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I Decided to Re-Subscribe (Ongoing Impressions)
blazin-ace
Member Posts: 302
I haven’t had a lot of fun playing MMO’s as of late. I tried a few demos recently and nothing sparked my interest. Therefore, I decided to re-try a game that had promise yet needed work to see if it had begun to live up to its potential.
Is Star Trek Online better now than it was from an old vet’s perspective? Is it worth going back? Time will tell. I will drop by and update this thread as I progress through the game to the top end once more if people are interested. I am taking screen shots and will link to those once I have enough to feel they are worthy of sharing.
I created an Andorian Tactical Officer named Thel (Thy’Lexxar Thel in full) after my old character I deleted when leaving way back when. I played three and a half hours including a pair of cigarette breaks being about 15 minutes each tonight. I made Lieutenant 5.
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The client download direct from Cryptic’s website was faster than it used to be but still slower than some other companies. It felt acceptable. I watched a movie while waiting.
This game has always had some of the best character models and animations in an MMO and it still shows. Rift, just for a “next gen” example, could learn from them.
I never felt (and still don’t) that the instanced tutorial levels did a good job of showing what the game was like or “sold” the game as a demo. It does well enough teaching you to play. They have cleaned up some of the old bugs and added a cut scene. I was surprised.
I was shocked upon arriving in Sol System. There were “a lot” of people playing. The people I used to play with were all gone though. Conversation in global chat channels was busy and polite enough. I checked the guild advertiser and found lots of activity. Way more than say EQ2’s Antonia Bayle server as an example.
I was surprised when I beamed over to the station and found that they had made some changes to the interior. You now start on a transporter pad. Club 47 used to be a few tables with a dinky bar. Now it’s a full-fledged dance club with neon lights. Cool. Danced with a few random strangers.
The admiral stands on his chair… I wanted to put a little Napoleon hat on his head. His office is better designed now. I didn’t rubber band walking around space dock like the old days.
The new sector map looks good to me. Much better than the old one. Aside from some unpolished interiors, the graphics seemed better all-around during play. This is a nice looking game during play. Good enough that the unfinished or un-tweaked bits stand out when encountered.
I still like the auto-join group during patrols and some missions. Sometimes, people speak. The missions were the same. A few tweaks had been made. For example in Pico, the mining ship with a disabled navigation system moved way faster than it used too. Full impulse.
Thank God! They fixed the old aid planet mission bugs. Made DV exploration runs way less of a problem. No corrupted hogg file result. The ground combat was grind x number of groups while running through a few tunnels to room Y. The scan X number of anomalies mission went faster than it used too.
I still feel strange to be flying a starter ship, and blowing up Klink Battleships in contacts. They’ve removed the reset timer but after you wipe out enough mobs it resets at a decent clip anyway. As an old hand it felt easier but this is the starting sector and they were never very difficult here.
The Azura rescue mission had been redone. A few new cut scenes and a TV episode like intro entry into the mission area were first. It’s like they were trying to make it more like a TV episode. The ship interior had changed. It’s still a fast run. They added career specific options for dealing with a few of the problems encountered. Nice touch.
I have discovered several tweaks to the character skills and bridge officer abilities.And something else that should be mentioned on PVP. However, I’ll write about that stuff next entry… For now. I want to get out of my rookie ship and into an honest escort.
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So after playing today I can say that a) Cryptic has been working on improving the game, and b) I had fun playing tonight at least…
Comments
I've been playing the game on and off since it's release. It's not my top priority for MMOs and I play quite a few of them, so I only subscribe when I can afford it. The game was never 'terrible' as some people think, but it is more for the casual gamer (as I can finish to max level in a week or so). This doesn't bother me too much. The game is definately made for true Trek fans, which is probably why most people hate the game. It will be a game I keep playing and when I can afford it, I will be picking up the lifetime sub for it (only game I've ever concidered doing that for). The game has a lot of potential and is improving nicely.
I can see where a life time subscription would appeal. I considered it. However, with Champions Online going free to play and Atari’s recent financial reports I am leery of the idea as I’m afraid I’d lose out on my investment. Fair or not, it’s a matter of perception.
I made LTC 4 tonight.
The exchange is active. I’ve made 300,000 EC off of selling blue loot earned from scoring first place in SB 24 fleet action runs. I’ve only been playing two or three days. Note that purple grade officers now sell for obscene prices. If you play an engineer and want Aux to SIF 3 prepare to spend four million EC.
