Post by Cybermortis on May 19, 2013 21:21:42 GMT
Star Trek Online review;
This MMO was released as a subscription based game in 2010, but like many MMO’s was changed to a free to play model last year (2012). So its free to download and free to play...but is it worth it?
Gameplay; Gameplay is based around two systems, ground combat and space combat and both are predominantly Player versus Enviroment. Player versus Player combat is entirely optional and unlike many other MMO’s you never have to worry about some bored high level player turning up to kill you. This makes the game feel more like a single player game with a chat function than an MMO.
Space combat takes place on your ship, with a good balance between ship types and a large amount of personalisation in everything from the hardware you decide to take with you through to the look of the ship. The basic controls are easy to get to grips with, and it doesn’t take long to work out how to use the more advanced abilities. While you can create shortcuts for all the ship based abilities I find it easiest to use the keyboard for steering, the spacebar for firing phasers (well, beam weapons) and the mouse for everything else. The HUD can get cluttered as you start to advance - although you can reconfigure the display with ease - and using the mouse seems to make life as lot easier.
Ground combat is styled around a third person shooter model, with officers from your ship standing in for other players should you not be in a group. While this seems to be roughly based on games such as Mass Effect, the reality is that the ground combat is not as fun as the space battles. There is no real cover system short of running behind something, the AI of the computer controlled team mates leaves something to be desired - my engineer has a habit of dropping a shield wall right in front of me for no reason, which has caused me to get stuck more than once. While my medic has this bewildering tendency to run upto the nearest enemy even when armed with a sniper-rifle.
The control system can also get confusing, and on occasion unworkable. Like the space battles the task bar can get cluttered with skills and equipment very quickly but unlike the space battles you really need the mouse to aim and steer. This causes problems when the ability you really need to use requires you to hit control and a number key while steering your character out of the way with the keyboard and aiming with the mouse.
In both cases the game sufferers from equipment and abilities not really being fully explained. I suspect that this is a hold over from this originally being a retail game, where much of this was explained in the game guide. Thankfully tool tips do help you fill in many of the blanks over time, and most players should be able to work out most of the really important stuff as they play.
Characters/Fractions; The game as of writing has two Fractions, the Klingons and the Federation with the Romulans becoming available by the end of this month (May 2013). Both the current fractions allow you to play as one of a large number of different Trek races or create your own alien species. Although there are a huge number of different options to personise your character, the reality is that most seem very limited when it comes to facial features or more complex than feels right and often you’ll notice that most characters often look alike aside from their clothing.
The catch is that (at least until the end of this month) you are limited to having only one Federation character with the Klingons only becoming available once you reach level 25. The Romulan expansion will change this, and it appears that you will be able to start with a single character from each one group from the start. But if you want more characters it will cost you money - more on that below.
Money/equipment; Although free to play not all features are available from the start or without handing over money.
There are three principal currencies in the game, Energy Credits, Dilithium and Zen.
Energy credits are the currency used in the auction house and for buying items from most vendors.
Dilithium is given for some special missions and events and has to be processed - you can only process 8000 units per day. This is used to buy some of the high level equipment available from some vendors. It can also be traded in game for Zen.
Zen is Cryptic’s ‘money’, and can be bought directly through their website using real word money or obtained by trading Dilithium in game (current prices are 1 Zen for 130 Dilithium, but it fluctuates).
While you can progress through the game without handing over a penny of real money, or having a single Zen to your account, it is needed to unlock some features of the game - such as more character slots, different uniforms or the more advanced ships. In theory you should be able to unlock everything you could want simply by collecting and trading Dilithium but given how long this would take the more ‘serious’ player is more likely to buy Zen if only to get their hands on extra character slots - which allows for a faster collection of Dilithium.
The cost of many in game items is, in my opinion, too high for what they are. A typical costume for example costs some 550 Zen, two extra character slots costs some 650 Zen while the minimum amount of Zen you can buy is 500 for $5 - so a new player would really need to spend at least $10-$20 to get anything worthwhile.
Missions; There are several types of mission you can play, although many types only become available once you reach a certain level.
All fractions have their own single player story lines you can follow, which for the most part are fairly good - if add to the impression that this is really a single player game. Most, although not all, of these missions can be played alone or with someone else and depending on your level can give you some very useful equipment.
There are also exploration missions, and patrol missions available in some areas once you reach the required levels. These vary between space combat, ground combat and some other types of ‘run and scan’ ground missions. Those who HATE the ‘fetch’ quests often used in RPG’s will be delighted to hear that I have yet to find one.
You can also pick from several group PvE and PvP missions, which vary from the ‘not so bad’ to the ‘prepare to die over and over’ types. Both ground and space battles are available this way. The grouping system seems to work well, and as an added bonus has an automatic levelling system, so you don’t have to worry if you happen to be at the lower range of the required levels needed to take a mission.
