Star Trek Online

[Daehawk]

Earth & Beyond had avatars and space combat.

[Scoop20906]

it won't be revolutionary or anything (except arguably having avatar AND ship combat in one game)

Well, SWG had this quite a while ago (though it didn't ship with space combat).

Pirates of the Burning Sea. Laugh if you must, but the 2.1D space combat and ridiculous avatar combat are frighteningly similar.

I hated the Pirates of the Burning Seas Avatar combat. In fact the avatars pretty much drove me from the game. Yikes, you just scared me. Yeah, I need to hold off the game until we get some reviews.

[Lagom Lite]

You fool! Lots of games have avatars and space combat!

Alright, so not so revolutionary then.

I never tried PotBS because of what I heard about it. It's a crying shame because I like the idea of a pirate MMO (who doesn't?), let's hope STO doesn't turn out the same way.

[Kyosho]

This is actually coming out? I thought it had been scrapped a while back. Excellent. I'll definitely try the open beta when it arrives.

[El Guapo]

You fool! Lots of games have avatars and space combat!

Alright, so not so revolutionary then.

See, this is why I much prefer Lagom Regular to Lagom Lite.

[ydejin]

This is actually coming out? I thought it had been scrapped a while back. Excellent. I'll definitely try the open beta when it arrives.

The original developer went belly up two years ago and a new developer picked up the license and restarted from scratch.

[Lagom Lite]

See, this is why I much prefer Lagom Regular to Lagom Lite.

Lagom Regular is fattening.

The bastard.

[Sepiche]

Anyone else get into the beta? It still has some bugs, the ground combat is still a bit rough, but the space combat is a lot of fun so far. It's certainly better than I was expecting it to be at this point. I'm still a bit on the fence about actually buying the game, but so far I could at least see myself spending a few months with it.

[Scoop20906]

I played the beta one night and it is REALLY buggy. Ground combat was as unfun as any MMO I have seen. I thought the space combat was okay but not enough to justify playing $49.99 for it. In fact, the beta kind of turned me off the game so much that I will wait for it to get very cheap before buying it and subscription. The game just isn't good right now.

[Jag]

Anyone else get into the beta? It still has some bugs, the ground combat is still a bit rough, but the space combat is a lot of fun so far. It's certainly better than I was expecting it to be at this point. I'm still a bit on the fence about actually buying the game, but so far I could at least see myself spending a few months with it.

Join the more active thread at GT. We're working on forming a fleet (guild) and have a chat channel for less spammy discussions. Having fun with the beta though (it is a beta still).

I'm the same as Sepiche. I could see spending some time with it, but not sure about the long term legs. They came close, I just don't know if the got close enough.

[Defiant]

How similar is the space combat to the tactical combat in the Starfleet Command series?

[GreenGoo]

How similar is the space combat to the tactical combat in the Starfleet Command series?

Ok, this made my ears perk up. I was thinking it would be some sort of...I don't know, 3D first person shooter-ish type interface. I never gave it a moment's thought that it might be like Starfleet Command.

I still think the chances are low, but I'll be back to see what people have to say.

[Defiant]

How similar is the space combat to the tactical combat in the Starfleet Command series?

Ok, this made my ears perk up. I was thinking it would be some sort of...I don't know, 3D first person shooter-ish type interface. I never gave it a moment's thought that it might be like Starfleet Command.

I still think the chances are low, but I'll be back to see what people have to say.

Well, I was hoping it was - especially given the popularity of the games - though I have no idea if it actually is. Let's see.

(Or barring that, that it requires some good tactics. Or maybe requires teamwork to win some giant DS9-like space battle... eg, one person tractors a ship while another shoots or something like that rather than just everyone out for themselves. OK, so I've been playing L4D2 too much...)

[Sepiche]

How similar is the space combat to the tactical combat in the Starfleet Command series?

I'd say it's very similar actually.

Once of the main differences is that STO is full 3D so you can maneuver above or below your enemies, but all the other basics are there: power allocation, weapon arcs, shield arcs. You can also customize the components on your ship (for instance I replaced my rear phaser array with a disrupter array), and you can choose different skills for your 3 bridge officers that can give you some nice abilities in battle.

