Star Trek Online Review

By Oli Welsh Published 5 February, 2010

Ready steady Kirk.

It's a big night. The Eurogamer Star Alliance, our very own forum guild for Star Trek Online, has made a date to assemble and enter a Fleet Action, one of the game's repeatable large-scale space battles, en masse. We meet at Earth Spacedock and assemble our flotilla of cruisers, escorts and science vessels in picturesque orbit over the Mediterranean. We warp out in splendid unison and charge majestically across sector space to Starbase 24. We warp in... and cross our fingers, close our eyes and hope for the best.

Most of us make it. Others are stranded in another instance of the same location. We couldn't form a group large enough to take us all in, but even some of the small five-player groups have been split. There's a moment of frantic chatter as we try and organise ourselves into the same fragment of space-time, but it's too late, the Klingons are here, and we surrender to our own individual pockets of pinwheeling, phaser-strobed mayhem.

This isn't at all atypical for Star Trek Online. The space MMO itself has warped in unprepared, jury-rigged, piecemeal and scatterbrained. It's a jumble of broken-up content, inconsistent rules and half-finished systems that does a great job of throwing players together but a terrible job of keeping them together, a game where you never really know what's going to be on the end of your next warp (although it will probably involve blowing stuff up). I'm not quite sure that's what Gene Roddenberry would have meant by the wonder and mystery of space exploration.

'Star Trek Online' Screenshot 1

Heroes over Europe: the Eurogamer Star Alliance.

To be fair, it does keep you on your toes, and like Cryptic's other games Champions Online and City of Heroes, Star Trek Online possesses an unpretentious, scrappy charm and a kind of fast-and-loose immediacy that you don't come across too often in MMOs. Unlike those carefully masked superhero adventures, however, this game isn't hoping to get by on its winning personality alone. This one comes with a peculiar and hugely popular pop-cultural phenomenon attached: the camp, worthy sci-fi world of Star Trek.

It gets it a long way. I've already written about the Pavlovian response you'll have to its unmistakeable, iconic sound effects, for one thing. The game is smartly set later in the timeline than any existing Trek fiction, allowing Cryptic to conjure a scenario that suits the game - a reignited war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire - while liberally peppering it with references to anything and everything that has gone before.

The game's chat channels are already bubbling with happy Trekkies revelling in this banquet of fan service, batting arcane knowledge to and fro while enjoying the wish-fulfilment of captaining their own Starfleet vessel or visiting Deep Space 9. If you love Star Trek, it's a great place to indulge your enthusiasm and share it with others.

'Star Trek Online' Screenshot 2

You can select "attitudes" for your character - this is "thoughtful", colloquially known as "the Picard".

Furthermore, despite the fact that Star Trek Online is built on the same engine as Champions Online - which will be quite obvious when on foot - Cryptic has been careful not to simply force Star Trek into an existing MMO template, choosing instead to build the game around what makes sense for its licence. It has the fundamentals - long-form RPG progression built around loot and skill customisation - but it's structurally and mechanically pretty unusual for an MMO, and moment-to-moment it's quite a different experience.

The most obvious manifestation of this is the way the action is split between space and ground action, since it simply wouldn't be Star Trek without either. There is one sense in which it's not very Star Trek at all, though - although there are simple-exploration elements, the majority of what you'll be doing in either instance is combat, and pretty frenetic combat at that.

On foot, you participate in messy firefights with quite large groups of enemies, backed either by four AI bridge officers, four other players, or a mixture of the two. You're selecting hard targets and punching out skills in the MMO style, but everything's a lot faster, you have fewer skills, and there are several action-game twists such as flanking damage, cover and a crouched "focus" mode that make movement and positioning important.

It's shallow fun, but rather incoherent, and the extremely fast rate at which your shields and health recharge means that you seem either to be invincible or dead in a flash, but it's seldom clear why. The three character classes - Science Officer, Tactical Officer and Engineer - each have different utility, but they aren't that clearly drawn and are defined more by the weapons and equipment they're carrying, since these dictate their main combat skills.

Teamwork and tactics don't really come into play and ground combat remains an unchallenging, repetitive and random fracas (although you can pause the action even when grouped with other players to issue orders to your AI companions, Dragon Age style).

It's the ship combat that shines. Despite the slow movement of the spacecraft under impulse power, and their ponderous turning circles (which mean the game sometimes looks like houseflies doing a mating dance in treacle), fighting in space is intense, rhythmic, finely balanced and thoroughly enjoyable. The basics remain the same - circle enemy ships, using energy weapons to deplete their shields enough to fire photo torpedoes against their hull. Manoeuvring skill and timing are key.

'Star Trek Online' Screenshot 3

Space scenes are lurid but kind of gorgeous all the same.

But there's also a wide range of tactical options in the way you fit your ship out with weapons, bearing different types of damage and firing arcs in mind, and bridge officers, who essentially provide interchangeable skills - not to mention shield and power management. All of this is nicely brought into focus by the different types of enemy you'll need to combat, from swarms of weak fighters to hulking, heavily armoured cruisers via trios of slippery frigates.

While switching weapons and "kits" (extra skills, essentially) on your ground character tends to be no more than a way to alleviate boredom, customising and optimising your starship setup is a satisfying, absorbing and never-ending pastime, especially once you've reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander and are able to specialise in nimble offensive Escorts, large and powerful Cruisers or flexible Science Vessels. As ever with Cryptic, the whole thing is based on a head-scratchingly bizarre, unintuitive and poorly-explained RPG system - but at least in this case the basics are simple to grasp and the rest can wait.