There are several daily missions, ranging from running around scanning particle traces through to fighting a Borg fleet (the latter also has the automatic levelling system, so don’t worry about pitting your starting ship against a Borg cube.) Plus ‘Foundry’ missions, which are player created missions of varying quality - some are good, some are not.
One of the more interesting ideas was the ‘duty officer’ missions. Duty officers are personal on your ship who don’t take part in away missions or appear on the bridge. But you can give them missions to complete while you are off doing other things. This allows even casual players to slowly build up experience and money without having to play for hours at a time.
Appearance/Stability; Visually the game looks quite good, as you’d expect from something that was released less than three years ago as a retail game.
Stability wise however the game can suffer as Cryptic seems to run all of their MMO’s on the same server. It isn’t unusual for the game server to go down once or twice a week, which must have been humiliating for Cryptic when this happened during the open beta for the Romulan expansion.
Conclusion; It is easy to see why the game may have had problems as a subscription based MMO. Frankly I doubt there was enough there to justify spending money every month to play it. As a Free to Play game though it works, since you don’t feel guilty at ignoring the game for days on end. For anyone who really wants a fairly good MMO that can be treated more as a single player game Star Trek Online is well worth a look.
*Update*
The Expansion 'Legacy of Romulus' was released on the 21st (yesterday as of writing). This is a large (5GB) 'patch' that adds the Romulan's to the game as a playable fraction as well as making an eye watering number of alterations to the game - such as improved graphics.
Unfortunately the release has been a screw up of epic proportions, some people were having to wait for several hours for the patch to download and having to reset the launcher several times. Then the login servers were refusing to allow most people into the game due to an 'unknown error', with those who did manage to get in reporting that the lag was so bad it was taking a minute or more just to move one item from their inventory to the bank.
As of writing the situation is only slightly improved. The log in servers are shoving people into a queue causing a long wait just to get into the game as any character. I was able to go make dinner AND eat it in the time it took me to get into the game as one character - you end up having to go through this process if you want to change to another character.
Current recommendations;
Avoid this game for the next week to a month until they either get these problems sorted out or end up having to close the game down because no one is playing it anymore.
Do not spend any money on this game, no matter how tempting it might be. A large number of those players who have handed over money are, to put it mildly, not impressed.
This MMO was released as a subscription based game in 2010, but like many MMO’s was changed to a free to play model last year (2012). So its free to download and free to play...but is it worth it?
Gameplay; Gameplay is based around two systems, ground combat and space combat and both are predominantly Player versus Enviroment. Player versus Player combat is entirely optional and unlike many other MMO’s you never have to worry about some bored high level player turning up to kill you. This makes the game feel more like a single player game with a chat function than an MMO.
Space combat takes place on your ship, with a good balance between ship types and a large amount of personalisation in everything from the hardware you decide to take with you through to the look of the ship. The basic controls are easy to get to grips with, and it doesn’t take long to work out how to use the more advanced abilities. While you can create shortcuts for all the ship based abilities I find it easiest to use the keyboard for steering, the spacebar for firing phasers (well, beam weapons) and the mouse for everything else. The HUD can get cluttered as you start to advance - although you can reconfigure the display with ease - and using the mouse seems to make life as lot easier.
Ground combat is styled around a third person shooter model, with officers from your ship standing in for other players should you not be in a group. While this seems to be roughly based on games such as Mass Effect, the reality is that the ground combat is not as fun as the space battles. There is no real cover system short of running behind something, the AI of the computer controlled team mates leaves something to be desired - my engineer has a habit of dropping a shield wall right in front of me for no reason, which has caused me to get stuck more than once. While my medic has this bewildering tendency to run upto the nearest enemy even when armed with a sniper-rifle.
The control system can also get confusing, and on occasion unworkable. Like the space battles the task bar can get cluttered with skills and equipment very quickly but unlike the space battles you really need the mouse to aim and steer. This causes problems when the ability you really need to use requires you to hit control and a number key while steering your character out of the way with the keyboard and aiming with the mouse.
In both cases the game sufferers from equipment and abilities not really being fully explained. I suspect that this is a hold over from this originally being a retail game, where much of this was explained in the game guide. Thankfully tool tips do help you fill in many of the blanks over time, and most players should be able to work out most of the really important stuff as they play.
Characters/Fractions; The game as of writing has two Fractions, the Klingons and the Federation with the Romulans becoming available by the end of this month (May 2013). Both the current fractions allow you to play as one of a large number of different Trek races or create your own alien species. Although there are a huge number of different options to personise your character, the reality is that most seem very limited when it comes to facial features or more complex than feels right and often you’ll notice that most characters often look alike aside from their clothing.
