ok so let me start off saying that i have played every single MMO since 1814... blah blah blah im just joking... i have no fake credentials to put here so ill start the review

graphics: nice, not exceptionnal, nothing to be awed about, then again, i'm a true believer that graphics dont make a game, so lets get this over with. 6.5/10

the tutorial is well made, a bit long, but made so you get the basics of the game in 1 or 2 game session. ive played other games where they just teach you how to walk and shoot and then leave you to the wolves when it comes to everything else. this i give 8/10

storyline: i am still running it. i started reading everything and getting into it, but things become so tedious and boring that i just look at what do i have to do, how long will this take me and what do i get... then come the missions of exploration. uhhmmm... did i just visited 3 planets and found out why the place is deserted... seems everyone has deserted all science or mining or whatever bases and i have to discover why by running from console to console. again i stoped reading and focused on objectives and rewards. not to mention the aid the planet mission.. hey give us med suplies because we asked nicely... so for missions and storyline, very poor 2/10

customization: awesome character customization 10/10, fair ship customization 8/10

ground combat, controls are terrible, with this press "F" 10000000 times to do 1 action while pressing B to switch from (fake) FPS to mouse mode, and its clunky 4/10

space combat, i have a very high starting point being an EvE Online player so i only have that to compare it... combat concept 7/10, actual combat 3/10

Map/World. jesus christ... WTF is this? worst concept ever!!.... 2/10. cant make heads or tails of this... i know how to navigate it but i can't make sence of it. 

UI, clunky... fair 7.5/10

now lets get started on the bridge... 0/10, its useless (unless im missing something)

although i will say that the c-store is fairly priced... not overly expensive, yet not useless. and it is possible to grind dylithium in a reasonable amount of time to buy things you want (1 to 2 months to get a 400-500c ship) 

overall im still playing it, but quickly getting bored... i dont think ill last till lvl 50 though. 5/10 overall 

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things i think they could have changed (or done instead of) that would not require much effort.

1. beaming. they should get their sessions switch unmixed... when i go from bridge to tactical view there is no need to beam out of the bridge, and when i go from the bridge back to spacestation/planet i kind of NEED to beam down no?

2. they could have made transporters pads usefull, meaning you would need to go to a pad to beam down to a planet or beam up to a ship. at least put some penalties, like

if its from pad to pad it's instantaneous, 

nothing to pad requires locking coordinates 30 seconds

pad to nothing requires getting coordinates 30 seconds

nothing to nothing requires both locking and getting coordinates 1 minute

3. warp and maps. that just needs a whole revamp. sector space should be all open. thats just a clusterfuck of bad design

4. bridge, make it usefull, here are a few things that could have been done with no more effort than what was initially spent.

while on the bridge you can set system destination and then engage. in the mean time, your captain can make ship repairs (if it can be done while on warp) the captain can work on the bridge officers, and duty crew. all while in the captain chair or captin quarters WHILE traveling to destination. 

im not saying do combat while inside bridge view, but travel while inside bridge view.

add that only in captain's quarters you can accept/complete or order duty crew missions

also i think more than 2 shelves would be possible to customize the interior? 

have a ship wide uniform. 

5. add transporter room, sickbay, engines room, brig, messhall, armory, holodeck, cargobay

--transporter room: you would need to "pick your away team, they follow you in the ship" then head down to the transporter room to beam down to the planet OR simply beam down alone to a space station or planet. 

--Sickbay: medical replicator, healing of duty officers, or healing of permanent wounds after an away mission

--engines room: repair/upgrade ship equipment (shields/engines etc), engineering replicator

--brig: (havent come up with a use for it)

-- messhall, for when your fleet comes to visit, food and drink replicator, music playlist availability

--armory, armor and weapons replicator. security officers to patrol ship (cost c or energy creds)

--cargobay, bank and shuttle

--holodeck, awayteam build experimentation, gun/armor testing, fleet v fleet skirmishes

other than the holodeck, most of the code is already written a they just need to put limitation on where and when they can be activated. and the modeling aswell, spacestations have all those things, not to mention that in-ship missions have most of what you need, and a 16 year old and a few tutorials can learn model startrek federation interiors in "blender and GIMP" (both free/opensource software) within a month. 

if you have any simple and feasable ideas or comments on my review discus below. 