Every time you advance in rank (every 10 "levels" or so) you get to choose a new ship, and they provide some of the most exciting milestones and most enticing carrots in any MMO. Your ship, and how much you covet your next one, is the glue that holds Star Trek Online together - because, sadly, there's little else that does.

'Star Trek Online' Screenshot 4

Diplomacy in Star Trek Online involves a lot of zapping men with bumpy heads until they fall over.

It's an extremely bitty game. Content comes in chunks that last anything from five minutes to an hour, but chunks is the operative word - they're discrete missions in small instanced locations, each existing in its own bubble with little or nothing to connect it to the big picture. Even that big picture - "sector space", the abstract star map that connects one system or deep space encounter to another, that you crawl across at warp speed - is broken up into tight little squares. Loading screens are everywhere, and the use of instancing is extreme, relentless.

There's little sense of place or continuity, and that applies to the game's social dimension, too. It's great that there are no server divisions as such and you'll always be able to find your friends, but the fact that absolutely all content scales to accommodate either a solo player or several means you never have to group, and the style of both space and ground combat means you never have to get organised - you just shoot away until you're done.

Allow "open instance" teaming and the game might throw you in with a couple of others who happen to be starting the same mission at the same time, but you probably won't speak to them. It's not like asking a passing stranger for help. The more successful examples of multiplayer gaming are the big 20-ship Fleet Actions and the repeatable Deep Space Encounters, which can be started and finished by a single player but gain an inevitable momentum as more and more players join looking for a quick mission completion.

More traditional "questing" is represented by Patrols, Episodes and Exploration. Episodes are mixed strings of space and ground combat hung on a story framework that usually has a pleasingly, identifiably Star Trek structure, even if it's an awful lot more violent than the TV series ever were. Patrols are groups of shorter capsule missions that still sometimes manage to deliver a satisfying nugget of narrative here and there.

Exploration was one of the game's most exciting prospects - randomised planets, species and missions that would lend the game that all-important sense of discovery, of being somewhere no player had gone before - but is a dreadful disappointment, consisting of basic, poorly-refined and endlessly-recycled mission templates with a few variables thrown in.

The problem is that all of these, and indeed Deep Space Encounters too, are built from the same few building blocks, and the action gets very repetitive very quickly. The same criticism can be levelled at questing in many MMOs, but Star Trek Online is lacking in the variation of location, the downtime, the social aspects, the way different missions interlock and the alternative activities that liven up other games and give each play session a sense of personal choice.

'Star Trek Online' Screenshot 5

Fleet actions look like Jean Michel Jarre's wet dream.

The diversions and alternatives simply aren't there. Crafting barely exists at all - you can "research" materials and trade them in for pretty meaningless upgrades at Memory Alpha. Skill points (experience, in other words) are heavily weighted towards mission completion, so grinding is a non-starter.

Cryptic has never been very good at loot, and Star Trek Online is no exception - there's too much of it, it comes too late in too fine gradations, and it's hard to tell the effectiveness of one item from the next. So pursuing treasured trinkets doesn't work as motivation either - it's just a case of clearing missions so you can do more missions. Levelling is slow and that next rank can seem awfully far away.

Star Trek Online does have potential as a player-versus-player game, but in its current form that's completely unrealised. This is a particular problem for players who choose to start a Klingon character, which unlocks quite early on at Lieutenant Grade 5, because PVP is all there is for Klingons to do.

'Star Trek Online' Screenshot 6

Cryptic's engine proves to be a capable and pretty quarry simulator.

There is some insultingly basic mission content that's a variation of Exploration on the Federation side, and Klingons can fight each other and the Feds on a variety of undistinguished space and ground maps, but that's it. Players are miserable, and Klingon chat channels are among the most dispiriting places to hang out on the internet right now. This faction will need to get some serious love if it's to foster a community healthy enough to provide the happy hordes of Starfleet with proper competition.

Despite all of these complaints, those hordes of starship captains are quite happy. They may not have many different things to do, and the missions and UI may be rather buggy, but there does seem to be enough content to sustain them - at least until the endgame - and even at its worst that content is knockabout fun with more instant appeal, and more suitability for casual, short-session, low-commitment play than most MMOs.

And more spaceships too - Star Trek Online is in a field of one in terms of its theme, its only real rival being the intimidatingly complex and political EVE Online, right at the other end of the accessibility scale. It's a unique offering then, in many ways a loveable one, and for Star Trek fans if not MMO gamers it's a great social experience. It makes its licence a blessing, not a burden, but it's a blessing this rickety voyage into the unknown badly needs.

6 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (101) 1 year ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • RedPanda #1 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Bartacus #2 2 years ago

    KHANT!

  • redneon Verified Programmer, SUMO Digital #3 2 years ago

    Sounds about right. I played the beta for a weekend and was so disappointed with it. I really wanted it to be good :(

  • Spuzzell #4 2 years ago

    Who're you calling a Khant?

  • ukdm #5 2 years ago

    I would play this if it wasn't for the pricing. I am not going to pay £29.99 for a game that after a month I have to pay a subscription for. £15? Maybe, £10? Probably. Or how about £30 gets you 3 months of play time?

