No trekkies here? While there are legit concerns for the long-term longevity of the game, head-start begins Friday the 29th and it goes live for the people who didn't pre-order on Feb 2nd.

I was playing the open beta and can't wait to do it over when the progress is permanent. They have had a bunch of patches up to the point where they shut down beta yesterday, and if they stay this vigilant they have a lot of potential which is very fun and fresh from your standard MMO.

Anyone else dabbling in the final frontier?

Someone posted in another thread saying the beta was boring and to stay away from this, what do you think?

If he played closed beta that might explain things. I enjoyed the more recent open beta much, especially when you get to the tier 2 ships where they have a specific role (assault, science, defense), as opposed to the first levels where you're all flying in the same crappy ship. I admit I do have a higher tolerance for repetition than most people. If you hated frequently similar missions like City of Heroes, then you won't like the game in it's current state. The severity of the changes they've made from the 20th-23rd makes me hopeful that they will put in the effort to make the missions more dynamic after what I expect to be suggested in the feedback from the community.

Space flight is of course the newest experience since almost all MMOs have tons of ground combat. Space combat is simple on the surface, but challenging enough that you frequently need a strategy and to prevail in a good deal of situations, kind of like poker. Ground combat is pretty much everyone is a ranger/blaster/wizard, etc. There are some dynamics to the actual combat, but the objectives need to be more varied.

Assuming the game stays exactly as it is with my current friends, suspect our group would stay interested for 1-2 months. With no friends I'd probably play for 1 month as if it were non-MMO. If they they improve it a little more like they have been we'd likely play indefinitely

Thanks for the advice, I was looking forward to the game without really any knowledge other then it was a star trek mmo which was enough for me. I will definitely download a trial or something and check it out for myself.

I really wanted to play this but apparently even my new Laptop can't handle it. Why did they make a MMORPG with such high requirements?

giantbomb.com has a 10 part video series on ST:O

If they had a free 7 day trial or something like WoW does, I would check it out at least. As it stands, I don't foresee myself paying the money to purchase the game and then pay any kind of monthly fees for something that, as of late, I have not seen to be very fun in a long term sense from the videos and reviews I have seen.

no MMO is going to offer a free trial period at launch, for the most obvious of reasons.

This looks sick, I just have to keep reminding myself to prepare for disappointment.

It was me. Played Closed beta a week before Open Beta started.

I'm a very big Star Trek fan. There are few people who would get more of a kick out of this on a fanboy level than me.

Unfortunately the game is dull. And Zeldark was right on the money with comparing it to the City of Heroes monotony.

Save your money and time.

What exactly do you do in the game?

I'm a big time Next Gen/DS9 fan so I really want to play this, but I don't think my comp can handle it.

From what I've read it sounds like a ST game i've always wanted.

I'm guessing anyone who is even considering this never played Champions Online... Cryptic is a joke. They have enough problems just creating content, to say nothing of balance. Well actually even trying to distribute clients/patches is taxing for these guys.

I'd guess we're close here, so can you be a little more specific as to your issues with it. I'm sure it's going to suck anyway, but I'd like a little more on exactly why my hopes are going to die a painful death.

Just bought lifetime/preordered, borg, here I come.

Perhaps they spent too much time on Star Trek Online?
They are still pumping out changes and announcing new content. They are adding more battles though. Some non-combat things like a spacial anomoly that needs closing and you have a temp officer guest person and you have to choose which power to shut down the rip in space according to star trek lore or something.

Ship it.

Awwww, dammit to hell. I know this is going to suck, it's almost a mathematical certainty, but I'm such a trek nerd, and the Steam pre-order bonuses seem cool, I'm having a hard time not doing this in the few hours I have left to decide.

What to do...what to do.

