Star Trek Online Open Beta Starts Today

Today Cryptic Studios will begin the open beta of Star Trek Online, opening their test servers to invitees and anyone who has pre-ordered the game. The beta will run through the 26th, and the game will officially launch on February 2nd; head-start players will be allowed in on January 29th. The game is set in the old universe (not the rebooted one from last year's movie), and takes place roughly 30 years after the events in Star Trek: Nemesis. There are two playable factions to start — the Federation and the Klingon Empire — and more may become available later on. There will be conflict between the two factions, but supposedly all PvP will be "optional and consensual." Players will be able to choose from a variety of ships, and they'll see cameos from familiar characters. Eurogamer has a hands-on preview of the game, and fans of the Trek universe will be pleased to hear that "Cryptic is clearly thinking about Star Trek first and MMO convention second." A number of gameplay trailers are available for viewing, and the official forums have a nice collection of facts.

Comments

Awesome.

[Xeno man]

Can't wait to try it out.

Re:Awesome.

[Locke2005]

How can I get an invite? I've got a Champions Online membership, but only those people that were in the Champions Online open beta automatically received an invite to the StarTrek Online open beta.

Re:Awesome.

[Drethon]

People who pre-ordered can get in on the open beta, not sure if they can share the key or something... I'm willing to give them $50 to try it out, we'll see a month later :)

Re:Awesome.

[GigaHurtsMyRobot]

How about a !open tag? This is most definitely a closed beta.

Re:Awesome.

[Darinbob]

That was my first thought. I didn't think there was an open beta, so this surprised me. I've never been in a pre-release beta and only ever hear about them after the fact. So a bit disappointed now that it's closed.

Though maybe the "open" part is that anyone can be a part, as long as you pay money first. At this point I'm never touching an MMO until I get a chance to play it first, such as a free trial. There are far far too many over hyped games out there and most of them will be duds.

Re:Awesome.

[Maxo-Texas]

I did this for earth and beyond.

The 3 day edge kept me ahead of the pack until the game was closed.

While they are fighting in zones with 90% capacity, lag, etc., you are in empty zones with 10% population, no lag, getting tons of xp and/or loot.

Important to pick a soloing class or to "two box" from the very beginning.

The people who are there on the 29th who can play 6-8 hours a day will mostly be in the lead for months. Folks who can play more will catch up with them but it's hard to break out of the mass of newbies who are killing everything and lowering your xp/loot/growth rate to 10% of what it could be.

Re:Awesome.

[urulokion]

Reportedly, Massively.com is giving out open beta keys.

Re:Awesome.

[Darinbob]

Oops, spoke too soon. You can get free beta keys at some places, notably massively.com where you don't even have to suck it up and subscribe to their web site (I hate doing that).

Though reading the reviews now, I'm sort of hesitant to even try it free :-)

Re:Awesome.

[Darinbob]

That's the one drawback of MMOs to me. The other players who think it's about keeping score and having winners vs losers. Being "in the lead" should be completely irrelevant if the game is designed right. Why should an MMO be a race? My currently and only MMO now is LotRO where enjoying the journey is far more fun than rushing past it all.

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

There will be conflict between the two factions, but supposedly all PvP will be "optional and consensual."

So it's a game for pussies? Thanks, I'll stick with Eve Online. Let me know when they grow some balls and make it reasonably realistic. If you want safety, park your ass in a station and go play WoW.

A Star Trek MMO deserves more than this.

Re:Awesome.

[geminidomino]

Translation: "I'm terribly insecure and don't consider any game fun unless I can grief other players to feel better about myself, regardless of whether they are interested in other parts of the game and don't feel the need to pick on others to make their penises feel larger."

Re:Awesome.

[IndustrialComplex]

So it's a game for pussies? Thanks, I'll stick with Eve Online. Let me know when they grow some balls and make it reasonably realistic. If you want safety, park your ass in a station and go play WoW.

A Star Trek MMO deserves more than this.

QQ More?

I'd say that any community deserves someone who is able to articulate their point without resorting to juvenile name calling and cries of 'if you don't like it leave'.

In this case, your method of play is one that the makers of this game have chosen not to support, and not without good reason. The PvP gameplay in a game can result in a black hole of developer time in which vast amounts of effort are spent tweaking and redefining roles and balance.

Keeping it mostly PvE results in a hell of a lot less pressure to appease a community who calls for 'Nerfs and Buffs'. There will still be all sorts of cries for that, but in a PvE realm, it is a LOT easier to manage.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with a PvP style game, in fact, I've always played on full PvP MMOs. But to attack it in that manner simply on this press release is childish.

Re:Awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

your worried about population infringing on your little 10% growth rate(LOL) heres an obvious hint. Wait a few months. The mindless morons who think it is a race to somehow be won who want to spend 6-8 hours of their lives everyday, so let them. And when everyones chasing to get to the end content, you can come in behind them and breeze through it when they are out of the way AND when all the big bug fixes have rolled through.

Most people complain about mmo when they see empty zones and 10% population. But yeah if somehow racing the mmo is your only value in life, you might be playing this game different then the rest of us.

Re:Awesome.

[CrazyJim1]

You do know open beta means "ANYONE", follow the links and you'll get a beta key

Re:Awesome.

[urulokion]

That's the one drawback of MMOs to me. The other players who think it's about keeping score and having winners vs losers. Being "in the lead" should be completely irrelevant if the game is designed right. Why should an MMO be a race? My currently and only MMO now is LotRO where enjoying the journey is far more fun than rushing past it all.

STO is going to be like this. The jewels of the game are the Episodic missions. This is where they spent a consider about of time in their story development. They all play like a TV show episode. They are respecful to the ST cannon. And they expand it to the current era of the game very well. And they pull cannon from all of the TV shows and movies.

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

Actually, I've never griefed anyone, but I've been baited into fights a number of times. Most griefing is suicide ganking when you're in empire. But what Eve has taught me is that while games can be amusing or entertaining, they'll never be thrilling and exciting without a real risk of loss.

And if Klingons have to ask permission to fight, it's a game for pussies. A Star Trek game deserves better. It deserves rich, deep content, beautiful graphics, and absolutely cut-throat space. Otherwise you're left with something that's ultimately empty and meaningless. And while I have no problem with pointless, controlled gameplay on something like WoW where you can run around and do the 5 things you're allowed to do all you like, it pains me to see it done to Star Trek.

Yes, I get that when you crunch the dollars and cents, making WoW in space and slapping the Star Trek name on it seems profitable, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

Re:Awesome.

[geminidomino]

I don't like it either, but not for lack of imposed PvP, but because it is just YAWC as you said. A game can eschew mandatory pvp and still not be a WoW clone, it's just that this one didn't.

Re:Awesome.

[Drethon]

Cool, the pages loaded so poorly last night I didn't do much looking around at what was available beyond trying to download the client. I need to update my computer to not auto sleep and run for a couple days unless things improve...

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

If you're not going to support PvP well in a Star Trek game, make it single-player. Otherwise it's little more than a jag-off love fest with no real excitement. Yes, PvE is easier. Just like making people grind fishing in a lake every day is easy. Just like making people fly dragons around in circles for hours is easy. Just like making someone run dozens of FedEx quests is easy. Just like making someone fight the same boring thing over and over and over is easy. There are lots of easy things to do in a game and most of them stink.

And what I'm attacking is the apparent disclosure that Klingons will be asking permission to get into a fight. What's their new motto? Today is a good day to request permission to argue in strong terms?

WoW is fine. EQ is fine. They're not my cup of tea, but plenty of people enjoy them. What pisses me off is that they're doing it with Star Trek. A well done Star Trek MMO would pull me away from Eve in a heartbeat. Years of training and I'd cancel all three accounts tomorrow if there were a really great Star Trek MMO. Instead, what's announced is beta testing for Klingons asking permission to fight. It's a pussy game and until it grows a pair, it will continue to be a pussy game.

Re:Awesome.

[h4rr4r]

How does that work since enterprise fucked cannon over every chance it got?

Re:Awesome.

[negRo_slim]

You do know open beta means "ANYONE", follow the links and you'll get a beta key

Meh. Why would you want to though, it's just another MMO. I see nothing unique or inventive about it, and that's not from lack of desire. I love Star Trek, but I've also played many MMO games none of which seemingly do anything to change the basic formula established by EQ and somewhat perfected by WoW.

What with the ships and planetary surfaces it sounds an awful lot like how Star Wars: Galaxies was suppose to go.

Re:Awesome.

[Maxo-Texas]

This is partially in response to the AC below as well.

Keeping score matters because the developers make it matter.

There are huge swaths of Everquest content that 95% of the players will never see.

Back in the early years, there were many critical missions that you could only beat if you played in 10 (or more-- jboots) hour chunks. Five 2 hour chunks would likely result in nothing while one 10 hour chunk results in reward 100% of the time.

Until at least 2003, there were many monsters and loot that you never ever got to see/beat/acquire unless you could log on at 2pm EST-- because everything was dead by 3pm EST.

If you are a "winner" you get lots of unique items, cool gear, and gear good enough so that you can take on certain encounters years earlier than other players (who may never see it at all).

To make things worse, the developers tuned the new expansions to the "winners" of the previous expansion and frequently tuned very old content to suddenly be much harder than it was for the first wave of players who went through it. So the "winners" took three 4 hour attempts but for the "losers" it took twelve 4 hour attempts. (and wiping and wasting an evening is a lot more unpleasant 11 times than it is 2 times).

The developers were members of some of the "winner" guilds, gave them information on how to beat encounters and quests (since they'd forgotten to put the information legitimately in the game it had to get out there somehow). I remember one of the worst cases was there was an unnamed mob, you had to walk up to and say a particular 10 word sentence. Any other sentence (same words different order, different synonyms for the words) resulted in no response at all- as far as you knew, this was a pointless mob.

---

Winners in MMORGs get to have more fun playing new content and spend a lot less time on the boring parts of the game. In mixed groups, they are very noticably tougher and often would escape when everyone else died (so they had less downtime and leveled faster).

E&B was like this as well (If things went badly in my group, they'd die, I'd escape, I'd be grinding solo when they got back 45 minutes later).

I don't know about Wow.

If you want to truly not have "winners and losers", then at the start, no mission should have any piece longer than 2 hours. Instead of spending 10 hours to qualify, it should be five 2 hour chunks.

If you let people beta real content, then they will immediately level faster than novices.
If you let people beta AND start 3 days earlier, they'll have a huge lead on the fun content over the rest of the population.

Re:Awesome.

[zarzu]

that's not how open beta works anymore, over the last few years many open betas only had a limited amount of places and you had to get a key from some site like fileplanet. there still are oldschool open betas but pretty much every kind of beta after the nda drops is nowadays called open, no matter how many restrictions there are, like preorder, third-party site subscription etc.

Re:Awesome.

[Knara]

You must be huge in order to enjoy fucking cannons.

Re:Awesome.

[osu-neko]

It's a pussy game and until it grows a pair, it will continue to be a pussy game.

You realize that your manner of speech tends to make people think you haven't actually grown a pair yourself yet, right? You're either still in Jr. High, or you've just never outgrown it...

When well adjusted adults see a game they don't care to play, they simply don't play it. If its not their cup of tea, they find something else to do. It takes a seriously immature person to feel the need to somehow put down those who do choose to play it, or call the players or the game itself childish names (e.g. "pussy", an adjective I haven't heard much of since high school, and even then, only from the crowd that was still acting by jr. high standards).

If you're not going to support PvP well in a Star Trek game, make it single-player.

Why? Because you don't enjoy that kind of thing in an MMO, every MMO should be either designed the way you like, or it should be single-player, because no one should be allowed to enjoy a different style of MMO gaming than you? Believe it or not, you are not the center of the universe. Again, grow up. Be happy for those who enjoy that sort of thing that they're getting what they want, even if it's not what you want. As an adult, you'll find you can take joy in the good fortune of others, rather than get upset about it.

Re:Awesome.

[mattack2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_(fiction)

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

Reading for understanding is important.

First of all, your judgement of who or what I am is rather premature since it's based on a whopping couple of comments. It's entirely possible I'm just emotionally invested in the topic and am reacting more strongly than I otherwise would. Perhaps it's not that. Since you don't know, it's pretty silly to comment on the entirety of my personal emotional development based on a couple comments in the same topic.

Secondly, reading for understanding is important. I did not say anything about the individuals who would choose to play this game, WoW, or any other. I offered criticisms of WoW-like games and then specifically stated that I have no problem with the fact that a lot of people happen to enjoy that sort of thing. I'm sure plenty of people enjoyed playing ET for Atari. I have major problems with that game (along with most others), but if some people loved it, more power to them.

Thirdly, reading for understanding is important. I did not say anything that could reasonably be understood to mean I think all MMOs should conform to my own standards. In fact, I said the exact opposite. And you'd know that if you'd read my post.

I stand by my original argument that the Star Trek universe and franchise deserves better than an MMO where Klingons must beg and plead for an opportunity to open fire. Further, I hope it completely and utterly fails so we have some opportunity for a game that lives up to the Star Trek name. The sad part is that they had the ship combat nearly perfect with Star Trek Bridge Commander. If they'd built up from that, they would have had an amazing base for that aspect of the game. I mean, this is from 2002, and any one of those ships could open fire on any other at any time.

Taking surprise space combat out of Star Trek is like taking the Na'vi out of Avatar.

Re:Awesome.

[mapsjanhere]

As someone who's been playing a PvE MMO at the high level for close to 10 years, I wonder why all the PvP games out there have come and gone, each attracting THE CROWD to see it walk away due to perceived imbalances. The nice thing about a well made PvE game is that nearly everyone gets to contribute, so figuring out a raid with your 50 closest buddies over months usually takes more attention span that you can get from the average high school kid. PvE nearly always has a "flavor of the month", so you're never really happy with your class/spec/faction.