I visited my ship’s bridge and office. There is now a console on the captain’s desk that lets you access missions you have already run and do them again as a simulation for new rewards. It’s a way to get added value from the missions you enjoy.
I am being cautious with my merit spending on bridge officers. Some of the powers have changed from what I remembered. For example, reverse shield polarity was finally nerfed into the ground. Now most people are running two copies of emergency power to shields. Subsystem repair reportedly has no effect in your skill tree right now.
Crafting is now valuable. I never used it before as it was worthless. I am looking for a tutorial. Memory Alpha sees a lot of traffic. I am also getting diplomacy XP from some missions where it never used to appear. I am looking over the benefits. It’s all a new Greek to me and a thing I need to master.
I am an escort pilot. I blow s**t up fast and in large quantities while relying on egg shell thin armor. I do it well and DPS seems to be king in determining rewards for things like fleet actions. This makes me feel bad as some kindly healer players have supported me out of the blue. I hope they are rewarded too.
Tactical officers wanting to DPS from a cruiser build are all too common. From a “pure efficiency” point of view this bothers me as you end up gimped. I sympathize with the desire as Trek was always about the big ships to me too. I wish they had a real tactical officer suited cruiser. The Excelsior refit from the C-Store favors the engineer captains (particularly true without a fleet to help train your BOFFs.)
Some of the paintings sure look crisper than they used to. I think they are new and improved. I still see some of the old fuzzy pixelated ones about. The admiral now sits at his desk in space dock. I can’t call him Napoleon now.
I’ve done a good deal of playing. I’m still having fun and discovering new stuff. I have to sleep sometimes too... See you next update.
I just picked up the collectors edition today at gamestop for 13 bucks. I figured it had to be worth that atleast. A month of play for cheaper then a month subscription. I love Star Trek and looking forward to seeing the changes that have been made. Still patching as i type this.
It is better now. Still a few bugs here and there like the admiral standing on his chair and ships getting stuck in asteroids. Ground combat is still awful. Klingons got a few more missions but still no where near what Fed toons have. I was also surprised to see a lot of people on. It's a decent filler game at this point, or casual game if you want to have something to play for an hour or two couple of times a week.
My two favorite games are STO and DC online, I am a casual player and maybe that is what appeals as I dont blow through content as fast, both of these games have excellent combat especially DC and Star Trek of course haas the lore
Take this under advisement about deciding this game.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showpost.php?p=3446844&postcount=183
In fact the whole thread has become a typical snafu. In regards to how Cryptic handles things and their view on things. It's a bit comical, if not sadly indicitive of how this company behaves and treat paying costmers.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=207963
I am not trying to convince anyone to subscribe or not. I am sharing ongoing impressions as I play. It’s kind of my ongoing diary of what happens and current thoughts. I don’t know that I am ready to comment on Crtptic directly just yet. That first link doesn’t work.
Anyway, in this Episode…
I got Thel up to LTC 6 and then put him on hold for a while as I wanted to try an Engineer in a cruiser to see which I preferred as a main. So I have played through much of the early content twice now. While an engineer is not a flaming dealer of death they are way more versatile and stronger on the ground.
As an old retired guy in poor health, that versatility is important to me as I’ve a lot of time to play. Leveling does seem slower than in the old days and power cool downs longer pre-bridge officer training.
My Engineer is a human named E.J. Hardin and I made just shy of LTC 5 today. I am piloting a Tier 2 cruiser right now (U.S.S. Wasp) with solid components.
If you can afford it, I recommend buying the liberated Borg bridge officer as an accompaniment to a starting engineer captain. She’s been “invaluable” so far and will be with me end game too as the XO. Once purchased, she is available to all FED characters on an account.
I did both the fleet actions in Tostiq and Laurentine (SP) today. While fun bashes, they are “way too much alike” and I don’t see either beating SB 24 for a quick loot run. We had fun in the ground battle at Laurentine (it was pretty intense) but a good deal of rubber banding cropped up at points.
Thought: I am not sure if a mission based on rubber banding would be a LOL riot or a real pain in the arse. Might could be done though.
An overhaul of ground combat mechanics is in the works. I don’t know how that will pan out. To me outside of big mass battles (which feel too grindy after a while) it’s no worse than WOW as is right now. Simpler and speedier but… *Shrugs*
The loot in ground battles stinks and I’ve come to ignore a lot of it. I am not a tribble breeder so the food is mostly junk to me. Go for the canister shaped drops.
