Star Trek Online preorder TRIBBLE!

[General Zod]

Since I'm mainly curious about the space combat. . .what can anyone say about that so far? How different is it from Eve? Are the controls for it obscenely complicated or can you pick it up after playing around for a half hour or so? How essential is it to get a group in order to complete anything?

[Kamakazie Sith]

Since I'm mainly curious about the space combat. . .what can anyone say about that so far? How different is it from Eve? Are the controls for it obscenely complicated or can you pick it up after playing around for a half hour or so?

If it's anything like ground combat then I'd say you'll be able to pick it up after playing 15 - 30 minutes. The servers keep disconnecting me, and I've been having a hard time signing on after. I'm not frustrated though because Cryptic said those things would happen during the open beta.

I'll let you know more when and if I get to space combat...

[PREDATOR490]

All I can do is really make characters, I just made two and played around with the rest to see what they get.

The disconnects and the 'maps' are full make it impossible to get any further. I suspect its going to be at least until tommorrow before any real feedback comes back.
While it was to be expected to be unstable, the maps being 'full' dosent bode well for the game when people cant log in cause there are too many online.

[Kamakazie Sith]

All I can do is really make characters, I just made two and played around with the rest to see what they get.

The disconnects and the 'maps' are full make it impossible to get any further. I suspect its going to be at least until tommorrow before any real feedback comes back.
While it was to be expected to be unstable, the maps being 'full' dosent bode well for the game when people cant log in cause there are too many online.

It doesn't mean anything for the game. This is day one of the open beta. The maps being full just means that certain servers are down while others are up while they have a shit load of people trying to play. Again this is totally expected.

[PREDATOR490]

Ok, I finally managed to get in for a brief spell and work through a bit of the introduction. The interface is rather clunky for interacting with stuff and rather sluggish.

The initial room you start in is like Ten Forward with a view out to ships fighting a Borg cube. Sadly the scene is hardly ST:FC in depth or visuals but I never really expected it to be. The ground fighting is rather weak, shooting Borg with my shity little phaser was kinda cool but I disconnected before I was about to be raped by a gang of them.
You get the standard Kill / Stun options - which arent so bad but I wanted something a bit more epic. The ranges are woefully short at the start but apparantly you can customise your ship before you even get it.

After viewing both characters and the forums it seems the character classes only really affect the ground combat aspect. Ships can be used by any class with a small contribution from the class you choose. Thus a tactical officer can fly a science ship with a little more DPS, or an Engineer can fly an Escort ship with more shields etc.
I'm thinking about going for Engineer profession rather than tactical now but will have to see how it goes.

Incidentally, your only allowed 2 characters but you can 'buy' more slots. Which irritates me and puts me off this game if they are going to offer more content you can buy to get ahead in the game.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Alright. I've been involved in several battles against the Borg and then Orion pirates. I found it easy to learn, and most of all it was blast. If someone has a specific question feel free to ask.

By the way. Don't be close to large ships when they explode. An Orion battlecruiser exploded next to me and I had 100% foward shields and it managed to penetrate those and nearly destroyed me.

[Gramzamber]

Right now there's horrible lag on the ground for me, and then there's this.

[Bounty]

God damnit. I have a key but the activation system is on the fritz. I'll try again when it's night in the US.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Right now there's horrible lag on the ground for me, and then there's this.

I have the opposite. I beam out to my ship, and there I am floating in space.

[PREDATOR490]

Trying to log into maps is almost impossible. They are all full and it bumps you back to the login screen which forces everyone to relog. No surprise the login server is getting overwhelmed as well. Apparantly anyone who got the Joined trill bonus is going to be shafted for the 'head start' because the character race needs to be selected from the beginning and it dosent become available till launch day.

[Oskuro]

Incidentally, your only allowed 2 characters but you can 'buy' more slots. Which irritates me and puts me off this game if they are going to offer more content you can buy to get ahead in the game.

Makes sense, though. Since there are three classes, and I guess not as much customization as, say, Champions Online, limiting the slots to 2 is a way to make the option of buying more slots desirable, so players can at least have one character of each class. Guess Klingon characters taking another slot will make it even more desirable.

It does feel like a dick move, I personally used up all my CO slots and am considering buying more, but it is understandable, and having more slots is not crucial to in-game advancement. I agree that if they ever start offering in-game advantages in their store, I'll get angry about it, but so far their intention is to provide non-critical functionality, like decorative content or the ability to rename your character, or extra character slots. We'll see what they do eventually.


I've been checking the official videos, and so far I'm not terribly impressed, mainly because I'm an immersion junkie, and find the current state of the game not too immersive. Then again, it is beta, and if the gameplay is solid, it helps a lot, so I'll wait until I play it. Here are the videos for those who haven't seen them:


Ship Tactics:





Game Backstory:




Edit: Hadn't seen the backstory videos yet. You can play as GORN?! If true, it'll be... Fascinating.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Trying to log into maps is almost impossible. They are all full and it bumps you back to the login screen which forces everyone to relog. No surprise the login server is getting overwhelmed as well. Apparantly anyone who got the Joined trill bonus is going to be shafted for the 'head start' because the character race needs to be selected from the beginning and it dosent become available till launch day.

Weird. I've spent a lot more time playing than getting kicked off or trying to log on.