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

You get a lot less of that in Eve Online mainly because the skillpoint system allows for enormous variability. What's more, someone who's been playing a week could easily kill someone who's been playing for years in the right circumstances. Stick you in a destroyer, them in a frigate, you can probably kill them off pretty easily.

Why would someone who's been playing for years be flying in a frigate? Maybe they're just moving through to somewhere and don't want to risk a pricey ship. Maybe they're low on isk and are just doing tackling for others. Maybe they're testing something. Maybe they don't have better ships in the area and the local market has bad prices on most things. Either way, it's not just theoretically possible for a new player to kill an old player in Eve; it's downright practical.

Re:Awesome.

[Anachragnome]

"Further, I hope it completely and utterly fails so we have some opportunity for a game that lives up to the Star Trek name."

Oh, man. I have this image of you flopping around on the floor, screaming and spitting, kicking your legs, pitching a fit like the best 1st grade fit-pitcher that ever lived.

Seriously, dude. You hope the game fails so they YOU get what YOU want?

Please, do us a favor. Go back to the Eve forums. Right now. Go log in. Please...you're in the wrong forum.

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

Na, I'll stay right here as long as I please. And yes, when a game that's part of a franchise with great potential is released and is crap, it's not unreasonable to hope it'll fail so something better will take its place.

I find it challenging to believe that some people actually see a Star Trek game where the Klingons have to ask permission from Federation captains in order to shoot at them as anything but a sick joke.

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

Many PvP games come and go because the developers and managers treat the PvP part of the game like PvE; as if it's something to manipulated to suit their vision of what it should be. "Someone isn't using tool A to do task B? Break everything else they're doing with it until they use it to do task B! They stopped using tool A? Oh well. Oh, they're using vehicle B to do what? No, no, no, they're supposed to use vehicle at site B to solve that problem! Make it so they can't use vehicle B outside site B!"

This continues until people get tired of watching every strategy they develop and every new idea they have crushed by the will of devs living atop Mount Olympus.

What actually needs to happen is that when people are going a new route with tools, equipment, spells, etc, unless it completely unbalances gameplay to the point of absurdity, the devs and managers must change their idea of what those things should be doing and bring development forward based on the innovations of the playerbase. In other words, reward creative thinking and encourage players to outsmart you. That makes it their game that you develop instead of your world that they have the privilege of entering. The latter is a whole lot less inviting or fun.

This is a huge part of Eve Online's continued success. While they'll make big changes once in a while (titans, nano ships, etc), most of the changes are either tiny tweaks to existing stuff or new developments. The primary focus is moving forward rather than playing re-balance nerf bat whac-a-mole. Different ships and different equipment have different strengths and weaknesses. Rather than trying to simplify everything down to where nearly perfect balance is possible, they simply continue to expand things such that while your version of the ship might be better today, new equipment, skills, tactics, etc could easily make my version of the ship more powerful tomorrow.

And I think that's a much smarter way to move things ahead. Rather than dumbing it down so your developers can push numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, keep adding complexity and challenging players to find new variations and combinations that re-balance things. That keeps players interested, thinking, and invested. Keep simplifying things for the benefit of your devs and all you get is a game that isn't worth playing.

PvP that's worth playing is and should be hard as Hell to develop. Simply provide the players the tools to balance things on their own and stop trying to manufacture some utopian Atlantis of perfect PvP balance. It's not worth the effort because central planning works as well in a game as it did in the Soviet Union.

Re:Awesome.

[cbhacking]

Amazing. Somehow, your 3-line (plus quote) accusation of immaturity on the part of Loki 1929 makes you look *LESS* mature than he does.

Granted, the "strong emotional investment" he mentions (*did* you even read his post?) definitely comes through, but no more so than in a lot of other responses, or threads in general, in fact. Hell, while I disagree with his wording somewhat I can definitely see his point - a large part of the Trek canon involves characters "going rogue" in one way or another (usually not the main characters unless you include Kirk, although there are exceptions elsewhere). Considering that there's only one set of rights to make a game set in that universe, and said game is ignoring a major portion of that universe, I think it is *completely* reasonable to hope that there comes to exist a game which does not have this failing, and a logical prerquisite to that happening is the current game failing.

Personal insults notwithstanding, what have you contributed to the discussion anyhow? You're the one who doesn't belong here.

Re:Awesome.

[sopssa]

FilePlanet too.

Re:Awesome.

[nacturation]

I used up all my mod points, so I'll just chip in and say that while Loki's comment gave well written reasons for his opinions, you just come across as an asshole who has a fetish for first graders.

Re:Awesome.

[darkwing_bmf]

But what Eve has taught me is that while games can be amusing or entertaining, they'll never be thrilling and exciting without a real risk of loss.

What do you consider risk of loss? Do you get a new appendage amputated every time you lose your ship in EvE or is it just pixels?

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

Tens, sometimes hundreds of hours of effort. Sometimes a month or more of skill training (if you're careless). Corp or alliance resources that have been worked for. You rarely lose much of anything in games like WoW. At worst, every supposed consequence of failure is just a speedbump. In Eve, when your ship blows up, it's just gone. It's gone forever. It doesn't appear with you somewhere nice and safe. In fact, you get to sit there and look at the wreck for a few seconds before you get podded (killed) or before you escape. If you get podded, your clone is gone (buy another), your implants are gone (can cost a fortune), and if your clone wasn't kept up to date, day, weeks, or months of real-world realtime skill training is gone too.

That makes for a genuine feeling of excitement going into a fight, nervousness when you're desperately trying to escape, and real relief amd joy when you narrowly survive a battle. Enough fights going badly and an unprepared individual could be left without money, assets, ships, and with an enormous loss in skillpoints on the character. Real loss? Eve is a game that lets you go backward to such an extent that that the money you've paid to CCP most recently has been for nothing at all and so that you'll spend weeks just getting back to where you were. With that kind of threat facing you, things look a lot more interesting and you pay a lot more attention to what's happening.

Re:Awesome.

[darkwing_bmf]

It's still not a "real" loss though right? I mean hopefully those months of time "lost" were actually fun to play. Is this the case?

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

Sometimes not if you were busting your arse to get something you really wanted (ability to fly a certain ship, for instance). And sometimes it gets even better when a ship's prices jump up for whatever reason (ie. Hulks going from 100 million to 300 million in just a couple months). Lose the ship you bought for 50 mill, have to buy another for 100 mill? Sign me up!

Most loss can be mitigated by playing smart. For one, never fly what you can't afford to lose. Never fight with what you can't laugh at losing. Insure Tech1 ships. Always, ALWAYS make sure your clone is up to date before exiting a station. And finally, get used to actually losing stuff. You don't just die and reappear somewhere with all your stuff on you. Die a few times (purposely even with cheap junk) to get used to the experience. I've played plenty of games before, but never one where real, immediate, unrecoverable loss was a consequence in a persistent game. Above all, paying attention is a must. I've lost tons of stuff by eithr not paying attention to what I was doing or by falling asleep at the keyboard because I was up way too late. I've even lost a week's worth of training by forgetting to keep a clone up to date. That about pissed me off as I couldn't mine for a week until I got the skill retrained.

But in the end, I still feel a genuine thrill when I go into a fight against other players that I haven't gotten in any other game. I know I can be called primary and killed immediately or perhaps land on top in the end. I've had fights where everyone just ran, fights where enemy ships just came pouring into the system (20 vs 2 turned into 20 vs ~150 in less than a minute), and fights where we came in with a plan and cleaned their clocks. But in each and everyone one of those, there was genuine risk for everyone involved. The smart move is to risk little while getting your opponents to risk a lot. Sometimes you just put yourself out as bait and see what comes of it. It's a game that really rewards playing smart. In a lot of ways, it's like Chess.

Re:Awesome.

[darkwing_bmf]

Well, part of that does sound interesting. About how much time would you say is spent "busting your arse" compared to "feel a genuine thrill?"

Re:Awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personnaly I played WoW for over a year. I play for fun so I mainly PVE. I dont enjoy PVP that much. A good solution, I think for STO to solve the problem of the Klingon pussy having to request a fight would be to make specialized servers. Some PVE servers where Klingon request and PVP servers where it is all out war. That way the casual player who dont want PVP can have fun and those PVP nuts can have theirs

Re:Awesome.

[Loki_1929]

That depends a lot on the individual. I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to playing, so a lot of the "busting your arse" for me is actually just Eve open in another window while I'm working at home at night. In that other window, I can hunt pirates, mine ore, or do missions with varying levels of attention and relatively low risk (depending on where I am). It isn't the fastest way to raise cash, but it works well enough for how involved I am. When I do have time to dedicate to play, I actually fly the ships I've been working to buy. I'll often branch out and try new types of ships (interdictors, stealth bombers, etc) or new ways of fitting ships just because I enjoy experimenting.

Since the skill training happens in real world real-time, it's going on behind the scenes whether you're logged in or not. On the other hand, it means there are few things you can do to get skills up faster to use a ship or a particular piece of equipment. As a result, when you forget to keep your clone up to date, the results can be devastating. Then you're not so much working toward it as you are waiting for it.

One of the hardest things for me to do when I have a new ship I can fly is to resist the urge to deck the thing out with the best stuff I can buy and fly. You can burn all the money in the world on the most amazing weapons, equipment, and rigs costing hundreds of times what the ship itself costs and all it takes is a couple guys flying the same ship with cheap stuff to blow you away.

Re:Awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. I bet you're a grade A griefer. The majority EvE PvP is really little more than grief'ing. And people think its meaningful just because of the potential for loss? Think about it logically. All you are doing is causing another player to be forced to spend time grinding isk to recover the ship/implants/cargo that was lost. Where's the thrill in that? What are you losing? Time? Big deal, is spending a few hours to recover from a loss really losing anything meaningful? Are you proving that you are better than your opponent or just annoying? In most cases annoying would be my guess.

No... If there's gonna be PvP, it should based on ladders where a group is pitted against a group that it is the player skill that really determines a victory. Because in the end the only thing you get out of the game is the knowledge that one is a better player than one's opponents.

 

I'm on it

[OglinTatas]

Time to quit my job full time...

Re:I'm on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Play this, or have sex at some point in your life. Choose one.

Re:I'm on it

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

My girlfriend would probably love this.

Re:I'm on it

[Maxo-Texas]

EQ (and I assume star trek) was a good solid source of hookups.

Join a guild which is serious but "fun" (not a guild full of swearing assholes).
Pick a good looking avatar.
Flirt.

Go to your guild parties and any conventions for the game.

Re:I'm on it

[Xeno man]

I've had sex, I'd like to try playing this now.

Re:I'm on it

[Cruciform]

"You're a lot hairier than your avatar..."

"That's because I'm a wookie."

Trekkie points and makes the body-snatchers alarm scream.

That makes sense

[elrous0]

PvP will be "optional and consensual

Klingon: Sir, I propose that we engage in physical combat--with your consent of course.

Federation: Why that would be smashing! Gentlemen's rules apply?

Klingon: Why of course sir, let us stand 5 paces apart and engage in fisticuffs on the count of five.

Federation: And no hitting in the groin or other sensitive areas?

Klingon: I wouldn't dream of it, sir.

Re:That makes sense

[TheKidWho]

What the hell kind of Klingon speaks like that?

Re:That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Pre- Brow Ridge kind.

Re:That makes sense

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Do really nerdy Klingons learn English?

Re:That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

And..Woosh...

Re:That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The Star Trek Online kind. You see, it's a joke.......

Re:That makes sense

[Tauvix]

Only if they want to compare Shakespeare from the original Klingon.

Re:That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Nerdy Klingons learn LATIN.

Re:That makes sense

[Shakrai]

Federation: Why that would be smashing! Gentlemen's rules apply?

I liked Garek's idea of a fair fight:

Garek: When the Klingons attacked the station, Gul Dukat and I were fighting side by side. At one point, he turned his back to me, and I must admit that for a moment, he made a very tempting target.
Odo: You'd shoot a man in the back?
Garek: Well, it's the safest way, isn't it?

Re:That makes sense

[neoform]

Ron Burgundy's rules for fighting were better:

Let's go over the ground rules. Rule number 1: No touching of the hair or face... AND THAT'S IT!

Re:That makes sense

[TheKidWho]

Forgive me o God of /. for I have been Wooshed.

Re:That makes sense

[SoTerrified]

It's that or...

Federation: This game is so cool! I can fly through the universe! Hey, there's another ship. I'll see if I can hail him...
Klingon: *BLAST* *BLAST* *BLASTBLASTBLAST*
Federation: Hey, why aren't you responding to hails? Shouldn't we discuss this Captain to Captain? I have so many witty things to... *BOOM*
Klingon: (Proceeds to begin looting debris)

Which one do you think is going to evoke the Star Trek spirit/sell more subscriptions?

Re:That makes sense

[MakinBacon]

It was my understanding that all aliens speak English, even if they have had no contact with other civilizations.

Re:That makes sense

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

That depends on which show you watch. In Star Wars, most speak "Basic". (Notable exceptions being Chewbacca, Jabba the Hutt, and R2D2) In Star Trek, most species speak their native languages and have it instantly translated, same with Doctor Who. In Farscape, if I recall, they had a microbe thingy that was essentially an invisible Babel Fish. Same thing, though, the species speak their native dialect.

I'm not really sure which show or movie you're referring to. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot of tacos and a Doctor Who marathon to attend to.

Re:That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia nerdy Latins learn Klingon!

