Going to play Star Trek Online? READ THIS!

nice, hopefully i can try it after work, downloading the client software is sooooo slow >.<

 

Perhaps some of the discussion here can be redirected to Do you feel $15/mo is a resonable cost for an MMORPG?

Personally, I like the star trek mythos and all, but I just don't see it translating to a good MMO, or rather I don't see any signs that this MMO will be proving that last phrase wrong.

Also, $15 a month + $50 intial cost is a huge commitment for me and while I would be willing to pay it for a good enough game, it better be pretty damn good.

 

Despite having my doubts about STO @ launch (I've played Closed Beta since October) I have thrown caution to the wind and ordered STO CE because a) I like sci-fi themed games and, b) I'm a sucker for shiny packages containing swag. Whether I continue playing the release build after the initial 30 days remains to be seen.

The open beta stage for STO seems kind of moot considering Cryptic are still projecting a Feb 2 retail release date. That's less than 3 weeks away which means a lot of issues/bugs/recommendations will go unimplemented. With that close of a launch chances are the 'final' build has already been locked. Anyone remember Age of Conan and the closed/open beta fiasco? I do all too well.

 

True. There will most likely be a huge patch around the sale date. So after everyone downloads and installs, they'll be sitting there waiting for a 1GB patch. LOL. I got an open beta key and at least going to try it and see if it's worth the $50 for a month of play at least. But I wouldn't mind the communicator button.

 

I love the game. Been playing every second the server is up since yesterday. There are bugs and massive server lag, BUT I love it still. The concept is amazing - love the ground and space battles. Reminds me of the golden age of Star Wars Galaxies.

I'm happy I spent $60 for the Digital Deluxe on Steam.

 

I think it is utterly ridiculous to make you pay for the game content and then make you pay again if you actually want to play with that content. All I can say is that they need to do it like WoW, let you do a trial period of the full game FOR FREE to see if it's any good. Also, monthly fee games really need to die. I much prefer the free to play concept which relies on microtransactions. I love Star Trek, but I will not pay this kind of money unless i know it's good.

 

TBH, I'd much rather see a quality single player RPG along the lines of KotOR or Mass Effect in the Star Trek universe. Star Trek is more about the stories and diplomacy than grinding with a mass of people.

 

THIS! Seriously, that's a great idea!

 

Simmer grasshopper. The game isn't even released yet and you want a trial? Cryptic has a trail for Champions Online, so you can be assured there will most likely be one for STO.

 

I want to play this, really truly want to.

Can't get a key though, and I can't really justify spending $50 on an MMO. That could buy me like 24-25 songs for Rockband on XBL.

 

how is it cimparable to SWG? Is the whole game player driven like SWG?

 

Internal testing by the devs is usually done on a client that is a patch or two ahead of the one beta testers are running or the one that gets sold. It takes time to burn all those DVDs that go to market.

 

Well that's what I'm saying, it needs to go gold now. And I find it hard to believe they'd press DVD's that weren't at least tested with the open beta. Either way, I guess patching is an expected norm these days.

 

I was finally able to hop on the beta last night for the first time. During the intial training sequence, it was a bit laggy. But afterwards, I didn't experience much lag at all. For me, the game controls are pretty similar to WOW with the exception of space combat which was pretty easy to control. I wasn't able to play too long since the emergency maintenance kicked in, but tonight I plan to team up with some buddies to try that out.

As with many other MMOs, there are a ton of customizable options for your characters and ships. Missions feel like you are playing an episode of the show. Another feature I like is that you can exit and jump right back where you were before seamlessly. Good for the casual player I guess.

As for the pay for an MMO debate, for myself since I only own a desktop and a laptop, MMOs are all I play. No console systems for me, I much rather prefer mouse and keyboard. I have a friend that has a PS3, Wii, Xbox360, and Nintendo DS and buys new games all the time which easily adds up. For myself, spending $15/month for a game I enjoy is easily manageable. If I feel the need to play anything else, that's what friends are for I guess.

In the end, if you can get access to try the beta, by all means try it out, if not I'm sure they'll offer a free trial to the game sooner or later.

 

If you need some help or just want to run around with me you are welcome to join my group or message me. I'm Xarthos in game or @Xarthos... whatever. I invited Vaath (NBR guy) last night and had a good chat with him while running some missions with 2 of the Goon guilds. I'll be on sometime around 5:30 eastern.

 

Server just crashed and now the launcher won't even load the page it forwards to.

 

Emergency maintenance. Expect a LOT of this during Beta. It can not be helped.

 

I am a huge Star Trek fan, thanks for the heads up!

 

hey, sounds good. i'll msg you guys when i get online. at lvl 10 atm, just one more lvl then finally get a new ship, can't wait. trying out engineering cruiser.

 

Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU and NGE) set the bar high when it came to space and ground combat in a sci-fi setting. I loved SWG, moreso than than EQ and WoW combined.

However, the success of STO will not hinge on whether the gameplay is compelling or not. What will determine STO's success is the smoothness of the launch. As an avid player of MMO's since the days of Ultima Online and EverQuest (going back to the late 90's here) the launch is one of the biggest telling points of the success or demise of a new MMO.

 

I'll be on after 6:30 eastern tonight. I'll likely pvp Q or hanging out at Starbase K7. Come say hi. Whatever.

This game is not player driven like SWG. It's not anything like swg. I played the hell out of SWG and it is not likely we will see a clone of that anytime soon from any publisher. Wow is what they are going to try and emulate. If anything I would say this game is more fun than any other recent mmo I have played simply because of the pew pew pew laser beams and sound. If you ever liked the big battle scenes in any star trek movie. If you love Wrath of Khan and undiscovered country. This is probably the game for you.

