Customer Reviews

Star Trek Online

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(32)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

As a huge fan of both Star Trek and video games, I have been looking forward to trying this game for years. Trek and an MMO really seem like the perfect marriage, if you think about it. There's a whole galaxy of content and 40+ years worth of stories to draw on. This game was really a no-brainer. Or so one would think.

I had the opportunity to play in Open Beta, through the Head Start, and now I'm about a week into release. So, I've been playing this game fairly consistently for close to a month. I play games a lot, and I have played nothing but this game since beta, and I think I've got a pretty good handle on most of what it offers, so I feel like I have more than enough information to write an informed review.

I bet if you were to ask any Trek fan who had never heard of this game (hypothetically) what a Star Trek MMO would be like, you would get a huge amount of great, creative, fun ideas for a truly massive game that encompasses the vast and noble feeling of Star Trek.

The one thing a Trek fan would NOT tell you is that they would expect ANYTHING like what this game is.

What Cryptic has done here is taken all the 40+ years of lore, all the potential for a massive and engaging game, all the many varied aspects of Star Trek, and they distilled it to a very, very simplistic space shooter that feels about as massive as a shoebox.

All that talk of diplomacy from the TV series? Forget it. This is Trek for the ADD crowd. It's all phasers and photon torpedoes. It's all out war all the time, and you won't stop until every ship in every system is reduced to a pile of floating debris.

Exploring the galaxy? Seeking out new worlds and new civilizations? Hardly. The galaxy is represented by the "sector map" which is a ridiculous looking neon grid where you'll see your ship, and the ships of other players, floating around heading for various neon icons of planetary systems. Notice I said "planetary systems" and not "solar systems?" That's because they only bothered to make one planet for each system.. and with very few exceptions, you can't even go to that one planet unless you've been told to go there by your Starfleet contacts. And when you DO get to beam down to a planet? Each planet consists of a tiny patch of land with nothing but the objectives for the one mission that allows you to go there. I'm talking very very small here. I think the largest one I've seen so far was an indoor environment about a quarter of the size of an old Doom level. You scan your five "whatevers", vaporize a few dozen baddies with a ground combat system that's as bland and boring as they come, beam back up to the ship and then do it all over again in another "system" Wash, rinse, repeat.

One more thing that needs to be mentioned about the "Sector Space" is that each sector is divided into several "blocks" of systems, and in order to get to the next block, you have to go through a loading screen. Not only that, but each block is divided into a bunch of "instances", to keep the server from overloading. What this means is that, when you go to Earth Spacedock for example, 20 of you will go in to Earth instance A, 20 of you will go into Earth instance B, and so on. So, not only do you not get the feeling of a massive galaxy to explore, but you also don't even get to see everyone who's there! Just 20 random people. Even if you are in a group with your buddies and go to Earth, you will almost certainly not end up in the same instance.

This causes the game to suffer in a number of ways. They have a few space stations set up here and there, like Earth spacedock, Deep Space Nine, etc.. and they are clearly meant to serve as social spaces. They have a bar and an observation lounge.. heck.. at DS9 you can even go to Quark's, but there's nothing to do, nobody there, and as a result, nobody socializes. Quark's (which is itself a seperate instance from DS9) is always totally devoid of human players. It's depressing to walk around these places and notice how empty they feel.

So.. the majority of your time, you're going to be floating on the neon grid of Sector Space, flying towards your next boring shoot-em-up mission that's just a reskin of the last one you did, and most of the time, you'll be doing it all by yourself.

To be fair, they do have what they call "exploration missions." What that means is that you're directed to another block of the Sector Space grid. Only, instead of seeing icons of planet systems in the distance, you'll see a pink haze and the same blue grid, with the occasional "anomaly" for you to scan. This will sometimes take you to a random mission in an "unexplored system". But, you'll quickly find that these missions are just like the others, and you'll often be doing the exact same one two or three times in a row as you go from anomaly to anomaly.

All of this exploration stuff takes place in a block smaller than any of the other blocks, and you'll usually see another 15 or 20 people there waiting for these "anomalies" to spawn. When they do, it's a race to get to them, because once a system has been explored, it disappears and pops back up in another spot at another time. Imagine floating in a blue boxed grid with pink fog with 20 other people waiting for these systems to appear. That's what they call exploration in this game. Where no one has gone before? Indeed not.

So.. with all that negativity out of the way, there are some things that I DO like about Star Trek Online. Mainly the space combat. The best part of this game to me is that, as you work your way through the ranks from Lieutenant to Admiral, you will get to control more and more powerful ships at each step. The ships can be equipped with a wide variety of weapons and stat enhancing consoles which you will also upgrade along the way. You also get to commission Bridge Officers, who each bring different abilities to the table. In your first ship, you are allowed to have one Tactical Bridge officer, one Engineering officer, and one Science officer. At first, only one of their abilities will be available to you in space. You may have a Tactical officer with the "High Yield Torpedo" ability, which allows you to fire 2 torpedoes instead of the usual one, or a Science officer with a "Sensor Jam" which will remove the enemy's ability to target you for a short time.