Re:That makes sense

[operagost]

"Standard" is spoken in Starfleet, although that fact doesn't seem to mentioned much outside of TOS and the novels.

Re:That makes sense

[elrous0]

Garek, what a great character that was. Sometimes the bit characters are the ones who really get to chew the scenery. His warped, but often hilarious, take on politics/morality/ethics/etc. was one of the many things that made DS9 my favorite of all the Trek series. DS9 was the only one of the Trek series to feature characters like Garek and Quark, who pointed out the absurdity and annoying self-righteousness of a goody-two-shoes Federation.

Re:That makes sense

[jellomizer]

Was it Deep Space 9 that stated that the Federation has engineers who can turn stones into replicators.

I always though that was funny as for most of the plots especially voyager their solution to the problem was to create a new invention that will push their ideas of science into a practical and safe device within 1 hour. Deep Space 9 was the most realistic trek that I have seen.

Re:That makes sense

[osu-neko]

Well, yes. DS9 had the one thing every other Star Trek series has lacked: interesting characters and stories.

Re:That makes sense

[trytoguess]

Yes, it was in the season six episode "Rocks and Shoals." It was a fairly amusing line all things considered imo.

Re:That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

set phasers to fail

Re:That makes sense

[Chris Burke]

DS9 was the only one of the Trek series to feature characters like Garek and Quark, who pointed out the absurdity and annoying self-righteousness of a goody-two-shoes Federation.

Indeed, both were great characters, and here was one of my favorite exchanges on that subject.

        [Garak takes a drink of root beer]
        Quark: What do you think?
        Elim Garak: It's vile.
        Quark: I know. It's so bubbly and cloying and happy.
        Elim Garak: Just like the Federation.
        Quark: And you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it.
        Elim Garak: It's insidious.
        Quark: Just like the Federation.

Hehe.

Re:That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

High Fivin' White Guy Klingons...

Re:That makes sense

[Ihmhi]

'oH pa' tlhIngan mu' vaD mob? toH HIja', loneliness.

(Running it through here and being a Simpsons fan may help one understand the reference.

Re:That makes sense

[Shakrai]

Yeah, it's almost like they ripped off some outside writing to get fresh ideas or something......

Re:That makes sense

[Shakrai]

That episode had another great Garek line in it:

Garek: "In case you've forgotten, we're in a war."
O'Brien: "There are rules, Garak, even in a war!"
Garek: "Correction. Humans have rules in war. Rules that make victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion."

Re:That makes sense

[elrous0]

Say ten Hail Linuxes and the Lord shall forgive, my son.

Re:That makes sense

[trytoguess]

Eh, lets face it. Garak could be giving instructions on how to give a horny Ferengi an enema, and it'll still be badass and quote worthy.

Re:That makes sense

[BobMcD]

Well, yes. DS9 had the one thing every other Star Trek series has lacked: interesting characters and stories.

To be fair it also lacked what every other Star Trek series had: being Star Trek.

As in, you go into space (Star) and do interesting things (Trek).

I think this more than anything else is what the people that don't care for DS9 missed in the series, and is the source of the 'soap opera' comment. And to be fair, one absolutely would have to have more soap opera style content to make up for the lack of 'new worlds and civilizations'.

I'd also contend that you get bonus points for Trek'ing on a ship named 'Enterprise' because what happens to you next kind of matters to the storyline. Sorry, Voyager fans.

I thought they said this was in the new universe.

[Commander South]

I remember them saying it was in the new continuity...

Open and consensual?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I hope that means I'm free to be green!

Level based or skill based?

[Xoltri]

"You must be level 20 to use this phaser". Is this going to happen in this game or is it skill based like Asheron's Call was?

Re:Level based or skill based?

[MBGMorden]

It was just a casual reading but last I heard it was skill based.

I went ahead and pre-ordered yesterday to get into the beta. Odds are I probably won't stick with the game, but WoW is getting a little long in the tooth and I'm looking for alternate games to at least try out.

Re:Level based or skill based?

[SomeJoel]

"You must be level 20 to use this phaser".

Well that makes sense. Starter phasers only have stun and kill, but you have to be moderately experienced to be able to properly wield additional level 20 phaser settings: intimidate, humiliate and irradiate.

Re:Level based or skill based?

[nschubach]

If WoW is getting boring, this will not hold you for more than a month unless you really love Star Trek and must buy this game in collectors edition (twice, so you have one to play and he other to display.)

I can't force myself to log into the game anymore. For one, it gets to be extremely tedious being confined to a small square box until you warp which zones you (with load screen) to a "warp zone" where you fly around and choose what zone you want to "drop out of warp" into. Add that to the extremely lackluster combat of flying circles around the enemy and occasionally turning around to distribute damage to the other shields and you have a really, really lackluster game.

Basically, it's the Champions Online game with ships instead of super heroes. Same engine, same zone structure (with instancing), and the same quest log/quest types. The only thing I can think of right now that they added is a "ship" inventory so you can upgrade shields, phasers, and such with items you will find during battles or apparently "research" by taking rare ores found in sectors to an NPC to process.

Also, Klingons are pretty much 99% PvP based so if you wanted to run a freighter or some other non-combat scenario for The Empire, you'll find yourself without. Land/ship based combat is your typical target and select 1, 2, or 3 to select your weapon/attack. But wow, you can decide if you are in attack mode or speed mode. Woo!

Re:Level based or skill based?

[idontgno]

Well that makes sense. Starter phasers only have stun and kill, but you have to be moderately experienced to be able to properly wield additional level 20 phaser settings: intimidate, humiliate and irradiate.

At what level can I set my phaser to "pew pew pwn"?

Re:Level based or skill based?

[Nasarius]

you have a really, really lackluster game.

I only played this past weekend after I got a beta key, but I have to agree. It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Star Trek MMORPG, if your expectations were entirely unambitious. The bridge officers change things up a little, but mostly in a cosmetic way. Gameplay is fundamentally unchanged from the model EQ and WoW set over the past decade. It's sadly typical MMO quest grind, and not half as polished as WoW. The interface, for example, is sluggish, poorly designed, and buggy.

Maybe if you're a big Star Trek fan, it'll still be fun. But if you've had your fill of typical MMOs that do nothing interesting with the whole massively multiplayer thing, I'd steer clear.

Re:Level based or skill based?

[TheKidWho]

To be honest, I found the combat at least a bit more engaging than WoW ever was, also with the last closed beta patch they significantly increased the difficulty level which made it more fun for me.

I think the game has a chance, especially if they improve it as they have been and add Bridges for warp travel instead of the silly warp sector.

Re:Level based or skill based?

[Sulphur]

"You must be level 20 to use this phaser". Is this going to happen in this game or is it skill based like Asheron's Call was?

Is level 20 based on skill?

Re:Level based or skill based?

[artemis67]

One question I have about ST:O has to do with armor/clothing... I've played two MMORPG's, and being able to constantly upgrade your look seems to be a big deal.

In the ST universe, the Federation uniforms are very minimalist and rank is denoted by collar pins. Does that mean that, from the first day through the last level, your look doesn't change very much?

Re:Level based or skill based?

[rgviza]

It is a new game. Wow has been in production for 5 years or so. Of course it's more polished. STO is still in beta, and will be for the next couple of years ;)

STO doesn't have an economy yet and there are quite a few other features that aren't implemented yet. With MMO's, beta is the new alpha... On February 2 it will enter beta as defined by non-game developers, but it's really still alpha because it's not even feature complete.

You either get in now, and get items and experience that will help you later when they get the game done, or you join in a couple of years when it's polished and be a noob.

MMO's are usually done this way because they are very complex and the developers run out of money before they can finish it. As a player you have a choice of when to join.

I've been through 8 mmos and they are all the same with regard to game releases. They are never done or even feature complete when they are released. Whether you choose to support this or not is up to you. Buyer beware ; )

Re:Level based or skill based?

[urulokion]

There is some of that. There are 6 tier's (Mk) of equipment which are limited by level. (Mk I/II useable level 1-10, Mk III/IV usable at level 11+, etc). But drops and rewards are generally usably by your character. Sometimes you'll get a Mk drop then you can as you approaching a new rank.

Re:Level based or skill based?

[urulokion]

You can only if you want them too. There are various bit of equipment (Armor/Kits) which will show on you avatar. But you can hide then if you desire. The uniform pieces are limited, but they are quite versatile with different patterns and colors (4 colors on most pirces). Just about any combination you can get will look like Star Trek. And the Custom Alien race gives you the most options and the most versatility. And you can change you looks at any time, assuming you have enough game currency (Energy Credits).

Re:Level based or skill based?

[urulokion]

Skills levels don't affect what equipment you can use. It's solely gated based on character level. If you have the Assault skills, it affects any weapon that you use. Hand Phaser, Phase Rifle - Sniper Mk I, Phaser Assult Rifle - Auto Sweep Mk IV, and a Disrupter Bolt Rifle - Pulse Wave Mk VI.

Re:Level based or skill based?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sucker! I just got a free key from massively.com

Re:Level based or skill based?

[Nasarius]

And a few years from now, will STO offer anything substantial beyond the usual MMO experience? Probably not. If you want a Star Trek flavored MMO, you probably won't mind the imperfections and you'll love the incremental developments. If you're sick of the usual MMO schtick, a big meh.

Re:Level based or skill based?

[MBGMorden]

Having spent a few hours with the Beta last night, I'd agree.

The character creator was cool. Nice be able to create an Andorian instead of an Elf in an MMORPG . . .

The ship to ship combat was like a cool minigame that's fun for 30 minutes or so.

The outside of the ship portions run worse than most free-to-play MMORPG's I've tried. Terribly jumpy and slow. Yes I know it's a beta, but this thing is 3 weeks from release.

Besides that the interface itself doesn't feel very good and the game as a whole just wasn't engaging unless you really, really wanted to shoot up some Borg.

EVE Online does the "in space" part better than this game, and virtually every other MMORPG I've tried does "in the world" better. I don't think I'll be going ahead with the pre-order.

Re:Level based or skill based?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a clue: if the game is not polished at release and is not going to be polished for a couple of years, then it won't still be around in a couple of years. Or if it is, it will have a miniscule subscriber base and nobody willing to come check it out now that it has improved.

The tolerance for crappy unfinished games just isn't there among today's MMORPG players. Just ask Funcom or Mythic.

No thanks.

[Kirin Fenrir]

- 18 month development time

- lackluster character animation

- PVP-only Klingon "faction"

- typical tank/dps/healer holy trinity (even in ships for pete's sake)

- subscription fee AND microtransation store


This is a half-ass, generic MMO wrapped in the designs and sounds of a franchise we're prone to get nostalgic about. It's a cheap ploy, and I won't support Cryptic and their shitty games.

Yes, I'm bitter at the terrible mess that was Champions Online. But they have not shown any change as a developer.

Re:No thanks.

[IronChef]

I watched a guy at work playing the closed beta. One of his newb missions was to fight the Borg.

It looked just like a fantasy MMO game where newbs showed up to fight rats, except the rats were Borg. There may have been some crates, too. And lasers.

I would rather have been blasting Denebian slime devils than the FREAKIN' BORG, who should be too tough for newbs. So their talk about respecting the story is not entirely accurate.

Re:No thanks.

[ChinggisK]

Add in the fact that they require you to preorder the game to get into their "open" beta, and I'm inclined to agree.

Re:No thanks.

[FileNotFound]

Yeah this game is going to be crap. It won't last more than 2 years, and really I don't think they expect it to. There is no high end content and the plans for it are unclear. The pvp is a joke, the pve is dull and repetitive. Space combat may seem fun at first but it gets old fast.

In fact the ancient Earth and Beyond had space combat that felt more polished and actually looked better.

The graphics in this game are horrible. I do mean horrible. Now don't get me wrong, a great game can have bad graphics. But seriously, this is the ugliest mainstream MMO out there. The ship explosions are ugly. Freespace 2 looked way better - and that was more than 10 years ago.

I don't understand how anyone can be excited about this game. My friends who are all WoW and EVE veterans have zero interest in STO after playing it.

Re:No thanks.

[WarlockD]

Been in the closed beta for a bit. You need a proper interface now a days.

Might play it more now, but the PvP has been a long time coming and I am not sure how fun it will be. I haven't been able to even get high enough to play Klingon with only 3 hour play sessions, twice a week.

Then its the way its set up. Ok I understand its an MMO, but it doesn't seem like the group abilities or classes are well balanced. Going in its hard to understand how one class helps another and all the ground fights seem to be "everyone shoot as fast as you can" kind of situations. Its not even a good "trinity" You have to make you ship do all three if you want to do any of the missions. Case in point for the ground missions where your given a bunch of red shirts if you don't have enough named crew. I have to start out as a tank type and get a science officer as I just can't get the AI to tank properly. Without a threat/dps plug in, I am not even sure if my weapons are doing as well as they should.

That's the crux of the matter now a days. In WoW I can get the Recount plug-in and Omen to figure out if one build works better than another. They built their interface, from day one, to be as configurable as possible. But in STO? They spent months telling use "The interface is the last to get developed" Really? Most of WoW's innovations came FROM the community of plug-in's. I cannot imaging playing wow without a raid grid let alone without recount. With the current interface STO has, I can't see managing more than 10 players reliably. As it is now, most "group" missions are free for all's anyway.

Its just, I kind of gave up most of the way in the beta. It was hard just playing maybe 6 hours a week. Then you go to the forms and see all the people wining about how its either not good enough or that its a wow/CO clone without giving any kind of true comparison. Sure your the captain of a star ship, but it also feels constrained somehow.

