STO, my first impression from the open beta

[Raevis]

I have been playing this since the Beta as well and I have to say I am enjoying it. I am not into MMOs really and I thought an ST one would be pure fail. However I figured it wouldn't hurt to take part in the Beta and I'm glad I did.

It keeps a certain Trek feel to it (I mean you as the Captain beam down into hostile situations with your entire bridge staff...how much more do you want?!) Being able to modify your ships to look different is a good way to allow players to be individual as well as modifying their uniforms.

Before the Beta was even finished the running joke was 'Where's Sulu?' and is still running strong! However spammers trying to sell Energy Credits are clogging up alot of the Zone talk which is annoying but you report them and it automatically puts them in your ignore list. I'm guessing the developers are trying to find a way to stop them now but its going to be hard.

Unfortuantly the game came out when I had loads of money due to a Christmas bonus so I got a lifetime subscription...well I guess thats fortunate actually but you know what I mean.

Its true that most of the missions are combat related but I have done alot that aren't, generally finding things in asteroid fields, finding computer logs in abandoned bases and getting aid for planets. I find the mix of combat and non-combat ok, the thing that sometimes gets me is you can go ages without a ground mission! Space combat is cool but ground missions do give you a bit of a refreshing routine change.

[C5]

Finally managed to play the game yesterday. I did not go very far (I'm Lieutenant 3), but so far I like it.
The Trek feel is present IMHO : not only in the graphics, but also in all the little touches, like the loading screens harbouring informations on the universe (and the whereabouts of some known characters). The starship combat did unsettle me a little at first, as I was expecting to be able to pilot my ship with the mouse, but after a few tries I found it to mirror rather well how it appeared on screen : rather slow, with plenty of opportunities to shout that the shields dropped to 65% and order to reroute power to forward shields, and a big explosion when the baddies' ship is finally destroyed.
I have not done a lot of missions, but so far I'm glad to have found diplomatic missions where all you have to do is talk to people and remember what they told you. Even if every other mission involves destroying Orions pirates, be it on the ground or in starships, I'm rather happy to have this bit of actual Trek-ness being injected to the game.

So far I'm completely overwhelmed with all the available options for evolution: your character's skills and equipments, the ship's equipment, the Bridge Officers (their distinctivness, skills, and equipment), the various currencies available (there is energy Credits and Merit, I think ?)... I hope I'll be able to sort all of this out while playing further.

The auto team feature is really annoying and I advise to turn it off as soon as possible. It bugged the first time I entered a system, so I was considered as belonging to a team, but I was unable to see it. The enemies, on the other hand, had been multiplied, which allowed me to experience my first couple of deaths ingame.

I'm a bit surprised by the amount of bashing the game takes on its forum and on the online chat. It does not bode quite well for the maturity of the community, given the nature of some arguments. Speaking of which, it did not feel as if there was a lot of teaming, but I may be wrong on that one.

On the whole, I quite like the game and I think it will keep me occupied for some time.

Oh I was forgetting another complaint I have about the game, which is the limited number of available characters (2, then possibly 3 after some levels). I love to try different concepts and I find this a bit frustrating.

[KillerWhale]

I agree it's a bit overwhelming especially if you are not used to MMO's complex customization possibilities... The game does not have the accessibility of WoW.

Have you really had that much peaceful missions? I am currently Ltn.8 and have had ONE diplomatic mission (where I had to talk to people) and ONE recon mission (scanning all objects in an area). Looks like each time I pop in an explored system there are hostiles undercover itching for a fight. Am I just unlucky?

[C5]

Actually, now that I've been playing a bit more (I'm Ltn 6), I've only had 3 peaceful missions so far : talking to people once, and scanning objects in a ground mission twice.
I've had other scanning missions, but every time there are also hostiles attacking at each scanning point.
Oh, and I found a supply mission, where I have to deliver goods to a star system (found while exploring the Delta Volanis cluster). They cost a lot, of course, but that is very peaceful.

I'm a bit surprised at the venom that people are spitting on the game in the forums. I'm not an expert in MMORPG (the only other I played was City of Heroes), but is STO that bad ? So far the main complaint I have would be that I have not felt too much need for teamwork, but that may just be that I'm at the lowest ranks (and that is also more a problem from the players than the game).

[KillerWhale]

Just answered the online survey from Cryptic and some questions make me think they are aware of the combat orientation of the game and trying to judge if that really appeals to the playerbase. Well, I'm ready to give the game a chance.

I don't think STO is that bad, but I'm an old MMO player (been playing WoW since release and GW before that, so I had no trouble finding my basic way through the game). But MMO communities are really like that, they usually like to throw venom around and complain until they go to the next game: most players are usually idiots who can't read a quest log nor look up for information on the Internet to whom the company should cater first and foremost if you listen to them.

Things seem to quieting down though. Many of the first month subscribers have gone away and I felt things were nicer now.