Right now my tactical officer gives me the ability to fire a heavy photon torpedo spread which can really pack a punch if I can hit my target with it's shields down, while my engineering officer has the ability to boost my shields for a short time, and my science officer can fire a tachyon pulse that can seriously damage enemy shields.

The battles I've seen so far scale well too. I've been in battles with probably close to 50 ships flying around without running into any major problems. The small scale fights I've been in have been fun and still pretty challenging, and it's very easy to just hop into a system to do a mission and it will often automatically add you to a group of people doing the same mission and then scale the mission to the number of players.

The game still needs a lot of work... there have been some bad lag spikes (although last night it seemed much more stable) and there are spots where they clearly are intending to add more content later, but overall I guess I'm just impressed that it's at it's core fun to play, and in a much better state than I expected it to be.

[Jag]

A massive amount of keys are being released today

There are currently 3466 keys remaining for this giveaway
http://gamers.eurogamer.net/giveaways.php?id=86998" target="_blank

[Defiant]

A massive amount of keys are being released today

There are currently 3466 keys remaining for this giveaway
http://gamers.eurogamer.net/giveaways.php?id=86998" target="_blank

I can't seem to register. Apparently, I'm a robot

[Defiant]

Videogamer is also giving away 3000 keys (and at least some other sites, though I think theyre all out)

[ydejin]

Nade, I agree with Sepiche. I was a big Starfleet Command fan, and I find the combat here very similar. There are some differences. Here's what I wrote about it for someone on Qt3:

It is an awful lot like [Starfleet Command]. I dug out my old Starfleet Command manual to do a quick comparison. I would say the one area where it seems to be worse off is AFAIK there is no damage to individual systems (other than shields). Watching all your system wink out ala the damage indicators in the Wrath of Khan was both an awesome and a scary experience in Starfleet Command and it doesn't appear to be replicated here.

But an awful lot of the other stuff is there. You'll definitely redirect power from one shield to another, while trying to keep the enemy away from your weakened shields. You can redirect power to the engines, weapons, shields, or auxiliary (which improves turning radius, crew recovery -- you lose crew members if you get hit -- and science-based special powers). The covering arcs of your weapons are critical (and you can select weapons, for you weapon mounts at the dockyard).

The area that STO does better is naturally in the RPG aspects. I really liked the SFC officers, but from what I can tell (and from what I remember of SFC) STO does this much better. STO officers can not only level up, they all have special powers which can have a big impact in battle. You can also personalize them in terms of look and abilities.

Anyway, I've only spent about five hours on STO, but definitely the space combat gets a thumbs up and compares well with SFC. I do think STO combat is a bit faster although not excessively so, and I did prefer the slower pace of SFC combat which gave more of a sense of large lumbering ships. The STO ships don't maneuver like fighter jets mind you, I'm pretty sure the pace of combat is much faster than at least the original SFC (not sure about SFC2 or SFC:Orion).

I've now spent probably at least 16 hours playing, and I still really like the combat a lot. Here's another post I wrote on Qt3 highlighting what combat is like:

Wow, just had a bunch of amazing fights against several sets of Klingons. I had a Negh'Var warship which had kicked my ass several times a while back. Mind you I'm still in my original Reliant-class Light Cruiser, so I consider taking out a Heavy Cruiser with 2500 crew quite an accomplishment. It was a tough fight and my shields were almost gone and my hull integrity was below 25%. I finally had him weakened and I hit him with my Quantum Torpedoes and he blew up and then ... I get caught in the Negh'Var's explosion and blew up with it!

I had another fight with some Bird-of-Prey. These guys were very tough as a pack. There were three of them, and they were all over me. I figured my best bet was to concentrate on one and take it out at all costs, because that cuts the squadrons fire power by 33%. So I'm taking damage, getting chewed up, but trying to ignore the damage to focus on my target. My target is really going down, I'm firing at him, I'm firing at him, and then ... where the heck is he? Turns out he cloaked, reappeared again a while later.

