Star Trek: Online

[Noname Given]

Felt like venting a bit of steam about my main gripe with STO:

At the end of the day, while there's a ton of different Trek-tastic stuff to choose from and use, it's all ultimately cosmetic - a veneer of 'Star Trek' on a generic sci-fi MMO. Granted, if you're a Trek veteran who wants to play things 'by the book' (like I do!), it's possible to stick to strictly canon (or as close as possible) powers, equipment and the like. But it does still feel that, in order for the game to truly feel like Star Trek, one has to ignore content, or find ways to 'get around' the default gameplay experience.

Case in point: in order to stand any chance of survival in ground combat, you have to bite the bullet and equip generic 'shields', 'body armour' and 'kits'. Granted, if you feel that the look of these isn't 'Star Trek' enough, there's an option to 'hide' them, but they're still THERE. You're just re-skinning your generic sci-fi soldier with a Star Trek costume.


This is my Lt. Commander as he appears in-game, with kits and armour 'hidden' (he's still wearing them, mind):

And here he is as he actually looks, with the 'hide from costume' option deactivated:

See my point? As I said, it's almost as if you have two choices: play the game normally, or play it in 'Star Trek mode'. That's like playing 'Halo' with white armour and only UNSC weapons, and 'pretending' that your're playing a 'Star Wars' game as a Stormtrooper.

Considering that this is meant to be a 'Star Trek' game, set in the classic 'Star Trek' universe, and continuing from where TNG/DS9/VOY and the TNG movies left off, it's somewhat depressing.

No, it's a choice that's left up to the player (and in my experience the players who have the armor on 'show' are very few and far between.

As for ground combat, well it has to play like a game - and one shotting in any game sucks.

In the end, it IS a game, and designed to BE a game. It's NOT designed or intended as a "Technically accurate Star Trek Universe Simulator".

I'm honestly amazed at how well it's turned out (and love all the updates and improvements they've been making; they just need to get a real handle on some of the major Season 2 bugs that remain); and (as a TOS fan first and foremost) happy that they HAVE allowed all the options that allow a player to (for the most part) experience a fun Star trek game in a manner (and to a degree, the era) that appeals most to the individual player.

I honestly didn't think 'Star Trek' was something that could even remotely be translated into an MMO mold, but IMO, Cryptic has done a pretty good job to date of balancing gameplay with enough consistent Star Trek elements to make the game have that 'Star Trek' feel overall.

 

[Amaris]

Agreed. They're working on it. This game is a 4 year game produced in 2, and I have to admire the ridiculously steep climb the developers have taken on to bring it up to speed as fast as they have. I mean, come on, this is awesome stuff:

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Is anybody else having a problem where you can't enter unexplored systems in the Delta Volanis Cluster without the load screen taking so long you time out.

I haven't played yet today, but there's a couple of things historically that have caused issues like that.

You can try defragging; that was often a cause of this in Cryptic's older games, but isn't usually the problem in CO and STO. You should give it a try though. Don't trust Windows saying the drive doesn't need defragging; that's based on total percentage of fragmentation, and doesn't give the whole picture if, say, one STO file is in 900 fragments.

Next thing to try is nettest, to make sure you're not having a network issue somewhere (not necessarily in your own network, but in one of the ones between you and Cryptic) causing you to time out.

http://files.champions-online.com/nettest.exe

If you're on Vista or Windows 7, don't forget to run it as admin.

If neither of those fixes it, my next recommendation would be the Tech Support forum on the STO website, if it's a problem with the game itself it's likely others will be reporting the same.

Good luck; sorry I can't be more help.

Further info on this problem is that it is in fact affecting other players.

 

[Excelsior]

Oh, don't get me wrong - there's potential for some awesome stuff in STO, and I really enjoy playing it. But because I'm playing it for the Star Trek element, I'm finding that I really have to make a effort to make it 'feel' and look like Trek.