First of all, I have to say this is a very nice review and it shows that you put a lot of effort in it. I agree with everything you say, but I think that we won't be seeing any of the improvements that you listed. I started playing the day it went F2P, and it seemed pretty cool. However, it held me for a very short time and now all I do is some casual PVP and DOFF missions. After all, there is a reason why this game went F2P - it simply just wasn't good enough for P2P. All in all this is a good secondary game, which you don't play for more than 1 hour / day. If you play it constantly, you'll stay without things to do in a few weeks. Again, good job OP.

Nice write-up OP. The only thing I'd like to contest is the storyline. From what you wrote, it sounds like you were running missions in a star clusters/nebulas. These are basically filler for you to do. The main story takes place in the sector zones.

You have the klingon arc, romulan arc, cardassian arc, ect.... These are the main storyline and they tie up quite a few loose ends from the serieses(sp?) and the movies. For example, the romulan arc explains in more detail the death of the Hobus star, destruction of Romulas and what caused it all. You also learn why Nero's "mining" ship was so powerful. In the Klingon missions, you run into a guy doing genetic experiements with ties to the original series. You also tie up stuff from Voyager and DS9 as you run around. And these don't even include the Featured episodes they've put out since release. There is also a main theme running through the whole game dealing with the Borg and Undine.

Granted, the missions themselves don't stray far from the types you've encountered, but the story going along with them is quite well written, IMO. So, while you're experience is quite fair, I would recommend you look into the main story lines and see if they work better for you.

Thoughtful review.  You hit on the major points and even though you are only level 10, you have a good idea of what the rest of the game has to offer.  There is not much else different as you go higher up in rank.

Just about all the items you noted as improvements have been brought up to Cryptic ad nauseum.  They seem to have a canned response of "the time and cost involved wouldn't make it worth us doing it", meaning we will never see them in game.  To be fair, they have made some improvements that have been very good (eg. the sector space revamp), however things like a seamless world / space are unlikely to ever happen.  Cryptic's core engine cannot handle it.

It's not all that bad and I was a little surprised at how much things had changed for the better since I played at release when it was an utter disaster on stilts. However, Eve Online is a far superior space MMO imo. True, STO is free and you have to pay for Eve (unless you trade PLEX) but you really do get what you pay for. True STO is accessible even to alzheimers grannies and Eve is an insanely complex game that's not for the feint hearted but you really get out what you put in. True STO has a ground-based minigame which is utterly shite even after the changes so it's main charm remains the space element which is where it shall be judged.  

In that regard, Eve murders this game in so many big and small details. I mean even in basic details like scale. The designers of STO really have absolutely NO concept of the scale of space or planets or anything else larger than a walnut, it's truly gobsmacking the lack of understanding here. Flying around planets you can do in a minute or so whilst passing the same small satellites at a steady pace in either direction. Would it really have been so hard to get the scale right? I  mean it's a game set in space. The most important aspect of space is that it's big and largely empty. 

I could give more examples of the sloppiness but this would be ten pages long. In short, if this is your first experience of a space MMO try the Eve trial and it might turn out that you dont mind paying the price of two McDonalds meals a month for quality.

I find the ship combat relaxing..oddly enough.

Originally posted by bumuscheekus

It's not all that bad and I was a little surprised at how much things had changed for the better since I played at release when it was an utter disaster on stilts. However, Eve Online is a far superior space MMO imo. True, STO is free and you have to pay for Eve (unless you trade PLEX) but you really do get what you pay for. True STO is accessible even to alzheimers grannies and Eve is an insanely complex game that's not for the feint hearted but you really get out what you put in. True STO has a ground-based minigame which is utterly shite even after the changes so it's main charm remains the space element which is where it shall be judged.  