[PREDATOR490]

I had to remake my character AGAIN but now I'm good and managed to get through to the starbase. No idea how the hell your supposed to go about teaming up. The interface is a complete mess for trying to figure out how your supposed to setup gangs even if I knew anyone to fleet with. My character is: Widow@J-Sheridan if anyone wants to team up.

Otherwise its just going to be a hard grind to getting a better ship... sigh.

[GuppyShark]

Overall the UI should all be second nature to anyone who played CoX/Champions Online.

Ship combat controls are only vaguely like EVE. The added element of directional facing on weapons and shields is what makes it interesting for me. So you will be actively trying to get as many of your weapons to bear on vulnerable sides of your target, cycling through weapons as necessary and trying to set up a torpedo hullshot.

The mission are pretty varied, I hated ground combat initially but once you get a full away team and more abilities it becomes more interesting.

[Blayne]

The third person shooter part of the game seems kinda like a cross of tabula rasa and anarchy online, haven't gotten to the ship combat part yet due to constant crash issues possibly related to Crossfire, we are not amused. Hopefully tonight I can see how space combat works.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Well, right now I'm stuck in the Sol system. Everytime I try to leave, even if I set it so I pick which instance I want, I get d/c. I'm going to take a break. I'll be back in a couple hours. Even with all the problems I've been having a good time.

[Mr Bean]

Well, right now I'm stuck in the Sol system. Everytime I try to leave, even if I set it so I pick which instance I want, I get d/c. I'm going to take a break. I'll be back in a couple hours. Even with all the problems I've been having a good time.

Trust me it's a limited servers issue. As part of the closed Beta crashing to desktop was non-existent. I never had anything but graphic lag.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Is there a full ShipList available of what you can choose form yet?

[PREDATOR490]

Is there a full ShipList available of what you can choose form yet?

Ship Listing

Thats as good as you get without going ingame and browsing the starbase shop - which still dosent list them all.

[General Zod]

I bit the bullet and pre-ordered STO off Gamestop. I should have my Open Beta key sometime tomorrow.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Well, right now I'm stuck in the Sol system. Everytime I try to leave, even if I set it so I pick which instance I want, I get d/c. I'm going to take a break. I'll be back in a couple hours. Even with all the problems I've been having a good time.

Trust me it's a limited servers issue. As part of the closed Beta crashing to desktop was non-existent. I never had anything but graphic lag.

I know. I'm not frustrated at all because I understand what Beta means. The fucking whiners in the game "OMG so much lag, and d/cs!!!!!+one. Cryptic better get their shit in order or they can forget me as a customer" I read that or some variation at least twice while playing. Fucking annoying.

I'm not crashing to the desktop though. I just get kicked back to the logon screen. I hope they change that and make it so it just cycles through a list of servers until it finds an open one.

[GuppyShark]

USS Normandy-Atlantis is too long. That totally ruins playing as a Sheppard.

[Blayne]

Alrighty made it past the tutorials and onto the current missions.

Ship combat is almost exactly like Star Trek Legacy although with quite a few improvements, I managed to get into a instanced fleet battle that was fun though kinda flawed in how they send 60 ships at us 20 of them nagvars and our little frigate fleet "won", the quests are alright quite a few following in broad strokes the TNG episode formula and sometimes subverting it like the escort mission where absolutely nothing happens.

I like having away missions with my little squad of NPCs but so far dissapointed with the linearity of it, its like "here's a script. follow it" giving thus far little to know options to come up with your own solutions to problems, for example the missions with the freighter and the Orion pirates, how about instead of escorting everyone off the ship if I am a science officer or have one fix the warp core and salvage the ship?

I hope the early quests give way to generated one shot missions soon, it ruins my immersion to do a mission only to hear my buddies on teamspeak finish doing their own identical missions.

Ground combat and missions looks like there could be alot of potential but the graphics engine used I think might be dragging them back a little at least for me and seems kinda clunky. There's also little immersion for the briefings, this is a point where I think they could have shined by having say Admiral Data or someone famous actually giving us verbal lines and having some depth to our interactions with them so that we can actually see these NPC quest givers as 'people' and less as quest vending machines as it is now we had I think Sylar/Spock or someone sounding alot like him giving us some help early one but precious little else since then.

I wonder what Yahtzee will have to say about it, the game looks like it can be fun to play and I'm looking forward to the procedural generated exploration bit but its only something I'll play if I actually have a stable income as why not? Then again WoW today is probably unrecognizable from its beta period so maybe later on I'll see alot more "pull" to get me to be a regular subscriber.

[Oskuro]

The fucking whiners in the game "OMG so much lag, and d/cs!!!!!+one. Cryptic better get their shit in order or they can forget me as a customer" I read that or some variation at least twice while playing. Fucking annoying.

I call that the "Post Burning Crusade WoW Effect", and had to endure it in Champions Online (Heck, they still whine and moan). In essence, a bunch of instant gratification seeking kids who got into WoW when it had ironed most of its own problems, and expect every new MMO to instantly be as deep, big and polished.

Maybe someone should explain the term "beta" to them. Preferably with a blunt object. </ITG>

[General Zod]

Make that "canceled preorder". I read "the combat is just like ST: Legacy" and couldn't push the cancel button fast enough. I don't remember hearing anything but bad stuff about that game.