Being able to use my tricorder scan to zero in on scannable items saved tons of time in planetary exploration runs where you have to scan X number of objects.
I’ve gotten several fleet invites (guild) but no one ever talks to me before making the invite! I want to join the right fleet for me rather than one I’d just quit on. How is the question in my head! I’ll do the leg work eventually and figure out whom to write in game. Right now, I am just getting my character to a level where they can contribute as I’m no leech.
This is a game where I feel it is important to know where you are going with your bridge officer build early. I am developing a custom version of the cruiser sustained DPS build for an assault or star cruiser presented in THIS THREAD. The Borg will cry…
PVP is a group business in STO. Not a lone hero deal.
I simply cannot afford the bridge officer needed for a healing build yet and likely not for a while into end game territory. Maybe I’ll get lucky.
The common officers you get along the way leveling provide a good opportunity to test out various abilities. You don’t have to spend merits or skill points on them. I have not gotten rid of any of my officer candidates yet. They are just sitting there waiting…
So far so good. I’m still enjoying myself. Maybe playing too much.
I am going to have to consider an off game at some point to avoid burn out potential. It'll have to be a F2P.
PS: It took me forever to figure out that in crafting I have to make my own swchematics. I wish that had been stated more clearly somewhere in the turorial stuff at memory alpha as I missed it.
Does this site help you with crafting blazin-ace? I haven't tried crafting in STO, but I do use this site for help with walkthroughs and guides. Maybe it will help you some.
http://stoacademy.com/guides/crafting.php
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
They recently announced in the last producer's note that they will be doubling the amount of Featured Series every year. There are going to be about 9 or 10 series, which will result in around 50 episodes. Thats approximately 1 new episode every week. That is way more regular new content than most MMOs get.
I think you're mistaken, most traditional MMO's will release content in large batches. The large downloads consisting of not only large amounts of content and new areas , but also bug fixes, graphical error corrections , not to mention usually crafting and diplo content to boot.
Cryptic plays an illusory game of adding content, since only a small staff actually works on the game now. The main reason it takes so long to actually fix bugs and such . It's been Cryptics MO since the CoX days. With the simplicity of the game play and the maps standardized the actual content making isn't the hold up , it's script approval from the IP holder ( not the case with CoX and CO ). The time will be spent writing the script, and they actually do write some decent stuff, the hold up will be waiting on CBS to get around to approving it. So you can get as excited as you'd like about all these potential episodes , but the actual history is that they've been releasing 4 or 5 episodes ,every 3 to 4 months . They can claim the moon and the stars for all anyone cares , it boils down to what CBS will let them do, and how quickly. That applies to ships , uniforms etc..propaganda is all it is until it actually happens.
I'm well aware of how most MMOs work, but 1 new hour long mission every week is more than you get in other games. Even when they do come out with an expansion, people are done with all the new content in a month and then have a year to wait until the next one. And yes, STO has been continously fixing bugs and adding features every 3 months in the Seasons. The Featured Episodes are a separate release from those.
Based upon what I have seen since launch, Cryptic is doing exactly everything they have said they would do. They are adding to staff. They are adding other additional content besides Weekly series as well. With Dstahl at managing the game now, I have confidence that they will make it all happen. Based upon the improvement over the last year alone, I expect there to be a lot to look forward to with STO.
Let's party like it is 1863!
Wondering if the OP has tried any pvp and how you feel about it.. I just started playing again and am actually enjoying the pve side because the missions aren't all simple kill X baddies, or scan X anomalies anymore. Some actually have puzzles that have to be solved and variety. If you know how to tune into global chat channels and know about Subspace Radio it also adds a lot. Had fun hanging out at Drozana with DJ Gromm and a bunch of dancing Orion ladies last night.
Pvp still seems to be lacking though in my opinion. Which is a let down since my main is Klingon. Everytime I look at the pvp matchups there are only a handful of people waiting in the queue. Problem is the matches don't start until both sides are full so a lot of times you wait for a long time. Then the level difference is horrible. I could be a LTC1 matched up against a team of LTC10, which has happened the last few times I tried it. I've been on teams that overpowered the other side because we were all 7+ levels higher than the other side, and I've been on the other side facing a team 7+ levels higher than my team. Seems to be luck of the draw, whichever side has the most higher level players wins. Wondering if you have had a similar experience.
