Star Trek Online preorder TRIBBLE!

[General Zod]

Found this review on the STO site: Ten Ton Hammer's Beta Review


Snipped for brevity (not that I made a great job at it).
I must confess that, upon reading about the Captain's Log, I roleplayergasmed. Looks promising, but, as usual, we'll see. I hope that, for once, rabid Trekkies are of use and help keep the out of character names and attitudes at bay. I mean, if there is a setting for people to roleplay, it's either this or Star Wars.

What a worthless review. It's filled with hyperbole and buzzwords, and not a whole lot of 'meat'. How do the controls fare? What makes it different from Eve or WoW? What does "The AI is pretty damned good" even fucking mean? How does the interface work? The only remotely useful bit of information there is that loading times are minimal.

[Gramzamber]

Well one more day to go till the open beta. Too bad it's on American time so I have to wait till 6pm or so.
Random thought: I wonder if an JJverse Constitution will be available in the future.. hey, I'd fly it.

[Bounty]

What a worthless review.

Good thing it's not a review then?

Hands-On Beta Impressions

[General Zod]

Good thing it's not a review then?

In any case, it's completely useless and doesn't tell us dick. You might as well have called it "marketing hype".

[PREDATOR490]

How many characters are you allowed to have ?

I noticed some pre-order bonus giving 'points' that would help 'purchase' additional character slots... to which I ask how many can you normally have ?

As for the professions, seems a bit weak to me but I will be going Tactical no doubt for the simplicity of just having to shoot stuff. The uniform situation dosent seem like its going to work though. We have Pre-order stuff offering different types of uniforms from across the series so its going to look awful when you have mixed groups of TOS vs DS9 etc.
Unless you can earn the other uniforms or switch ingame - I seriously hope they allow you to change uniforms eventually rather than be stuck looking at the same character for months. It would be stupid for them to allow changing of the ships to be so flexible in design and stop people from altering their uniforms.

The site mentions being able to paint your ships so I cant wait to see the bright pinks, reds and yellow ships coming out to play. With that in mind, it looks like cruisers are going to be the biggest ships ingame and naturally that hardest to get I expect. With me going down the Tactical route that leaves me with the Escort ships and hopefully the Defiant eventually.

[Oskuro]

Regarding the preorder items, there's a mention on the STO site about how the goodies could eventually be realeased through microtransactions, so that means I can eventually get my Seven of Nine knockoff, so I'm happy.

In any case, it's completely useless and doesn't tell us dick. You might as well have called it "marketing hype".

It's a first impressions. It is as useful as any of us here saying what we think of the game. If it doesn't get into the amount of detail you wanted, then too boo-fucking-hoo bad. Although I agree these sites tend to go for the marketing buzzwords.


The main site makes mention on the game's feature list of trading, and even base building. I wonder how will that be handled. Will there be cargo ships?

[montypython]

I know that the Spacebattles guys are organizing a fleet, is anyone planning on organizing one here by any chance?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I might very well be interested in such a group (in what capacity, I'm not yet sure). It all really depends on my own impressions with the beta.

If I do like it enough to stick with it, I think a SDN group would be sweet and uniquely suited to it. I don't know if I would have the time to do a lot of organizing, but if all goes well and no one else wants the job I might take a stab at it.

[PREDATOR490]

If that review is anything to go by then I presume the majority of the first few days will be going through the tutorial and figuring out how the basics work. After that getting into proper fleets would make sense but it kinda depends on the fleet creation mechanics. I wouldnt be surprised if there is some sort of rank / money cost attached to making a fleet so best find out what it takes first.

That said, I'm game to join an SDN fleet, I will be joining another random fleet. The real fleet stuff comes into play when the game hits retail though so now is the ideal time to figure them out.

[Oskuro]

And now is when I feel sad that there is no Star Wars space combat MMO in wich to create a proper StarDestroyer fleet.

How's the ship naming, by the way? Are you forced to have USS Whatever, or can you choose the prefix?

[Mr Bean]

And now is when I feel sad that there is no Star Wars space combat MMO in wich to create a proper StarDestroyer fleet.

How's the ship naming, by the way? Are you forced to have USS Whatever, or can you choose the prefix?

It's USS Ship name to start with but XXX is available

[PREDATOR490]

Prefix as in three letters that are completely random or XXX as in... you can literally do without a prefix ?