In that regard, Eve murders this game in so many big and small details. I mean even in basic details like scale. The designers of STO really have absolutely NO concept of the scale of space or planets or anything else larger than a walnut, it's truly gobsmacking the lack of understanding here. Flying around planets you can do in a minute or so whilst passing the same small satellites at a steady pace in either direction. Would it really have been so hard to get the scale right? I  mean it's a game set in space. The most important aspect of space is that it's big and largely empty. 

I could give more examples of the sloppiness but this would be ten pages long. In short, if this is your first experience of a space MMO try the Eve trial and it might turn out that you dont mind paying the price of two McDonalds meals a month for quality.

let me point you to my signature :P and that was 2 years ago, i played 4 years straight of EvE online... i quit eve because it became a job and not a game... 40 hour week at work and then 80 hour gaming sessions... i think not... 

from the other responses, yeah ill look into the story lines, im doing th eklingon and the cardasian at the moment. though im not a huge trekkie fan (i'm more the starwars dude) i still enjoyed the movies and the series, but not enough to understand the loose ends. i did recognise whats her face, little girl in star trek voyager... that kind of made me smile. but apart from that, nothing really AWEes me.

question though,

how are the fleet mechanics, other thank a bank and a way to group with "friends and aquaintances" is there any other perk to being in a fleet?

if i want to join a fleet, what would you guys recommend? 

honestly i'm not going to spend a dime on this game unless i think its worth it and that i will be in it for the long run... so far its looking alot like the uninstall button is growing bigger and bigger

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

let me point you to my signature :P and that was 2 years ago, i played 4 years straight of EvE online... i quit eve because it became a job and not a game... 40 hour week at work and then 80 hour gaming sessions... i think not... 

Could you blame Eve Online on that or youself? :-P I know it can be hardcore if you let it but I  can't think of a game (besides STO) where it's not possible to put that kind of time into. Everyone decides their own level of involvement in any game to a degree. I'm spending a few hours on Eve every other evening and making enough cash to have fun and do what I want. Am I going to be flying the best and fastest ship in the game? Ofc not but that doesn't mean there isn't room for the non-hardcore.  Anyway I dont want to divert the topic too much from what the OP intended. 

i agree very nice review, but actual combat 3/10 really???  And did you also try out the foundry and go to starfleet academy did dailies there and so on?

Originally posted by Artymus77

i agree very nice review, but actual combat 3/10 really???  And did you also try out the foundry and go to starfleet academy did dailies there and so on?

like i said, i have EvE online to compare it to... and honestly its weak.

and what you are talking about are the missions  dailies and so on, not the actual combat mechanics which is what i gave the 3/10

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

Originally posted by Artymus77

i agree very nice review, but actual combat 3/10 really???  And did you also try out the foundry and go to starfleet academy did dailies there and so on?

like i said, i have EvE online to compare it to... and honestly its weak.

and what you are talking about are the missions  dailies and so on, not the actual combat mechanics which is what i gave the 3/10

oh ok my bad i thought that you was actally talking about the actual space combat and not the space missions.  yes i agree more needs and should be done to it

some updates form 2 thigns i encountered in the past few days

just ran into 2 bugs that should not be there in any finished game

1. my bridge officers are not sitting in their chairs, they are floating AND in the classic bridge, my engineer post the guy is sitting through the floor. only his head is sticking out... this is not right for ANY finished game. this is something we see in beta, hell maybe in beta, mostly in alpha

2. community missions! BRILLIANT, i have never actually had this much fun doing one of these comunity missions! WHOA!!! props... 

i did one with a temporal loop, amazing story realy got into it. EPIC, and i think i know why it was so much fun. because i was not a Main Character, i was just another captain in starfleet doing my own thing and following orders from starfleet to rescue an escort gone bad. and then the turn of events i had to use my wits to fix it, and at no point did i become a god or a hero amongs ALL starfleet and what not... i'm just another captain doing my duty as part of starfleet federation. 

14/10 on this mechanic...most fun ive had in an MMO in a LONG TIME (possibly since 2005)

Originally posted by bumuscheekus

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

let me point you to my signature :P and that was 2 years ago, i played 4 years straight of EvE online... i quit eve because it became a job and not a game... 40 hour week at work and then 80 hour gaming sessions... i think not... 

