Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Boldly Going (Star Trek Online Beta Screens, Impressions)
Boldly Going (Star Trek Online Beta Screens, Impressions)
#1
Star Trek Online started Open Beta on Tuesday. Now, I figure everyone here's a gamer, and an MMO gamer, at that. So here's a look at my past couple days, boldly going where...okay, a few hundred thousand beta players have already gone before. But still...

[Image: stobeta1.jpg]

This is a pretty game. This is a very pretty game. My graphics settings are actually pretty low, because I want better framerate - but even with stuff dialed down, it looks incredible. The visuals need to be awesome in a Star Trek game, I think. And they've delivered on that score.
Feels good, too. Once you've got the hang of it, controls in this game, both in space and on the ground, are very logical and very tight. It's a joy in particular to fly around adjusting power levels and shields, while banking and turning...
[Image: stobeta2.jpg]

Obviously the primary attraction for many players is the space gameplay. And the space environments here are brilliant - they actually manage to make space a real landscape. Star systems in this game actually do look unique. And pretty.

Starships are customisable - you get to configure the look, within a given layout for your ship type. The starter level-1 ships are all variations of the Miranda-class from Star Trek II, but as you can see from my example...you can do quite a bit to make it look different.
After all, your ship's essentially a second avatar - and much like how characters in City of Heroes and Champions are all about the customisation, so are the starships here.
[Image: stobeta3.jpg]

Starship combat in this game is highly tactical. Think of slow-moving wet navy ship combat, from the age of sail...with everyone trying to get in position for a broadside. Except it's in space. In three dimensions.

Very basically, you need to gun down enemy shields, and then fire torpedoes at their exposed hull. But there's all sorts of wrinkles there; relative speed and turn rate...different weapon firing arcs, different weapon types (Cannons, Torpedoes, Turrets, Mines, Single Beams, Dual Beams)... and then there's special abilities like Tractor Beams, Boarding Parties...yeah.
It's easy to learn, hard to master. The basics are easy to comprehend, but there's lots of complexities. Which is cool. It feels starship-y.
[Image: stobeta4.jpg]

Instead of a world map, interstellar space is a 'galaxy map'. The game calls this 'sector space'...you're actually flying your starship through a giant map.

It's an interesting stylistic choice. Not everyone likes it, but I do. I think it's really awesome and classy. A really smart way to depict interstellar travel, instead of just warping from point A to point B.
It also seems to be the place to hang out and chat...or look for groups, the old fashioned 'broadcast' way. Though that's a lot less necessary in this game. More on that later.
[Image: stobeta5.jpg]
Character customisation in this game is...something else. Champions Online took what CoH had to a whole new level. This game goes Champions one better. The face and body sliders are just awesome. There's several sliders for scar and tattoo scaling alone. And a shiny-slider for the hair. I've been fairly traditional in my own design choices, but you can actually make, like, superdeformed anime proportions in this game. And if you wanna give your character a beer belly, you can...

But the canon races like Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi and so on have a narrower range of customisation options - the character creator actually limits what you can do based on your race preset. It works VERY well.

You have full customisation for both your own avatar, and those of your bridge crew. Yeah. I said crew.

[Image: stobeta6.jpg]

Because in STO, you don't just play a captain. You play a captain AND crew. You get to choose and customise your supporting cast. In space, they provide most of your abilities. And on the ground...if you're solo, they come with you as NPCs.

The ground game is always based around a five-man team - even if there's only one human player. Of course, human teammates will occupy slots as you bring 'em on board, but there's a robust system for handling the NPCs. This isn't Guild Wars...this is more like Mass Effect. Seriously, think Mass Effect. NPCs whom you can command to shoot, move around, use abilities...

You can even pause the game to issue commands. That's right. There's a pause button. In an MMO.
Generally, ground combat is very much like Mass Effect as well - quasi-shooter, with crouching, ducking, rolling. Weapons are your main firepower, backed up by special abilities. Positioning is quite important. The core mechanic is expose/exploit - get 'em vulnerable, and then crit 'em for massive damage.

[Image: stobeta7.jpg]

The game isn't all combat, though most of it is. But there's a LOT of content in this game. Tons. The tutorial alone is like a two hour mission.