    So I end up waiting for it to get to a budget price point and then join in. It's about time some publisher had the brave idea of trying something a bit different here again (Guild Wars, that worked right?). If you hook me early and the game is good then I'll likely be paying you hundreds of pounds over a few years.

  • skullstorm #6 2 years ago

    Fair score I think, personal 5 here I think so far (and I even quite like it). Not enough content for me to stay longer than a month and the fact that Cryptic have admitted staggering content post release (ie admitting theres no content?) has really put me off in the long run.

  • photoboy #7 2 years ago

    I tried the beta but I didn't get on with the game. I've never been an MMO fan but I was willing to give it a chance as I love Star Trek. But the same problems all MMOs have are also here, namely everything takes ages to do and everything costs large amounts of money (I thought they didn't have money in the future). This is all done to ensure you don't finish the content and stop paying your monthly subscription. The emphasis on combat and continual fighting seemed very at odds with what Star Trek is supposed to be about.

    Currently the best Star Trek RPG you can buy is Mass Effect 2.

  • BritishBlue1 #8 2 years ago

    I never heard of a "photo torpedo" before, I'm sure the paparazzi would love to get their hands on one.

  • President_Weasel #9 2 years ago

    Sounds like Champions Online with spaceships. Cryptic make MMOs on the cheap and it shows.

  • mentalabhoration #10 2 years ago

    Dont call me tiny

  • swisstony #11 2 years ago

    Instancing and dynamic balancing can work well as the former can be staged for a tight narrative experience that can't be disrupted, all serious raiding is like this for that reason.

    Also, as long as the competition balancing, as with the lotro skirmish system, yields better rewards for co-operation then everyone from solo casual to group oriented players get something out of it.

  • modo_komodo #12 2 years ago

    Little early for a review, Shirley?

  • makeamazing #13 2 years ago

    I have enjoyed it so far, but eccept for the space battles, the land based stuff does seem very limited and not enough variation... i doubt i am going to stay more than a couple of months playing at this point... just have to play to get my monies worth for the £30 i spent :)
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 13:00

  • username #14 2 years ago

    http://khaaan.com/

  • Freki #15 2 years ago

    I'm quite enjoying it even though I am not a huge Trek fan. Space combat is fun, ground combat can be a laugh in a large group and it is quite casual friendly.

  • mcmonkeyplc #16 2 years ago

    I called the score! I win! :p

    Fair review. I just ask that you add 1 or 2 points to the score if your a star trek fan.

  • jellyhead #17 2 years ago

    Yeah, it's more of a current state of play article to me. I hope EG do a revisit when all the End Game content is in because like most MMOs i expect this game to keep on expanding and getting polished. That said, some of the criticisms are spot on as are the concerns.

    I'm having a laugh with the game and as i'm more of a casual player i can see that it will keep my interest for a long while especially when the new content starts being added. Th space combat is fantastic and once you get your Tier 2 ship the game changes drastically due to the difference between your starter ship and the proper ships. Ground combat is a little lacklustre but it's nowhere near as static as it seems. If you are just standing there hitting space to fire then you're doing it wrong. Use cover, use abilities, be creative.

    At this time i'd give it a 7 going up to an 8 at the higher tiers. If you're a Trekkie then add another point or two :)

  • GiarcYekrub #18 2 years ago

    I bought this, Life Time membership too. Personally the fact you don't have to socialise but you can if you want to and the lack of a grind feel is what excites me most beyond the license

  • DFawkes #19 2 years ago

    Very nice review Oli, well written stuff. I think a Trekkie like me can overlook it's problems a lot easier, but for a non-Trekkie that review pretty much nails it.

    I still love it though, and there's still plenty of room should anyone want to join the Eurogamer Star Alliance. Like the first paragraph said, it can be tricky getting everyone in the same instance in big Fleet Action. I think we just about managed near the end, but the option to start a new instance of our own would've been nice.

  • Gl3n #20 2 years ago

    Not surprised at all really.

    It's a very 'lite' mmorpg and there just isn't the longevity, but its one that i must admit to enjoying thoroughly so far.

    I was wondering just last night, if it wasn't Trek, would i still be as interested?

  • telboy007 #21 2 years ago

    I wanted to love this but couldn't; the beta put me off with the lag, the disconnects, the stupidly slow client/patch download, pretty uninspiring on foot sections. The one shining light was the ships and the customisation you would do. Ship combat was pretty good as well, but I prefer the flexibility in Eve.
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 13:19

  • Boomerang #22 2 years ago

    Arkham Asylum would have been an amazing game if you replaced Batman with any other character, made-up or existing.

    Sounds like this would have very little going for it without the Star Trek IP lending its weight.

  • peterfll #23 2 years ago

    Isn't it funny how both the Star Trek and Star Wars universes \ licences predominately generate mediocre titles? I do accept their have been a few exceptions (some great exceptions).... but generally why is the spirit of these franchise so difficult to capture?

  • jellyhead #24 2 years ago

    I'll probably move onto Eve after i graduate from STO but it's deep enough for an MMO n00b like me to cut my teeth on for sure. There's a fair bit of depth in the game if you bother to look instead of just mashing spacebar and complaining like a whole swathe of the official forums. Oh yeah, avoid the official forums unless you have hardened yourself to the wailing of self righteous idiots.

    It's no Eve for sure but that's not a bad thing.


    edit: @peterfil. I think it's because the fans have so many different ideas about what they want the game based on their most favouritest franchise to be that they are inevitably disappointed. If you reskin WoW you get moaned at, if you don't you get moaned at. Lose , Lose situation. Also the franchise holders might have put limits on what can be done with the license.