I also fought a K't'inga class Battle Cruiser. Big old ship. Didn't seem to be as tough as the Negh'Var but packed a lot of punch. I discovered that one big advantage I had, was greater maneuverability. Now a Reliant-class cruiser doesn't fly like a fighter jet, it turns pretty slow. But I was much better turning than the K't'inga, so I was able to run back and forth switching from facing one of my sides to him, to facing the other side to him to always present my stronger shield to him. It was also relatively easy getting into firing position for my Quantum Torpedoes.

I did manage to go back and take out the Negh'Var without dying. Definitely took a lot of doing. Partly I think I'm now better at reading the situation, better at managing my shields, weapons, and better at manuevering. But also my Bridge Officers are more skilled, and I definitely had to take full advantage of their powers. I can't wait to level up and get some more powers for my Bridge Officers. I really want Engineering Team, which lets you send damage control parties to repair hull integrity. I had four fights in the sector (including the one where I blew up) where my hull integrity dropped below 20%. So being able to have damage control do some repairs could make a big difference. But there's no way I'm giving up on my Engineering Officer's current "Energy to Shields" ability. Way too useful.

If you liked SFC you should definitely give it a go. At this point, I'm pretty much sold on it, and am going to preorder. It is a little buggy and unpolished, but I've had a tremendous amount of fun.

[GreenGoo]

Wow, so you have a 3rd person view of your ship from the outside and just steer it around in real time?

I honestly never expected that in this kind of MMO. Not sure why.

[ydejin]

Wow, so you have a 3rd person view of your ship from the outside and just steer it around in real time?

I honestly never expected that in this kind of MMO. Not sure why.

Yep. If you want some serious footage, try watching the Giant Bomb Beta Play Video 3 starting at 19:55 in for some basic single player. Or there's an epic fleet battle at the 56 minute mark. That's really STO at it's best. I wouldn't recommend starting with the first Giant Bomb Beta Video, as that one just shows them creating characters and playing through the tutorial, and while the real tutorial is decent for what it is, it's just not very interesting to watch.

[Defiant]

OK, I played around the game for an hour or so...

Well, it definitely needs some polish. The tutorial stopped at several points, leaving me not knowing what to do. There were some transporter malfunctions ( I beamed down *as* my ship until it changed after a minute or so, and also beamed up as me into space before turning into my ship). The game stuttered a few times, especially at the beginning levels on the Khitomer althiugh it was fine afterwards. The buttons to press to go to the next screen (eg, during dialogue) sometimes dont take, though maybe it's my mouse or something.

The ground stuff isn't too bad, though the space part is certainly better. It's much more simplified and not nearly as tactical as SFC (though better than Legacy), but I could see enjoying it.

[ydejin]

The ground stuff isn't too bad, though the space part is certainly better. It's much more simplified and not nearly as tactical as SFC (though better than Legacy), but I could see enjoying it.

The space combat will get more interesting as you start collecting Bridge Officers, each of who have special abilities (starting with one special ability per officer for Lieutenants, and I think going up to three per officer at when you are at the Admiral level). It's still not as tactical as SFC mind you. But having to decide when to use the "Emergency Power to Shields" command, the "Torpedo Spread" command, or when to kickoff your Damage Control parties special power does give you additional tactical decisions.

[pengo]

i registered at eurogamer but no key, how do u get a key?

[Daehawk]

I've registered at 4 or 5 places but no email yet. Bah

[Kyosho]

Yep. If you want some serious footage, try watching the Giant Bomb Beta Play Video 3 starting at 19:55 in for some basic single player. Or there's an epic fleet battle at the 56 minute mark. That's really STO at it's best. I wouldn't recommend starting with the first Giant Bomb Beta Video, as that one just shows them creating characters and playing through the tutorial, and while the real tutorial is decent for what it is, it's just not very interesting to watch.

I watched all three parts. I'm really looking forward to this game now. Can't seem to get a key for the beta, but hopefully sometime in the coming months I'll be able to afford a subscription.

[GreenGoo]

Yep, thanks for the video link. Was fun to watch. No time for a new MMO, but I'd probably give this one a try if I did. It looks far more interesting than I gave it credit for.

[craterus]

Wow, so you have a 3rd person view of your ship from the outside and just steer it around in real time?

I honestly never expected that in this kind of MMO. Not sure why.

wait a sec...

each player has control of a starship?? won't that get a bit... much?