The way you can mix and match your weapons, equipment, and Bridge Officers is very well done. It's obvious that this is where Cryptic spent most of their development time, and I think most players will at least agree that the space combat is fun. It starts off very easy, but as your level increases, your combat options and the enemy difficulty increase quite a bit. Taking down 3 Romulan Birds of Prey with nothing but your quick fingers and wits, escaping by the skin of your teeth.. it's really quite awesome.. and as out of place as it feels to be constantly blowing up ships in a Trek MMO, you never really get tired of it.

So, to sum up.. this is an extremely unfinished game. It's very light on content right now, does not feel anything like an MMO, and needs a HELL of a lot of work before it should even be considered as a serious contender to the other MMOs on the market. That said, I want and hope to see the game grow, so I have decided to subscribe for a few months and see how it goes.

Is it worth it for you? Well, all I can say is read these reviews, watch some gameplay videos, and read up on Cryptic's plans for expanding the game. If you believe they will make good on their promise to make this game better, then give it a shot. It's going to be the only Star Trek MMO that we have for quite a while.

Star Trek Online has been hyped for quite a long time and after a little drama (company changes / rumors of vaporware) it is finally released.

Starting Up:
When starting out I was presented with the same basic "create your character" sequence that is common with most MMOs. A somewhat unique feature is to be able to give yourself specific traits. Character customization is good and keeps everybody looking different. You also get to pick whether you want to be part of the Federation or Klingon Empire (each comprises several different races). In this part of the game you also select what you want your ship to look like. You can do a reasonable amount of customization to your ship which keeps things looking a little unique between everybody. The intro/tutorial does a decent job of walking you through the basics of the interface and interaction with the world.

Game Play:
After everything is set up you start out by doing missions for different people. After you get your missions, you leave the space dock and "fly off" to your mission location. What I found quickly is that the missions consist of two types. Type one is essentially "go to this location and kill the bad guys". Type two is "go to this location, beam to the surface, and kill the bad guys".

As you kill more bad guys and complete your missions, you gain experience to improve your abilities (most of which help you to kill bad guys faster). After you gain enough experience you gain a new rank (go from Lt. to Lt. Cmdr.). Each rank contains 10 grades. So the total number of "levels" you can obtain is 50 I believe. After gaining rank you can buy better ships... so that you can more easily kill the bad guys.

Crafting/Gathering:
One feature is the ability to scan and collect resources. While traveling around you will come across - or can scan for - anomalies. When found you can scan them up close and collect different resources. These are used for the extremely simplistic crafting system. The idea is that you bring your different items that you have collected from the anomalies to a person and they will use them to upgrade some ship or personal item you are carrying. The idea isn't as bad as the implementation. During the time I've played so far you are extremely limited as to what you can upgrade and what upgrades are done. The upgrades also don't get you items that are really worth the effort of gathering the resources.

Exploration:
Not too familiar with this but my understanding is that you basically go around and complete missions (Kill stuff) for a group of systems within a sector. Then you are awarded exploration points - or something like that - which you can use to buy ship or personal items. Not much emphasis was put on this part of the game from what I can tell so far.

I haven't got into the PvP part of the game so that is absent from this review.

Pros:
You get to be a ship captain in a star trek environment.
If you liked the combat based episodes of Star Trek then this game is tailored for you.
Space combat mechanics is fairly well done and interesting.
A "Hold your hand" approach to game play. (Could be a con if you like the sandbox approach)

Cons:
If you are picky about graphics quality you will be disappointed.
Pretty much everything in the game is "instanced" and separated by "rooms". What this means is that you are never in a true "Massively" multiplayer environment. Most of the rooms you are in have roughly 50 people and the instances have even less.
Even with the instancing and rooms, the game universe feels small.
The game suffers from the typical "grind" to progress issues.
The point of the game is to shoot anything that moves (i.e. If you're not sure, shoot it). Many feel that this is not what Star Trek was/is about.
Little emphasis placed on Crafting/Gathering and Exploration.

Overall the game will appeal to people who want to play specifically because it is Star Trek. As far as an MMO is concerned... it is not. I suspect that even Star Trek fans (like myself) will want more than what is offered here. I've found the general consensus from people who participated in the open beta is that the game has so much potential but falls short on the delivery.

My recommendation is to wait a few months to buy the game until it is complete and some of the "Afterthought" features are finished.

I had waited for this game since Perpetual began developing it years ago. I think when Cryptic picked this game up, unfortunately it sealed Star Trek Online's fate.

Pros: 1.The ship combat isn't bad. Initially it is a lot of fun swapping out weapons and blowing up ships.
2.Decent amount of customization. This isn't that big of a selling point for me, but there are many uniforms and customizations available.
3.Some fun moments of homage to Star Trek nostalgia. City on the Edge of Never is arguably the highlight of the game. With the old enterprise and Nimoy's voice overs, it gives any old Trekkie a grin.