Then there's the random stuff. Instead of newspaper missions, STO has 'Exploration Missions'. But even this is awesome.

The devs have a procedural generator to churn out tons of random missions with scenery and maps pieced together - it actually constructs different architectural and geographical styles. So the missions LOOK different, even if the structure is the same.

But then...the mission text isn't 'madlib', because each 'random' mission has had unique text written for it. The devs have gone in and hand-written dialogue for each generated mission. And there are reportedly thousands of missions. Even the random stuff has storylines.

[Image: stobeta8.jpg]

Missions in STO take you between space and ground - often a few times during the same mission. I'd say a slight majority of the game still takes place in space - at least in the content I've done so far. But it's a fair mix.

I honestly think they've succeeded in making this not just a great Star Trek game, but a great MMO in general. There's a lot of innovative ideas - the Exploration Missions, for instance. PvP is genuinely pretty damn fun. Not balanced - but what PvP is? Fun, though. That's important.

Then there's auto-grouping. This is an optional feature - by default it's turned on, but it's easily disabled. Some folks, of course, don't like it. But design-wise, for the average player, it's brilliant. When you enter a mission instance, the game automatically tracks other players just starting that mission...and puts together the team for you. The game PuGs FOR you.

And most of the auto-PuGs I've been on - all but one - worked out damn well. Imagine that.

[Image: stobeta9.jpg]

Of course, this is just a beta. But strangely, it's a lot more stable than some launch MMOs I've played. Definitely better than Champions. The server was laggy as hell on the first day of beta, but it's totally fixed now. No crash or disconnect issues for me.

No real showstopper bugs either; most bugs being reported are things to do with quests and game balance, items and NPCs with incorrect stats, menu quirkiness, that sorta thing...rather than major functionality issues.

In summary - I'm really liking this. When I played Champions, it was a clear case of...I like this about the game, but that really sucks...the game's not bad when you get around that problem...

I've found nothing to hate about STO. I'm a Trek fan, you understand. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna be forgiving. Rather, my expectations are higher. And this game's pretty much meeting them. Maybe I'll be more cynical once I've been playing this for longer - but so far? It looks good.
-- Acyl
Reply
 
#2
ARGH.... So... pretty.

DAMN it. I don't NEED another MMO!

But good to hear it's working out so well. Hey maybe they'll use some of the techniques they've learned on this game and apply them to Champions?
Reply
 
#3
Oh, damn... so very tempting.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Reply
 
#4
When does the Beta run to?
Reply
 
#5
26th of Jan, though most of the beta keys are given out or only for 'premium members' of websites (i.e. paying members) ... Preorder is pretty much the
only easy way to get in (and even that would have shipping time)
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
Reply
 
#6
There have been a few giveaways for beta keys hosted by third-party websites. For instance, one particular fansite I know of was given a thousand beta keys. I have an extra, though (EDIT: Sofaspud just asked for it. Gone.).
One thing I forgot to mention - the voiceovers in-game. This isn't a fully voiced game, but the voices that exist are done a LOT better than Champions. Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto, do voices. You can set 'combat voices' for your custom bridge crew NPCs, choosing from a range (eg. 'Cute Female', 'Tough Female', 'Stoic Female'.)
And then there's the computer voice in combat. Which is awesome. ("Ship is under attack." ... "Forward shields failing.") 
The music is excellent, and the sound effects - everything from energy blasts to the ambient sound of rain and birds on an alien planet... it's damn well done. This game raises the bar for MMO sound.
-- Acyl
Reply
 
#7
Did they get someone who sounded like the late Majel Barrett Roddenberry for the computer voice?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Reply
 
#8
Amazingly...yes. They did. Whoever does the voice isn't exactly like her, but it's very similar - the same sound, intonations, and vocal quality.
Enough that when I first heard it I thought it might just be old sound clips, until it became apparent it was very game specific. ("Warning: Hull
integrity below 25 percent.")

There's computer voiceover on the ground as well - "Warning: Hostile in close proximity.", etc.
-- Acyl
Reply
 
#9
Okay, as Acyl mentioned, he was kind enough to hook me up with a beta key. I installed the game and played it a little this morning.

