Star TreK Online

[L'ennui]

Anyone tried it? Anyone know of a private server-type way around paying the monthly fees? Dicks!! Cuss!!

 

[Mangoose]

Looks like failure to the massive level. You think MMOs are lazy in their plethora of repetitive quests, but this one takes the cake. If I understand correctly, they just took the regular MMO model, put spaceship skins on them. There is no world, quest, whatever design there is to speak of. Apparently every mission consists of the same steps (fight on ground, then space battle). Each ground encounter is just three groups of mobs to fight, placed in order. Bleh.

 

[Hoodoo]

I heard its not to bad. Scored better than Bioshock 2 in PC Powerplay, said the space battles were done pretty well and the ground bits not so much. But scored better than Bioshock so im kinda interested.

 

[CrusaderTemplar]

Well I'm playing it sorta until I hit max level cap and theres absolutely nothing in game content wise so I guess I be sticking it to pvp. Also Jaesun is playing the game too as a Betazoid Engineer with his huge cruiser .

I'm a Betazoid Science Officer. (Rear Admiral) =/ Hate ground combat too.

 

[Silellak]

Well I'm playing it sorta until I hit max level cap and theres absolutely nothing in game content wise so I guess I be sticking it to pvp. Also Jaesun is playing the game too as a Betazoid Engineer with his huge cruiser .

I'm a Betazoid Science Officer. (Rear Admiral) =/ Hate ground combat too.

Everyone hates the ground combat, it's just a matter of how passionately they do so. And rightfully so, because it's boring, banal shit. I almost wish they'd gone with a FPS or TPS implementation of ground combat, as a counter to the more-strategic space combat.

Speaking of which, space combat, on the other hand, is fairly unique in the MMO world, and a good amount of fun - it reminds me a great deal of Starfleet Command, which is not a bad thing. The space game justifies me playing for probably a couple more months, which is all I ever really intended.

It's a shame EvE doesn't have space combat that's anywhere near as fun as STO, or I'd probably still be playing it. The sandbox-style MMO is still my favorite, but it's become quite rare, and unfortunately most of them are quite boring when it comes to the actual gameplay. I've always said EvE was pretty cool, it just needed a game to go with it.

 

[Mangoose]

Eve's strategy comes from performing well in a group and overall opportunities due to the sandbox arena, and from building your ship. Granted this is more from hearsay (albeit a lot of reading forums while I was getting into it), as I never got to the part of PVPing in a corp.

STO does seem more complex tactically, though. Seems like you have some micromanagement to do with firing weapons, managing energy to subsystems, managing shields, and steering.

Eve is more strategic in that there are many roles to play (in PVP). Basic examples: Tackling, DPS, electronic warfare, tanking. And then there are more specialized roles for certain times such as covert ops, gang warfare buffing, capital ships, interdicting, cyno jumping, etc. To perform these roles you have a huge number of ships (of which a decent amount are optimal), and many ways to fit them with modules.

Besides that, a well done sandbox setting that motivates PVP without fun combat sucks, but so does fun combat without a good motivation for PVP.

The main reason I don't want to play STO is that it seems like Cryptic takes its laziness to the max in world/quest/encounter design. I played some City of Heroes and Champions Online. I'm sure most of you know that City of Heroes consists of getting a mission to go inside a building (read: instance) with the goal of killing all the mobs there or the main big bad guy. Rinse and repeat for the next 40 levels. At least there were some interesting big dungeons (task forces) every dozen levels. Champions Online does the same thing, except with any interesting dungeons, and while there is a lot less instancing that just means you kill X mobs in the open world instead. There's even a lack of content, as I was constantly running out of quests for my level, when all they really have to do is copypasta all their quests.

STO seems like more of the same, so screw that.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah other games are more complex/strategic but for a nice time killer, I'm enjoying STO... it's good for what it is...

My all male crew officers named after gay porn stars.. is awesome.

 

[Silellak]

Yeah other games are more complex/strategic but for a nice time killer, I'm enjoying STO... it's good for what it is...

My all male crew officers named after gay porn stars.. is awesome.

It is, in fact, the embodiment of the phrase "good for what it is".

 

[Rabidredneck]

The season four update is currently being tested and the big thing is they are redesigning ground combat completely. I'm not setup to play on their test server, but friends who are tell me that it is a major improvement over what's being used now.