    They took out our Pink Phazors for example ;__;
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 13:30

  • Gurgeh #25 2 years ago

    People are already hitting maximum level and finding there's virtually nothing to do. Cryptic are promising they will patch some kind of end-game in, so lets hope they dont charge any extra for it, as they seem to be doing for everything else (e.g. Vibora Bay in CO http://ww w.massively.com/2010/01/27/play... )

  • Gl3n #26 2 years ago

    I had STO on one monitor and Voyager going on the other this morning.

    Was awesome.

  • jellyhead #27 2 years ago

    Well, if people will poopsock the game in 3 days and burn through the content then they will find themselves bored.

  • dsmx #28 2 years ago

    I would of got this game but for what it is at the moment it's too expensive and it's sounds like they still haven't fixed quite a few bugs from the beta. That said it is still fun played in short bursts but you don't play mmo's for short bursts. Hopefully they'll get more content into the game and more variety in the missions, there's a very solid core to this game it just needs some polish.

  • jellyhead #29 2 years ago

    Why not play an MMO in short bursts? Just wondering.

  • Hunam #30 2 years ago

    I have to agree with Gl3n on the MMO lite comment, and that's why I like the game. I'm far too casual when it comes to MMO's, so being able to dip in and out when I want really aids the game. It does need some work done of the grouping to be honest, but I think this is something that can be fixed in the future.

  • berelain #31 2 years ago

    I'm quite enjoying STO at the moment, but I do think its too early for a review- the full game has only been out a couple of days, and its not really fair to judge a game based on its beta phase since quite a bit can change (okay, so it normally doesn't... but still).

  • sesskie #32 2 years ago

    An MMO is badly designed if theres nothing for you to do after you hit your cap. Even wow you cant poopsock, as the endgame is designed in a way to keep you engaged for months, even if you DO want to burn through it. In wow, the endgame Is the game, the leveling is the tutorial.. if you ahve an MMO where the leveling is the gmae and the endgame is when you, well, end your game, then thats going to end up frustrating people adn subscriptions will be cancelled.

  • jellyhead #33 2 years ago

    Fair enough, Sesskie but by the same token burning through all the content before the end game content is in place and then complaining is a bit nonsensical to me. End Game is coming and it is Borg, they only have to read the STO front page but i suppose expecting 14 year-olds to have patience while their hormones are shot to hell is asking too much :)

  • Spekingur #34 2 years ago

    WoW again? It didn't have proper endgame at launch either. It seems to be the norm of most MMOs today.

    MMOs aren't made for people who want to burn through content ASAP and then complain about nothing to do within the first two weeks of launch. Also, to those who played the game in beta - it has gotten quite a few patches since then.
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 14:18

  • Cosquae #35 2 years ago

    They say you never stop learning...

    ...today I learnt what 'poopsocking' meant.

  • Fatum #36 2 years ago

    A 6 is a tick generous. A 5 would do.

  • Spekingur #37 2 years ago

    Yes, apparently it is not pooping in a sock.

  • NorfolkNClue #38 2 years ago

    Come play Eve. There are big things happening at teh moment - Goonswarm have disbanded, reforming shortly I imagine. IT (ex-BoB) are taking over the Delve (SW New Eden) again, and CVA are facing a protracted campaign from -A-, U'K and Sys-K (as well as Atlas when they want some pew pew).

  • Ceatlan #39 2 years ago

    I can never understand why Star Trek is ever associated with combat, especially space combat. The original series, films and subsequent next generation series had next to no space combat, and only the occasionaly phaser battle between people. Most of the time they were more like action adventures with stories, puzzles to solve, intrigue etc, and nothing about combat. In fact the time the series has devolved into war and battles are when I think its been at it worst. I'd much rather have a game that revolved around stories, characters, puzzles, political intrigue than something thats focus was space and land battles.
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 14:22

  • penhalion #40 2 years ago

    @RedPanda

    Put some feeling into it man it's

    KHAAAAANNNNNN AN AN AN an an an..........*

    You gotta get that echo in there! ;)
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 14:36

  • Gaol #41 2 years ago

    A generous mark I think, given the mercenary cash-in nature of this title. This should really be in the sub-5/10 area. The criticisms are spot-on though. Little to no grouping dynamics. Piecemeal presentation. Arbritrary itemisation. No community features. Highly repetitive. I would add uninspired art, confusing player customisation system, laggy UI, badly optimized engine. The gameplay here would have been widely derided back in the 90s, and if it wasn't for the MMORPG cloud of smoke effect we'd all be in agreement that this product is a total turd.

    Cryptic have taken the Champions engine and bolted on the license and space combat. It's a botch job and it shows. The material here is ill-suited to long term subscription play and I'd stay well clear of the lifetime and annual 'offers' they are keen to push, as you'll be sick of this in a month at most.

  • Red930 #42 2 years ago

    I have to agree slightly with the review, but many seem to be missing the point of ground combat.

    If you use skills, place your bridge officers manually, set traps and lure the bad guys in its quite tactical. You just need to think a bit.

    The problem is, if you die it does not really matter - you just respawn nearby if you die. This means you can mash space and grind through/respwn and eventually complete the mission if you want, but you are missing the point.

