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

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: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!