I always imagined that each "guild" would consist of people 5-20? in control of each starship (working "systems" to make the ship go (or perform better).

[Jag]

Wow, so you have a 3rd person view of your ship from the outside and just steer it around in real time?

I honestly never expected that in this kind of MMO. Not sure why.

wait a sec...

each player has control of a starship?? won't that get a bit... much?

I always imagined that each "guild" would consist of people 5-20? in control of each starship (working "systems" to make the ship go (or perform better).

You form fleets with other Captains, that's the guild.

[craterus]

Wow, so you have a 3rd person view of your ship from the outside and just steer it around in real time?

I honestly never expected that in this kind of MMO. Not sure why.

wait a sec...

each player has control of a starship?? won't that get a bit... much?

I always imagined that each "guild" would consist of people 5-20? in control of each starship (working "systems" to make the ship go (or perform better).

You form fleets with other Captains, that's the guild.

yes... i understand that... that design (star trek universe and game wise) doesn't make sense to me... star trek was big on puzzle/non-violence solutions. It would seem also that there should have been a limited number of starships (especially at the upper end).

I would have thought that the game universe would have had some sort of federation/klingon point system. As your guild accomplishes more missions there would be a point bidding war to gain the commission of the upper end starships. I would have thought the upper end starships would have been run as a team (weapons officer/helm/science/engineering and others - boarding teams for 1st person shoot outs).

Smaller ships as one(maybe up to 3? as you add more people you would become more efficient) person? Sure...

I would have assumed that there would still be PvP, but that it would be more of an end game type situation (got your guild ranked high then you qualify for an upper end ship to take to battle against the klingons in the pvp area)

ps - i guess it is safe to say that players can't form non-federation/kingon guilds for trading/crafting purposes?

[Jag]

There are puzzle, non-violent quests, they are just not as fun

[Sepiche]

The setting of the game also helps explain there being more combat. It's set after Next Generation, Voyager, DS9, and all the movies and you can look upon that time period as a relatively peaceful period in the galaxy that has come to an end. With the Klingons breaking their alliance with the Federation then invading Gorn space, and all the new threats popping up, Starfleet is now in a full scale war with multiple enemies.

As Jag said though there are missions where you won't fire a shot. It's rather interesting actually to go do the random exploration missions and go from fighting for your life against waves of enemy ships to wandering around an empty planet looking for lost cargo on the next run.

[craterus]

The setting of the game also helps explain there being more combat. It's set after Next Generation, Voyager, DS9, and all the movies and you can look upon that time period as a relatively peaceful period in the galaxy that has come to an end. With the Klingons breaking their alliance with the Federation then invading Gorn space, and all the new threats popping up, Starfleet is now in a full scale war with multiple enemies.

As Jag said though there are missions where you won't fire a shot. It's rather interesting actually to go do the random exploration missions and go from fighting for your life against waves of enemy ships to wandering around an empty planet looking for lost cargo on the next run.

fair enough (totally understand the need for more combat)

but the every player has a starship thing still seems extremely odd... resource gathering/trading/exploring to generate points for one side or the other would have seemed a better way to me. A (somewhat) limited amount of top end ships could have been a way to balance the game between factions and still keep the numbers "realistic"

if the game gets popular you don't think it would be odd to have 80,000 starships running around (what would be popular number status these days 250k or higher?)?

no naming restrictions for fleets also sound like a sure way to stop immersion... if guilds were based on a single ship instead of fleets, there could be some reasonable control

[Defiant]

From the starship side of thing, missions that are non-combative would get boring quickly. Yes, you can have the occasional exploration/rescue the ship out of control into the sun/etc mission, which are fun sparingly, but if you look at the various games: SFC, Dominion Wars, Bridge Commander, Legacy, etc, they're all based on fighting.

The setting of the game also helps explain there being more combat. It's set after Next Generation, Voyager, DS9, and all the movies and you can look upon that time period as a relatively peaceful period in the galaxy

Apart from the occasional war or two that threatened to wipe out the entire Alpha quadrant.

if the game gets popular you don't think it would be odd to have 80,000 starships running around (what would be popular number status these days 250k or higher?)?

