My rule is if there is no UI present, it's a render. If there is, it's a screenshot.

Definitely screenshots. You can obviously notice the low-polygonal models. If it were concept art, those ships would be more natural. Several of the screenshots I have seen over time have looked blah to me. I agree with some of you. I would expect a quality of high standards with a name like Star Trek.

Meh, no matter how much they change the graphics, they aren't going to come near matching EVE.

Now if they tried something new and made player crews, I would play it over EVE.

But nope.....

I do have to agree though, those guys need to check the coolant FAST, it must be a huge leak for the trails to be streaming back that far.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Another game pushing out crappy graphics with the label "Styalized" over it and thinking people won't notice?

/sigh

I have never seen styalized graphics that actually looked good, and especially not in settings where they don't fit(like Sci-Fi). Why do these companies keep pushing this crap on us?

Like in Star Wars Galaxies, right? 

Pretty underwhelmed by these screens, especially the Federation shot. As a canon nut, I wasn't too thrilled by customization being allowed, but I accepted it as part of the game. But this just looks silly. There's customization, and then there's this.

this is just more pandering STO will suck arse just you watch it at least EVE has a reason for you to be a ship as opposed to a person plus the graphics are better and the back story fits with the game play and its all on a single server STO has Nothing bar the IP going for it and they are even butchering that

Originally posted by zenaphex

. I would expect a quality of high standards with a name like Star Trek.

I wouldnt, I really wouldnt... out of all my favorite SCI-Fi on TV, "star-trek" to me is the cartoon out of all of them.

Compared to Stargate, Babylon 5, even star-wars...  Star-trek is always the "feel good" cheesy costume wairing series where people die from mysteriously exploding consoles. 

Compared to the realistic look space ships in other SCI-FI,  I actually EXPECT the star-trek game to look slightly cartoony.. smoothed over with nice colourfull glowly warp nasels..

Seriously, the enterprise with its bright blue glowy effects in the films and the series looks like its something out of WoW.

Dont get me wrong Im a huge fan of Star-trek and have been all my life, but next to my other favorite SCI-fi series Star-trek really is the cartoon.

Originally posted by Infalible

I think people need to take a step back from this argument that games should have detailed and realistic graphics. That's OK when you are making a single player title for a particular audience, but with MMOs you are dealing with a whole other kettle of fish.

MMO developers will want a wide demographic to be able to play the game and the most obvious way of doing this is by compromising on the high end machines. People sit there and ask, "well why not have a system that is highly scalable from bottom to top end?" but then you encroach on the problem of game client size. I'm pretty certain that, by adding a whole array of textures to cover both low and high end systems, the size of the client will escalate to proportions many of us won't want to see. The other thing to remember is that, with higher textures and better graphics, the amount you can display on your screen at once is much lower than with lower textures. The best, easiest and most rewarding way to offer increased performance to higher end machines is through things like draw distance, vegetation density, weather effects; the little things that bring a bit more to the game but don't require an extra year to add in. You can see way, way, way further than normal and have hundreds of characters, buildings, effects and various other features on your screen at the same time with lower texture, stylised graphics, or you can see three foot in front of you, only have 5 other characters, an NPC and a tree on your screen at any given time that all look really, really nice with higher texture, realistic graphics.

Tbph, it's becoming apparent that developers of all genres and types are beginning to move away from making things look real in their game. The quest for reality has become the mission of the few, not of the many.

The client size is easily avoidable by downloading high-resolution client or low-resolution client like LOTRO and Eve do. Besides, its not the quality of the graphics that concern most people, its the style. The style is too "flashy", too "bright", too "fantasy". Its not sci-fi enough.

got to admit that I too think these look more like mislabeled concept art rather than actual screenshots

and that they do look very cartoony(especially the miranda) when compared with the screenshots of eve or jumpgate evolution

hoping these are just alpha screens and not the style they are aiming for

Saying sci fi and cartoons don't go together is like saying milk and oreos don't go together.  There IS a cartoon Star Trek series out there with Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, et. al. 

I didn't care much for WoW's graphics either but that didn't stop me.  The gameplay is FAR more important.  WAR, Vanguard and AoC focused way too much money/time/resources on graphics and too little on everything else and it shows.

That said, these screenshots look awesome.

http://www.startrekonline.com/screenshots

I'd have to agree that these screenshots look more like something you would see in a graphic novel, but I just watched the STO video trailer, and the ships in it look just fine to me -- maybe not as polished as EVE, but still very believable.  I have to think that as these ships get more refined, they'll more closely resemble the ones in the trailer.

We just have to remember that these are works in progress, and Cryptic is throwing us a bone by letting us peek at the game while it's still being designed.