Pro: it captures the feel of 'wet navy' space combat very well, and the fleet actions are, frankly, awesome. The way it handles them is impressive
too. You warp in and there are other players already there, but that's okay, you don't HAVE to play with them or talk to them if you don't want
to. Somehow, just knowing that the USS Bite Me is run by a human player makes the game seem more alive. And, look, the USS Regaan (?), the USS Righteous
Indignation (do I spot an EPU fan there?) and the USS Smokinbroken (also ?) are charging in to assist against this Borg cube that YOU DID _NOT_ JUST SHOOT THAT
GREEN SHIT AT ME!! **freemfreemfreem**

It's very pretty. I can't stress that enough. It's so pretty, in fact, that my machine (which handles max-pretty CoX just fine) needed to be
tweaked a bit to get an acceptable framerate. But _so_ pretty. **drool**

I'm not sold on the personal combat system. It's the standard MMO approach -- action bar, cooldown, etc -- but some things you take for granted in
other MMOs seem to be missing. The biggest one -- and maybe I'm just spoiled by CoX here -- is that you can't queue up your next action. In CoX, you
can click on a power and if you're not in range, it waits until you are, then fires. Not so here. If you're not in range, it doesn't go off.
Same with if it's still cooling down. It's a little thing, but it tripped me up many times and I was rather annoyed by it.

The missions are detailed, engaging, well written (except for the EMH, who I'd have overwritten with a copy of DOS 3.3 if I were able, he's that
annoying), and extensive. It can be hard to figure out where your next objective is, if you're not in range of the glowie (yes, they use glowies). But
even so, they're fun.

Avatar (both character and ship) customization is pretty awesome. I wish the ship had more options, but then, I'm a lowly ensign still (I think...), and
only have access to the first tier of stuff. We'll see where that goes.

There are quite a few flaws. On the 'amusing' side of the scale, every time I leave spacedock, my character is wandering around in space. I don't
mean my ship is in space, I mean my _character_. Just out for a stroll, no spacesuit required, thanks.

On the 'annoying' side, attack animations -- heck, animations in general -- don't fire or misfire almost as often as they work correctly. Not a
game breaker and certain to be fixed, but still.

On the 'I wish they would do that different' side... it's very obvious this is meant to be launched on the console platform. Every action
you're required to do can be done with one keypress. Context menus pop up when you get close to an interactive object, allowing you to decide what to do
without having to point and click. And so on. That's not necessarily bad, but as with most context-based systems, it gets a bit old having these things
pop up when you're just trying to maneuver past the throngs of people onboard the station. Smile

And on the 'oh hell no' side... disconnects. My god, disconnects. Tha server, she cannae handle the load, cap'n! I realize this is open beta,
when they stress-test the server. However, a quick visit to the forum reveals that this issue has been happening for several days, and I'm not the only
one. I got disconnected upon finishing a mission, at about 11:00am this morning.

I have not been able to log back on since. It's not the login server, it's the game server -- or the character server, perhaps. It can't download
the character list, and the worse bit is that, when THAT fails, it boots you back to begin the login process all over again. You read that right -- you do NOT
get queued. It's like trying to get into CoX on double XP weekend. Just keep hitting login and praying, I suppose.

This is ASININE.

On a different level... I enjoyed what little I got to play, and I'm sure they'll work out the bugs. I'm unsure if I'll invest significant
time in it, though. It's fun, yeah? But ... I already feel shoehorned into _their_ universe. If I was a huge Trekkie that might not matter, but I'm
not. And there's not much in the way of social interaction that I've seen -- chat is filled with variations on the Stop Having Fun Guys Guy, and the
Ha Ha You Suck Noob Guy.

As Ops pointed out to me... it's a very pretty MMO that you play by yourself.