This podcast show called STOked has it's latest episode up and it's all about season four, with a large emphasis on the new ground combat, as well as an upgrade for the klingon faction base Quo'Nos.

http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/9573 ... nd-combat/

 

[SuicideBunny]

i like the work they did in sto so far. it started out shitty but they listened to community and improved/reworked a lot of things for the better, and are still doing it.
i just wish they would do something for the klingons and not just the feds.

 

[Jaesun]

i like the work they did in sto so far. it started out shitty but they listened to community and improved/reworked a lot of things for the better, and are still doing it.
i just wish they would do something for the klingons and not just the feds.

Yeah the constant pandering to the Federation just turned me off from this game. I love Klingon side, it just really needs a lot more love. Though I have not kept up on this games development since I quit.

 

[L'ennui]

I should give this a whirl sometime when I get a better Internet connection.

Shame about the Klingons, though. Hopefully by the time I jump in they'll be more fleshed out.

 

[Rabidredneck]

Watch the podcast I linked to, they go over plenty of stuff klingons are getting season 4...

Revamped Quo'nos
Expanded sector access with raiding/patrol missions
Said raiding/patrol missions will be consenual PVP
New Gorn models

among others

 

[L'ennui]

Just did. The new ground combat looks much more engageing and I'll admit that Qo'nos is looking sexy!!!

 

[Mangoose]

So I don't get the love for this game. What does it do differently than, say, WoW? Guess I'll try the demo but my opinion of Cryptic is still the same.

 

[Jaesun]

I quit after the did the fucking stupid "Hey! Let's completely fuck up the space combat and completely change it because the Federation players are shit fucking players and whine and cry when Klingon's work together and use tactics to fight Federation Ships" bullshit.

Never did follow up to see how bad they fucked that up. At release it was pretty good.

The ground combat always fucking sucked ass. This is making miss my old GLBT Guild.

 

[Rabidredneck]

Season 4 goes up sometime today. Server patching starts 6:00 am PDT for a few hours so convert to your local time zome.

 

[Rabidredneck]

Tried out some of the new features, and I've been pretty impressed so far. Quo'nos is damn sexy now, it's really easy to get lost in there. The new Gorn models are also quite impressive compared to the originals. (note if you have any gorn BO's, you need to take them to a tailor and start messing with their outfit to update to the new models.)

The biggest difference is the ground combat. I can't describe how much faster it is. Battles would take over a minute are finished in seconds. Response time is also inredible, you acivate a power and BAM it's done. Seriously, once you get used to it, you'll never go back.

Their C-Store got a facelift as well as the ship requisition screen. Another nice addition was new ship warp-in scenes. I got a nice top view of my ship entering a sector.

Can't wait for their duty officer system to go up.

 

[L'ennui]

Hmm. I was about to ask for feedback regarding season 4, you beat me to it!

Well I do believe I'll be giving this a whirl... come September. Right now my crappy Internet connection (a 3G USB stick) and my critically bleeding wallet (getting married at the end of August) would not allow me to enjoy STO like I should, but it seems like something I really might like!

 

[anus_pounder]

Damn. Sounds interesting, I need a job...

 

[SuicideBunny]

Well I do believe I'll be giving this a whirl... come September. Right now my crappy Internet connection (a 3G USB stick) and my critically bleeding wallet (getting married at the end of August) would not allow me to enjoy STO like I should, but it seems like something I really might like!

the game still needs a year or so of maturing at this improvement rate.

 

[Jaesun]

Did they aver add more than those 2 fucking boring PvP maps (for space battles)?

 

[anus_pounder]

Hows the PvE ? Thats all I play MMORPGs for.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Hows the PvE ?

ship combat is basically fun, new ground comat is basically fun, remastered episodes are nice, feature series are ok, with unique and cool loot, esp now that they have some item sets that change ship appearance, some foundry missions are from okish to good, but currently foundy has been broken by the update, fleet actions have been redesigned and got a queue system which is also mostly broken, most missions you will encounter in pve re still the same boring flavourless shit they were at release, as remastering is a slow process, ground combat can be painfully broken, especially when you are up against psionics with the new mechanics (for some reason, psi is a pain in the butt in every friggin cryptic game, but sto most of all). the sectors are annoyingly small and there is no autopilot feature to targets out of sector, deep space exploration still friggin sucks monkey balls and has loads of broken maps, and so on....

tons and tons of work still to be done on the game, and even more than that on the klingons.

 

[anus_pounder]

Oh dear.