Got a lifetime sub, I go in from time to time to see the changes.

Yes improvements have been made on the visuals and audio, an important improvement has been made in the ground combat now too, you can switch between FPS and RPG modes.

That being said, I never manage to play more than 1 day really, untill the next major expansion.

The gameplay overall lacks scope and depth in the grand scheme perspective. You get bogged down slowly repeating actions missions dailies etc just to get a few more Marks or Insignia for some additional gear...same old same old..repetitive and boring, and that is definitelly not Trek.

On the meta game aspect, I get very iritated with the combined Subscription + Store approach, I dislike it and it caused to me discust in several occasions.

On the mechanical side Ships do not behave as ships even if they look as Ships. The combat system is not like Homeworld at all actually, but I understand why the Author made such an analogy, due to the fact that it is full 3D environment in space, it looks like Homeworld Combat, but it doe snot play like homeworld combat.

It actually plays more like a Fantasy Character based Game, but with a spaceship instead. But that spaceship has Classes, it has Abilities, Offensive abilities, Crowd Control Abilities and Healing Abilities. Starships have a health bar, not actual Armor and Shield, Systems and Sub-Systems.

In fact that is one of the major dissapopintments for me, it simply doesn't feel like Starships are fighting in space, it feels like a Rogue fighting a Warrior or a Healer, or a Paladin etc...

When it looks like an apple but it tastes like an Orange..it loses all of its appeal.

Do not agree with the score the reviewer game STO at all.  The score should be much higher.  I am currently playing this along side Lotro and I am enjoying the game greatly.

Originally posted by Arthineas

Do not agree with the score the reviewer game STO at all.  The score should be much higher.  I am currently playing this along side Lotro and I am enjoying the game greatly.

 Give it a day or two until you realize that; 

1. There are only 3 or 4 "exploration" mission types (scan/click 5 things, defeat 5 mobs, scan 5 anamolies etc.). 
2. There are only 3 or 4 "patrol" mission types (see above)
3. The majority of new content created by Cryptic is a "remastered" version of missions you have already played ad nauseum.
4. No "endgame" content beyond poorly designed and bug ridden STFs.
5. Little to no content for an entire faction
6. A UGC system that is offline more than it is up, and when it is up, it's littered with garbage missions created by accolade farmers.

Originally posted by ktanner3
The first review for this game was way to high for the amount of launch day problems this game had. The game stilll suffers from lag and boring content so a 6.4 score is very appropriate.

 Awesome necro job there.

The game scores thee rater gave are to generous. I would not rate it past 2. Art wise the game is pretty. That is where the good news ends. The game sucks and is becoming even wrose each patch they deliver on the Tribble test server.

This is going to be the next big game disaster since Star Wars Galaxies. It may even make SWG problem a forgotten memory. The only people that love these changes are Cryptic empoyees who like being paid every week. Unemployment is high in California.

1. Ability to deliver a quality patch - 0

2. Ability to respond to problems in game - 0 (The form letter generator is stuck on the same form from two years ago and still says Atari).

3. Community reps are jerks

4. Beta tester groupies who are paid Cryptic employees posing as players to antagonize paying customers need to go.

5. Anyone who suggested these changes need to never work for another game again. (Making the whole industry look like crooks).

6. Game has nothing to do with Star Trek. (Just a lore that use to get suckers to pay money to their cstore).

Interested to see what the new 6 month review wil be now.

This game is complete garbage. for a game that just went F2P and was a P2P only game it is full of bugs and glitches. i can`t even begin to understand how they got anyone to pay to play this roach motel. 

I reached the level cap of level 50 in 1 week, after reaching the level cap there was NOTHING to do other than a handful of repeatable boring grindy quests that have no purpose. I quickly got bored with that so i figured i`ll go over to the community forums to talk to other players and find out if maybe i`m missing out on the end game content. imagine my surprise when i get to the community forums to discover that  you have to pay real cash money in order to use the community forums. The game is free to play but the forums seem to be pay to post only.

Apparently cryptic and perfect world have no interest in anything the F2P players have to say since the forums are only open to paying players.

customer service is practically non existent., a support ticket that i opened sat unanswered for 2 weeks, i dont know if   it was ever answered since i quit the game 2 weeks after i opened the ticket.

easy leveling, no end game content, poor customer service, and a never ending string of bugs and glitches seem to be the major features of this game. This game does not do justice to the Star Trek name.

Don`t waste your time with this clunker, this things needs to be towed back to the beta garage and given a complete overhaul before they put it on the road again.

Garbage game still. Patchs are buggy. Customer service is very bad. Game is starting to go pwi route with lucky box's that will win you that great item if your really lucky or spend a ton and are still lucky or just plain out thanks for spending your money and geting nothing. If i owned the ip i would sue and pull it.

Game is better now then at Release, but I guess.. hype plays a big part on Reviews these days.....

I'll say this first, I did not play this game till it went F2P(Start of Febuary 2012 time frame).

So, I don't know what it was like at launch, or the past two years of it's existance.  With that said:

First off, the game does look really good.  I do have to give it that.  Not really as good as Eve Online Looks, but it's a good close runner up.  The biggest beef I had with there graphics, is there shading.  The team they had working on shaders, left some stuff out.  I don't know if it was just not comatible with my ATI drivers ( I have the most up to date drivers too btw), or the game engine is just having trouble rendering the shaders, but the shaders are really "flickery".   Shaders in Eve Online are far better.