For example, I'm at a disadvantage in combat anyway, because I'm only using the very basic phaser rifles - any of the more advanced versions look like either massive 'Gears of War'-style weapons, or are covered with annoying glowing projections. I'm not in a fleet, and I tend to ignore other players, especially if they wear costumes (emphasis on 'costume', not 'uniform') that look like circus outfits, or have multi-coloured kit-bashed ships, with annoying names like the 'USS Enterprize-X ROFL' or 'USS Yo' Mama'.

And it's a shame that the game is so hide-bound to the generic MMO staples of 'DPS'/'Tank'/'Healer' (aka 'Tactical'/'Engineering'/'B), 'Crafting', 'Guilds', etc. - as a result, we can't have the proper divisions of 'Command', 'Operations' and 'Sciences' and officer positions like 'Helmsman' and 'Chief Engineer'. Memory Alpha gets reduced to being 'the place for crafting', and scientific analysis of anomalous readings gets simplified down to 'collect loot to craft better weapons and gear' - because unfortunately the overriding nature of the game is 'Pew, Pew'.

You have combat missions that are blatantly warlike ("Captain! Enter this system and destroy any and all ships, just because we don't like the look of them! Leave no survivors!"), and all the plot developments of the various series have been undone, so now the Federation is at war with everyone, for no apparent reason other than 'it's easier to make a game where everyone has to kill everyone else'. What little non-combat gameplay there is (other than crafting) either amounts to little more than spamming the 'F' key, or gets lumped into the 'Diplomacy' content - regardless of whether any actual 'diplomacy' is involved or not. Add on to that the Devs' obstinate stance on things like scale (K7 is so ridiculously huge that I can park an Akira-class ship in the shuttlebay, yet TPTB insist that the scales look and feel 'right' - clearly, I need my eyes testing... ), and it feels like the official stance of Cryptic is that "if it hits the broad strokes, like having phasers, Klingons, DS9 and all the things people need to see in-game, it doesn't matter if any of them are actually done properly, with any regard to how things work in Star Trek".


The thing is, ALL Star Trek games have had to make certain compromises with the IP to facilitate gameplay. The problem with STO is that it feels like little more than a thin veneer of 'Pseudo-Trek', painted on to a generic MMO system - one that becomes increasingly obvious the more you play. As someone who enjoys Trek games from the glorious ('Klingon Academy', 'Elite Force II'), to the almost-universally panned ('Legacy', which I actually mostly like, clunky controls notwithstanding!), STO might be the first time where you have to really look hard to find the 'Star Trek' in it, or worse, you have to add it yourself (as I do, hugely).


Sorry to be such a downer, but this was all recently compounded by seeing the progress of 'DC Universe Online' - they've got the likes of Marv Wolfman (of 'New Teen Titans' fame) plotting missions, and Geoff Johns as a creative consultant. Not only that, but they're aware that traditional MMO tropes would be out of place to represent the DCU, so they've scrapped 'crafting' and 'classes' - non-combat content is instead covered by 'detective missions', rescuing civilians and things that you'd actually EXPECT superheroes to do. And instead of classes, you just pick your abilities from a pool of powers, weapons and skills - it's up to you whether you specialise in offensive or defensive skills, or if you want to be a 'specialist' with one skillset, or a 'jack of all trades'.

In other words, 'DCUO' seems to be doing what all good Trek games in the past have also done - adapted the gameplay mechanics to suit the intellectual property. STO seems determined to stick it's proverbial heels in, and remain firmly glued to generic MMO tropes, even if this works at odds to the Star Trek IP. And on top of that, totally illogical things (like 'retrofits' - by the rules of the game, to have a Galaxy-class ship perform saucer separation, you have to be a Vice Admiral - y'know, like Picard was. And you can't just expect the regular Galaxy to do it - you have to buy the 'deluxe model', available in the C-Store. Because, as we all know, starship design is done along the lines of Ryanair - the basics are cheap, but the upgrades will empty your wallet...).