Could you blame Eve Online on that or youself? :-P I know it can be hardcore if you let it but I  can't think of a game (besides STO) where it's not possible to put that kind of time into. Everyone decides their own level of involvement in any game to a degree. I'm spending a few hours on Eve every other evening and making enough cash to have fun and do what I want. Am I going to be flying the best and fastest ship in the game? Ofc not but that doesn't mean there isn't room for the non-hardcore.  Anyway I dont want to divert the topic too much from what the OP intended. 

i wasnt blaming EvE or myself. i just sat down one day and put put facts on the table. what do i want to do in EvE, and what will it require. what could i be able to do if i reduce my number of playing hours.

i mean when your prefered gameplay is being in a large alliance in 0.0 controling/patroling territory and in order  to stay on top of the game is playing alot... and reducing the number of hours would set me back down to low sec or even high sec. something i didnt want to do. so i decided that that was it. eve will have to end. it was a good run, i had fun but i have to get my priorities straight and work more than i play. (specially now that i grew out of my single life and are about to start a family) 

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

 

 2. community missions! BRILLIANT, i have never actually had this much fun doing one of these comunity missions! WHOA!!! props... 

i did one with a temporal loop, amazing story realy got into it. EPIC, and i think i know why it was so much fun. because i was not a Main Character, i was just another captain in starfleet doing my own thing and following orders from starfleet to rescue an escort gone bad. and then the turn of events i had to use my wits to fix it, and at no point did i become a god or a hero amongs ALL starfleet and what not... i'm just another captain doing my duty as part of starfleet federation. 

14/10 on this mechanic...most fun ive had in an MMO in a LONG TIME (possibly since 2005)

This is precisely one of the problems with the game. Consider, a dev puts out a game and the best parts of it are made by the paying customers. Not only is that you have to pay to make the content , once you publish it, it becomes the property of Cryptic. Cryptic has a very small group of people working on this game content ( 4 hours in then last year and some months ? ) , more interested in pumping out C-store items and working on the future game of NWN ( the mechanic you so enjoyed ) then the game they have.

Originally posted by AG-Vuk

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

 

 2. community missions! BRILLIANT, i have never actually had this much fun doing one of these comunity missions! WHOA!!! props... 

i did one with a temporal loop, amazing story realy got into it. EPIC, and i think i know why it was so much fun. because i was not a Main Character, i was just another captain in starfleet doing my own thing and following orders from starfleet to rescue an escort gone bad. and then the turn of events i had to use my wits to fix it, and at no point did i become a god or a hero amongs ALL starfleet and what not... i'm just another captain doing my duty as part of starfleet federation. 

14/10 on this mechanic...most fun ive had in an MMO in a LONG TIME (possibly since 2005)

This is precisely one of the problems with the game. Consider, a dev puts out a game and the best parts of it are made by the paying customers. Not only is that you have to pay to make the content , once you publish it, it becomes the property of Cryptic. Cryptic has a very small group of people working on this game content ( 4 hours in then last year and some months ? ) , more interested in pumping out C-store items and working on the future game of NWN ( the mechanic you so enjoyed ) then the game they have.

Almost no one considers the Foundry anything even remotely close to a problem.

It was a highly requested feature.  It allows players the ability to craft Star Trek episodes - a wet freakin' dream come true to many Trekkies.  It also allows other players to enjoy those episodes.  Everyone benefits.  Many of those episodes truly are outstanding.

This is not to mention that it's a rare capability within the MMO space.  So many people bemoan the lack of "anything new or different".  This is one of those things, and most really enjoy it.

The vast majority of complaints I see about the Foundry is that it needs more tools, so that crafted episodes can be even better than they are now.

In short, this really isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Thanx for the opinion, OP!

Could be wrong but it sounds like you're doing patrol missions.  Episode missions are where it's at, IMO.  The patrol and exploration missions, as you say, are dull and repetitive beyond belief.

There's a trophy area in your ship when you visit the bridge.  But yeah, the bridge is pretty much useless.  You can't interact with anything, really.  The end instance beam up happening no matter what; beaming out of your bridge to WHERE?  LOL.  Cryptic has never been a company that focuses on details...