According to who? The latest comment I saw from them was talking about the tiny staff they had.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Thanks Sevenwind. I bookmarked that site. I can see it being helpful in the future. Especially, since it seems more current than the wiki on some topics.
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Logos1326, I still feel the patrols fit the kill or scan X number of targets model but there are a lot of story missions on the FED side that shake things up enough to keep PVE fun. I used to PVP but have not engaged in it since re-subscribing.
Yeah, I can’t call it a diehard game either. For me though, the appeal is in that it gives me a lot of the things I want in an MMO like ships, space battles, ground battles, exploration, a personal character, a lot of customization, story episodes, and frankly no other game does that right now.
It’s not perfect and there is more I wish it did but…
"Per word of mouth," your PVP experience seems to be the norm. However, premade matches are a whole different ball game than pick up PVP but they are not accessible to most players on entry. I don’t know that I will try PVP until I am higher level and find some pals to group with. I don’t want to be a random door mat or deal with the frustrations of an empty que…
I’ve not tried a Klingon alt since returning. Those folks from the early days probably remember how bad it was too. I hear the Klingon home world is due to be re-mastered and that some PVE content has been added. But fair or not, the FED side has always been where “it’s at” in STO…
I am not sure I’d want a Klingon main for everyday play as it was just meant for a PVP faction on the side. We’ll see when I try them out though but I gotta get E.J. up there first.
I’ll write those chat channels down as my nose has been to the grindstone too hard to see some of that right now.
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As to Cryptic, the best I can determine from reading threads is that they have a smaller staff on STO and the foundry stuff is looked at as a means of freeing them up to work on other things for the game. I do not know how often to expect episodes as the next one is what, two months away? It doesn’t seem “monthly any more right now.”
I really don't know what all that means yet.
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I made just shy of LTC 9 today.
I did the cold front missions for the first time and the Breen dailies. The interrogation mission irked me to no end as I chose wrong often and suffered power outages from storms. I did roll my eyes at the Breen bad guy’s dialogue. He was a tin horn. I liked fighting the Breen (ground and space.) I liked the arrow puzzle and the concept of finding survivors from an ancient race. All in all, it was fun for me.
I hope to try the vault mission line tomorrow.
You're miss informed , they are not adding staff and have never implied they would. People on the forums demand and hope they will , but they won't , wishful thinking. Dstahl himself stated that they have a staff about the size of a small restaurant. Weekly series is very misleading since they are actually released in clumps of 4 or 5 weeks every 3 or 4 months. It doesn't mask the fact this game was design for consoles and failed to get there. This is the most glaring deficiency of this game. I've played console FPS games with more depth then this game.
From the latest engineering report:
Some people obviously have no idea what their talking about / / /
Please cut out the personal arguements and get back on topic.
In other words, they haven't added staff yet; he is trying to convince Jack to do so, but until it actually happens Gruug's comment is incorrect.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
He didnt say they already had.
He said: "They are adding to staff. " That statement implies that new staff has come on board, or is in the process of coming on board (i.e. have been hired and will start work shortly). The truth is that no, they are not; DStahl is talking to Jack about doing so, but they are not actually adding to their staff yet.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Rift metacritic score is 83, STO is 66 - Oh and what about that clunky, spastic STO ground combat that all the critics PRAISED ???!!!
So out of his entire post, that is the thing your going to harp on? I played rift during the beta, you know what I though of it? Bleh, It is polished, but its graphics didnt blow me away. But you know what it does better than any single mmo out there? It hand holds you through every step of the way. I didnt think it was possible for another game to handhold a person more than wow, but holy cow, they beat the pants off of wow in that respect. Is that a good thing? Not in my book. But the (what I call) wow generation needs that type of hand holding and they do it best.
So what is wrong with ground combat? I been playing sto since beta and while I am not a fan of how ground combat is in the game, its certainly not clunky or spastic in my book. Ground combat for me has always been pretty smooth with the exception of some bugs. In fact you can make ground combat actually more tactical if you actually spend the time to actually move your people into position for taking out the npc's. Sure you can just stand there and pew pew pew, but you can make it a lot more interesting if you actually take the time to play ground combat the way I think they meant for it to be played.
I don't see why they couldn't add staff. Just my opinion, as I've seen this done in some job fields. As some projects get done, for example Daggerdale and they cut back on staff (on that project) that could allow for a hire/s in the STO team. Like taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other.
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.