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An Hour With...Star Trek Online
An hour in the open beta for Cryptic's new MMO.
Written by Chris Joyce, 13 January 2010
Although Cryptic have only recently released their last MMO, Champions Online, they are fast approaching the launch date for their latest project, Star Trek Online.
Star Trek OnlineStarting yesterday, the game entered the Open Beta stage, and the NDA was lifted.
Star Trek OnlineAlthough I had some time to test the game during Closed Beta, the US focused testing times limited my chances to play, so with the game now running 24/7 (excluding any maintenance and patching periods) it was the ideal opportunity to put on the uniform and get my hands on the controls of a Starfleet ship.
Star Trek OnlineStar Trek Online, or STO as it's commonly known, is unlike most MMOs, and will appeal to a wider audience. Not only do they have the usual MMO gamer market, they also, potentially, have the millions of Star Trek fans out there in the world.
Star Trek OnlineAlthough this may help out their sales figures, it also puts an immense amount of pressure on Cryptic to get things right.
Star Trek OnlineI love my MMOs, and I do like Star Trek, but I'm more the kind of fan that will watch the occasional episode when there's nothing else on, rather than religiously watching every one.
So, my views and opinions here are mainly from the perspective of an MMO gamer, rather than a Trek fan.
The first task at hand, as with any other MMO, was to create my character.
STO uses the same engine as Champions Online. This is clearly evident from the start, when you are faced with a fairly impressive character customisation tool giving you more than enough options to provide you with a fairly unique look.
The sharing of the graphics engine is not necessarily a bad thing as it does look good, but sadly some of the bugs that exist in Champions Online have carried over to STO, despite them being raised during the Champions beta stages.
STO currently features two factions, the Federation and the Klingons, although rumours are circulating that two additional factions will be added at launch, or a later date.
The rumours have sparked from the addition of the Romulan and Cardassian emblems being added to the factions page on the STO website.
When you first start playing you can only select to play as a Federation character, with Klingons being unlocked once you reach level 6.
There are three classes available in STO, each with their own strengths, weaknesses and group roles.
The Engineering Officer is your typical 'Tank', and is able to protect other players and take on lots of damage.
Science Officers are the healers of STO, able to heal other players, offer support with buffs and can weaken enemies with debuffs.
Finally, you have the Tactical Officer, who is the main damage dealer of the three.
Once I had chosen my class I then had to choose a race from the ten available options, which ranged from Human to Vulcan, and even included a 'Custom' race, allowing you to create your own alien race to play.
Each race has their own specific racial talents, such as higher damage output, or increased health regeneration.
MMOZine Issue 33
For our latest Star Trek Online coverage, click here to download MMOZine Issue 33 for free.I decided to settle for a Vulcan Tactical Officer.
The opening section of STO starts with a Borg attack on a nearby Starship. The ships medical hologram requests your assistance so, happy to oblige, you make your way to the transporter and beam to the other ship.
What follows is a series of missions to destroy Borg devices on the ship, defend others from Borg attacks and generally help out like any good Starfleet Captain would.
The visuals of the game are certainly impressive, and Cryptic has done a good job with capturing the whole Star Trek feel, but it doesn't just stop there.
The sounds all Star Trek fans know and love have all been recreated from the sound of the transporters to the phasers used in combat.
This gives you a comfortable feeling of familiarity if, of course, you are familiar with all things Star Trek.
Early combat is fairly simple, and if I'm honest, a little dull. - two phaser settings, stun and kill, and a melee swing.
Later on during my first hour the combat remained simplistic, with just a change of weapon - I can only hope this improves further into the game as it could soon become tedious.
Once I had beamed back up to my own ship I then came to the space combat section. This is what sets STO apart from most other MMOs, in that the action takes place both on the ground and in your ship.
Space combat was certainly different, and occasionally fun taking control of my own Starfleet ship, but the controls felt clunky and awkward which caused some frustration.
I will say that it was quite cool to see all the other ships in space, taking on the Borg cubes and heading to beam up survivors from nearby damaged ships.
With any MMO it's difficult to form a true opinion based on the first hour of gameplay. Most take you through the, often lengthy, tutorial stages before you are set free to work things out on your own.
With STO, the tutorial section was relatively painless due to the engrossing nature of the first few sections of the game.
As I progressed through the game I found there was a lot to take in, with the various different skill points, ground and space combat and the different officer types for your ship.
It seems that STO is not an MMO that you can just pick up and work your way through randomly - there will definitely be a certain amount of trial and error involved with talents and the like, but to progress effectively careful attention will need to paid towards the various features.
During my first hour I didn't really get to grips with the complexities of it all, and some of it did feel a little overwhelming, but I'm sure, given time, it will soon begin to feel familiar and much easier to comprehend.
Despite the issues mentioned above the game remained fun for the time I had to play.
There were a few bugs, such as one amusing bug that caused my ship to disappear on loading the space sections, which left my character running through space, but this is still beta.
Stay tuned for more STO news and updates over the course of Open Beta.
Star Trek Online coverage available in MMOZine Issue 33 - click here to download it for free!
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