Star Trek Online Beta Impressions

Alright all you nerds out there, get your Spock ears and phasers out because Star Trek Online is coming to a galaxy near you. Will there be trouble with tribbles, or will you feel the wrath of Khan? The only way to find out is to go where no gamer has gone before…

Beam Me Up, Scotty

The drastic difference between STO and most of the other current and coming MMOs is the heavy focus on space battles. From the get go you are in command of your own ship, and can use it to help the Federation police and patrol the galaxy while battling Klingons, Orions, and many other generally fugly aliens. The space combat is definitely the bright point in the game, as battles are extremely active and require both offensive and defensive maneuvers to keep your strongest shields between you and your enemy as well as gain the best angle of attack on their weakest shields.

I’m Givin’ All She’s Got, Captain!

While the actual one-on-one combat is a nice change from MMO norms, battles with large groups of enemies tend to become somewhat tedious, if only because of the sheer amount of large scale battles required to finish some missions. I really enjoyed the first few space battles I encountered, but doing one after another really wears on you. To be fair, Cryptic is still balancing the AI and difficulty between small and large scale battles. Plus, it may take some time before players realize they shouldn’t be gathering resources while group members are getting 25 proton torpedoes launched up their warp drives.

Dammit Jim, I’m a Doctor, not a Gladiator!

Ground combat seemed serviceable, but at times like an afterthought. It’s standard MMO fare, so I don’t really have any complaints I don’t guess. The balance of space to ground combat seems heavily in favor of space, so there isn’t much to talk about. While space combat can often be challenging or even frustrating, ground combat is a breeze, especially given that you can take AI controlled crewmembers with you into battle. It was nice though to not be swamped with quests requiring you to kill 10 space wolves or collect 20 space flowers.

Going where no man has…wait, I’ve seen this already

One thing that didn’t help the tedium of numerous battles one after another is a problem that Cryptic may not be able to fix: space is boring. Yes, there are planets near you, and asteroids and rocks and stars, but it’s always going to look like space. Is this Cryptic’s fault? No. They did not invent space (I don’t think?). But that could be lessened by cutting out some of the really long missions that require traversing an entire asteroid belt to destroy 5 groups of 7 battleships. Also, later on perhaps there is a better balance of ground/space missions, so that would help a lot.

Play Long and Prosper?

Perhaps. Starting out is a bit slow, and at times you will find yourself underpowered (although using your head in battle goes a very long way – don’t expect to just duke it out face to face). While I don’t have too many complaints with the game, the only point of innovation that would get me to really play this over other MMOs is the space combat, which is dampened a bit by tedious encounters. If Cryptic balances things out a bit, this can be an enjoyable game. My feeling though is that Trekkies will probably enjoy this game if only for the ability to play captain, but most mainstream MMOers will move on to greener pastures, or, I guess, actual pastures in general.

Got a news tip? Send it to press@mmomfg.com and we'll shower you with love!