I'm going to keep fiddling with it, but I don't foresee it sucking up my time, not like CoX did. Smile

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
Reply
 
#10
I'm genuinely amused by the fact that - much as with Champions, perhaps a good deal of my opinion regarding the game comes from the fact that I haven't experienced graphical glitches, crashing, or random disconnections.
I can totally believe there's plenty of those for most folks, but for me it's, like...I can remain connected for hours at a stretch without any problems. I've been disconnected from the server maybe...twice?
Since I haven't experienced that frustration, my opinion is probably much more positive simply because of that. But yeah, considering how overloaded the servers are right now, I definitely believe this could be a problem. It's merely one I haven't personally experienced. Nonetheless, it's quite apparent that they really have to improve their server infrastructure before the game goes live. They've said they are adding more hardware, but we'll see how tha turns out.
Anyway...finding your ground avatar standing in the cold vacuum of space, or a mini-Starship parked on the surface of a planet ...is quite common though, and purely lag-related. Possibly the most harmless and amusing bug ever...it'll flip to the proper avatar generally within a few seconds of this happening, but it makes for great screenshots. =D
It's also worth mentioning that since I did play Champions, and Star Trek Online shares the same global chat server...even in STO beta, I already am hooked up to community global channels and a friends list. This makes a very significant difference to my experience - as Sofa points out, there's a lot of idiots in zone chat. But then there's a lot of idiots in zone chat in any MMO. If STO suffers from a lack of community, so does every MMO out there - you can't compare to your experience with CoH or any other game you've played, 'cause you've already made friends in that game.
I still recall City of Heroes (or indeed, World of Warcraft, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, pretty much every MMO I've tried), being a very lonely place without a guild or similar group. A good global channel community can substitute for an guild/supergroup, but either way I mean a literate self-selecting community beyond J. Random People In Your Vicinity.
Also note that zone chat is going to be particularly bad during the beta test and launch of any new MMO, based on the couple beta/launch experiences I've had - generally there'll be a lot of critique and gamer bitching. This is simply a fact of life.
-- Acyl
Reply
 
#11
So. It's been a couple days. I managed to get back in, finally -- and that's been the normal course of things ever since Sunday, rather than the
oddity. I dunno if they added more hardware already or if they figured out how to handle more connections, but it's been much more stable. I fully expect
the server to get overloaded again when it goes live, but at this point I'm quite happy with the stability. It appears I was having plain bad luck that
first day.

As for community... I may be the oddity here, but I -like- the general lack of chatter. I've joined probably twenty, thirty teams at this point -- all
using the auto-team system -- and only in two of them were words exchanged. The thing is? In -none- of them did words -need- to be exchanged. We knew our
objectives and, by design or by luck, the couple times I've encountered a maverick who went charging off alone, he was punished for it immediately. By the
-game-. Because he got -splattered-.

So, yes, it enforces teamwork... but it doesn't make you talk to your team, and indeed, most teams seem perfectly comfortable that way. As has been said,
it's the best single-player MMO I've ever played. Big Grin

That said, I wouldn't mind making some friends on the server. Acyl, I can't seem to find you, buddy. Either I'm looking for the wrong global, or,
you have to be online for me to find you and our schedules just don't match. Smile

Okay, so, all the frippery aside... the question I have to ask myself is, am I having fun?

YES.

It's not City of Heroes. It's not as fun as City of Heroes -can- be when things click (though I'll grant that's purely subjective). But I
think Acyl has introduced me to a backup MMO. I'll be buying gamecards as I need them for it. I can't justify another monthly subscription to myself,
but I can afford the odd gamecard or three. Smile

And soon, in this thread, I'll upload the very worst, absolutely horrid, fantastically great idea that any sick bastard could ever have come up with, and
it's all MD's fault. Acyl may recall (and others) that one of the reasons I didn't think I'd like STO long term is because I couldn't tell
my own stories in it. And, to an extent, that's true. But MD showed me how to bend the rules a little, the sick bugger, and as soon as I get the right
mix of gender, species, and appearance set up on the bridge crew, I'd like to introduce you all to...

The USS Hero Sandwich, Captain Whiskers commanding.

More to come after I get screenies. Big Grin

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
Reply
 
#12
*Facepalm* Oh god..I can't wait to see that..Hero Sandwich! boldly going..well..wherever the hell they feel like (occationaly takeing breaks for extended
threesomes!) I'm looking forward to your screenshots spud *grin* And MD..your a horrible..yet awesome person for suggesting this to Spud. I Salute you!
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)