I got to do the closed & open Beta's prior to the games start and just didn't find it playable / worth it to pay a sub for it.  I always thought it had things lacking and would have made a better F2p game.

Once I found out it was going to go F2p I picked up a couple of cheap  boxes for my son and I and we both played through the 30 day free time and then stopped to wait for the F2p to kick in.  It came as a nice surprise to get early access to the F2p and we've both been playing off and on.  Here's my views on the current state of affairs in no particular order.

-  UI stayed the same, just had to slide a couple of things back to where I had them.

-  Skill tree.  Had a total point reset here and the old skills were cut way back and there are now fewer choices.  All in all the new is simpler, but I kind of liked the old version better.

-  Hailing Starfleet (getting missions).  Here's one area where they really did it up nice.  You now get 3 boxes across the popup's top (episodes, PvE, PvP and one big rolling banner across the bottom).  The Episode one lists all the missions in a nice top to bottom order.  The PvE (for me so far) is linked to some of the scroller missions and I couldn't say about the Pvp one.  The rolling banner shows the various events going on throughout the day and at what times.  So far I done the Fed Mirror PvE fight a couple of times.  When you click on it you get a popup that tells you about it and directs you to sign up for it via the PvE box.  When all requirements are met you'll get a little box that will allow you to go right to the mission to play shoot 'em up.  I tried the Academy mission but couldn't get the hang of it.  All total there'll be 5 or so events listed that will rotate throughout the day to match everyone's playtime.  Like I said = a big thumb's up for this feature.

-  Both the space and ground missions play out pretty much the same as they did before, so not much new there (this is why running it as a F2p model works vice having to pay for it).

-  Duty Officers.  Not sure the reasoning why, but as a method of getting some stuff without working for it........  So you have a bunch of names and little pictures of  various crewmembers.  And you'll see a list of missions the ship can send people to.  We'll say one of you're pictures is of your transporter chief and the list of missions are: cook a special meal for an ambassador, get training on upgrading transporters and do a ground survey.  Well when you look at the cook they want a chef so no go there, transporter upgrade is a big YES and the ground survey is one of those 50/50 doable ones.  So you pick the transporter mission, your guy flys off for X time and does his own thing and when the times up he comes back and you see how he did and if he brought you any goodie's for doing a super good job.  Along with that you get some XP, skill points, points to make that guy better and purple rocks (yes I know it's di..... but I can't spell it as well as purple rocks).  Like I said a method of getting some stuff without working for it.  As the clock on these work's no matter if you're logged on or off and in no way affects your game play, I generally review, pick new missions at the start of my playtime and then do the same at the end prior to logging off.  Some are short (30min) and some long (2days).

-  This leads me in to leveling.  I don't know but it seems like I'm going up in levels really fast now.  My beta guy (he was still there) was a LT and at the end of this last 30 day free time was still a LT.  But now I've zipped through the ranks and picked up CDR.  If anything I've played less missions since starting the early F2p start but have going up quicker.  Maybe it was always like this, I don't know.

Well that's it in a nut shell.  As a space shooter with a story line, it's well worth the download and Free Play come the 17th.

i bought STO when it first came out and it sucked.but like y/self i was invited for the f2p..have to say..its quite enjoyable..i,m no expert when it comes to sci-fi games,in fact i,m no expert at all full stop.atm i think i,m getting a false view of f2p or am i. i am not sure .by that i mean what are we allowed and not allowed to do.atm there are no restrictions or it seems that way.

The ground missions are a nice added change..it seems that there are more of them than they used to be.i dont know if thats correct or not.one thing i have noticed atm there are about a billion federation starships.i,ve never seen this game so packed..i suppose thats cos of f2p nothing else..all in all i,m a slow lvler and i am enjoying myself even though the borg ripped me a new arse a few times.

Thanks for the review op.

I stopped playing STO for a while, then I went to SWTOR.  But occasionally I go back to STO since it is now f2p.   My favorite missions are the player created missions.  I'm impressed with the imagination some of these dedicated fans have.

The problem with STO, in my opinion, is that if it weren't for the player created missions, there isn't much to do once you hit level cap and I couldn't bring myself to roll another character, espeically since the missions were the same, but that's just me.

Have fun!!!

Originally posted by Nebless

I tried the Academy mission but couldn't get the hang of it.  All total there'll be 5 or so events listed that will rotate throughout the day to match everyone's playtime.  Like I said = a big thumb's up for this feature.

The Academy event mission is very simple and very boring because it's so darned repetitive.  All you do is run around scanning hovering blue dots.  One of three events will happen; 1) nothing (go find another dot), 2) a holographic Klingon will appear (for you to fight) or 3) the dot expands and you have to choose between two particle types to scan for.  If the Klingon appears, it can attack you or someone else - killing it leaves 1 particle to collect.  If event #3 occurs, the particle type seems to be random so often I pick the wrong particle type and end up with nothing.  If you pick correctly you'll collect 2 particles.  You have an hour to collect and can turn in the particles for dilithium in increments of 15, 30 or 60 particles.  Due to the Academy area not being too large and low number of blue dots, there can be a lot of conflict.  While most players are nice and will pick a group of dots to farm and respect other players who do the same (even joining forces to quickly dispatch holo-Klingons), other players are petty and show no such respect.  They sometimes use holo-klingons to grief dot farms (kill them so they have to respawn).  I expect that when the game goes F2P we'll see more griefers and less respectful players.   When the Academy event ends, you may end up with 14 particles - too low to exchange for dilithium.  You can sell the particles to a vendor but if you wait too long they'll just disappear - so you can't stockpile them for future event runs.

