Star Trek: Online

You'll never be alone on away missions. Either you got four NPCs with you, or up to four different players.

 

I'm so ready to play this game. Wish I had a shot at getting into closed beta.

 

I've just been browsing the STO website because I was board. I watched all the videos and couldn't help but laugh at all the "War, War, WAR!" I smell a drinking game. I also noticed a lot of the storyline is contradictory to the rest of the expanded universe. The Star Wars franchise always seemed so much better at this.

Anyhoo, I've never played and MMO before. No, really. So I'm kind of a noob and was wondering about a few things:

They say the game comes packaged with different extras depending on where you purchase the game and with each purchase you get 30 days of gaming and the associated extras.

But, for those who only buy one copy of the game, how much is the monthly subscription and will the other extra content be available at some point?

I was especially keen on the TOS uniforms and the Constitution ship, but they were in different packages.

 

The typical monthly subscription price is $15 these days. Should not be more then that. The other offers that are available thru other retailers are supposedly going to be available in the future, but not anytime soon.

If you do decide to buy, choose wisely. I preordered with Gamestop for the Constitution class but you have to keep in mind that you will eventually be promoted to a higher tier of ship. You'll still get to keep the connie but it won't be as powerful as a tier 2 or 3 ship. There is a preorder beta faq page here in case you didn't see it.

 

What Ayelbourne said. People love to criticize just about everything before we know the full details of the game. I honestly thought Star Trek taught us the dangers of hasty judgements...

 

The game is set 30 years past were the novels are currently at so I'm glad they've split off as it means the novels aren't tied to what the game sets up. Also I very much dislike the course of the novels took with Destiny and am glad STO ignored it.

 

As someone who has been in beta since early October I agree with this completely. This game is not perfect or to be honest great at this point but it is not bad either. Without violating the NDA I will say it needs work on all elements of the game but the foundation is surprisingly solid and the progress they have made has been very impressive.

I still wish release could be pushed to March though.

 

I got an open beta key so I look forward to working with you Valerian next month in ironing things out, hopefully.

 

I'm still making preparations to play.

Ordered a new video card earlier this week. If I could get an idea on how the UI is in game, I could start working on setting up my gaming keyboard. Already found a nice LCARS skin to put on it.

 

There's two rumors as to why the release date was set at 2/2/10 (and I don't know if either one is true or not):

1) CBS was VERY upset at the whole Perpetual Develpment situation (they let Perpetual have it because they already had an MMO engine they had licensed out and promised they could get STO out in two years - and we all know how that turned out). When CBS started shopping the STO license again, the reason they gave it to Cryptic was that Cryptic said in no uncertain terms - "Yes, we can have this game absolutely ready to go in two years..." - and it's rumored that was made a part of the deal in the actual contract. (BTW - The third season of the TOS Blu-Ray set came with a costume unlock for STO so CBS IS doing tie in marketing <-- Lend some creebence to the idea that CBS/Paramount wants a Star Trek MMO on the market).

2) CBS promised Atari/Cryptic a 21 million dollar bonus if the game is released and meets certain box sale, and subscription milestones by a certain date; and the release date was set by Atari with those targets and that 'drop dead' date for the bonus in mind.

Now, one or both could be true, or neither could be - but I believe there is something other then the state of game readinness driving the launch date decision.

 

I seriously hope the open beta for STO isn't the disaster that Champions Online was. I know that a beta is for an unfinished product but it never looks good if potential players can't even get logged into the game.

 

Well, neither did I, really. But it's still nice to have some continuity. I'm not going to do a Canon Violation! because that's a whole nother bag 'o worms, but non the less...

My point was simply that, while Wars does, at least to some extent, keep its story strait across the various media, Trek is just one big bag of sick.

Another thing: I didn't see a requirements list (might have missed it). I know for sure non of my current computers won't be able to run it, but I am buying a new laptop with in a month or so and was hoping it might get me by. I'm looking at one of the Acer Aspire Athlon X2s (forget the model #) which seem pretty decent for the price.

 

From the FAQ page:

Q: What are the system requirements?
A: The minimum system requirements are:

• OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 Ghz or AMD Athlon X2 3800+
• Memory: 1GB RAM
• Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 / ATI Radeon X1800 / Intel HD Graphics
• Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
• DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher
• HDD: 10GB Free Disk Space
• Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required
• Disc: 6X DVD-ROM

The recommended system specifications are:

• OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
• CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2 5600+
• Memory: 2GB RAM+
• Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 3850+
• Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
• DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher
• HDD: 10GB Free Disk Space
• Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required
• Disc: 6X DVD-ROM

 

Wow, were you around about 6 years ago when the New Jedi Order novel Traitor came out? In it, the idea is put forward that there is no dark side of the Force. You want to talk about being divided...

 

That has not been an issue. Only typical beta problems as they scale it up for more concurrent players. I don't believe I violate the NDA stating that AFAIK. If it does may I point out to Cryptic this is in fact Valerian Prime posting from the future. A future I might add where lawyers were "tragically" sacrificed to save the rest of us from pending doom. Or at least that's what we told them...

 

The more the merrier. The more problems we find in beta and get dev attention directed towards the better release day will be. So far Cryptic has been very good responding to bugs and design issues and has been active in fixing them both. That by itself is what gives me optimism about the games future.

 

i'd wager most bugs are known by devs when the public gets around to playing a beta. certainly there are obscure bugs that devs and QA don't catch... the devs are probably 2 patches ahead of what is on the beta servers now (1 patch ahead of beta servers is probably in testing with QA).

i'm not in the beta, so i cannot say for certain how things will play out come the final game. i've got concerns with some basic game-play design, but until i can see it in action i've got to go with cryptic's track record (not a strong point).

my concerns (in case anyone cares) are that space combat 1-on-1 will boil down to a lot of boring circle strafing (with the occasional "direction reversal because my shields are low on the one side"). another concern is that hand to hand combat will suck if melee can do knock back and there is player collision (knock everyone into a corner and fire away).

 

MMOs don't succeed if they're shit on release. WoW worked and still works cause it has shit loads to do from the start, and it wasn't completely broken/boring. Look at Aion, massive queues, shit gameplay, lots of boring, pointless grinding which meant its subs disappeared pretty quickly after a succesful launch..

No, but I've seen enough videos and loved the first two games - this is more of the same, but with online play and lots more to do rather than KILL SIX KLINGON SHIPS GET REWARD WoW BS.

 

Well, if you think, STO consists of only that, then you clearly have not seen enough.
There's more quest diversity than that. Even some no violence diplomacy stuff, where you actually have to pay attention to what the involved NPCs tell you.

 

Re: Name the Three Ships Contest

Could someone post the pictures of the three ships? I voted already and now I can't get the images to show up again .