The new 3.3 patch from WoW comes out, it became fun to PLAY it. After 4 hours I finally have an 80 and doing high level stuff now. I never have to hunt for a group for heroics, no more being dropped because I can only do 2k DPS just because I am starting. I bet they will be setting up raids with this system at some point as well. Heck, even though I play Blackrock ALL THE FREAKING TIME on my 51 pally, at least I can GO there. I always skip it because I could never find groups for it.

STO have been arguing for the last 6 months about how "the interface is the last to be implemented" That kind of thinking is the reason most people get turned off in the first week of a MMO:P

Re:No thanks.

[BenLeeImp]

Having just gotten into the beta, and played through a chunk of what you have just described, I concur. They do state that they are "disconnected" borg, but still ... its a pretty strange way to open the series. I haven't been able to finish, however, due to server disconnects. They could potentially salvage this if it were to turn out to be a holodeck simulation, though.

Re:No thanks.

[jandrese]

Has any MMO ever launched with the high end content in place?

Re:No thanks.

[furby076]

I would rather have been blasting Denebian slime devils than the FREAKIN' BORG, who should be too tough for newbs. So their talk about respecting the story is not entirely accurate.

Doing any action, other then running while peeing your pants, when encountering the borg should automatically delete your character, subscription and ban your game key UNLESS you are engaging them with three full-sized armadas. And then you get to keep your account if you still run while peeing your pants.


....just sayin

Re:No thanks.

[Kirin Fenrir]

Has any MMO ever launched with the high end content in place?

WoW did, actually. Scholomance and UBRS were both 10-mans, and it had a large raid in the form of Molten Core. Not that I'm a big WoW fan anymore, but they had a strong launch.

Re:No thanks.

[Wyatt Earp]

WoW launched with Molten Core and Ony, both were high end content.

Re:No thanks.

[artemis67]

The Borg seems like they should be endgame villains.

Re:No thanks.

[kalirion]

Well, outside of their ships, the Borg are push-overs until they adapt to the shifting frequency of your phasers. A projectile weapon would take them down easily as long as you aim for the fleshy bits. They're basically slow-moving zombies.

Re:No thanks.

[artemis67]

It also means that you will have several weeks head start over those players who wait until the game goes GM.

Re:No thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Molten Core was broken when WoW was released and a number of the boss encounters weren't fixed for a couple of months.

Re:No thanks.

[urulokion]

Normal Borg are end game opponents.

Re:No thanks.

[Tei]

"That's the crux of the matter now a days. In WoW I can get the Recount plug-in and Omen to figure out if one build works better than another. They built their interface, from day one, to be as configurable as possible. But in STO? They spent months telling use "The interface is the last to get developed" Really? Most of WoW's innovations came FROM the community of plug-in's. I cannot imaging playing wow without a raid grid let alone without recount. With the current interface STO has, I can't see managing more than 10 players reliably. As it is now, most "group" missions are free for all's anyway."

Here you are not playing a RPG, but a Hack and Slash game. I see some value on a Hack and Slash game for agrometer and the like, Hack and Slash games are "gamey", the mechanics of the game are simple and visible. But on a RPG, these gamey elements break the inmersion, you sould be a dude in a medieval/future settings, not a dude on the front of the computer playing a videogame.

Re:No thanks.

[TheKidWho]

Not necessarily. Beta characters will be wiped, the only head start will be a 3 day head start for Pre-Orders. However, you do have a point in the sense that Beta players will understand the game better than the others.

Re:No thanks.

[megamerican]

LBRS and UBRS were 15 man raids and the same instance. You needed to complete a key to get into UBRS, but it was still considered a single raid instance.

WoW was very unpolished when it was realeased and one could easily argue that Vanilla WoW (pre-BC) was nothing but an open beta. It was much more wide open. The mechanics of the game weren't well known to the players or the devs. It took well over a year for the developers to see how their ideas would actually work in gameplay and start to balance things.

Re:No thanks.

[TheRaven64]

Unless Voyager is part of the setting, in which case whinging at them until they surrender is also a viable strategy.

Re:No thanks.

[geminidomino]

Add in the fact that they require you to preorder the game to get into their "open" beta, and I'm inclined to agree.

You can get free keys. I just got one from massively.com. Of course, the download takes forever.

Re:No thanks.

[club]

Yes, I'm bitter at the terrible mess that was Champions Online. But they have not shown any change as a developer.

You're surprised by this? I think the fact that have Bill Roper on their team should have been a sufficient warning to steer clear. The video game industry must be the only one where someone can release a completely mess, cause over 100 people to lose their jobs due to your own incompetence and still want a company to employ you.

And yes, I'm bitter because I have a Hellgate: London disc that only served as a coaster.

Re:No thanks.

[SnarfQuest]

What prize do you get for collecting borg tails?

Re:No thanks.

[Wilson_6500]

Maybe the real problem with modern MMOs is that they either encourage or cultivate a player culture obsessed with maximum statistical performance?

Re:No thanks.

[Chris Burke]

I assume defecation is a suitable substitute for urination?

If not... well, too late.

Re:No thanks.

[bugnuts]

The interface is as configurable as needed for minimal operation, but it's pretty stinky. There are a lot of keymaps that can also be used, which are inobvious. Things like control-R to go to full impulse just aren't listed anywhere.

I pretty much agree with what you said... except for the following:

Most of WoW's innovations came FROM the community of plug-in's.

They've implemented only a few things from the community, and that doesn't mean that they took it from anyone, and some were so obvious that there's no way you could claim they suddenly got this bright insight due to someone else implementing it first.

Raid frames were obvious.
Quest tracker was obvious (which really amounted to better maps with areas highlit).
Auto-self-cast was obvious.

Outfit changer was not obvious, but clearly needed especially with talent switching. I still use Outfitter.

And how about some real innovations, previously unseen in a large-cap game like this:
Mostly-bug-free code.
Phasing, where the world can dramatically change based on character's progress.
Addon plugin system, esp with secure functions.
Torrent patch distribution.
Deep storyline.
Multi-world grouping (which is a non-issue on many games, but still very cool how it's done)

The only big idea I think they got from addon writers was an outfit changer. There are probably more, but really, nothing close to the "most of their innovations" quoted above.

Re:No thanks.

[WarlockD]

And STO isn't? Evey space mission I have been in involves "Blow X ships up, Protect X station"

There are a few missions where you don't have to kill things, but they all are still based off the three MMORG principles for quests:

1. Collect X Items from the ground and/or other NPC's
2. Collect X Items from dead NPC's you have killed.
3. Kill Boss/Unique NPC

Even if your speaking theoretically, I have yet to see even a single player game that has done that without the word "Point-and-Click". There has to be a "game" in the RPG/MMORG and likewise there has to be a "story" in the game. Heck, look at pen and paper RPG's. The DND 2nd rules are full of workarounds, extra rules, etc because people WANTED more from the game part. Without the game part, its just some guy telling a story. Any DnD player, of any edition, will tell you the roll of the dice gives an element of excitement, randomness, to the story.

Its the same in WoW. I spent hours trying to get my DPS to hit 6k constantly on WoW so I could get in an ICC group. Not for justthe Frost Badges. It's that I have wanted to kill Arthas ever since the end of Frozen Throne off WC3. If I still can't get into an ICC group, I will damn well get my Priest up to 80 and gear him up. I want to be there when blizzard opens the instance for it.

Sure WoW has a large complex algorithm on how you attack things. It can even be argued that your still a noob till you get to 70,"Where the real game begins." But if it didn't have a good story, friends you could regularly play with, and an engine that makes it challenging at all levels of play, it would not be on top right now.

PS - Though, to be honest, what happens once we "kill" the Lich King? He was/is the boggie man of all of Northriend and personaly shows up in many of the quests your on. Cataclysm will solve the content issue below level 60, but where will the story go after that:P

Re:No thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nitpicking here, but...

Scholomance was/is a 5-player dungeon.
UBRS was a 15-man dungeon at release.

Re:No thanks.

[bckrispi]

PS - Though, to be honest, what happens once we "kill" the Lich King? He was/is the boggie man of all of Northriend and personaly shows up in many of the quests your on. Cataclysm will solve the content issue below level 60, but where will the story go after that:P

Cataclysm will alter many of the under 60 zones on the classic map, but will also alter many of the lower level zones for the new 80-85 level range. It will also include Heroic versions of many (I'm guessing eventually "all") of the classic dungeons for end-game players, which will be a very welcome change. I just started playing about 8 months ago myself, and had to skip over most of the 55-60 and 68-70 dungeons, and pretty much all of the raids because I couldn't get groups for them.

As far as the Lore goes, I started playing Warcraft 3 on release day. Arthas has always been the primary antagonist for me. I'm also thinking that when I finally down him, it'll represent finality to a lot of the lore that's been in place for nearly a decade. IIRC, cataclysm will focus on the return of Blackwing and Ragnaros. But from some of the foreshadowing in Uther's dialog in the Halls of Reflection, I'm assuming that the death of Arthas won't be the end of the Scourge, and possibly not even the end of the Lich King.

Re:No thanks.

[bckrispi]

Is this really a problem? How is this different from any other competitive activity?

Re:No thanks.

[bckrispi]

Quest tracker was obvious (which really amounted to better maps with areas highlit).

Obvious, yes. But it still took them five years to implement the thing. :) Definitely one of the more welcome changes in 3.3.

Re:No thanks.

[WarlockD]

Need to see the quests on the Ally side. I have been horde so long I don't even know how they feel about the whole situation:P

God, RFC in Heroic. Humm. Makes me wonder if they will revamp the badge system. You do heroics at 80 because there isn't any other loot that drops that you can use. There is no reason to bother with heroics at 70 as you will hit 74 by the time you have all your teir. By then the quest loot is better at Norhrend. I see them getting rid of Valor and Conquest badges, but how do you handle the badge loot at 70 then? The only people I know who even bother with Justice badges is board max 80's who do the whole "Lock it at 70 for BC" thing.

I thought maybe giving badges for everyone who completes BC randoms, so when you hit 70 you can buy one or two pieces of Justice gear.

I'll just be happy when everything has an 80 heroic though. Even PoS has lost its magic:P

Re:No thanks.

[WarlockD]

Your right. Blizzard really put the minimum standard for a good MMOG with all those innovations.

It makes me wonder though why other newer MMORG's don't even do these basic things? I don't see any MMORGs with a plug in system and I think STO is the only "new" one coming out with a phasing system. Its all right there. Blizzard did ALL the work for everyone. I think "no one does it right" is because the publishers don't want the game to last more than two years.

It really makes me wonder about Swtor. They seem to be doing things right out of the box, but can anyone catch up anymore with WoW's 5 year head start:P

Re:No thanks.

[ToasterMonkey]

Maybe the real problem with modern MMOs is that they either encourage or cultivate a player culture obsessed with maximum statistical performance?

Is this really a problem? How is this different from any other competitive activity?

Uh, because spectator sports are all about giving the viewers a good show?
Or because we teach our children "it's just a game, have fun"?

Removing entertainment from this, we get professional, non-spectator sports, which is pretty much what the GP describes. Is the sense of virtual achievement worth the time required to have fun playing modern MMOs? The amount of downtime between brief moments of rewarding gameplay in a MMO is staggering. QuakeWorld and Unreal Tournament used to be the SHIT in online gaming, back in the day, what the fuck happened? Has everyone pretty much given up trying to figure out fun, balanced, multiplayer gameplay? Is the market for that so damned narrow, it can't be reached without rewarding the "winners" with home field advantage, a sense of accomplishment for beating the "losers" in an unbalanced game of grab ass; AKA modern online games?

  I've got an image in my mind of me paying monthly fees to play Quake online with first party content stretched out over a few years worth of "experience" with a leveling system that rewards the most jobless^H^H^H^Hskilled. Ouch.
# played
# Level 49 Demoman +305 hours, 9 minutes
# Congratulations! You've reached level 50!
# You've learned "Pipe Bomb"
# You've unlocked the Sniper Deck in 2forts
# Please speak to a Skill Trainer to advance

Re:No thanks.

[bickerdyke]

There are a few missions where you don't have to kill things, but they all are still based off the three MMORG principles for quests:

1. Collect X Items from the ground and/or other NPC's
2. Collect X Items from dead NPC's you have killed.
3. Kill Boss/Unique NPC

It's that I have wanted to kill Arthas ever since the end of Frozen Throne off WC3.

Thats the biggest problem in MMOs.

Telling a story is about change. Free a princess, learn the true meaning of friendship, overturn an evil overlord.

What good is killing (e.g.) Arthas, if that guy respanws 10mins later? (perhaps in an other instance but still...) what ever you do, whatever you accomplish, it has to be torn down again for the next batch of players to accomplish it again.

Re:No thanks.

[bickerdyke]

Perhaps that problem is that many people see MMOs as competetive activity?

Re:No thanks.

[bckrispi]

It's no less competitive than golf. Which, like it or not, is considered a legitimate "sport".

Re:No thanks.

[bckrispi]

Sooooo... What you're saying is that MMORPGs are bad because they don't play like a First Person Shooter??

Re:No thanks.

[nschubach]

Who says an MMO has to be competitive? I just want a massive game with an economy, trading, questing, character development and the ability for my friends to join in. Where is the written law that says, "We have lots of people, let's make them fight!"

Re:No thanks.

[bckrispi]

"Competitive" doesn't imply PvP play. You want a game with an economy. You have to "compete" with other players for market share, trying to sell your goods high and buy your materials and gear low. If you want questing, you're competing with the PvE environment the developers built. And with most raiding guilds, you often wind up competing with other guild members for positions. If it's a 10 man raid, and there are fifteen guild members who want to go, five of them are going to be on the sidelines.