Anyhoo, it can be an enjoyable game, especially once you get out of that crappy starter ship.  But aside from some mob special abilities here and there, combat doesn't change much from 10-50.

Originally posted by Robsolf

Thanx for the opinion, OP!

Could be wrong but it sounds like you're doing patrol missions.  Episode missions are where it's at, IMO.  The patrol and exploration missions, as you say, are dull and repetitive beyond belief.

There's a trophy area in your ship when you visit the bridge.  But yeah, the bridge is pretty much useless.  You can't interact with anything, really.  The end instance beam up happening no matter what; beaming out of your bridge to WHERE?  LOL.  Cryptic has never been a company that focuses on details...

Anyhoo, it can be an enjoyable game, especially once you get out of that crappy starter ship.  But aside from some mob special abilities here and there, combat doesn't change much from 10-50.

With the patch today, we should have some officers in the ship interiors we'll be able to interact with, which I believe is a good step forward.  Hopefully they will continue development in that direction.

I agree that the episode missions are generally a lot more intricate than the current patrol and exploration missions.

I am intrigued by the potential future of exploration missions, however, given this short post by DStahl a couple of days ago:

"Our current plan has exploration coming after Fleet Starbases. The idea is that first you build a Starbase, and then you can start to expand out and build colonies, outposts, etc as you explore so that there is a purpose and reward for why you are going out into the unknown."

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=4113019&postcount=5

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by AG-Vuk

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

 

 2. community missions! BRILLIANT, i have never actually had this much fun doing one of these comunity missions! WHOA!!! props... 

i did one with a temporal loop, amazing story realy got into it. EPIC, and i think i know why it was so much fun. because i was not a Main Character, i was just another captain in starfleet doing my own thing and following orders from starfleet to rescue an escort gone bad. and then the turn of events i had to use my wits to fix it, and at no point did i become a god or a hero amongs ALL starfleet and what not... i'm just another captain doing my duty as part of starfleet federation. 

14/10 on this mechanic...most fun ive had in an MMO in a LONG TIME (possibly since 2005)

This is precisely one of the problems with the game. Consider, a dev puts out a game and the best parts of it are made by the paying customers. Not only is that you have to pay to make the content , once you publish it, it becomes the property of Cryptic. Cryptic has a very small group of people working on this game content ( 4 hours in then last year and some months ? ) , more interested in pumping out C-store items and working on the future game of NWN ( the mechanic you so enjoyed ) then the game they have.

 

Almost no one considers the Foundry anything even remotely close to a problem.

It was a highly requested feature.  It allows players the ability to craft Star Trek episodes - a wet freakin' dream come true to many Trekkies.  It also allows other players to enjoy those episodes.  Everyone benefits.  Many of those episodes truly are outstanding.

This is not to mention that it's a rare capability within the MMO space.  So many people bemoan the lack of "anything new or different".  This is one of those things, and most really enjoy it.

The vast majority of complaints I see about the Foundry is that it needs more tools, so that crafted episodes can be even better than they are now.

In short, this really isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Yeah , you missed the point completely . Take the blinders off and take a good hard look and reread want was written. I wasn't criticizing the Foundry persay. I was pointing to the fact that it's the crutch Crptic relies on almost solely for content now. DStahl may tak all he wants about what he'd like to see happen, the fact is his not in a position to make it happen. The fact is he wasn't brought back to take over STO , he was brought back to work on the foundry improve the tool set etc.. which means PWI see's this as a major piece for the upcoming NWN. Will STO benefit , most definitely. STO is now a test bed for what PWI would like to see happen in NWN.

Having played STO quite a bit of release then a bit towards the end of last year i just have to say thats its an OK game. Its nothing amazing but there is nothnig really bad about it... its just average... and thats the main issue...

STO is a big waste of the Star Trek IP it could have been so much more... Imagine how awesome the game could have been if it was more like eve but in the ST universe..

For a f2p game i guess its worth picknig up just to play now and then but i dont think i would want to throw money at it.