If you don't know what I am talking about you may not care or like the game. PVP with my buddies has been insane fun. I get blown up sometimes but its good fun. I think it is hilarious when a bird of prey decloacks and eats you alive while you are trying to balance your shields desperately. I haven't done this much yelling over Vent since I was getting stalked in Goontown by a horde of Bounty Hunters trying to collect money for Killing my Jedi.

 

Just bought this game

I hope that code still works

 

I just started playing the game this weekend. My wife wants me to quit because of my huge busted Vulcan character and her even bigger breasted Andorian crew mate!

Seriously the most fun I have had so far is creating the characters body and uniform and then I have run a few quests. The graphics are fine as compared with WoW but the game play is nowhere near as fun as WoW's.

I was truly surprised to see that you can adjust the bust size of the female characters, and try as I might I could not refrain from making them as large as allowable.....I am a guy so don't hate me ladies as I do not judge any woman based upon her cup-size, I am just breast obsessed, just ask my wife,

I even showed my female ensign to my wife and she asked if I could make her boobs smaller

I wonder if any of you female Star Trek fans were/are offended by this being allowed in the game?

 

How the hell could a woman be offended by big boobs? Jesus Christ the billions of dollars women pay yearly for boob jobs and they dare to complain?

 

Well, it is kind of ridiculous that ALL the alien races available in STO have breasts in the 'right place'. And all are user-adjustable which just adds to the silliness. Being somewhat of a sci-fi purest I think this is one area for 99% of the game designers to 'grow up' on...not everyone will be anatomically built like humans.

 

Oh puhlease, no they don't. I agree with htwingnut, maybe I'm old school but I don't believe in paying a monthly fee for a game. If I buy it, I own it and should be able to play as often as I wish without having to add an additional pay for play scheme. But then again I haven't played multiplayer since the Dark Forces II days, just was never my thing. Oh, and I don't go to movie theatres any more, I buy my movies and watch at home. Guess we're just from two different generations.

 

Thread is old, code is dead, this line of discussion was WAY off topic, but I cant let this go.

Personal preference, set aside.

Generation gap (Im 39 and LOVE MMOs, but Im a technologist by profession so maybe its different), set aside.

Financial differences, PLEASE set aside (this is the most annoying subjective thing that pollutes every discussion - everyones budget and choices on how to allocate is DIFFERENT)

Lets just discuss this "MMOs cost more to run" argument. They simply do. It is not up for debate.

Just use common sense... There are THOUSANDS of people playing concurrently at any given moment. They are playing on a large, high availability, server farm. How do you think that farm is run? Its a big data center. Big data centers cost big money. Ask Microsoft, Amazon and Google (the 3 biggest cloud providers) how much in power, bandwidth, admin cost, hardware maintenance, and real estate it costs to run an internet scale data center.

When you buy COD4 you're done. They're done. They developed the game and sold it to you and thats that. When you buy WoW, you buy the game and then potentially 24x7x365 you are connected to their world.

How can people fail to grasp the concept that this is going to require SOME KIND of revenue stream to run? I know people default to "everything is too expensive!" and "they're screwing us!" and "everything should be free!" mode, but you have to be reasonable. They have to pay for the resources somehow and it has to be profitable. It isnt a charity and people (shareholders, investors) expect some kind of return.

If it isnt a subscription fee, it would have to be micro-transactions or ad revenue. People used to hate advertising, but I guess they hate paying for stuff more so maybe the "Googleverse" model where ads are rammed down our throats in exchange for some free widgets will be the dominant monetization mechanism - either way though, there is a cost.

MMOs arent for everyone, but anyone should at least be able to understand why they have to charge something, somehow, to run them.

 

It has nothing to do with revenue stream but increased profit. It's far more profitable to sell a game with a monthly subscription (which makes it much more appealing to mmorps) then to sell a game for $50 and be done with it and expect to support it for some time to come. Personally I choose not to buy into that, that's just me.

 

Yeah, I'm not a huge MMO player (played WoW for a while - ok, quite a while, now that I think about it - but stopped after I'd seen all the content I thought I was likely to see, as more of a casual player and not a high-end raider...)

My point is I'm not generally a fan of MMO's or even multiplayer (I'm quite sure you all can demolish me in any game available, so I'll content myself to beating up computer opponents!). However, I do see the need for a monthly subscription fee for this style of game, and have absolutely no problem with it.

Sorry - I guess this is off topic too. My point is I'm not planning on checking out STO, but it's certainly not the $15 a month that is stopping me; it's that I doubt I'll really enjoy the gameplay (though I am a trekkie at heart!)

The comment about adjustable bust sizes almost had me, but.... nah, I'll still probably pass on this one...

 

Keeping it on a notebook topic....
This game runs great on my laptop. It's fun. But, I keep feeling like I'm on a console with a co-op game. It doesn't feel like Star Trek really. Not deep enough for me. Everything is kill, kill, kill.... ask questions later. It gets mundane. Even the pvp. Attack, die, respawn.... Attack, kill, respawn.
Hey, some love this style... nothing wrong with it. It is fun for a while. But I don't see paying $15 (or less) as being worth it for ME. It is what it is and Cryptic did a good job with their interpretation. It's not easy coming up with solution that would keep everyone happy. I think since they are planning on a console port of STO, they did what they had to.

I like Perpetual's concept comparison. How can I not like their picture.

 

If you would like to get a glimpse of what my guild has been doing you can check out our STO themed podcast on itunes. It's called Starfleet Offline. We have 2 episodes up on Itunes. I'm currently working on my pvp General Chang Borg Klingon. My Admiral is level 45 and just doing the daily missions for a complete Antiproton set.

 

I love podcasts. Been listening to Stoked. I'll check yours out too.