So if you're playing the market, questing, or raiding, you're in some type of competition. My point to the original parent was that if you want to be "good" at it, and are "playing to win", you have to spend time learning the mechanics of the game, studying how to equip your character, and learning proper gameplay.

Re:No thanks.

[nschubach]

PvP includes fighting over spawns, gold, and "recognition." You can play an MMO without involving yourself in this fighting and still be considered "good." Most non-competitive people just buy/sell goods for whatever market value is without trying to find the high and low prices and determine "fair market price." You don't have to study the market to enjoy it. In fact, I find it tedious and annoying. Instancing has pretty much eliminated competing for PvE content. I also find that if someone is "camping" a spawn I need, I just do another quest or wait until they are done. I'm in no hurry to beat them to max level so I can complain about missing content. I also don't join guilds to compete with the members on some primitive "social status" or "ranking." If I join a guild it's to have people to play with (if they are available) and to join in on a raid if they are in need of my particular services. You can still be "good" at the game without fighting over gear, player time, money, and spawns.

Learning the mechanics of the game is in no way competitive unless you make it so. Competing with the PvE environment doesn't require fighting with other players for whatever you need. What you explain is PvP, but my point is that you don't have to participate in it to be good at a game or "to win" unless you consider "winning" an MMO beating everyone else.

cool

[JeanBaptiste]

one side filled with kirk and spock and picard wanna-bes.

and the other filled with the klingon speakers.

so, uh, who is gonna run the internets while you all are gone?

Re:cool

[Kirin Fenrir]

4chan

...oh...oh God...

Re:cool

[Aidos]

nice xkcd reference there

Re:cool

[DanTheLewis]

There... are... 4chan... LIGHTS!

Re:cool

[IndustrialComplex]

There... are... 4chan... LIGHTS!

LOL

My kingdom for a mod point

Re:cool

[XantheKnight]

Brilliant.

Re:I thought they said this was in the new univers

[Anonymous Coward]

Im sure there is a slashdot article somewhere about faulty memory....

My impression from a long time beta friend

[Shivetya]

is that IS Champion's Online with Star Trek star ships.

Away team missions comprise of find the shiny objects (like bombs)

Though he does like the star ship combat currently (I would not mind a B5 game like the older Star Trek simulator)

Re:My impression from a long time beta friend

[nschubach]

Your friend would be right. The only thing they added to the engine for ship to ship combat is vector shields and power settings, but it's still Champions in Space.

A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[RobotRunAmok]

"Where possible, the game will provide non-violent ways to resolve conflicts."

So in other words, this is Picard-style Star Trek. You Kirk-style players can stay logged into Eve.

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[dilemmachine]

Aww c'mon. Kirk resolved *plenty* of conflicts without throwing people across the room. :D

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[TheSpoom]

As long as I can yell "KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!" through the voice chat, I'm happy.

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[CountZer0]

You can....

If you pre-order the special Digital Deluxe Edition (http://atari.com/games/startrek_online_digital_deluxe_ed/download) one of the bonus features is:

Exclusive “KHAAAN!” Emote (in-game item): An unforgettable moment from the second Star Trek Film. This exclusive emote allows players to relive Kirk’s unforgettable moment of fury, with the timeless cry “KHAAAN!”

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[Target Practice]

Yes, but it usually involved getting them into bed. And if you're talking about his convincing debating skills, you'll notice it's always in ear shot of some hottie he's after.

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that as in "LEEEEEEROY JEEEEEENKINS!!!"? ...
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. ...

No... Really?

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[Sponge Bath]

Picard Trek conflict resolution:

1. work it out in holodeck sim which spills into reality
2. Go Borg and assimilate your enemies
3. clap hands Q style, and setup your enemies with a show girl on each arm and a cigar in hand

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[Salamande]

Holy shit, I thought you were joking. That is brilliant.

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[jhoegl]

So eve hasa da green ladies?

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[furby076]

"Where possible, the game will provide non-violent ways to resolve conflicts."

Wait, a player will have weapons and technology of war available to him which makes our most advanced technology seem like a stone tipped spear, and the player is expected to resolve a conflict non-violently? WTH, was this game designed by Quakers?

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

That really is the best part of Eve.

When negotiations break down, when the other side is just being too stupidly retarded you can go pod the every living hell out of them.

I love the evemail from concord that says, "in 24 hrs put on your big boy pants or stay docked".

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[urulokion]

Don't go by first impression of the FAQ. There is plenty of combat in the game. Some of the Picard school of Star Trek, say there is too much.

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[Loki_1929]

Eve has sex slaves. You can purchase all your wallet can handle on the market. I believe they're under the 'trade' goods along with narcotics and mercenaries.

Re:A Quote from the "General Gameplay" FAQ

[bckrispi]

Brilliant, yes. But it will probably eventually be just as dreaded as WoW's /train emote.

Reboot

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else sick of hearing the term "Reboot" in reference to movies for one week?

Re:Reboot

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Reboot could use a reboot now that you mention it.

New voice over?

[The Yuckinator]

Space. The online frontier. Where everyone will be, all the time.

Wait a sec

[marto]

No Linux version? Even Second Life has a Linux version.

DaHjaj 'oH QaQ jaj vaD chaH Daq Hegh!

Re:Wait a sec

[TheKidWho]

No Linux Version? Even Quake I has a Linux Version!

Re:Wait a sec

[marto]

http://www.quakelive.com/

Re:Wait a sec

[Anonymous Coward]

Missed the Klingon joke there huh douchebag!

Open Beta Without Preorder

[SighKoPath]

If you didn't (or don't want to) preorder, you can get a beta key from fileplanet: http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/star-trek-online/

Re:Open Beta Without Preorder

[spire3661]

Which still requires you to pay money for a fileplanet subscription, which of course they dont tell you until you give them your email address and agree to let fileplanet and cryptic spam you.

Re:Open Beta Without Preorder

[Anonymous Coward]

I just registered with a spamgourmet mail address and grabbed a BETA key without having to pay anything or enter any details about myself.

The download is 7.7GB though and fileplanet is only giving me 55kB/s, so this may be a restriction for trying the beta without paying for a fileplanet subscription.

Re:Open Beta Without Preorder

[doob]

Are you assuming or have you actually tried? I got my beta key just now using my free Fileplanet account. Maybe it's cos I've had the account for ages, I only ever use it to get freebies :)

Re:Open Beta Without Preorder

[TheKidWho]

That was for Closed Beta, not Open Beta.

Re:Open Beta Without Preorder

[artemis67]

It's called "Hotmail".

You can thank me later.

Re:Open Beta Without Preorder

[geminidomino]

I got a key from massively and grabbed a torrent of the beta client from TPB.

after you conquer all of cardassia,

[CKW]

..how will you feel when they tell you -- it wasn't a game!

Or when the old fogey in the space car comes to get you, because you're the best and only you can command the fleet and save the galaxy?

Re:after you conquer all of cardassia,

[Chris Burke]

..how will you feel when they tell you -- it wasn't a game!

So wait... That Bajoran transvestite I was Britishing with...

Re:after you conquer all of cardassia,

[Anonymous Coward]

You're mixing Orson Scott Card's Ender with Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek.

Re:after you conquer all of cardassia,

[nitehawk214]

..how will you feel when they tell you -- it wasn't a game!

Or when the old fogey in the space car comes to get you, because you're the best and only you can command the fleet and save the galaxy?

And then you get trapped on an ancient ship billions of lighyears away.

Re:after you conquer all of cardassia,

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not worried...I'm not that good at pvp.

Re:after you conquer all of cardassia,

[geminidomino]

Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko'Dan Armada.

(Sorry if I got it wrong. Old memory banks may have some bit rot)

Why am I stuck at work T_T

[sajuuk]

Installed last night, can't wait to get out of work today and go waste the rest of my day on it.

Keep an open mind

[flithm]

- It has been in development for almost 5 years, the team is completely different than Champions
- Character animation looks pretty good to me, but what a minor thing to complain about. It'll get better over time too. I could personally care less if it uses ASCII graphics, as long as the gameplay is solid
- Klingon faction is currently mostly PVP -- they want to add more content later. Big deal! In fact, some players will like this.
- There's a lot more going on than just tank / healer / etc. You can equip modules in any way you want to give your ship a versatile configuration. Seam with team members for away missions. It may not be the most revolutionary game around but, it does do something different. I for one look forward to trying out the strategic space combat.
- It's only microtransaction in the same way that WoW is. You can buy items that don't really affect the gameplay.
- Initial reviews and impressions are much more positive than with Cryptic's previous offerings.
.
Who knows, maybe it will suck, maybe it won't. We don't know yet.

Re:Keep an open mind

[nschubach]

- It has been in development for almost 5 years, the team is completely different than Champions

Yet somehow they both came up with the same game! It must be good!

Re:Keep an open mind

[FileNotFound]

- It has been in development for almost 5 years, the team is completely different than Champions

Yes and no. The game WAS in development since 2004, but by a different company who went bankrupt and kept the code.
Cryptic took over in 2008, without the code but with the license and art.

- Character animation looks pretty good to me, but what a minor thing to complain about. It'll get better over time too. I could personally care less if it uses ASCII graphics, as long as the gameplay is solid

The animations are terrible. Even Everquest animation was less ugly. The gameplay is certainly not good enough to make up for the graphics.

- Klingon faction is currently mostly PVP -- they want to add more content later. Big deal! In fact, some players will like this.

"more content later" is another way of saying "It's not done and may never be unless we maintain a certain level of subscriptions. Which they will not.

- There's a lot more going on than just tank / healer / etc. You can equip modules in any way you want to give your ship a versatile configuration. Seam with team members for away missions. It may not be the most revolutionary game around but, it does do something different. I for one look forward to trying out the strategic space combat.

In short, you can solo. But in a team you're still going to be in a cookie cutter configuration, just like everyone else. Nobody wants a funky ship or a furry speced warrior.

- It's only microtransaction in the same way that WoW is. You can buy items that don't really affect the gameplay.
- Initial reviews and impressions are much more positive than with Cryptic's previous offerings. .

Which isn't saying much really...

Who knows, maybe it will suck, maybe it won't. We don't know yet.

No. We don't know yet, but the outlook isn't all that good and the past products do not create much goodwill for the developer.

Re:Keep an open mind

[YourExperiment]

I could personally care less if it uses ASCII graphics

Yeah, me too, that would be horrible!

Re:Keep an open mind

[arketh]

I think it is safe to say NOBODY wants a furry warrior in their team... unless it is some scary furvert muck.

Re:Keep an open mind

[artemis67]

"more content later" is another way of saying "It's not done and may never be unless we maintain a certain level of subscriptions. Which they will not.

It seems to me that every MMORPG has been released with the promise of "more content later". I've only started playing WoW in the last six months, but my guild leader has played since day 1, and as we are running around doing quests and dungeons, he's telling us how much has changed since launch, and it's quite a bit.

I think the challenge for new MMORPG releases is to keep most folks from hitting endgame within the first six months, lest the game get a reputation of being "too easy". By the end of the year, they will have added new missions and areas, and nerfed the difficulty of a lot of things.

Re:Keep an open mind

[TheKidWho]

WoW has changed a lot in very different ways... In many ways it's basically the same exact game it was when it was first released.

New content has been added mainly and characters have been slightly changed around. Although the WoW fanatic will tell you that classes have had "MAJOR" changes, the changes are minor.

Re:Keep an open mind

[rgviza]

Correction, it has been a franchise being developed into a game for 5 years. This game is completely different than the one which was originally started, and that one was scrapped 18 months ago, when the original developer went out of business and they scrapped the game, Cryptic bought the franchise and started development on it from square 1.

The game being released has been in development for 18 months and was started in 2008. http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=20942

Re:Keep an open mind

[Unoti]

In many ways, the face of wow has changed quite dramatically since launch. Battlegrounds, arenas, those didn't exist way back when and they're central now. Wow went from small dungeons, then later to huge raids, then more recently back to smaller raids. That's a pretty huge change in many ways, including what type of person the game is approachable to. Many classes have changed quite fundamentally when comparing today vs. launch, most notably druids and paladins. Both of those can now be very effective as either healers, damage dealers, or tanks. Back in the day, their viable roles were far more limited.

Wow, at least, truly has changed quite a bit over the years. Other games couldn't hope to grow and expand and evolve that much during their lifecycle, however.

Re:Keep an open mind

[urulokion]

They accidentally let loose they are work on a day 45 Content patch in an interview. So yes. They are working on new content.

Re:Keep an open mind

[Archimonde]

Character animation looks pretty good to me, but what a minor thing to complain about. It'll get better over time too.

I just can't agree with the second sentence. Take WoW for example. Of course it was tweaked thousand times, but huge building blocks of the game world didn't change a bit 4 years after even if they were broken or just hastily put together at launch. The only thing they did change was for things people were absolutely screaming about and that was usually class balance, some itemization, nerfing dungeons etc. They did put a lot of *new* stuff, but it is my observation that they didn't put much effort in improving stuff that is already there.

Re:Keep an open mind

[bckrispi]

They did put a lot of *new* stuff, but it is my observation that they didn't put much effort in improving stuff that is already there.

It's looking like the Cataclysm expansion will change that.

Re:Keep an open mind

[bckrispi]

"more content later" is another way of saying "It's not done and may never be unless we maintain a certain level of subscriptions.

If you were putting your financial backing behind a new MMORPG, you'd be crazy not to do it this way. You put out enough content to get the players to sign up and keep them busy and entertained for six months. When they desire "more", and if the subscription revenue allows it, then you release more content to keep them interested.