    The same in many respect applies to space. I have enjoyed the game much more by doing my best NOT to die, despite the respwn get out of jail free card. Play this way, think more and its really really good.

    What it needs is to be harder. You need to be punished more. You need to be forced to take tactical approaches because when you think tactically, the game opens up hugely.

    For me, its a 7/10, but only reduced due to the poor server performance at this time.

    the game is really good, very enjoyable and has plenty of potential. They just need to fix the difficulty.


    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 14:42

  • Gurgeh #43 2 years ago

    @Spekingur

    WoW did have something to do at maximum level at release - in fact it had a *lot* of things to do, like collecting your first set of class armour. That involved multiple runs on the high end 5 and 10 man dungeons, and in those days each run could take 2-3 hours.

    STO on the other hand has nothing to do at maximum level. In fact it doesn't have that much to do before maximum level either, it's a very repetitive game. What people are wondering now is if Cryptic are going to make people pay for end-game content like they are making them pay in Champions Online.

  • penhalion #44 2 years ago

    The game went wrong the moment you could pretty much start as a captain of your own ship. Players should have started assigned to a starship and funneled through some basic Ensign missions. From there it should have gone to working your way up the ranks to first officer and finally to captain. If I had worked on this project I would have made a few first to captain promotion missions. One where your captain dies and you get a field promotion, One where you get assigned to a new (all be it weak) ship and one where you have to actually mutiny the ship out from under your captain. The exact mission would have been chosen based on how the player performed in previous funnel missions.

    This would give skilled players a goal i.e. to get to captain, while more casual players could just jump into the game aboard a starship and take a series of beamdown episodic missions. I'd even give them the chance to wear the dreaded red tunic!

    They missed such humourous additions to the game like having your NPC captain do a monologue about how dangerous a mission was going to be and then say "You and you are with me!" or "You and you meet me in the transporter room!" To any red tunic wearing players :) Heck for completeness I would even have had a class called generic security officer! Where getting killed simply created a new (random looking) generic security officer character with the same name and all previous experience intact. I'd have spawned the character aboard ship in a shuttle bay and had the welcoming officer speech bubble say "Welcome aboard sir...sorry to hear about your brother/sister. I guess security officers run in the family"

    Shit there's so much that could have been done with this franchise it's laughable!

  • seasidebaz #45 2 years ago

    46 comments and not a single /Picard?

    For shame.

  • telboy007 #46 2 years ago

    @seasidebaz Make it so number one!
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 14:54

  • jellyhead #47 2 years ago

    I don't want to be someone else's crew. I want to be my own captain! Who the hell wants to be Wesley Crusher or Ensign 24 mashing the recharge batteries button for someone else.

  • Benno #48 2 years ago

    ouch

  • actionfitz #49 2 years ago

    "Players are miserable, and Klingon chat channels are among the most dispiriting places to hang out on the internet right now."

    oooh snap!
    This has been relegated from quietly interested to 'will wait for the inevitable free demo begging people to try it out'.

  • dirtysteve #50 2 years ago

    He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him....

  • Averice #51 2 years ago

    "Sounds like Champions Online with spaceships. Cryptic make MMOs on the cheap and it shows."

    That's exactly what I got from reading this review and others about CO. Cryptic making another copy paste game with a different theme stuck on it. The only people that have any possible chance of ever enjoying this thing will be star trek buffs who haven't played many MMO's. Supposedly there's a lot of them. It's like Cryptic goes after niche IP's in order to pull in money and then leave.

    Hopefully WH40k MMO can help out some with the sci fi situation, Star Wars definitely will as well, though I'm skeptical how well Bioware can translate into an MMO machine. Not that either of those two games will have "spaceship combat" from what I've seen. I guess besides spouting star trek nonsense that's the biggest pull to this game, flying around in a space ship in HomeWorld esque multiplayer. Except everything's instanced... and you'd have better luck actually playing Homeworld against other people over LAN.

  • UKLL #52 2 years ago

    This sums up my feelings on the score:

    http://ww w.myconfinedspace.com/wp-conten...
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 15:02

  • jellyhead #53 2 years ago

    I'd love W40k to be great but i think it'll be just as disappointing as STO. I have my fingers crossed though. We need more Space MMOs as i've no interest in fantasy worlds anymore.

  • WinterSnowblind #54 2 years ago

    Definitely wasn't very impressed by the beta. Didn't really feel like Star Trek, and felt like a very poorly cobbled together game they quickly churned out to make some money. Might have enjoyed it, if it weren't for the excessive monthly fee's. But as it is, I don't know why anyone would want to play this.

  • dingo75 #55 2 years ago

    @Spekingur:

    WoW had endgame at release (Onyxia and Molten Core) + BRS / BRD / Strath and Scholo for 5 / 10 man.
    Once level 60 people started to farm their tier set.

    In fact Onyxia was already in back in beta ->
    <a href="http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=4QIOgao8QYk
    ">http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=4QIOgao8QYk
    </a>

    Although those encouters were over-tuned and Ragnaros was unkillable there was something to do for months when you hit 60.
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 15:30

  • penhalion #56 2 years ago

    @jellyhead

    I don't want to be someone else's crew. I want to be my own captain! Who the hell wants to be Wesley Crusher or Ensign 24 mashing the recharge batteries button for someone else.

    But don't you see THAT'S the problem! How can a mission consist of 16 captains all trying to save the day? Where the heck is security to throw at the dangers or the Bones style medics to say "He's dead Jim" or the Scotty style engineers yelling "She cannae take it cap'n"?