Audio is really nice. Some of their Voice-Over/Acting in the Cut-Scenes could use a little work, mainly synchronization with the animations.  The game has a Player you can listen to your own music, well, it has built in support for popular players like "Winamp".  Which I thought was a really nice feature.

I think the game at first glance, the way it is now, is pretty cool.  For the players that don't like "Grinding" you level up super fast (comparable to WoW Leveling).  But the catch to that is there is almost nothing to do once you get max level.  You have several choices at end game:

1.)  You can get involved in the Elite STF's, which is basically the only way I've seen so far in Charactor Progression at level 50.  With Elite STF's you stand the chance of getting some "Set" gear.  These drops are very very very rare drops.  You might get lucky and get the whole set in 2 weeks of playing them, or you might have to run one of the "Dungeons" 1000+ times to get your set.  This in and of it self is wearing on the community pretty hard.

2.) You can grind daily missions in the effort to get dilithium to trade in on the dilithium exchange for C-Points to buy stuff from the C-Store.

3.) You can get involved with a guild/Fleet rather, to do the Fleet actions, which from what I can tell is just mainly for pure fun and braging rights.  These Fleet Actions render no gear, or player progression.  I think you get an achievement, and possibly some fringe benifits from getting certain achievements like a costume, or a Transwarp.

PvP is Instanced, there is no open PvP, which is what I personally prefer over Instanced PvP. Anyway, thats why I don't like it personally.  But as far as the PvP goes that they do have, I've heard some of the "Old" players talking on voice and saying that there used to appearently be gear that you could get from PvP, but they took it out.

The worst part about this whole game, is the amount of bugs it has to be a 2 year old game.  It is not just a couple, but a lot.  This game is riddled with bugs.

As far as the F2P evaluation of it all goes.  Well, I've played lots and lots of F2P games, I think I started playing F2P games with a game called Mu Online if that tells you anything.  Before I get started I'll add that at present, I much perfer to play a subscription fee game over a  F2P game, with the exception of Global Agenda.

Now, if you are going to play this game, I have one reccomendation.  The first thing you need to buy from the cash shop is more charactor slots.  Get you about 6 charactors refining 8k dilithium per day...once you start playing you'll see why.

This game went F2P under PWI.  Any one that has played Perfect World knows who this is.  PWI actually runs about 8 games I think now that are F2P.  And, this one is no different than most other free to play games.   They want you to spend money on the Cash Shop, and the more you spend the happier they are.

As with any other game that is F2P, they have everything itemized on the cash shop.  If you want more inventory slots? C-Store, more bank slots? C-Store, more charactor slots? C-Store, want to respec? yep you guessed it ...C-Store!  Just about any basic commidity you would want in the game ...C-Store.

I will say this.  There are somethings like Ships, and outfits, etc etc, that can be bought from the C-Store, that once you buy them it unlocks them for all your charactors.  With the exception, Klingon players can't use Federation ships, and Federation players can't use Klingon ships...so...yeah, you have to buy ships for both sides.

Now, you don't actually "Have" to buy anything to play.  So, yeah, if your broke, F2P games are a nice thing to do when you don't have money for a Subscription fee on a better Tripple A game.   But, If you want the good stuff, some might say cool stuff,  but I tend to disagree, cause given you can buy a ship from the C-Store that has a device you can take off and put on any ship you have, to "Shadow Step"...I know a lot of you know what that is...lol  Yeah, thats pretty much pay to win.

"Cosmetics" is buying graphics...not abilities.  Graphics meaning a "Skin" for your ship to make it "Look" cooler then someone elses. Not buying an ability that you can not  get from any where but the cash shop.   Thats...pay to win...sorry folks, but it is.  Sometimes the truth hurts.  Yeah if you do like I said, and get 6 toons, and farm dilithium, it's not really all that hard to farm dilithium and get cpoints for free...but its a grind, and a boring one at that.

In closing, F2P games overall are just that...I like to think of them as Throw Away games.  Back when they used to sell PC games at Game Stop, they would have games marked down to a couple dollars or even 1 cent sometimes....I'd buy them just to try out ...cause if I did not like them I could throw them away.  Biggest thing with paying F2P games is you have to learn how to keep your credit card in your pocket.  Else you'll wind up doing excatly what they want you to do, spend way more money on a trashy F2P game then you would on a good "polished" Subscription Based Game.   And I hate to be the one to say it...But STO is far from a "Good Polished Triple A game".

It will provide you with a little bit of fun for a little while.  Thats about it.

If you want something that is gonna rock your socks! I reccomend Planetside 2...coming soon to a server near you!

I played this game when it first launched. Stopped around Lt Commander level. Came back when it went F2P. Yes, very much improved, but really how could it not, but it still has a wall.

The lockboxes were too much for me(listen up NCsoft) because it was in your face every day. But even though I was enjoying the game in its new form, I hit a wall so fast and hard, I swear my Crusier had its airbags deploy. Thatwas a few weeks ago, haven't touched it since.