Re:Keep an open mind

[Archimonde]

True enough, and I was considering that answer while writing my previous post. But they did take more than five years for it and Cataclysm isn't released yet anyway. Moreover, I would venture a guess that half of the original population isn't even playing WoW anymore. And we'll see what we will get because they like to promise a lot of things for the "next expansion" which gets implemented later or unfortunately never.

My point was though, that even if WoW (the biggest MMO) has problems improving stuff which is already there, I'm not that certain that smaller MMOs will improve stuff more readily. But I could be wrong of course, wouldn't be the first nor the last time.

Re:Keep an open mind

[Anonymous Coward]

- It has been in development for almost 5 years, the team is completely different than Champions

Yes and no. The game WAS in development since 2004, but by a different company who went bankrupt and kept the code.
Cryptic took over in 2008, without the code but with the license and art.

- Character animation looks pretty good to me, but what a minor thing to complain about. It'll get better over time too. I could personally care less if it uses ASCII graphics, as long as the gameplay is solid

The animations are terrible. Even Everquest animation was less ugly. The gameplay is certainly not good enough to make up for the graphics.

- Klingon faction is currently mostly PVP -- they want to add more content later. Big deal! In fact, some players will like this.

"more content later" is another way of saying "It's not done and may never be unless we maintain a certain level of subscriptions. Which they will not.

- There's a lot more going on than just tank / healer / etc. You can equip modules in any way you want to give your ship a versatile configuration. Seam with team members for away missions. It may not be the most revolutionary game around but, it does do something different. I for one look forward to trying out the strategic space combat.

In short, you can solo. But in a team you're still going to be in a cookie cutter configuration, just like everyone else. Nobody wants a funky ship or a furry speced warrior.

- It's only microtransaction in the same way that WoW is. You can buy items that don't really affect the gameplay.
- Initial reviews and impressions are much more positive than with Cryptic's previous offerings. .

Which isn't saying much really...

Who knows, maybe it will suck, maybe it won't. We don't know yet.

No. We don't know yet, but the outlook isn't all that good and the past products do not create much goodwill for the developer.

I doubt you've even tried out the game...

I'm testing it since closed beta and so far it's been a lot of fun. There is a tank/ healer/ dps/ buffer/ debuffer set up yes but you try coming up with a new system of defining different roles then. I think it's worked out very well and so far the system is fun and enticing.

Regarding a cookie cutter configuration, it's all up to personal preference. You have a couple of basic choices but far better would be that with fleet action you adept your builds to compliment each other. One person could be heavily focussing on beam damage while another specializes in the torpedoes or mines, that way you can cut down enemies faster.

Regarding Klingon content, I've only tried them out for a little bit so far, but I've seen mid level Klingons run around as well (Federation players were perhaps slightly higher leveled but not by much), so it's not like it's impossible to level up Klingons. If you really don't want to pvp you can also level up by use of the Genesis content and just explore the galaxy instead.
Klingons can use some more tweaking, especially when you first start on your ship but that's what the beta is for, to work out the bugs.

So far I'm impressed with the work that's done on the game and it really gives a Star Trek feel when playing the game. It's impossible to make such a game and include everybodies wishes in it, but Cryptic managed to capture the most important points and will work on adding more content later.

Re:Keep an open mind

[Syberghost]

Actually, PE did license some of their code out; to Bioware, who's using it in Star Wars: The Old Republic. All Cryptic got from them was some concept art, which they did use.

Not free on fileplanet

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not open there either, you have to pay fileplanet for a "subscription" to get a key.

This is NOT an open beta, more like "restricted beta."

Re:Not free on fileplanet

[vbraga]

There's a small "No thanks" option on the bottom. Click on it and no subscription is needed.

Re:Not free on fileplanet

[nuclearpenguins]

I just did a Twitter search for "Star Trek Online open beta" and I found a site that was giving away keys. You could try that.

Re:Not free on fileplanet

[Anonymous Coward]

And I am currently looking at a further 33 hours to complete the download, after trying to get it through the queue for about 12 hrs. I imagine that FilePlanet is deliberately throttling the connection and disrupting the queue (I had several failures which required restarting) to increase their subscription sales.

Re:*Open* Beta?

[SighKoPath]

You don't. http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/star-trek-online/

finally i can live out my dream

[nimbius]

as a crewmember aboard the starship enterprise, boldly going where no one has gone before, standing at attention and furthering discovery for years and years in my sharp new red uniform.

Re:finally i can live out my dream

[Anonymous Coward]

as a crewmember aboard the starship enterprise, boldly going where no one has gone before, standing at attention and furthering discovery for years and years in my sharp new red uniform.

Do you know how Star Trek and WoW are alike? "If its red, its dead."

Already a disappointment

[Max(10)]

Cryptic live up to their name, I searched their site in vain for this:

Cryptic has announced that they will release a Windows version of STO, and a possible console version also. During the August 10 Las Vegas conference, Cryptic announced that there would be neither Linux nor Mac versions for the original launch, though they did not rule out the possibility of later port releases.

They were just trying not to infuriate the Fek'lhr worshiping Linux fans, but the truth is that they will never release a Linux or Mac version of STO. After watching the trailers and finding out that there would be no Linux or Mac versions, Captain Picard decided to share his feelings about STO.

Re:Already a disappointment

[Knara]

I'm trying to figure out why people are continually surprised when non-Windows MMO clients are not available. You want to have a high percentage chance of being able to play a non-console, non-browser based game, get a Windows machine. End of story.

Re:Already a disappointment

[Max(10)]

I'm trying to figure out why people are continually surprised when non-Windows MMO clients are not available. You want to have a high percentage chance of being able to play a non-console, non-browser based game, get a Windows machine. End of story.

Spoken like a true Microsoft rep. If you expect and demand nothing, that's exactly what you will get. At least 30 million people expect and demand more and refuse to just "get a Windows machine" to be able to play a particular game or use a particular application, which is why more and more applications and games are being released for non-Windows operating systems.

Re:Already a disappointment

[Moridineas]

I think part of the surprise is that there are a lot of WoW players who use macs. Probably many of them are not hardcore gamers and WoW was their first MMO. Thus when they want to branch out, they are surprised that all MMOs aren't available for mac.

Me, I'm surprised because there are so many mac users today (it's not like even 10 years) and I'm surprised that many companies wouldn't decide to port to Mac.

Less surprised about linux...

Re:Already a disappointment

[Anonymous Coward]

But my computer didn't come with windows you insensitive clod!

My computer did come with Linux, and I know you have a copy of Linux too, you may or may not have installed it though.

Re:Already a disappointment

[AndrewStephens]

The real surprise is why more companies develop Windows only MMOs. For a single player game, or even an online FPS I can understand a company wanting to save money by targeting only the largest market, but the economics for MMOs are different. For an MMO you want a group of people to all go out and buy a copy each - that's how MMOs get successful. Right now there are established groups in (for example) WOW who are looking at different MMOs to play. Even if only a small fraction of their users are on Macs, STOnline is not going to be an option for them since they would have to leave people behind.

I can't understand it myself. MMOs seldom push any graphical boundaries and have modest system requirements - you would think that making a cross-platform client would be easy enough. WOW is still fantastically successful, and part of that is due to their forethought in development.

Re:Already a disappointment

[Knara]

It's no surprise. Windows has, at most, 3 different flavors to develop for, and 90%+ of the install base. From a business decision, "we'll think about other clients later" makes a lot of sense.

Re:Already a disappointment

[Knara]

As I said in my other reply, Windows installs make up 90%+ of the desktop and laptop user space.

As for 30M people who refuse to get a windows machine, [citation need].

Re:Already a disappointment

[Knara]

Well, yeah but macs are still sitting at From the standpoint of "money spent on development", resources devoted to 0-day clients that are (combined) less than 10% of the market are questionably justifiable.

Re:Already a disappointment

[AndrewStephens]

It makes sense for every type of application, except MMOs. For every one person who can't play your game, you may lose 5 other sales that you would have made from friends.

To take another example: imagine what Facebook (or slashdot for that matter) would be like if it only worked on IE. Sure it would get a lot of sign ups, but a large minority would use something else and pull their friends with them.

I am shocked that in 2010 WOW is still the only major MMO that seems to understand this.

Re:Already a disappointment

[Schnapple]

Yes but you are deliberately ignoring the point - that one Linux-only or Mac-only user is an acceptable loss. The odds are good that those five people they could have reached out to have Windows and are already playing it. And if they're not, then they have more Windows friends playing it. Linux and Mac combined are less than 10% of the population and in many instances, their users don't play games game (Photoshop jockeys) or also own a Windows machine, or have a Windows partition to boot into. Hell thanks to stuff like Wine and Parallels, the geeks will do your work for you in making it run on those alternative platforms. To say nothing of the fact that these platforms typically don't have sales for squat.

Large minorities don't pull people with them. You think Facebook didn't have competition? You think Twitter didn't have competition? WoW had tons of competition.

WoW won because it was really popular and good. Not because it had non-Windows clients.

Re:Already a disappointment

[cbhacking]

EVE Online has an officially supported Mac client and unofficially supports running the Windows client through Wine (they distributed a Cedega-wrapped Linux client for a while, but it was actually lower quality than just using Wine and the Windows client, both of which are free downloads and don't place any extra cost on CCP).

I'm sure there's at least one other non-trivial MMO that has made an effort to be cross-platform, even if I can't think of one. EVE certainly wasn't at launch, and I think it was largely due to the fact that a section of the forums had already become unofficial support for people running the game via Wine that they released the non-Windows official client(s).

Re:Already a disappointment

[westlake]

At least 30 million people expect and demand more and refuse to just "get a Windows machine" to be able to play a particular game or use a particular application, which is why more and more applications and games are being released for non-Windows operating systems.

Citation needed.

Windows has about 90% of the PC market. OSX 5%.

Linux 1% - fragmented among a commercially bewildering 200 or so distributions - of which maybe four or five have a significant presence in the home market.

Then there are The Great Divides between the netbook and the mid-line laptop and desktop market.

Console and PC Gaming.

Cell-phone, E-book and other mobile devices vs the general purpose PC of every sort.

The mobile market is growing rapidly but still amounts to only 1 or 2 percent of the whole.

The geek's "thirty million" are out there somewhere. But where?

There is money to made in supporting the Wii and PS3.

The Windows developer can cut very big slices out of the netbook, PC and console markets.

The OSX developer has the Mac and the iPhone.

Re:Already a disappointment

[Chris Burke]

I'm sure there's at least one other non-trivial MMO that has made an effort to be cross-platform, even if I can't think of one.

While at first they ignored Linux, after an incident where people using wine to play World of Warcraft were identified as running 'bots' and banned, Blizzard worked with Cedega and wine to fix the issue and to help improve compatibility going forward. Since then, there have been very few issues running WoW under Linux.

Re:Already a disappointment

[bickerdyke]

As I said in my other reply, Windows installs make up 90%+ of the desktop and laptop user space.

And everybody complains about that their computers don't do what they want and are so complicated and whatelse.

But still everyone sucks it up and is happy beeing *** in ** ******** my Microsoft and willingly pay for each new round of windows crap cause it's the only way to play $FAVOURITE_MMO

So I doubt there will be any change until game publishers finally start offering clients for alternative OS. (Or at least support cedega)

Re:Already a disappointment

[bickerdyke]

BTW: just got myself an xbox to get out of this viscous circle.

Any information if STO will be available for it?

Re:Already a disappointment

[bickerdyke]

or have a Windows partition to boot into.

Hell yeah. But only because thats the only way to get their favourite game running!

Crazy system requirements

[Lonewolf666]

System Requirements

OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 Ghz or AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Memory: 1GB RAM (minimum)
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 / ATI Radeon X1800 / Intel HD Graphics
Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher
HDD: 8GB Free Disk Space
Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required
Disc: 6X DVD-ROM

Recommended System Configuration

OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2 5600+
Memory: 2GB RAM+
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 3850+
Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher
HDD: 8GB Free Disk Space
Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required
Disc: 6X DVD-ROM

The minimum graphics alone leave my 2 1/2 year old midrange CPU in the dust (it is a NVidia 8600 GT).
I guess Cryptic is not really interested in reaching a really large audience ;-)

Re:Crazy system requirements

[Knara]

CPU != Video card

And the 7950's came out in 2006

So yes, generally, to play new PC games you will need a video card that is less than 4 years old.

Your 8600 qualifies (released a year after the 7950's).

What are you complaining about, again?

Re:Crazy system requirements

[Chas]

GPU. Not CPU.

And an 8600 is perfectly acceptable. They're not talking about graphics horsepower for the most part (though an 8600 should be fine there too). They're talking about supported APIs.

Re:Crazy system requirements

[jandrese]

The 8600 is plenty fast enough to be comparable to a 7950.

At any rate, the published minimum specs are grossly higher than what the game actually needs according to what a bunch of the closed beta testers said they needed. The only caveat is that ATI cards are more problematic than nVidia cards for some reason.

Re:Crazy system requirements

[kalirion]

I'm pretty sure an 8600, while having more features, is slower than the 7950. Just like an 8800GTX will leave a GT220 in the dust.

Re:Crazy system requirements

[geminidomino]

Pretty sure it's still faster than "Intel HD Graphics" tho...

Re:Crazy system requirements

[Knara]

MMOs don't push a ton of polygons. The 8600 will probably look better due to its better feature set and is more than enough to play the game.

The 8600's seem to, overall, benchmark about 15% faster than the 7950, but YMMV depending on all the normal things that such benchmarky items depend on.

Re:Crazy system requirements

[Eudial]

Huh? It runs just fine on 8600 GT. Maybe not highest quality, but reasonable resolution and a decent amount of details and quality.

