Toronto Thumbs

First Contact:
Star Trek Online

World of Warcraft, Everquest, Warhammer Online, City Of Heroes: a small cross section of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) that I have been interested in over the years, but sadly, have yet to play.

My wife and I were looking for something that we could play together during our spare time. Neither of us are particularly good at multiplayer console games, so we turned to the world of MMOs as a potential fit. She recently started playing WOW, influenced in some part by the web based TV show, The Guild. I, on the other hand, have avoided WOW because I figured that either: it could not be as good as advertised, or I would become obsessed.  That’s when we turned our attention to Star Trek Online.

STO had just come out of beta, and since we are big sci-fi fans it seemed like a good option to try. We fired up Steam, shelled out the software and membership costs for each of us, and several hours later we were making characters.

First off, I thoroughly enjoyed the character creation process. Initially, you create a Federation character (Engineer, Tactical Officer or Science Officer) using one of the Federation races (Andorian, Bajoran, Vulcan – they are all available). As an aside, if you purchased a lifetime subscription, you will gain access to the Ferengi, ‘friendly’ Klingons and Liberated Borg. Finally you configure your appearance and your four skills.  The race you choose automatically determines one or two of these for you, leaving you to pick the remaining skills for some measure of customization.

The story takes place in 2409, 22 years after the destruction of Romulus and Remus as depicted in the most recent Star Trek movie. The Borg are still present, the Klingons are less friendly than usual, and the Romulans are simply pissed off. You start your adventure in peril, and should you survive this very first encounter, you will be promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant and made captain of your very own starship.

There are two parts to the game: time inside of your ship and time outside of your ship. When on board your vessel, you explore space, perform tasks and do battle with enemy starships. Ship combat in 3D space was tough to wrap my head around; once I did – and learned the magic of auto-firing beam weapons – I really began to enjoy it. Exiting your ship allows you to spend time in star bases, on planets, or doing battle with the enemy (on a very personal level). Away missions are much more familiar to me as an FPS and adventure gamer. It is worthy to note that if you don’t have enough officers to accompany your character on away mission, the game automatically fills the group up with miscellaneous red-shirted security officers, though I have not had one die on me yet.  Nice touch.

The graphics are great. The ship models are incredible even at lower detail settings, although I had to experiment quite a bit with my graphics settings to find a balance between appearance and speed. I have a new laptop with a decent video card, but the game became choppy if there were too many objects on the screen  I am a little unsure how much of that is my computer vs possible server capacity issues that Cryptic may be having. The sound design is also good, although I wish there was a little more voice acting and less reading; it is an MMO, after all.

I have 12 hours of play under my belt.  As much as I want to love this game, I cannot say that I do yet. Early missions are very repetitive and the skill trees, combat effects and different weapon bonuses are not very well defined. There are 2 to 3 different types of currency and skill points,  but beyond spending time away from the game (in the forums), there is not a lot of help in how to best utilize them. There is nothing as obvious as “I will increase my strength so I can do more damage”. Instead, there are vague descriptors of what the results may be from picking certain attributes.

That being said, there is a very tangible draw to this game: the lore. We have lived through years and years of stories and tales of characters; in these ships; using these weapons; battling these foes; going to these planets. There is familiarity to everything in the game, so it doesn’t seem odd to have to do things like choose between phasers and disruptors. Picking the Vulcan ensign over the Ferengi as your new science officer is not some strange ritual. Directing emergency power to the forward shields comes as naturally as buttering toast. It’s all old hat to anyone who has chosen to play the game because they grew up with the Star Trek Universe.

My character is currently level 7. I have heard that the game really doesn’t start until level 10 (Lieutenant Commander 1). The early levels are more for training than anything else. At level 10 you are given a new, larger, more powerful ship and the main story begins to drive the missions. I have decided to stick it out until I reach this point before I decide if I will renew my monthly membership. My allotted gaming time is short these days, and there is a whole universe of games out there to explore; I can’t spend it on a game that I don’t really love. Once I make that decision I will prepare another captains log about it.

Lieutenant Merrick Gahr

USS Rapscallion

Posted in PC, Reviews |