I am a Star Trek fan, but I'm going to end up passing on this game from what I've experienced in the open beta for now. I so want this game to be what I want, but I can't on faith alone put the money down on this game along with a monthly fee on top at this point. They may have a lot potential with what I've seen, but it's not done as well as it should for a final release product.
My experience is based on my short time in the open beta and not what will be released in the full game as I have no idea. These things may be a moot point at release or down the road, but thought I'd give my thoughts on the game as I saw it. Maybe you guys experienced it differently or know of things that I don't. So I'd like to hear your takes on it. The ST:O forum is unbearable and overloaded with meaningless posts/flames/spam that's exhausting to read.
Ship flight/space combat: Space combat was actually the best thing I enjoyed about it so far, but:
1. Maneuvering on x,y,z axises: Why is there a limit on my climb/descent? Are we not in space?
2. Weapons: Small gripe, but no auto fire, I feel that if the weapons are charged and you are in range the weapons should fire at your current target. I have enough on my plate managing shields and keeping the ship in position.
3. Traveling in sector space needs some work visually. Not sure what, but it just looks like I'm traveling on a giant highway sign shoved in a refrigerator and I don't get the feeling of it being in "space."
4. Traveling in unknown space shouldn't look like you are in a giant gray cloud. It should look like the rest of space.
5. Map/sensors are lacking? Sensors only pick up "anomalies"? Map isn't very informative and I don't find myself even needing to use it unless in sector space and wanting to click on a system to travel to. Maybe I'm not using them right.
Ground/Away Team/Combat:
1. Feels funny. Disconnected, unpolished. Not sure how to describe it, but it makes me sea sick.
2. Respawning: If you die you get kicked all the way back to the beginning of the level to have to run all the way back through areas you have already cleared. Having some sort of "checkpoints" through a mission would be nice for those that don't have the time to continually run through empty areas. I got stuck on one mission for an hour because the Klingons were shooting me through walls. Wall hackers! :P
Missions/quests:
I tried all the types, but they seemed to have the same theme over and over. Fly into a sector, fight. Beam down to the planet, fight. Just with different enemies. I'd like to see more "Star Trek" like episodic missions with dialogue, exploration, investigation. These may be there in the final, but maybe they just wanted to focus on the fighting to test system performance. I don't know. Even the "exploration" missions ended up being, fly into a sector, fight, beam down to the planet, fight. There was one mission where I had to "talk" to 4 different people and then take a quiz on what I learned from talking to them, but meh. I hope there is better mission content at release or in the future.
The things I touched on may not even be a factor in the final release, but I'd like to hear what you guys thought about the beta or if what I pointed out isn't even an issue in the final.
I guess you need to spend some more time in the game:
Space:
1) The Z axis limitation does sucks but it a design decision and probably a engine limitation so we'll have to live with it.
2) There are Auto Firem you just can't put everything on auto (would take the fun out of it). Right click on a weapon icon will set it to auto but you are limited to 2 weapon.
3) May people seem to feel the same way but no one have come up with a better suggestion. I thought it work rather nice.
4) Again, personal preference.
5) Sensor scan now points to the closest point of interest. map makes it easy to set auto pilot to places.
Ground:
1) I thought it works well, Boff can certainly use better pathing at times.
2) On larger map, there are checkpoint/respawn point that will unlock as you progress thru an area.
Mission:
Missions are hits and misses. THe standard ones are pretty generic go there do this type but if you take a minute to actually read thru the dialog on the episodic missions. You'll see that they do put quite a bit of effort into making it a good story.
For me, While I'm not much of a trekkie or trekker by heart (other than having seen probably all Star Trek TV episode with the exception of some Voyager and Enterprise). I found that it's a fun game to play. I have seen the improvement that Cryptic have made between Closed beta and now and I'm confident enough that they will continue to improve the game that I have already bought the lifetime.
Login
FAQ
Search
Members