Ok - rant off. I just felt it needed saying. I was really enthusiastic about this game initially, but the more I play, and the more I read Dev posts on the forums, the less I think that the game is a 'work in progress' and the more I'm thinking that 'they're happy with the fundamentals of the game as they are'.

Hopefully the arrival of the new Excelsior model will cheer me up - it's due to hit the game on Monday, apparently, which is really good news. Should add more of a Trek feel to the proceedings...



...at least, until the Enterprise-J gets added, that is!

 

[syberghost]

I dunno; if you made suspension of disbelief to enjoy Elite Force, but think this game feels too much like a combat MMO and not enough like Star Trek, I guess I just can't put my head where yours is. Not every game is going to be for everybody; I know lots of STO players who enjoy the game for its immersion who despised Elite Force for being a First Person Shoot first and Star Trek second, but the fact is, it *IS* a game. It can't be a TV show. If we want the TV show, there's 28 seasons of it sitting there waiting patiently for us to return. Not to mention a strong possibility this game will impel CBS to make a new show; perhaps that animated series they had five episodes done for before they abandoned the project. (And gave the music to STO, where it's used as the main theme).

 

[Excelsior]

I dunno; if you made suspension of disbelief to enjoy Elite Force, but think this game feels too much like a combat MMO and not enough like Star Trek, I guess I just can't put my head where yours is. Not every game is going to be for everybody; I know lots of STO players who enjoy the game for its immersion who despised Elite Force for being a First Person Shoot first and Star Trek second, but the fact is, it *IS* a game. It can't be a TV show. If we want the TV show, there's 28 seasons of it sitting there waiting patiently for us to return. Not to mention a strong possibility this game will impel CBS to make a new show; perhaps that animated series they had five episodes done for before they abandoned the project. (And gave the music to STO, where it's used as the main theme).

It's simply a matter of 'A' dictating 'B' or vice versa - 'A' being the intellectual property, and 'B' being the gameplay mechanic.

'Elite Force II' might have been a FPS, but it managed to implement Trek-y things like tricorders and the like in a way that felt consistent with their portrayal in the shows. In other words, it only ever seemed to 'bend' the rules of the IP to fit the constraints of the gameplay, and often did the opposite, to it's credit. And all the little cosmetic touches were spot on - a lovingly-rendered version of the Enterprise-E interior, complete with Stellar Cartography lab, shuttlebay (with working door consoles!), a properly-scaled bridge (unlike STO!) with all the requisite bits and pieces, etc. When something from the shows appeared in game, it looked and felt just like you'd expect it to.

STO, on the other hand, just feels like a constant string of renamed tropes - for example, rather than have proper bridge officer positions, like "Helmsman" for the "Command" division, "Chief Engineer" in the "Operations" division, etc., the divisions have been renamed "Tactical, Engineering and Science", as a way of just 're-skinning' the same old "DPS, Tank & Healer" classes. Memory-Alpha and anomaly scanning become "crafting". Fleets become "guilds". At it's core, STO often feels like just another WoW clone with a layer of Trek names and imagery stuck on top - often inappropriately, too. And in many cases, like starbase interiors, everything feels too much like generic sci-fi - it's often 'Star Trek' in name only.

And the misappropriations bug me, too - mainly because it wouldn't alter the gameplay by one iota to fix them! It's simply because someone couldn't be bothered to correct them - hence why tons of people are getting annoyed when NPCs say things like "Greetings, Rear Admiral Upper Half Smith!" or similar. Similarly, why are all warships called 'escorts'? 'Escort' infers a small ship like the Defiant - not larger warships like the Prometheus or Akira. Basically, someone didn't bother thinking things like that through, and it's little things like that that spoil the game for me.


I'm sticking with it for the forseeable future, if only because I'm enough of a Trek wonk to be able to make it recogniseably 'Trek' in my gameplay choices. I have, however, signed up for the DCUO Beta test - come November, if that MMO makes the jump that STO won't (namely thinking outside of the box, to deliver a gameplay experience that reflects the nature of the IP it's based on), I'm jumping ship - I'll rely on the likes of 'Klingon Academy' to deliver my interactive Trek fix.

