Star Trek: Online - Page 2

There are a lot of options for reducing the graphics output, so it's certainly possible your pc can run it. What I'm reading from the official boards is that most of the people having graphics problems only have them in the hubs where a lot of live players are congregating. The ships are pretty detailed, so if you're in the Sol system, for example, your pc will be trying to display a lot of detailed starships.

And Richard, I have read that sometimes you are in fact given the option to talk to potential enemies before conflict erupts, and that Science officers can put points into diplomacy at later stages.

I wouldn't expect many options when it comes to resolving missions. There's some variety in the gameplay, but it's pretty linear. The missions can get quite involved though, like a space battle followed by surveying the area, followed by a trip to a nearby planet, then some phaser/melee fights, some conversation, a chase with more fights, wrapping up with a space battle where you have to defend the area until reinforcements arrive.

The variety comes more in how you customize your character. You, each member of your crew and your ship can all be cosmetically tailored, outfitted with items, and all but the ship get their own skills. Your type of ship and crew members are included in the level/quest rewards as you advance.

With the varied gameplay and progression, it seems like ST:O offers a lot more options than the average MMO... and most of it's pretty fun as well, especially the space combet. I'd say if you're a Star Trek fan, there's no reason not to pick it up so far.

Oh, and there's no room for you on my bridge if you aren't a hot alien girl, I think that goes without saying.

USS Hot Alien Ass?

I'm considering playing, but I'm a more casual gamer than I used to be and something I dislike about most MMOs is not a lot of casual gamer support.

I'm keeping expectations in check -- the tutorial and starter areas in Champions were pretty fun, but the bloom came off the rose awful fast. I hope there's a little more variety in starting areas and missions, because it looks like there's some replayability here with different crew combinations, but if that means doing the exact same missions a dozen times like it did in Champions, no dice.

From everything they've said you can play the vast majority of the game completely solo if you'd rather just go at your own pace without having to deal with joining a fleet(guild). I'm barely out of the sol system though so I have no idea how much truth there is in that quite yet but it seems possible with everything I've seen so far.

Watching some from that stream. Looks cool, but I haven't played many space battle simulators so I'm kinda a newbie.

Also, I wonder if there's going to be any purists playing. As in, if you lose your ship you start over.

When you are alone and enter an area designed for multiple people, the game defaults to combining you with the ships of other players into a group. It works pretty well.

When you go down to a planet designed for a full group, you'll always have your AI away team to fill any spots. Their AI works pretty well - early on, they're probably better than you are.

It definitely feels like a game you could play in small (casual) increments and still have fun with it. The only "non-casual" part is that it still falls into the old MMO standard of having a piss-poor tutorial and documentation. The learning curve is steep; luckily the penalty for abysmal failure is minimal (I know from repeated experience).

True. But Star Trek's gameplay is significantly more interesting and fun. Champions really had very little going for it outside of your character. Making a superhero was awesome, but from the very beginning everything else was a standard MMO. Trek's ground missions feel pretty standard, but the space aspect adds a lot.

I'm doubtful I could play any MMO beyond the first free month, so I evaluate them more on whether I can get a month's worth of fun out of them. At this point, I'm leaning towards a 'yes' for Star Trek (where Champions was a certain 'no').

Just curious, but how much is in this game?

Has there been a discussion on the net of how many planets are in this?

The beta is currently limited to two sectors, Federation and Klingon, but they promise to open up more as the beta goes on (Romulan, Cardassian and Borg). Depending on how big those sectors are, there could be quite a bit of content.

Open beta key giveaway at Rock Paper Shotgun:

That guy likes to hum alot.

I looked at some other gaming feeds. Are there any that are less annoying and more entertaining?

I am playing this beta as well. There is a certain amount of Pirates of the Burning Sea with this game. Ship combat is beautiful, but my ground avatar looks clunky. Bajorans look like they were all chisled out of rocks because the angles of their faces are so square. It is beta, so the servers are high loads, but I am getting quite a bit of Server Not Responding or rubberbanding.

I am liking the ship missions. Ground combat still has me unsold. My Redshirts are better skilled than me. I have taken a couple bridge officers down with me, but I cannot figure out when to use their specialty skills. (I am an Engineer, so I can...repair things? But repair what?) Ground combat reminded me of Champions. I was in that Beta as well, so I knew not to buy Champions.

Overall, I like it. Graphically, I think it is below Lord of the Rings Online. The space is great and reminds me somewhat of EVE, but ground combat looks like I dressed up Barbie dolls and made a stop motion film.

Giantbomb's was amusing to me.

So what's the point of being able to get the open beta client practically everywhere when only so many people have the key to actually play it?

Those people with the keys have to go somewhere to download it.

Was watching some guy play sims 3 for a little bit. He would do night runs with his sims stealing stuff. lol

Just did one mission I thought was pretty cool. Flying through an asteroid field alone to scan an outpost with some higher level Klingons in the area. My handy science officer tells me to stay close to the bigger asteroids to have my signature hidden by its strong magnetic field, making me invisible. I still had to fight some birds of prey but the big ones never saw me as I warped away after the scan. Not a very big mission, maybe ten minutes or so, but it did feel like a little slice of the show what with the technobabble saving the day and all. If they can keep giving me that feeling then Im in for awhile.