Well that's it in a nut shell.  As a space shooter with a story line, it's well worth the download and Free Play come the 17th.

While STO has shown a great deal of improvement from it's initial beta (35% complete stage), it's still got a lot of work that should be done (fixing bugs, missions, the Klingon faction, fleet "guilds", crafting...).  I don't see Cryptic checking those things off their completed list any time.  They instead focus on the Cshop.  So, by all means, do download the game and enjoy F2P, but don't waste a dime in the cshop. 

They've improved alot of what was REALLY bad, like the ground game(though there's some kind of sound bug that makes it sound like you're listening from a sewer pipe about 100 yards away), and I'd say the new episodes(few as they are) are a good bit more interesting than what came at launch.

So now it is a good free offering.  But from what I hear, it sounds like they won't be writing very many episodes themselves, and will be relying on player content from the Foundry for the most part.  Hopefully this will be proven wrong.

Being the star trek fan that i am, having watched nearly every episode of nearly every series and endless reruns of said shows and the movies as well, and also having read books, been to conventions, all that jazz, words cannot describe the dissappointment i found with this game. I was in the beta and my jaw hit the floor. All my dreams and hopes and prayers of the star trek mmo i'd always wanted (in ANY timeline, i didn't care one wink like how i do in regards to star wars original trilogy versus old republic bs) were dashed and i was bummed beyond belief: fact or fiction starring Jonathan Frakes. Even free to play it just.. just isn't fair.

Anyways, good rundown, i thought about giving this game a second look once F2P but i doubt i will want to relive the heartache again even if i'm not paying for it. I appreciate your candor OP.

Originally posted by Silverdagger

So, by all means, do download the game and enjoy F2P, but don't waste a dime in the cshop. 

I'll agree with this Silverdagger; although I will say I did spend the points I got from the box / beta on Mirror Universe stuff to enhance my own RPG experience.  Once all my points are gone I can't see any reason to buy more.  So if you see an original Connie, Type F shuttle and MU dressed up crew that's me, playing my own game in my own little mind :)

Szasz:

I too was totally disappointed in how the game turned out.  I can remember original Dev idea's where the Neutral Zone was full of resource rich stuff AND the open Pvp area.  Seperate quests and play area's for the Fed and Kligon's etc.....  OK maybe it would have been too lore restrictive but a heck of a lot better than what we got or the 1 ship (server) for all idea that was kicked around by the player base (my opinion only).  (Next week I get to play the 3rd shift replacement transporter officer!  ..... What about you ..... Sewage detail :(  Bummer dude! )

I tried this game briefly this afternoon.  The character movement and UI was the worst I've experienced in an MMO.  At some point I'll give it a decent run through, but they really didn't get those key things right at all.

I'm really considerning checking it out now.  I didn't enjoy it much in beta and wasn't interested for paying for it, as I'm not a huge Star Trek fan but I can appreciate it enough to enjoy it - especially if I don't have to pay $15 a month.

What really interests me is the foundry to write missions - I have a feeling if the game doesn't limit my ability due to being a free player, I'll be spending a lot of my time with that tool - simple because I love writing, work as an video game creative writer for an mmo and this is just letting me 'stretch my legs' a little bit.

Also, it's something to help pass time until TSW/Guild Wars 2 comes out :)

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

I tried this game briefly this afternoon.  The character movement and UI was the worst I've experienced in an MMO.  At some point I'll give it a decent run through, but they really didn't get those key things right at all.

Character movement is pretty bad.  The UI is great though compared with SWTOR.  Also, it's funny checking it out again and remembering how everyone hated the graphics, when really it's better than SWTOR (there's AA!).

Sorry for offtopic but can someone please tell me the client's size ?

Originally posted by Hoolilol

Sorry for offtopic but can someone please tell me the client's size ?

Would also like to know.

Sounds good.

I have also done a free trial a while back and found that it is not worth subbing to, particularly when the ground game is pretty bad.

Now it is F2P and definitely i will take another look. I also have not played a lot of the episode content so there are definitely things to do.

really they have done a fantastic job revamping everything the only real issue i see is money constraints at lower levels for new ships, and content end game if they can jump over those hurdles they'll have a great game! The BOFFs system is a nice touch it keeps one from having to fly around in a shuttle to gather resources tho that option is still available. I love how they kept tribble breeding in there as well.

3.16GB not counting any patches added after you install the game.  My installation from Nov'2011 is using 4.84GB. 

Pre f2p I think it was around 8gb

Update:Just over 3.6GB for the client and 469MB patch.  Also I think there's continual patching whilst you play(I think as it loads the areas)