    These characters are what made a star trek mission. Having your security guards hiding behind rocks firing phasers while your engineer friend tries to get an alien door open and your doctor tries to save someones life. Having missions that require people of different disciplines would automatically take care of the social aspects of the game. It would also encourage people to take other professions than captain.

    My solution of having an NPC captain until you actually worked your way up to the rank, would have made for a much more compelling game (in my opinion obviously). From personal tastes I would have loved to play as a generic, randomly generated security officer where dying simply bought me back as a new randomly generated security guy with all my stats intact. That would have made a star trek moment there and then. I couldn't help laughing, when thinking of my character getting gunned down in the first three minutes of the mission (and getting experience points for managing to acomplish this most star trek of feats) or having a random tomb raider style unavoidable death because the guy playing the captain pissed an alien off and the alien shoots the security guard first for no logical reason!

    I would even give the security class abilities like

    Draw fire - your character has an uncanny knack for drawing the agression of any hostile creatures in the area. For some reason (no matter where the initial attack came from) the creature is fixated on you. Maybe it doesn't like your face or something. Either way it wants you dead first!

    Heck I'm laughing even now at the prospects for such a gung-ho class.

  • jambo74 #57 2 years ago

    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=XyhhFzE5O5U

  • GiarcYekrub #58 2 years ago

    I like it, I've been on my own off in the Delta Voltaris Sector for days emerged last night and joined a group of germans to fend off some klingons in a few deep space encounters

  • UncleLou #59 2 years ago

    consisting of basic, poorly-refined and endlessly-recycled mission templates with a few variables thrown in.

    Just like the TV series, then. :p

  • Bleh #60 2 years ago

    This game has tribbles, what more do you want :p.
    It's extremely funny after some ground combat and all the bridge officers take out there tribble to pet them.

  • Azazel #61 2 years ago

    duh dum *kisch!*

  • grizzly_hamster #62 2 years ago

    When this game has whetted your appetites for internet spaceships, everyone feel free to come and join the big boys in EVE Online. We'll be kind to you, we promise :)

  • Hunam #63 2 years ago

    I doubt that, everyone in EVE Online is a cunt.

  • DFawkes #64 2 years ago

    @penhalion

    That Draw Fire is an actual ability in game!

    Does exactly as you describe if you went for the Security class - Red Shirt, obviously!

  • bluefunk #65 2 years ago

    6/10??? The review sounded like about 3/10. I would give this game 3-4/10 it's pretty dam bad. :(

  • AOFanboi #66 2 years ago

    Thankfully my PC is too underpowered to run this (a P4@2.9 w/ATI X1650) so I will give it a skip. Plus the "try new MMO, get disappointed, go back to WoW" cycle has created a pattern where I just have learned to skip the first two parts.

  • FortysixterUK #67 2 years ago

    Sadly, this isn't that good.

  • grizzly_hamster #68 2 years ago

    "I doubt that, everyone in EVE Online is a cunt."

    At least you know where you stand :)
    And anyway, we have to be ruthless. Didn't you know, internet spaceships is serious business.

    Being serious though, not everyone in EVE is a person of questionable morals, there are countless people ready and willing to help people find their feet, and i have made some very good friends through EVE. The difference between EVE and other MMO's is there aren't as many safety nets stopping people being punished for their mistakes, and in any social environment there will always be someone eager to punish mistakes if they have the opportunity. But as a result, you learn from your mistakes far quicker, and have much greater freedom.
    Edited by 2 at 05/02/10 @ 17:30

  • JohnnyFireBlade #69 2 years ago

    Ah, finally. My thoughts on the game have been ratified and I know I wasn't going mad. I wanted to like STO, I really, really did. I was so disappointed. All people kept saying in the beta was "It's still in beta, STFU", but so much needed to change and it was obvious that such a large amount of work wasn't possible in the short timescale available.

    I bought a lifetime sub for Champions on the strength of CoH and the promise of STO beta. Man, I feel like a sucker.

  • Retroid #70 2 years ago

    Tea.
    Earl Grey.
    Hot.

  • dsmx #71 2 years ago

    At the moment this is a totally fair review of the game AS IT STANDS, it needs a lot of polishing though to make it the game it should be. There is a fantastic game in there waiting to come out, but from my experience of the beta it needs another 6 months work though to get it into a state where it's a genuine good game, not just a good star trek game.
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/10 @ 18:38

  • Silvervein #72 2 years ago

    @grizzly-hamster

    You should mention that EVE is solely a pvp game. That's what it's about. And as any pvp game it has it's fair share of bored kids who camp at the gates of safe systems to shoot anything that moves outside.

    Perhaps it's just my general dislike of pvp games, but losing a ship I spent a long time getting, three times in a row, whenever I tried to see a bit more of the universe put me off of EVE for good.

  • Spekingur #73 2 years ago

    @WoW comments: So basically you had to grind dungeons to get gear? Yes, that sounds like fuuun...

  • Gastrian #74 2 years ago

    @spekingur

    It actually was fun because from the offset Blizzard made WoW a sociable game. The endgame content was essentially guild only, solo players wouldn't get past the first few monsters and random groups would wipe well before they hit the first sub-boss. Getting to the end game content could easily take you months and throughout that time you had to party up with people, hell before you hit level 15 there were going to be quests where you needed assistance. Blizzard was actively trying to throw people together so by the time you hit end game you at least had comrades if not new friends.