I've finished the tutorial and done the first mission, and I'm getting a heavy Pirates of the Burning Sea vibe from this. As in I see no reason for it to be an MMO.

The MMO element kind of does feel like it's defeating the point of Star Trek. Why boldly go where everyone is already farming?

It's really fun as long as you don't imagine what it would have been like as a solo RPG with more story and characters.

But that's really the problem with every single MMO to date: they end up feeling more limited than a normal game in every way except the number of people running around.

le sigh. my graphics card fails with this game.

alas, star trek online we only knew each other for so long...

I haven't given it enough of a chance to make a decision yet, but I do like how they've implemented space combat. It feels pretty much like Star Trek ship-to-ship fighting. I could do without the ground sections.

Damn on so on the fence about this game... The space missions look great, I just need to see how those ground missions work out.

You guys aren't selling me on this.

I'm not trying to.

Shit, I'm just playing it to kill a little time. I was never particularly interested in it.

Yeah, I mean hey, free beta. No big loss.

yeah, I missed out on the free beta.... unless there are still some free keys floating out there.

That's what I really want. A single player RPG Star Trek game with a sandbox environment.

Screw it, I'll give it a shot this weekend. Anyone got any keys left?

anyone know how to fix a whiting out problem with the graphics?

i can't create a character because the body is whited out. my menus and some of the graphics work, but i can't create a character or see it after ive loaded up the game. it's flickering and quite annoying.

Other than trying different video drivers or lower quality settings, nothing comes to mind.

Maybe an unsupported graphics card/directx issue. I'd say, check for driver updates.

On the official boards most players using nVidia cards recommend rolling back to previous driver version 190.62.

i got it to work finally.

driver needed updating.

So, after putting in a few hours into this... I hate it.

Graphics are shit, gameplay is shit, story is shit and the MMO aspect of it is a joke. The quality looks like it came out in 2002 (with the exception of one or two cut scenes). I honestly don't know how anyone could invest money into this game and this comes from someone who attended conventions pre TNG and bought worthless Star Trek shit.

Back to the 25th anniversary and Judgement Rites games I go then

I have yet to see one single cutscene in my open beta experience. There isn't even an intro.

I played the beta once, got I think to that colony on Vega or whatever, called it a night, and then felt not the slightest compulsion ever to play again. Uninstalled it and don't see any reason to bother with the finished project. It's just really dull. Cryptic just doesn't have the chops to make a really good MMO.

Same here, it's been sitting unplayed on my PC for over a week. As a one-shot purchase single player game, I might be willing to give it a chance, but I'm definitely not willing to pay $15 a month for this.

I'm refering to the "warp in" cut scene whenever you enter an 'open instance' and there was a cut scene for the borg tutorial that was 'so so' the entire landing party graphics are a complete joke... it's quite sad really.

The end of beta event saw a player-led Klingon invasion of Earth sector interrupted by a Borg invasion. Except instead of upping everyone's level like they did with Champions, most everyone was in their teens fighting Borg drones at level 42. I guess they were going for a hopeless last stand kind of vibe.

Im guessing this guy is hitting the nail on the head:

I hear the headstart has been having some server issues.

I couldn't get on at all on Friday. Haven't bothered since then.

On launch day, Cryptic began offering the option of Klingon and Ferengi crew members for your Federation vessel on their online store. As in, sold separately. The Klingons cost more, presumably because they have better stats.

The same day, Blizzard announced that they're working on a iPhone app that will let you access the auction houses in WoW while you're away from the computer. The ability to work the AH to your advantage from your phone will also be a premium service, above and beyond your usual subscription.

And so the slope gets slipperier. Now that they know customers will shell out for cosmetic items that don't impact gameplay, two developers of subscription based games are flirting with the RMT model by selling goods and services that can give you a competitive edge in a multiplayer environment.

I think I'm done with MMOs. At least with single player game DLC, I'm getting additional content that extends the life of the game instead of playing "keep up with the Joneses."

I really doubt the AH app is going to have any significant in-game impact on people that don't have it.

I preordered this. I played in Beta. For an opening day, I played most of yesterday and never once had an issue. I am playing on a midgrade laptop, and after playing with the graphics, the game works smoothly (surprisingly, space is not a graphics issue, Ground missions are). I debated returning my preorder, as I am still worried about the long term, but overall, the game looks and works ten times better than Beta.

Which has me wondering... what was the point of Beta? Preview? Because the graphics are different, the gameplay much smoother, and all the kinks I had a week ago, non-existent. I play LOTRO as well, so I am going to have to balance 2 MMOs. But unless I see something crazy cool, this one will fall by the wayside when the Old Republic comes out.

The Khitomer Accords suddenly took a dark turn. Klingon slaves!