Re:Crazy system requirements

[Lonewolf666]

Got me with the CPU/GPU. Stupid typo.

In terms of supported APIs, however, the stated API requirement is only DirectX9. The midrange 7600 should support that as well as the high end 7950. So the obvious conclusion (if you take the specs at face value) is that it is about graphics horsepower.

Collect 10 tribbles

[PmanAce]

Ooooh, can't wait to go collect x tribbles to earn some cash. On second thought, nah.

Re:Collect 10 tribbles

[dilemmachine]

Why do you need to *collect* tribbles? Once you get infested by them, they crawl all over the ship like rats.. :/

Re:Collect 10 tribbles

[Abstrackt]

Ooooh, can't wait to go collect x tribbles to earn some cash. On second thought, nah.

Mccoy: "Well the nearest thing that I can figure is that they're born pregnant – which appears to be quite a time-saver!"

Once x = 1, the rest should take care of itself!

"open" != "free"

[KingSkippus]

An "open" beta means that you have the means by which to join the beta without them selecting you. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily free. It is as opposed to a "closed" beta which means that you can only join by their specific invitation, and that it is entirely likely that no matter how badly you want to join or how much money you have to spend (well, barring buying the entire company), you won't be able to get in.

If you have learned anything from the open source movement, it should be that "open" != "free." You can be charged for open source software, just as not all software that is free (as in beer) is open source.

Re:"open" != "free"

[Syberghost]

Also, Open means "there is no NDA preventing you from sharing your thoughts and screenshots", whereas Closed Beta (and the beta cycles before that, yes there were non-Cryptic people testing this game long before Closed Beta) was Closed because it was bound by NDA.

As one of the moderators of Cryptic's official IRC channel for this game, I was darn glad to see that NDA go; most of my job is banning jerks, but NDA enforcement required punishing nice people. That's not fun.

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy, Chewie.

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[FileNotFound]

Apples and oranges. SW:ToR does not have space ships.

500 Internal Server error?

[Rogerborg]

Now there a promising start for a "M"MORPG.

Re:500 Internal Server error?

[jcoy42]

Definitely brought to you by the same guys who made Champions Online.

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Colonel Korn]

Star Wars: The Old Republic will crush this game. SW:ToR won't be out until October, but it will be the final nail in the coffin for this game.

I read last night that it's been delayed until Spring 2011.

Why old Star Trek?

[PCM2]

I don't get it. We've just seen a complete reboot of the Star Trek franchise on the big screen. It introduced a new look and feel, new pacing, and raised the bar for both action and special effects set in the Star Trek universe. Myself, I found it enjoyable but ultimately braindead (and thus a big disappointment, compared to Roddenbery's original vision) -- but last I heard it did considerably better than the last several movies based on the TV series. A sequel seems inevitable, and probably at least two sequels. And so they spend months developing an MMO based on the same old, tired version of Star Trek that mainstream audiences had almost completely lost patience/interest in? Whose idea was that?

Re:Why old Star Trek?

[jmauro]

It's been in development for 5 years, the new Star Trek has only existed for about 2 and didn't really exist until earlier this year. It's a matter of timing in the development cycle.

And it's Next Generation so there is no analog for the new universe, yet, of course.

Re:Why old Star Trek?

[rgviza]

Where have you been? Time-line jumping is all the rage! I think it started with SWG in 2004, where you had a universe full of jedi during the timeline between Episode IV and Episode V, when canon says there were 2 jedi and 2 sith. This promises to be a SWG repeat of canon breaking buggy assed grindfest fun!

If you really care about Star Trek, run from this game as fast as you can. I'm sure it will be enough to make a Vulcan cry.

When I read that one of the new player mobs were borg, and your "mission" is to kill x number of them like kobolds in DDO, I almost snorted hot coffee out of my nose.

World of Star Trek? No thanks! This is nothing but opportunism riding the coattails of a successful movie. If they wanted to make a seriously good game it would take longer than 18 months. This game will last less time than it took to get it into beta. Either that or it will be on life support after a year, then it will be rehashed into a new game, in a doomed attempt to save it, and it will suck even more. I can already see the writing on the wall...

What a shame. Unfortunately games based on entertainment franchises usually suck.

Re:Why old Star Trek?

[urulokion]

Because they aren't going to chunk 2 years of development out the door based in a movie that hadn't been out yet. And don't estimate the number of fans of the old school Star Trek. They are legion.

Re:Why old Star Trek?

[Abcd1234]

and thus a big disappointment, compared to Roddenbery's original vision

Yes, because The Wrath of Khan, the movie generally considered the best of the originals, was so very intelligent. Or maybe you mean TOS episodes like Arena, The Corbomite Maneuver, Balance of Terror, or countless other classic episodes that, fundamentally, were nothing more than Kirk going mano-e-mano against some random alien?

Honestly, the rose-coloured view some people have of Trek is truly hilarious. TOS was, literally, marketed as a Western in space, and save for a few standout episodes (The City on the Edge of Forever being the most notable), it did just that. In fact, it wasn't until TNG, when the show was finally wrested from Roddenberry's hands, that it actually got genuinely thought-provoking (Gene's vision was *far* too utopian to be interesting, which is why most of the stories in TOS center around crazy aliens, as opposed to real human drama).

Re:Why old Star Trek?

[Knara]

You're arguing that "Berman Trek" was superior to TOS and the majority of TNG? Now I know you're mad.

yay

[Jesterace]

I got my closed beta access, just gotta wait to get off work to download and try it. The only other game I'm excited about is the upcoming Lego Universe.

PvP question...

[end15]

Every time I turn my PvP status to "on" my shirt turns red... What's the deal?

Re:PvP question...

[furby076]

Every time I turn my PvP status to "on" my shirt turns red... What's the deal?

You also forget your first name. No really, try it, and then see if you can remember your first name...ensign pike.

Re:PvP question...

[cptnapalm]

Good news!

It is time to beam down to the planet.

You will be an integral part of the away team where you will play a pivotal roll in the exciting conclusion to the mission.

Re:PvP question...

[kalirion]

You're thinking of the original series. Starting with TNG, getting a red shirt is a promotion.

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Enderandrew]

Where did you read that?

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[FileNotFound]

http://kotaku.com/5446301/bioware-confirms-spring-2011-release-window-for-the-old-republic

Re:*Open* Beta?

[jhoegl]

Wait wait wait... so the guy pointed out that there is an open beta where you do not have to pre-order and hes a troll? WTF?

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[jandrese]

Yes, it is safe to assume that a Star Wars MMO will be a smash hit that lives forever. After all, Star Wars Galaxies is still an unstoppable juggernaut, right?

Is this an improvement on the Teletype version?

[mbstone]

From Super Star Trek

"The short-range scan gives you a considerable amount of information about the quadrant your starship is in. A short-range scan is best described by an example."

          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
          1 * . . . . R . . . . Stardate 2516.3
          2 . . . E . . . . . . Condition RED
          3 . . . . . * . B . . Position 5 - 1, 2 - 4
          4 . . . S . . . . . . Life Support DAMAGED, Reserves=2.30
          5 . . . . . . . K . . Warp Factor 5.0
          6 . K . . . . . * . . Energy 2176.24
          7 . . . . . P . . . . Torpedoes 3
          8 . . . . * . . . . . Shields UP, 42% 1050.0 units
          9 . * . . * . . . C . Klingons Left 12
          10 . . . . . . . . . . Time Left 3.72

"You may abandon the Enterprise if necessary. If there is still a starbase in the galaxy, you will be sent there and put in charge of a weaker ship, the Faerie Queene.

The Faerie Queene cannot be abandoned.""

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Enderandrew]

They've hired some strong vets down in Austin who have worked on MMOs for years and years, including the first major MMO in Ultima Online.

Bioware is behind this. They're promising to bring their style of single-player story arcs to the MMO genre. They said they were not going to do an MMO until they were convinced they could do it right. Like Blizzard, they are a studio that holds themselves to a pretty high standard.

The "trailers" are nothing short of amazing.

They're focusing on an era that many fans love, and haves tons of Sith and Jedi, where as Galaxies mishandled Jedi.

Galaxies was pretty bad to begin with, but had some fans. They they completely changed the game to try and appease people who didn't like it, and in the process alienated the few who did like it.

Because...

[denzacar]

That is where all the continuity is. Along with the most of the Trek universe. And where all the fan-base's nostalgia is.

The "New Trek" will probably fare like Spiderman just did.
Couple of movies, then a change of management, then another reboot.

And that cycle will go on until it finally dawns on the "runners of the franchise" that Star Trek is a TV series franchise, not a movie franchise.
Until we get another 7-season series, all this in between is just a break. A commercial one.

add tags:

[The Cisco Kid]

windowsonly proprietary-garbage.

Great, but...

[allquixotic]

I pre-ordered like most people, but it appears that Cryptic didn't plan to handle the load on their servers. My biggest gripe with the game right now is that the service itself is extremely unreliable -- half the time I can't get in, and when I can get in, I get disconnected after 5 - 10 minutes of play.

Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy that, with this kind of service (or lack thereof), people will get angry and stop playing. And then they'll have *plenty* of available capacity on their servers. Plenty.

Re:Great, but...

[Knara]

Allow me to remind you of what a "beta" is...

The actual game doesn't release for another few weeks.

Re:Great, but...

[allquixotic]

Right -- an *open* beta, *weeks* before launch. Any other software than an MMO would be just about ready to go when the number of days till production can be counted on your fingers and toes.

The actual game client isn't all that bad. The real failure is their server infrastructure, which appears unable to handle the demand of the players.

Also, there are hundreds of instances of each area, yet some instances are so busy that it can take an hour just to gain access to it. They've apparently never heard of load balancing or ahead-of-time slot reservation, which leaves users in a potentially infinite loop like this:

1) Log into the game and wait a very long time to "Retrieve the list of characters".
2) Click the "Play" button on your character and wait a very long time for the game to load.
3) Get into your previous instance, which is only rarely a problem.
4) Click through all the mission dialogs that say you've completed the mission, because you have, and you're trying to leave, and it won't let you.
5) Try to warp out of the instance and into the "sector space".
6) Curse at the system when it announces that the map is full. Gee, if it was full, why couldn't you have told me that *before* all the long load times?

The instances seem to have a fairly small number of slots (about 40), and they are picked either at random or based on the least busy instance at any given time. But if a particular region is particularly popular (and sector space is very, VERY popular), the only available instances will have, say, 38/40 or 39/40 slots in use. So by the time you load, some other person has already taken all the slots, and you get kicked all the way back to the login screen. Chance to pick another instance? Forget it. All the way back to step 1.

It's this kind of simple-minded instance management that makes the game so bad, and improving it would require a major refactoring of the existing network protocol, impacting both the client and the server in a major way.

If this were a problem back in closed beta, it would make sense that such an ad-hoc system were in place -- after all, there's still months till release, and ample time to refactor this kind of stuff. But at this point they're practically printing the manuals and burning the CDs for the box sets, and from here on out it's just minor fixes to keep the thing running.

Or at least, that's how everything except MMOs work. But from past experience with MMOs, the *real* technical state of this game is actually closer to late-alpha than retail.

Re:Great, but...

[Knara]

Yes. The open beta in MMOs is there precisely to work on large-scale load balancing issues.

I'm not sure why you're surprised at this.

Re:Great, but...

[Eudial]

Could it conceivably be that they are intentionally choking the supply of slots in order to debug congested load scenarios?

it would be nice to play

[Anonymous Coward]

but now servers tend to kick you out dozens of times per hour due connection probs or when maps are full. Aye, is it like 20 ppl per map and that's it? I know, it's beta etc. but constant drop outs and full maps prevents even getting exited what the game can offer. With closed beta it was working quite well. Now with hordes of new players playability went down to drain. Givin' it a chance, though.. but not until tomorrow.

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Ogive17]

SWG (pre-CU) is still my favorite MMO. The Old Republic looks really interesting, which is the opposite of STO which looks rushed.

Consensual PvP is for carebears

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously

Re:Consensual PvP is for carebears

[ThosLives]

Why is it that only now have I just contemplated the horror that would be an actual MMO based on Care Bears. *shudder*

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[aztektum]

How can it be "delayed" when a release date was never officially announced?

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[uncledrax]

Never underestimate the ability of upper level management to hose up even the best gameplan for a title.... remember what EA did to Origin.. they can do the same to Bioware.. I mean.. they already own them anyway.

Shame on us

[phirewind]

I want to like this game, I want it to be great, but shame on anybody who participates in this beta, or pre-orders this game. Less than a subscription period away from launching, and they haven't even announced the subscription model yet. There is talk that $15/mo time cards have been seen at a GameStop retail store that wasn't supposed to shelve them yet, but the amount is not the issue. It's the fact that they excpect us to NOT EVEN CARE how much it costs. We don't deserve to know. We are but red-shirts paying taxes to the almighty captains and should be glad for the opportunity to die in their service. While fighting level 1 BORG?!?!? Screw that. I'll be playing Global Agenda for the slow-but-acceptable action and Aion for the omg-it-makes-sense-for-me subscription model. Call me when you care about the franchise and have some modicum of respect for the fanbase.

I already canceled

[Mekkah]

If I wanted to play space games with the pewpew ships I would reenable my EVE account in one of the 10,000 e-mails I get from CCP telling me that their new expansions is amazing but hasn't solved the lag problem.

gg

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[geminidomino]

A Star Wars game without space ships?

Wow, so it's being sold on what, the phenomenal storytelling of the contemporary Star Wars universe?

Furry? Please tell me that doesn't mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Nobody wants a funky ship or a furry speced warrior.

Did you mean fury, or have people from Second Life had a hand in creating a very disturbing element for this game? I blame the tribbles...