The catch is that (at least until the end of this month) you are limited to having only one Federation character with the Klingons only becoming available once you reach level 25. The Romulan expansion will change this, and it appears that you will be able to start with a single character from each one group from the start. But if you want more characters it will cost you money - more on that below.
Money/equipment; Although free to play not all features are available from the start or without handing over money.
There are three principal currencies in the game, Energy Credits, Dilithium and Zen.
Energy credits are the currency used in the auction house and for buying items from most vendors.
Dilithium is given for some special missions and events and has to be processed - you can only process 8000 units per day. This is used to buy some of the high level equipment available from some vendors. It can also be traded in game for Zen.
Zen is Cryptic’s ‘money’, and can be bought directly through their website using real word money or obtained by trading Dilithium in game (current prices are 1 Zen for 130 Dilithium, but it fluctuates).
While you can progress through the game without handing over a penny of real money, or having a single Zen to your account, it is needed to unlock some features of the game - such as more character slots, different uniforms or the more advanced ships. In theory you should be able to unlock everything you could want simply by collecting and trading Dilithium but given how long this would take the more ‘serious’ player is more likely to buy Zen if only to get their hands on extra character slots - which allows for a faster collection of Dilithium.
The cost of many in game items is, in my opinion, too high for what they are. A typical costume for example costs some 550 Zen, two extra character slots costs some 650 Zen while the minimum amount of Zen you can buy is 500 for $5 - so a new player would really need to spend at least $10-$20 to get anything worthwhile.
Missions; There are several types of mission you can play, although many types only become available once you reach a certain level.
All fractions have their own single player story lines you can follow, which for the most part are fairly good - if add to the impression that this is really a single player game. Most, although not all, of these missions can be played alone or with someone else and depending on your level can give you some very useful equipment.
There are also exploration missions, and patrol missions available in some areas once you reach the required levels. These vary between space combat, ground combat and some other types of ‘run and scan’ ground missions. Those who HATE the ‘fetch’ quests often used in RPG’s will be delighted to hear that I have yet to find one.
You can also pick from several group PvE and PvP missions, which vary from the ‘not so bad’ to the ‘prepare to die over and over’ types. Both ground and space battles are available this way. The grouping system seems to work well, and as an added bonus has an automatic levelling system, so you don’t have to worry if you happen to be at the lower range of the required levels needed to take a mission.
There are several daily missions, ranging from running around scanning particle traces through to fighting a Borg fleet (the latter also has the automatic levelling system, so don’t worry about pitting your starting ship against a Borg cube.) Plus ‘Foundry’ missions, which are player created missions of varying quality - some are good, some are not.
One of the more interesting ideas was the ‘duty officer’ missions. Duty officers are personal on your ship who don’t take part in away missions or appear on the bridge. But you can give them missions to complete while you are off doing other things. This allows even casual players to slowly build up experience and money without having to play for hours at a time.
Appearance/Stability; Visually the game looks quite good, as you’d expect from something that was released less than three years ago as a retail game.
Stability wise however the game can suffer as Cryptic seems to run all of their MMO’s on the same server. It isn’t unusual for the game server to go down once or twice a week, which must have been humiliating for Cryptic when this happened during the open beta for the Romulan expansion.
Conclusion; It is easy to see why the game may have had problems as a subscription based MMO. Frankly I doubt there was enough there to justify spending money every month to play it. As a Free to Play game though it works, since you don’t feel guilty at ignoring the game for days on end. For anyone who really wants a fairly good MMO that can be treated more as a single player game Star Trek Online is well worth a look.
*Update*
The Expansion 'Legacy of Romulus' was released on the 21st (yesterday as of writing). This is a large (5GB) 'patch' that adds the Romulan's to the game as a playable fraction as well as making an eye watering number of alterations to the game - such as improved graphics.
Unfortunately the release has been a screw up of epic proportions, some people were having to wait for several hours for the patch to download and having to reset the launcher several times. Then the login servers were refusing to allow most people into the game due to an 'unknown error', with those who did manage to get in reporting that the lag was so bad it was taking a minute or more just to move one item from their inventory to the bank.
As of writing the situation is only slightly improved. The log in servers are shoving people into a queue causing a long wait just to get into the game as any character. I was able to go make dinner AND eat it in the time it took me to get into the game as one character - you end up having to go through this process if you want to change to another character.
Current recommendations;
Avoid this game for the next week to a month until they either get these problems sorted out or end up having to close the game down because no one is playing it anymore.
Do not spend any money on this game, no matter how tempting it might be. A large number of those players who have handed over money are, to put it mildly, not impressed.