    During my last play through I teamed up with a random bunch of people to do the first Alliance Raid (the one that ends with a pirate ship) and of that group I added two to my friends list and whenever we were online at the same time we'd drop the quests we were doing and give the other a hand while chatting and electronically hanging out and add new people to this social circle if we got on with them during party quests and raids and over a nine month period I made about fifteen new friends with WoW being our international local.

    That is the beauty of Wow and why it is the number one MMORPG, yes the grinding can be boring, if you do it on your own, just add one friend and it stops being an issue.

  • Dizzy #75 2 years ago

    Edited by 3 at 10/02/10 @ 11:59

  • Scimarad #76 2 years ago

    It was rather cool to see the fleet go flying past even though I got stuck in the wrong instance:(

    Personally I think they've done a pretty good job. I've certainly been enjoying it though I suspect Cryptic have a knack of building MMOs that appeal to people who wouldn't normally play MMOs. Unfortunately the reverse seems true as well...

  • Nazo #77 2 years ago

    Pity, I was looking forward to seeing how this turned out. In the hands of someone who cared about the license this could have been great, not least because I can see the Trek community putting the RP into RPG.

  • Bravestinsane #78 2 years ago

    As i already played it and currently playing it now, i skipped to the conclusion..

    I pretty much agree with most points, i think the game is good, and you need to really plan ahead what you want to become because their's a cap on how many skill points you can spend on yourself.

    Really agree on endgame though, in general the game is very linear, theres not hundreds of quests to get lost in and do different things, like there is in LOTRO or WOW, you can guarantee, that every player had done most of the same quests you have. I do believe the end game wise you would end up getting very bored indeed.

  • Koborover #79 2 years ago

    I agree with the guy who said Mass Effect 2 is the best Star Trek (or Star Wars etc.) game you can buy at the moment. Bioware was obviously inspired by just about every classic sci-fi movie and created a wonderful sci-fi experience. I mean you even get a chief engineer from Scotland on your starship!

  • TruSmiles #80 2 years ago

    I've played a bunch of MMO's. Currently subscribed to Aion and Star Trek, although stopped playing Aion to try Star Trek. Whilst Aion I would describe as a hardcore MMO, and I get in the mood to play those, Star Trek allows me to have some quick casual fun and enjoy a lighter version of Eve, which is what I've always wanted to play. The ship combat is enough to sustain me for now and I'm really enjoying it.

    I agree with the review, it's very fair. I recognise its problems but I also see potential. If it doesn't work out, I've always got Aion. I wish we had more sci-fi MMO's though.

  • dsmx #81 2 years ago

    I forgot to mention earlier the space combat once you get 5 of you doing a mission is extremely good fun. Played on your own it's a bit dull but get a good group going and it's a real blast.

  • myk #82 2 years ago

    At the moment this keeps me from playing mass effect 2, which does puzzle me a bit. It's nowhere near perfect, is quite rough round the edges and a bit clunky but gets the most important bit right - ship combat.

  • organica #83 2 years ago

    The endlessly remashed environments and missions sound distinctly like the CoH/CoV missions. I loved that game back in the day, but I definately want a bit more design out of my MMOs these days...

  • kaya08 #84 2 years ago

    Looks like every MMO ever - no point in playing it until its been out about a year and they've got content, bugs, polish etc at a reasonable level.
    At which point its population will be rediculously low and you won't be able get a party going anywhere. Then the developers will tear out everything that makes it interesting and unique and try and shove WoW into game mechanics completely ill suited to it and it'll dissapear into obscurity.
    I wish MMO developers would release a finished game for a change.

  • Zappadaddy #85 2 years ago

    Am I the only one who questions a review of an MMO that's been live for less than a week? What you're essentially doing is reviewing the game based on beta and the first week, which is hardly fair.

    I do agree with many of the reviewer's critiques, but give Cryptic a break here. I wouldn't consider a week long enough to review most single-player games, much less an MMO. Cryptic is promising some big additional content in the first month or so, so I hope Eurogamer does a follow-up review.

  • dsmx #86 2 years ago

    I don't think MMO's should ever be reviewed or even given a score. Unlike every other kind of game they are never finished and are in a constant state of flux. (little bit of trek terminology there)

  • GiarcYekrub #87 2 years ago

    myk exactly the same here I have ME2 here it's in the xbox and I'v played it abit but it just can't draw be away from this. There are so many drool moments like ... warping, visiting your bridge, customising your ship, ship combat, beaming in and out, non combat missions(though rare), gaining in rank, I'm already thinking about starting my next character when I level up to max and sell it the best things I have for peanuts and slaughter through the early missons .

    Thinking of this objectively if there is any franchise whose fans will over look defects in favour of the positives its going to be Star Trek...just look at how many fans went to see Star Trek XI after the dire Nemesis despite the bizare direction JJ Abrambs took, this at least is in the proper Star Trek Universe

  • Grayvern #88 2 years ago

    All this talk of space combat makes me wish there was a homeworld 3, and that I'd finished 2.

  • Eisenstein #89 2 years ago

    I'd peg it more at 7/10 from what I've played yet. Not a great game, but good enough to keep me a few months entertained though, played casually of course.