 

[syberghost]

And Elite Force just stuck Trek tags on FPS elements, such as using the "transporter buffer" excuse for having five different weapons on you. It still had health dispensers, energy dispensers, ammo lying around in piles, etc.

Star Trek Online is an MMO. It doesn't pretend to not be an MMO. Of course it acts like an MMO. That's what they set out to build. Complaining it feels like an MMO instead of something else is kind of pointless.

 

[Excelsior]

And Elite Force just stuck Trek tags on FPS elements, such as using the "transporter buffer" excuse for having five different weapons on you. It still had health dispensers, energy dispensers, ammo lying around in piles, etc.

Star Trek Online is an MMO. It doesn't pretend to not be an MMO. Of course it acts like an MMO. That's what they set out to build. Complaining it feels like an MMO instead of something else is kind of pointless.

I'm not complaining that it feels like an MMO - I'm annoyed with the fact that they've just used the regular MMO tropes and stuck Star Trek names on them, or even changed traditional Star Trek elements to better fit the generic MMO mould.

Case in point: rather than find a way of incorporating the 'Command, Operations & Sciences' divisions into the game, they renamed them 'Tactical, Engineering & Science', which end up being new names for 'DPS, Tank & Healer'. It's really daft, because it means that, for example, 'Science' officers have a mixture of medical and 'magic' powers - one of my bridge officers had access to a 'group heal' ability, and a 'freeze ray' power. How difficult would it be to split up the 'healing' and 'esoteric science' abilities?


As I said, the more I hear about DCU Online, the more frustrating I find STO. DCUO has scrapped crafting, because they don't think it's relevant to the intellectual property. Same with 'DPS/Tank/Healer' classes - they felt that you couldn't shoehorn someone like Superman or Wonder Woman into any of those groups without a compromise that would stop the characters reflecting how they act in the comicbooks, so they just did away with classes altogether, and developed a gameplay system to specifically suit the nature of superheroics in the DC universe. It was a gamble, but from the reports I've seen, it seems to have paid dividends.

I really hope the devs at Cryptic decide to start thinking 'outside of the box' like that - as an observation, the best games based on licensed properties are the ones with innovative gameplay designed to really bring the IP to life, while the worse ones tend to be generic games with names and iconography slapped on.

To use Star Wars as an example, compare something innovative like 'The Force Unleashed' or the legendary 'X-Wing' series to the forgettable 'Galactic Battlegrounds', which was just a Star Wars 're-skin' of 'Age of Empires'. See my point?

 

[syberghost]

As I said, the more I hear about DCU Online, the more frustrating I find STO. DCUO has scrapped crafting, because they don't think it's relevant to the intellectual property. Same with 'DPS/Tank/Healer' classes - they felt that you couldn't shoehorn someone like Superman or Wonder Woman into any of those groups without a compromise that would stop the characters reflecting how they act in the comicbooks, so they just did away with classes altogether, and developed a gameplay system to specifically suit the nature of superheroics in the DC universe. It was a gamble, but from the reports I've seen, it seems to have paid dividends.

Yeah, other games have tried that. Inevitably, they end up putting those things back in. In City of Heroes, Cryptic tried not having crafting. What happened? After constant demand from a huge segment of the playerbase, and mention of the lack of crafting in every review's negative section, they had to put in crafting.

In beta, STO tried no crafting. What happened? Large numbers of people complained. So they started adding a crafting system, but tried to make it unconventional. What happened? People complained. So they're moving it closer to a conventional crafting system. It's what the market wants. You don't blow off your customers if you want to keep the servers powered on.