I guess the former since the Pre-order thing of having the NX prefix would be pointless if people can set any prefix they want. Of course, with just 3 letters I can see WTF, SEX, FUK, DIK etc.

I wonder if actual ship names will be blocked A.K.A U.S.S Enterprise, Voyager etc. and will they be transferrable to other ships you get or changeable ?

Speaking of which, is the game ship system like an EVE hanger where you can have an array of ships to fly as you choose or is it one ship only ?

[Oskuro]

I thought about the NX prefix from the pre-order, but then I thought... Isn't the NX prefix part of the ship's registration number rather than it's name? For example, the ship named USS Enterprise has the registration number NCC-1701, with the ship from the show Enterprise having a NX registration number.

I personally never got why the ships in Star Trek are named "USS", doesn't that mean "United States Ship"?

Edit: Wikipedia to the rescue:

In Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek pitch, the starship is described as a "United Space Ship," and in two episodes of the original series (TOS), Kirk refers to the "United Space Ship Enterprise".

[Oskuro]

Ghetto Edit: I've been checking the wikis regarding the Enterprise, and darn, there is a feeling of derision towards the JJ.Abrams movie. It and its contents are always referred as "alternate reality" and somewhat shoved aside in the articles.

[GuppyShark]

Because Nemesis was the greatest Trek movie of all time or something? That's Wikis for you....

[PREDATOR490]

The Star Trek move IS an alternate reality and one that has only been lightly touched upon. The 'normal' timeline of Star Trek has considerable weight behind it for good or for worse and its not difficult to imagine a good portion of the 'dedicated' Trek fans dont like the idea of Star Trek undoing and moving away from what they have spent decades following.

I didnt really like the movie but I thought it was decent for what it was meant to be. However, I just dont like the TOS time period, if only for the fact most of my favourite ship designs come from the DS9 era. If STO manages to be successful it has free reign to literally take the Star Trek factions and universe anywhere they want. Could be interesting to see player inspired ship designs and story events.
Of course, looking at the ship listings and the pictures, it annoys me how cartoony they have made the Star Trek ships. Is this some sort of issue with Copyright / IP over using actual ships from the series rather than making 'almost' but slightly different designs ?

[charlemagne]

I won't preorder but wait for "real" first impressions after launch, but if I decide to get the game, I sure would want to join a Stardestroyer-fleet ("Fleets" are just like guilds/kinships in every MMO, right?)

[Gramzamber]

Question: Are your ship names and registry numbers updated on the actual hull?

[General Zod]

Question: Are your ship names and registry numbers updated on the actual hull?

Doesn't seem like it'd be a terribly complicated feat, but I can see them using tooltips for names like WoW and every other MMO. Chances are you'll never be in a position to actually see the names of other ships anyway if they were on the hull.

[ZGundam]

Question: Are your ship names and registry numbers updated on the actual hull?

As someone playing in both Closed and Open Beta, yes. your ship name and registry number are proudly displayed on your hull. Its nice to see.

Also even though when you upgrade your ship and it is assigned a ship name, you can change it to whatever you want.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I'm also game to joining whatever fleet SDN sets up...

[PREDATOR490]

STO seems to have launched, just spent a good bit making my first character and was pretty impressed with the options. It reminded me very much of Mass Effects type of character editing with far more options. The colour and uniform selections are limited to stop stupid colours coming in it seems. Its mostly a hundred variations of red , yellow, blue and white. No pinks, bright reds, yellows or pure blacks.

Unfortunatly, seems to be some issues with logging in, which is proving irritating.

[Kamakazie Sith]

STO seems to have launched, just spent a good bit making my first character and was pretty impressed with the options. It reminded me very much of Mass Effects type of character editing with far more options. The colour and uniform selections are limited to stop stupid colours coming in it seems. Its mostly a hundred variations of red , yellow, blue and white. No pinks, bright reds, yellows or pure blacks.

Unfortunatly, seems to be some issues with logging in, which is proving irritating.

Yeah, I'm having problems logging in as well. The good thing about everyone having this problem is that it will be fixed. If you ask me it's the whole point of the beta...

[PREDATOR490]

If anyone is going to be setting up a fleet then I'm game to join. My Character name is James Sheridan.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Mine is Jamog Thorden