  • kweeky #90 2 years ago

    I want to know where Crytic are buying these "Build Your Own MMO" kits.
    Edited by 1 at 06/02/10 @ 08:37

  • Dgzter #91 2 years ago

    I've got to say, from looking at various videos etc, that the game looks surprisingly charming. If it does prove to be MMO-lite (I'm not passing judgement) then it could well be what I'm looking for at the moment, as the best I can probably commit to is a fairly accessible game which I can mess about with two or three times a week and just have some fun.

    No idea how it would run on my laptop though: Dell XPS M1530.

  • D3xter #92 2 years ago

    How come so many are saying they would ADD 2 points because its Star Trek?
    Personally I would substract 2 instead, it made me interested but it won't keep me at playing a crap game and will make me even more mad because they've abused the IP... if it was called "Generic Space Shooter #3" I'd probably have never picked it up in the first place (call it the wasted-my-time tax)

    And the game really IS ridiculously short... I remember being in the WoW Closed Beta back in the day and needing like 3-4 months to get to Level60 (I didn't subscribe but I understand they made it a lot easier after a while) and they had lots of fun dungeons to do at the end I didn't even finish all before they added Raid Content and went Open Beta and Live.

    In STO the DEVELOPERS (remember the people that are supposed to talk in a good tone about their game) threw out an estimate that it takes 80hours to get to max. Level (45).
    Hell I played Dragon Age for longer than that and that was Single Player... and fun

    Btw. I also basically "reviewed" the game experience I had up to Lvl35 or such with while trying to stay neutral and fair (and not giving it a Score as it USUALLY is hard to rate MMOs, there's many things that can be experienced differently) and with lots of Screenshots if anyone cares xD
    http://ww w.escapistmagazine.com/forums/r...


    Well... here's hoping for Star Wars: The Old Republic

    And for those people waiting for a good "Space MMO" maybe check out Black Prophecy and Jumpgate Evolution
    Edited by 3 at 06/02/10 @ 17:12

  • Dizzy #93 2 years ago

    "In STO the DEVELOPERS (remember the people that are supposed to talk in a good tone about their game) threw out an estimate that it takes 80hours to get to max. Level (45).
    Hell I played Dragon Age for longer than that and that was Single Player... and fun "

    80 hours is a rather good value for 40 euro TBH. And then you can try a different faction...

    Even if you stop after one month... there is a lot of playtime there.

    BTW you can get to max level in *any* (non-Korean) MMO in 80 hours.
    Edited by 1 at 06/02/10 @ 18:40

  • Rudrick #94 2 years ago

    I am ST fan,but leaving this game & keeping EVE Online.
    Go where no man has before ;cant find in STO.
    Cryptic just ruined ST ip at mmorpg.

  • GiarcYekrub #95 2 years ago

    Yeah Thats my plan Max Out a Fed, Then Max Out a another faction I have Four character slots. The worst thing about all RPG's is the grind, In this it's fun and you get a sense of progression without having to put hours into it with little return

  • zedzee #96 2 years ago

    "Let them eat static!"

  • ircaddicts #97 2 years ago

    guess you played for all of 2 hours then this review is an EPIC FAIL as members of them same team ALLWAYS are in the same instance

  • Jounar #98 2 years ago

    @ Dizzy

    80 hours is good value for a single player game but when you have to spend an extra 15 quid every month to play it stops being so good.

    STO took me just under 2 weeks to get to max level and there is zero things to do apart from 1 daily quest for epic items that are worse than i currently have :( There are a total of 87 quests in STO and just like Champions online there is zero replay value for playing an alt as you will have to do the exact same quests again to level up not to mention the first 11 level in STO are so boring its beyond a joke.

  • pot #99 2 years ago

    This game is so shitty. Cryptics last semi good game was CoX. That game became a lot better after NCsoft bought them. NCsoft also took the whole team so those guys who made CoH haven't been at Cryptic for many years. Roper wouldn't do crap the fan's asked for but when NCsoft took over, they added all the stuff the fans were asking for.

    Bill Roper is an epic failure and anything he touches becomes a turd. Cryptic is so broke, they had to rush to release sTO to hopefully get the bonus they are promised if they reach the revenue required for the bonus from Atari. Cryptic is trash. CO and STO are the same game with different skins. I will never be fooled by Cryptic again.

    Don't listen to the lifers, they don't want to admit they got suckered for a crap game and will justify and try to convince everyone STO is the best MMO ever made and has zero problems and has a full end game. Cryptic is so cheap they only give you 3 slots if you buy the regular game. 3 slots in an MMO? Most MMOs give you at least 5 slots, some even give 10 on each server.

  • arnottfigaro44 #100 2 years ago

    Seems to be on the internet Champions League with space ships. Hidden to make MMOs on the cheap and this is clear.
    sd card

  • DFawkes #101 2 years ago

    @ircaddicts (not that you'll read this because it's been months since your post)

    I'm one of the members of the Eurogamer Star Alliance, and I was there on that night mentioned in the review, and I can promise you what Oli says is correct. Individual teams were split up and did not arrive in the same instance. My own team of 5 had 2 of us catapulted into another instance.

    I can also personally guarantee Oli played for a good while, as he was online most of the time during my first few weeks. So your calls of "EPIC FAIL", are quite incorrect. Nice troll attempt though, but 3/10 for effort.

  • mmogamers #102 1 year ago

    Star trek online is a pretty good game, with some interesting features and quite entertaining for limited period of time. However, for a subscription MMORPG games based on the richest and one of the most popular sci-fi franchises currently available it’s a disappointment of galactic proportions.