As for DPS/Tank/Healer, if you choose to spec your characters that way, you can, but it's not the only option. Engineering fills a lot of the space a Healer class should occupy, Science can very much specialize in crowd control and debuffing instead of healing, and yeah, Tactical is DPS; well, gosh, the people trained in combat are better at it? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! It's an MMORPG; if you don't make it possible to specialize in those roles, all you will accomplish is a firestorm of forum complaints, followed by redoing your game to provide what the customers want.

An MMORPG can't be like a PC RPG. It can't spend three years developing 24 hours of content. The market consists of people who play, on average, 21 hours a week. If you want them subbed more than the first month, you HAVE to provide combat-intensive content. There isn't any other option. It's the nature of the genre. If you object to them making the game an MMORPG instead of something else, well, the other genres have already had Trek games. Play them; either "too" or "instead", but if you walked into an MMORPG expecting it not to be an MMORPG, that's on you, not on Cryptic.

Force Unleashed was a generic TPS with lightsabers. X-Wing's combat is the same as Wing Commander and roughly the same as Freelancer (although the latter's controls are much more accessible). But those comparisons are totally irrelevant, because a PC game can spend three years working on 24 hours worth of content. An MMORPG needs to have 80 hours of content a month.

 

[Excelsior]

From what I've seen on the STO forums, there's a certain mentality within the hardcore MMO crowd - basically, it seems that they prefer all MMOs to follow the Warcraft model. Hence why any notion of doing things differently gets shot down in flames...

Which is weird - I'm a big Halo fan, and I keep an ear to the ground when it comes to PC/Console games in general. And as a rule, most gamers, be they general gaming fans or hardcore specialists in any one genre, tend to like innovation - I've seen countless games receive a drubbing for being a "_____ clone". And they tend to understand that, if you're going to do a game based on a licensed, non-game property, your primary aim is to accurately translate the feel of said property into an interactive experience. And yet with the MMO die-hards, it's almost like "change is bad". Which means that if in doubt, MMO developers stick to the Blizzard model - that way, even if the game alienates fans of the intellectual property or casual gamers, it'll still attract the MMO nuts, and the game will thus maintain a playerbase of sorts. It's sad, but you can see a kind of logic in there.

(It's kind of like comicbooks and the Direct Market - there's always been a core of rabid comic fans, but before the DSM, there was an ever-shifting mainstream audience as well. With the arrival of the DSM, comics retailers managed to marginalise themselves from casual buyers, but guaranteed the loyalty of the hardcore fans - apparently, it was preferable to have guaranteed sales of just over 10,000 copies per month, rather than the possibility of millions. Hence why the American comicbook industry is now such a marginal 'niche' hobby... )


I'm trying to be more involved in STO's development, because I don't realistically see another game coming to fill its place if it fails. I'm currently drawing up an improved system for bridge officers, that'll include assignments like Helmsman and Chief Engineer - and in a practical way, not just cosmetic titles. Hopefully the Devs will like some of these and find a way to implement them - STO's got so much potential, and it really wouldn't take much to unlock it, which would make all the difference to the overall experience.

As I say, it only takes a bit of innovation, and the guts to break away from the generic MMO conventions. If STO ended up becoming what it was originally advertised as, namely the entire Star Trek universe at players' fingertips, I'm certain it'd make the game a much bigger draw with the gaming public than it currently is.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I've been searching and looking for info on performance with various video cards, but I thought I'd ask the forum since people are currently playing it: how does this game fare with a 512mb 9800gt?
I'd like to see it at 1080p but from what I've read so far, that would take something like a HD 5770, GTX 260 or +

 

[syberghost]

I've been searching and looking for info on performance with various video cards, but I thought I'd ask the forum since people are currently playing it: how does this game fare with a 512mb 9800gt?
I'd like to see it at 1080p but from what I've read so far, that would take something like a HD 5770, GTX 260 or +

I had an 8800 GT factory overclocked during beta and it was fine that high with reasonable detail settings. I switched to a GTX 260 (also overclocked) before Open Beta so I can't be sure, but a lot of debug stuff was turned off for launch which should have improved performance, so it'll probably be fine.

