goes live for real than they can now. I mean, I know it's still beta, so I know they have to fix bugs and tweak things for retail, but they put a notice in the launcher about how this is the last weekend and we should be play as much as we can. Meanwhile, the server is down for something like the fourth time since Thursday night.

yup, this is why I wouldn't pay to play right away. Their servers suck, if it's not dumping you every ten minutes then the encounters are a laggy jump fest

Edited January 23, 2010 by eugimon