I don't think you will see that many ships around. I don't know how other MMORPGs work (this is the first I've really played) but from what I can tell it looks like there are multiple instances of each location, so when you a fight with klingons in space, you get put into an instaance of it with 5 or 10 other ships. Maybe more for the fleet actions. If say 100 ships join, they'll go into, say, 10 different instances of it. Same thing with sector maps, etc.

[GreenGoo]

Yep, originally WoW servers topped out at about 3,000 concurrent users. Not sure what they are now. I vaguely remember them going up to 4,000 after an oracle update.

And that's if the server is maxed out. Which is not going to be too often, as you'd have to keep additional users locked out until room frees up, and THAT pisses off your customers more than just about anything else. They'd rather log into a buggy game and bitch about the bugs than to be kept out until all the bugs are fixed (illustrating how much gamers hate to be locked out).

Assuming the galaxy is a somewhat large place, there should be lots of solo opportunities, with large PvE fights against a Borg Cube/Orb requiring many people to group up a la raids from more traditional MMO's.

Plus the opportunity for PvP is huge, so hopefully they work hard on this aspect of the game.

I assume the higher level/more powerful starships are not available at the beginning, and some form of advancement/leveling would be required to move up from 1 class to another.

Are the Gorn a playable race? I like the Gorn.

[Sepiche]

I assume the higher level/more powerful starships are not available at the beginning, and some form of advancement/leveling would be required to move up from 1 class to another.

Are the Gorn a playable race? I like the Gorn.

Yeah, you start the tutorial as an Ensign and once finished get promoted to Lieutenant. From there you have to go up 10 "grades" (levels) to get a promotion to Lt. Commander. With that promotion comes the ability to select a new ship, train up new skills, and promote your bridge crew to Lieutenant which gives them access to new skills.

Gorn are technically playable, but they are a Klingon ally so I think playing one would more or less be like playing as a Klingon in a Gorn costume. They have a editor you can use too to create your own custom "unknown" races as well.

[ydejin]

Gorn are technically playable, but they are a Klingon ally so I think playing one would more or less be like playing as a Klingon in a Gorn costume. They have a editor you can use too to create your own custom "unknown" races as well.

Yeah, they are essentially the same as playing a Vulcan or Trill as Federation. You get character bonuses for the race, but they aren't their own faction. Gorn don't have access to Gorn ships. If you play as a Gorn you'll be flying Klingon ships. IIRC Gorn get some pretty hefty ground combat bonuses though, so they should play a bit different than Klingons at least in ground combat.

[GreenGoo]

Ok, thanks for the info.

I'm praying when I check the minimum requirements that they are way out of my computer's league. Otherwise the temptation will grow.

Shame about not having Gorn ships to fly, but maybe they'll add them in an expansion pack or something. I'm ok with being a Klingon in Gorn costume, and some of the Klingon ships are pretty cool.

Any chance of someone firing me a Key? I can either give it back or find it a good home if I end up not using it.

PM me if you have one to spare, but if not, no worries.

[ydejin]

Shame about not having Gorn ships to fly, but maybe they'll add them in an expansion pack or something. I'm ok with being a Klingon in Gorn costume, and some of the Klingon ships are pretty cool.

Yeah, seems like it would be relatively easy to add. As the Gorn ships are in the game, and presumably whatever special weapons they have are also in the game. Every time I take on Gorn they seem to spew out this green gas. I'm not sure what it is, but I definitely avoid it.

They would need to do some extra artwork, if they wanted to do it right -- the State of the Game blog post mentions that they've Klingon-ized the Klingon interface, but that it's not in the Beta yet.

Personally I think it would be fun to play as a Romulan. Although I guess Klingon's now have cloaking technology too. No Plasma weapons though AFAIK.

[Jag]

I don't have a spare key, but I read on GT that you can reserve the game at Target for 99 cents and get a beta key and 3 day head start.

I was locked out all weekend due to server issues and it did not leave me with a good feeling at all. Someone also said that the servers are the same as Champions Online and that their STO mailbox had CO mail in it.

Here is the latest Beta news.
http://www.startrekonline.com/node/899" target="_blank

[GreenGoo]

Thanks for the info Jag.