 

[Amaris]

I have a Radeon HD4760, which is about $65 on Newegg. It runs the game with settings on Very High, and it does so without a single hitch, even when I'm in a firefight with a whole fleet of other ships, or in PvP.

To give you an idea of performance, here is my system:

AMD Athlon X2 4850e
3 GB RAM
Sapphire Radeon HD4670 1 GB DDR3
Windows 7 Home Premium
20" HP Monitor Resolution: 1600x900 32 bit

STO runs flawlessly on high settings, plus this is just a great card anyway.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I've been searching and looking for info on performance with various video cards, but I thought I'd ask the forum since people are currently playing it: how does this game fare with a 512mb 9800gt?
I'd like to see it at 1080p but from what I've read so far, that would take something like a HD 5770, GTX 260 or +

I had an 8800 GT factory overclocked during beta and it was fine that high with reasonable detail settings. I switched to a GTX 260 (also overclocked) before Open Beta so I can't be sure, but a lot of debug stuff was turned off for launch which should have improved performance, so it'll probably be fine.

Thanks. I'm finding that real-world results are often better than what benchmarks might suggest. Tom's did an analysis of the game http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/star-trek-online,2553-6.html and here the Radeon 5770 is lagging way behind the GTS 250...

I have a Radeon HD4760, which is about $65 on Newegg. It runs the game with settings on Very High, and it does so without a single hitch, even when I'm in a firefight with a whole fleet of other ships, or in PvP.

To give you an idea of performance, here is my system:

AMD Athlon X2 4850e
3 GB RAM
Sapphire Radeon HD4670 1 GB DDR3
Windows 7 Home Premium
20" HP Monitor Resolution: 1600x900 32 bit

STO runs flawlessly on high settings, plus this is just a great card anyway.

That's actually pretty close to the system I'm about to put together, but AM3 based...if I can actually finalize my decisions...it is ridiculous what you can get even on the tightest budget compared to five years ago when I build this 939 system (which has a prominently blown "solid" cap and is getting increasingly unstable - still 5 years of heavy overclocked use ain't bad for a Jetway board which is supposed to be a "crap" brand)
I was looking at the 4670's last night actually, but - prices have dropped on the 5670's($65 w/rebate) which are a couple notches higher, roughly equal the 9800gt....too.....many.....options.....memory...insufficient...
anyway, will probably be doing the system build this weekend or early next week. The primary purpose is as a digital audio workstation, but I did want to at least have a decent rig for STO. Crysis can kiss my ass.
Thanks for the input J.

 

[Amaris]

You're welcome. Glad to help any way I can.

 

[ares93]

amd sempron 140 / athlon 4400e @3.8ghz
3gb ram
overclocked radeon hd3450

can run STO (pre-season 2) on nearly maximum with 1280x1024 resolution. of course with AA and AF off.

Phenom 9650 (X4)@2.9ghz
8gb 1066mhz ram
overclocked HD4850 1gb

can run STO (post Season 2) on maximum with 1680x1050. AA 8x and AF16x

 

[Blamo]

Okay, I've tried out a tier 3 Excelsior on Tribble and I've got to say I like it. Combat wise there's no real improvement, with equipment and station slots staying the same as the normal heavy cruiser.

 

[ares93]

Okay, I've tried out a tier 3 Excelsior on Tribble and I've got to say I like it. Combat wise there's no real improvement, with equipment and station slots staying the same as the normal heavy cruiser.

wait for the T5 variant. two words my friend: EPIC OWNAGE

 

[Blamo]

Yeah... I suspect the T5's stats will be changed, some people are already screaming "overpowered". Then again, they said the same about the Galaxy-X.

Here's hoping they keep the stats.

 

[ares93]

Yeah... I suspect the T5's stats will be changed, some people are already screaming "overpowered". Then again, they said the same about the Galaxy-X.

Here's hoping they keep the stats.

yeah, same here. LTC tactical and science