Send me a PM when you get the game. You know what resistance is.

can you find someone who has done both? Honestly, I wish you all good luck. All I'm offering is the perspective of someone who has first hand experience (open beta, release, 2 max lvl chars) with Cryptic. Maybe they screened these guys for extra chromosomes. There is this too I guess:

lol

Yeah see the above is the stuff I'm toying with. $60 isn't a bothersome amount to invest to see if the game will be good (for a game I'm this excited about) but I definitely have concerns about the content.

That, and whether or not my comp can even run it. Duo core 2.4 Gig and 4 GB of RAM, but it's a laptop and even with the newer Graphics chips inside, I'm left wondering.

so are people already playing?

I played Open beta and I'm playing on the headstart currently, haven't had much time to play the last couple days but here is what I think so far.

It is a very nice looking game, unfortunately my pc is 7 years old. Although it is far below minimum reccomended settings (I'm running a Pentium 4 lol) it still runs the game just barely on the lowest possible settings. So just because your computer doesn't mean the reccomended settings doesn't mean it won't run it. If it's close to the minimum reccomended I'd wager that it'll run fine on low to moderate settings.

http://cyri.systemrequirementslab.com/srtest/

As a comparison my pc doesn't even get halfway to "minimum" on that meter but it still does run smoothly enough to play (doesn't look very pretty). On my brother's ~3 year old desktop Duo Core 2 it runs quite nicely on moderate settings.

I can't say much about how much content it has, in terms of getting to the high end of the levels. What I can say is that the PVP is fun and immersive. The space battles really make you feel like you are in the Star Trek universe. Starting from level 6 you can make a Klingon character. They start with upgraded ship weapons and a faster, more maneuverable Bird of Prey style ship (federation starts with a cruiser). Klingons basically focus on grinding PVP instances in order to level up, although there is more content than just that. It's a really interesting way to structure an MMO.

I can't really capture the flavor of these battles with just the written word. You have phasers which are used to bring down your opponent's shields, and torpedos which do massive damage but will just bounce if the target's shields are up. Bridge Officers which you obtain through gameplay and can completely customize, giving you a wide variety of tactical options in battle. Some of the best abilities in the first tier are Tachyon Beam (shield drain), Torpedo Spread (Aoe torpedo launcher), High Yield Torpedo (extra strength torpedo), Engineering Team (self heal and gives shields extra power for 30 seconds or so). Basically incorporating all this with the space flight system and then fighting with real human beings, makes for a pretty adrenaline packed game play. It doesn't really feel like a traditional MMO though, more like counterstrike with levels.

I'll have to let someone else comment more on the PvE content as I have been pretty tuned in to annihilating the Federation ever since I hit level 6. It's fun and addictive, and if you have the hardware for it it's a really nice looking game. I hope they are able to have enough quality content to get people to continue to play. It's crazy how many people have bought those borg lifetime subscriptions ($240) already.

I wish this wasn't true but it is. I'm expecting failure for STO until there are enough good reviews to convince me otherwise.

The borg thing looks cool and i could be able to play this whenever i wanted FOREVER.

Do they have good tradeskills in this game? I'm still looking for a game that doesn't neglect the economy/crafters.

Between the head start and it being released yesterday I roughly estimate an average level of about 8. There's an uncommon amount of Lt Commanders still (level 11-20), commanders are rare (21-30) and I flew by some crazy captain yesterday (37). He did have a cool ship though. I've very interested in PvP between my escort, my roommates cruiser and a friend's science vessel, with some misc friends sprinkled on top of it.

They have anomalies you can harvest and use to craft and exchange them for some gear which is almost as good as if you were the next 10 levels higher. So if you just hit 11 for example the gear is almost as good as 20. For crafting specifically there is a fleet (guild) super ship you can craft, but it was outsider speculation. From an article writer and not some guy in a forum. They are also planning 10-man and 25-man raids, and the missions are certainly getting more interesting. Fought this dreadnought ship yesterday that was behind a minefield and cruisers that kept laying them. They also seem to be dropping items less since head start so instead of spending half the rank waiting with the best you can get I'm constantly interested in the next loot.

PvP has got to be awesome vs thinking opponents who don't want to die.