Actually

[SmallFurryCreature]

Picard: I want suggestions.

Worf: Lets kill everyone and everything!

Picard: Capital idea, make it so.

The eurogamer preview makes it clear, this MMO is for people that thought Enterprise was a great series, finally space boobies and big battles instead of all the soul searching and boring talking...

If you want your Star Trek to be "The city on the edge of forever" (If I have to explain, I must kill you) or "The measure of a man", then just forget it. There are no moral questions in this game. No Sci-fi to question the nature of humankind.

Even adventure trek like "Starship mine" (Picard does "Die hard") which would translate well to a "Deus Ex/Thief/System shock" style gameplay is beyond this game.

"Yesterday's Enterprise" or even "The inner light", story telling you can forget as well.

So what is left? Simplistic combat and being overrun by thousands of Wesley's. This has about as much to do with Star Trek as "Star Trek: Elite Force". And at least that was based on an element of Voyager (google "worsed voyager episode" common answer? Every single one of them.)

If you think the best of Trek was when Janeway tried to do Ripley (badly) then this might be the game for you.

For non trek fans, you will like this if you liked Champions Online in which case I am suprised you managed to read this far without shortcircuiting your keyboard with your drool.

For trekkies, it is an amusing romp and a bit of fun to hear and see all those sounds again, but it is like having sex with a hooker, the sex ain't worth the eternal regret and feelings of self-loathing.

If you do give it a try, make sure you have the best of trek on a playlist ready to sooth your ravaged mind. Just so that you won't think Trek is "blow everything up". I recommend "The measure of a man", not a blaster fired, no ships blowing up, just Star Trek as it was meant to be.

Re:Actually

[elrous0]

thousands of Wesley's

Oh great, now I'm going to have nightmares tonight. Well, at least you mentioned "The Inner Light" (IMHO the best episode of TNG). I would also add a mention of the DS9 episode "Whispers." Pretty simple story in that one, but man what a poignant ending. Can't replicate that in any MMO.

Re:Actually

[secolactico]

>For non trek fans, you will like this if you liked Champions Online in which case I am suprised you managed to read this far without shortcircuiting your keyboard with your drool.

Because it *is* pretty much Champions Online with a Star Trek motif. The interface and gameplay are damn identical. The main difference is that characters instead of looking like comic book characters look like plastic G.I. Joe dolls (sorry, action figures) in starfleet uniform.

If you wanted a Space MMO but didn't like Eve, this ain't it.

I suspect the quests will be pretty much like CO: go there (by pressing F and being teleported... whatever happened to exploration?) and fire all weapons until everything (maybe you) explodes. Hopefully it won't run out of content before the end of the first two months, like CO did.

And while I understand the desirability for fully instanced MMO and it's many advantages, it takes away the illusion of a large world. You are simply in a series of discrete rooms disconnected from everywhere else.

I don't regret purchasing it. But if open beta is any indicative of how release is going to be, I'll probably play the "free" month and then go on my way.

Re:Actually

[bickerdyke]

You're answering your own question.

What I like most about ST is that there's room for everything. From "Measure of a man", via "troubles with tribbles" up to O'Brian in the trenches agains some Jem'Hadar, "Year of hell", classic "Locked room" murder stories....

Watching a new episode was like picking something from Forrest Gumps chocolate box.

I doubt there is anything, that has nothing to do with Star Trek.

And I enjoyed Elite Force. Still a Star-Trekky-Story, but in a kind of story (FPS) that simply works better in a game than on screen.

And I couldn't even stand watching Enterprise!

I would agree but

[SmallFurryCreature]

I would agree but that would mean acknowledging that DS9 ever happened, it never did so I can't. "Soap Trek: As the spacestation turns" does not exist in this timeline.

Re:I would agree but

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, the last season was fine.

Re:I would agree but

[operagost]

Garak is one of the greatest characters in Trekdom, and you are denying yourself the pleasure of experiencing his slimyness. That is all.

Re:I would agree but

[trytoguess]

DS9 had it's flaws, but it never was a soap opera in space (well no more than TNG or Voyager), and I never heard it being called such a thing. Do you recall what gave you the soap opera vibe?

Re:I would agree but

[bickerdyke]

Perhaps story arcs spanning up to three episodes?

Re:I would agree but

[Supurcell]

But I thought that was a good thing. Maybe I would like soap operas? I've never seen one.

Re:I would agree but

[bickerdyke]

I liked that too. That finaly pulled ST out of the "moral dilemma of the week" junk. But with still one main story per episode. And still far from that soap opera tangled mess of story threads.

Re:I would agree but

[elrous0]

So, let me get this straight. You sat through three seasons of William Shanter getting his shirt ripped off in silly fights, making melodramatic speeches, and following the same lame formula in pretty much every episode. And your complaint about DS9, the most sophisticated, well-written, and adult-oriented Trek series ever made, is that it was too much like a soap opera?!? You mean the soap operas with lame formulas, simplistic characters, melodrama, etc.?

Re:I would agree but

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I loved DS9, but seriously this post does NOT deserve a flamebait mods. Effing fanboys/girls...

Don't worry, they will be gone 1month

[SmallFurryCreature]

The hardcore Trekkies (those that liked TOS and TNG, disliked DS9, hated Voyager and deny Enterprise) will be back in 1 month.

1 day to play the game.

30 days to rant about how it raped the license.

I am in beta, I played the 1 day. See you in 30 days when I am done ranting.

My Beta Impressions

[gedrin]

My impressions from playing the game:

Your Character: You start off as a junior officer in the position of ship's captain. Your character can be Tactical (tank/dps), Engineering(utility) or Science(buff/heal), and this largely determines your ground combat role, but your space captaining is seperate. Standard races are included as packages for character look, but you can do all sorts of things to your appearance and I've seen some strange things/people in spacedock. You also can customize your uniform to a degree. XP are invested in skills, which give you powers.
Bridge Officers: BO's are pets on a planet, and powers in space. They level up and can be given specific training. You can get new BO's in the same way you can get gear, buy, mission reward and so on. Not all BO's have the same capabilities. They come in three general flavors, Tactical, Engineering, Science, with similar functions to the PC versions. In space, BO’s allow you to do special things with your ship, like fancy photon torpedo spreads and emergency power to shields. BO’s may be equipped with gear just like your main character.
Your Ship: You can customize your ship’s look a good deal. Depending on your preference you can have a Miranda from WoK, something more TNG, or mix and match because you really just like the way those particular nacelles look. There’s also gear for your ship. You can install that disruptor array on your Fed ship if you like.
Ground combat: It’s okay, but not great. However, if you’re ST fan the words “phaser rifles” will probably do it for you. The little phaser has a stun attack. Also, the default unarmed attack seems to be that palm-strike-to-nose thing.
Space Combat: It’s ship combat, not fighter combat. Firing arcs, weapon charge, shield regeneration. Battling a single comparable ship is not intended to be quick in this game. You’re intended to fight an enemy that will try to shelter it’s weak shields and you’re expected to do the same. Many fights are against more numerous small opponents (the Orions deploy fighters), and the management of your weapons and powers is where your time is spent. It’s not about movement, it’s about management. This appeals to me for ship combat of this type.
Quests: The training mission above is what it is, newb training. I never really felt like I was taking on the Borg, but rather like I was helping out after the fight, then joining the big ships to push them out.
The other missions seem much more like ST episodes. Travel to a system that's having a labor disptue as the Fed representative. Discover pirates in the system and clear them out. Beam down to resolve the differences. While the diplomatic options are too simplified and need serious work, I think they've done a good job of replicating the ST episode in game. Things begin "Stardate bla...we are escorting so and so to a Vulcan monastery..." and end with the ship warping out of system or the crew beaming off planet.
It feels like the game will have a story, with missions that are a part of it.
Kirk vs. Picard: Definitely more Kirk. Myabe you could call it “Enterprise-E Picard”. In the Sol area there are public quests that involve Klingon incursions, and I killed a whole lot of Klingons in that Vulcan monastery. Sure, you’re expected to talk to people. Angry Federation workers are an example of people to whom one is expected to be diplomatic. The pirates in orbit you’re expected to explode. It’s a post-Dominion War post-Wolf 359 Federation.
GOOD: It’s Star Trek. Travel around. Meet new folks. Talk to some. Blow up Klingons. Uncover strange anomalies. Meet the alien of the week (probably a PC). Beam in, beam out. Go to warp. Cue music. I also like the ship combat.
BAD: Load screens. Too many load screens. It’s a major failure of the game. Combat pacing and dynamism needs work, but the load screens are a much bigger hurdle. Also, t

Re:My Beta Impressions

[pHus10n]

Thanks for taking the time to type out that review. It seems thorough and on-point.

Re:My Beta Impressions

[dushkin]

I participated in the closed beta and feel this review scores as quite accurate. I want to add several things though. First is, combat (both space and ground) feels very active and involved, much more so than most of the MMOG genre and definitely scores high in my book. I wasn't expecting much from ground missions, but they are absolutely great.

The missions all have stories. Some better than others, but overall the stories tied into the missions really well. You hardly ever got "kill ten rats". Even exploration missions can be interesting. I found a planet somewhere with carnivorous plants and had to spot them all so I can use the data.

Speaking of missions: auto grouping is really a wonderful thing! I got to meet a lot of new folks that way.

The game is also very customizable, and will be very good for RP.

But I'll just say this: the closed beta definitely FELT like a beta. I couldn't play the open one yet due to my internet connection at home not working until the phone company can be assed to send a technician, but I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing the open beta.

This game scores real high in my book.

Re:My Beta Impressions

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you nailed it. I suspect this game will do well because the movie last May did well.

I think a good 9/10 of the whining here are EvE players that realize all the newbs they grief will leave. Actually I suspect EvE will take a big hit in terms of players. After all, there's number of EvE players that play EvE not because they really like the game, but because its the only game in town. A good number of these will move, so I suspect that's why these guys are whining...

Re:Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Knara]

If you recall, SWG also launched with no space ships, so that apparently isn't a deal-breaker for Star Wars MMO players.

Once SOE got ahold of it and screwed it up, that was a problem. Apparently people got mad that it was hard to become a Jedi.

News Flash!

[osu-neko]

People bored of or just never interested in MMO's will not be interested in a Star Trek MMO! *shock*

Re:News Flash!

[Nasarius]

If you've played, say, Ultima Online in its heyday or Darkfall recently, you'd know what I mean when I refer to the "usual MMO", versus the entire MMO genre. Doom, Doom clones, BioShock, and Deus Ex (arguably) are all FPSes, dontchaknow. And yet many people who were sick of Doom clones probably loved Deus Ex.

You're all missing the crux

[Anonymous Coward]

Game play mechanics
Graphics
PvE vs PvP
Solo vs Group play
blah blah blah...

What we need to know is how naked can we make one of those green skined women and where is the most popular replicator in the largest space dock that we can /dance for some gold pressed latinum

Not really open?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really an open beta if you need a key now isn't it? It's more like a pre-orderers only beta.

You're all spelling Garak wrong

[istewart]

Just thought I'd let you know.

Re:You're all spelling Garak wrong

[elrous0]

He keeps changing the spelling to confuse us. And, I'll tell you something else, I'm beginning to suspect he's more than just a tailor.

Well I've played it and...

[CountBrass]

...not hugely impressed.

OK so you might forgive very frequent disconnections, login server being up and down like a whore's drawers and lots of lag (let's hope they have European servers and don't expect us to connect to a server on the west coast of the US when it goes live). It is a beta: although a late beta.

But.

The big problem is the basic design of the game.

*Everything* is instanced and they are tiny instances.

So game play is: 30 seconds running around, 30 seconds load screen, 5 seconds to select the only possible option, 30 seconds load screen. And so on and so on.

It's worse than the original EverQuest: at least there you only had load screens when moving between quite large areas. In STO the Admiral's office is an instance!

And one more thing.

This is very much the JJ Abrams school of Star Trek: sod any consistency with the last 40 years of Star Trek we can just make this shit up as we go along. Star Fleet captains get to invent their own uniforms, design their own ships hell they can even invent new races if they want to (they could even invent a new race, let's say humans with facial tatoos, and call them Romulans if they want. Oh wait, they did that last year).

So in summary this is "generic space game with lots of lag, lots of time spent watching the load and frequent disconnections" online.

Don't bother...

[boxfetish]

I got a beta key and played through many of the missions last night. Really? Don't bother. The UI is terrible and the graphics are terrible for a game that is releasing this year. They must be using a 5 year old graphics engine or something. There is a 1 or 2 second delay between pressing the F key to interact and the action. Very aggravating. I will keep playing off and on for the next two weeks and hope for a miracle, but I was expecting much more and barring some sort of miracle, I won't be buying this game at all.

To be a beta tester you have to pre-order?!

[__aarvde6843]

I'm ruled out without even have a go. I thought beta testers would have a go without the need of purchasing. That's the wole point: Do you like the product or not? To be a beta tester I have to pre-order something I have no idea if it gets to my expectations... Why would I do that? I've owned the Star Trek games that have arise in the past... Not good... At all! Give me the chance to say Yey or nay! (Trekie for over 20 years)

Skill based progress Level based

[Tristonian]

Not sure how much this was discussed but I think most people should try the game even if it's only based on the fact that it's skill based and not level based. Just some other posters, I enjoyed skill based progress in MMO's like SWG (pre-cu). I'm not a fan of the engine used in the game at all. Mind you I haven't played much of the beta but my initial impression was that it looks promising. I actually dislike Star Trek but I'm a sucker for space combat. Like every MMO it will have it's launch day bugs and such but I'm definitely curious as to how the devs evolve this game.