Cons: 1. Ground combat/content is terrible. Bridge officer AI is severely lacking. Combat is little more than repetitive button pushing until the enemy is all dead.
2. Space combat gets old. Eventually, much like ground combat, it becomes a flurry of pressing the space bar. (fire all weapons)
3. Almost no depth at all. No crafting, no diplomacy, no variety in missions. Missions come in about 4 or 5 different cookie cutter varieties, with exploration missions being a smaller version of the same content.
4. PvP system is sub par. PvP missions have no rhyme or reason as to when they start, rather than waiting until you have a semi-full group on either side before they begin.
5. Even less depth for Klingon players. At least 80% of this game's content (at present) is Federation only. Klingons are limited to PvP and a handfull of repeatable missions. Other factions completely unavailable at present.
6. Very few subscribers + Shard system = lonely sector space.
7. Still many bugs even months after release. Some of the bugs from open beta were fixed, but a surprising number still remain. Including missions not giving you credit when grouped. Forcing you to repeat missions, or do them all entirely solo.
8. Complete disregard to Star Trek canon. The universe they are proposing is completely combat driven. Inclusions of Star Trek references seem to be gratuitous and not thought out. No diplomacy, exploration isn't exploration, no research missions, no boldly going where no one has gone before. Just blow things up, and don't ask why.
9. Far too easy. Death rarely happens, and when it does it means a simple respawn. The missions and combat are so simple that the only challenge lies in PvP. Leveling is also a simple task, as we reached RA5 (maximum level at present) within the first month playing VERY casually.

In my opinion a few things happened to hinder this game. Cryptic took the engine used on another one of their disappointing MMO's (Champions Online) and rushed it into a Star Trek MMO. The game feels like it was flawed from concept, and then rushed to completion. Speculation is that Atari offered Cryptic a substantial bonus for initial sales on a time line, and Cryptic offered another sub-par product to achieve that goal.

My advice is to avoid this game. I really, really wanted to love this game...but simply couldn't get past its faults. If you are truly thirsting for a quality Sci-Fi MMO, look to EVE, look to Bioawre's upcoming Star Wars offering, but don't look to Cryptic to offer a quality product.

I played the open beta. I created a couple different Federation characters and one Klingon. Ultimately I felt that game was rushed to market and does not have a true MMO feel due to the heavy instancing. I would recommend anyone interested in this game to give it 6 months and then check on its progress.

PROS:
* I found the space combat to be fun and I did enjoy the graphics and 3-D combat.
* Being able to hail Starfleet to turn in quests and receive new ones is great. I love not returning to the quest giver directly.
* The Federation ships can be customized to produce a lot of detail and diversity.
* The ship replicator easily disposes of unwanted items without having to waste time finding an NPC vendor.
* Some of the space backgrounds and settings were very detailed and nicely rendered.
* Death or ship destruction just results in you re-spawning.

CONS:
* The ground combat felt rushed and primitive. There is no cover system only a lot of standing/crouching and shooting.
* Enemy ground AI was fairly simplistic. They either rushed in to melee or stayed back to perform various ranged attacks.
* Many things seemed rushed or unfinished concerning story and overall polish.
* Klingons characters are currently so devoid of quests/solo content that Crypic is promoting them as a PVP race.
* Klingons also show rushed development in other ways, their ships are not nearly as customizable as the Federation ones.
* Even though this is supposed to be a Massively Multiplayer game, it feels more like a solo game that has some online components.
* Ship exploration is not fully implemented. Currently the bridge is the only "explorable" area of the ship.
* Leveling up can be confusing as skills are not fully explained and the immediate effects of powering up a skill are not always apparent.
* Warping though space is accomplished via "sector space" which just allows you to use impulse engines to fly to an object or sector marker. Then a quick warp animation loads the area.
* Sector space seems good and bad as long transit times are reduced but where is the detail/bonus speed in having a warp 9 capable ship versus a new starter max warp 2 ship?

The game is an utter rip off. The universe is stale, bland with absolutely nothing filling it up aside from randomized texture model planets and surrounding debris. There are no planets you can land on or explore really. It's all instance based, meaning that if you go on a "mission" you'll land on a surface that you'll never be able to land on again and you'll have a very small, uninteresting surface to "explore" along with a mission that is redundant and easy. Also when talking about missions, you'll have litterally the same ground missions and same space missions repeated until your the highest level. The missions can and will last you about 1-2 minutes to do, the only thing stopping you from completing them in that time would be distance from point A to point B.

Example: Space Mission - Kill 3 fleets of klingons.
: You will just fly around the planet. There will be 3 clusters of klingons, usually around 3 ships. You will overpower them easily by firing phasors or torpedo's at each individually with absolutely no stradegy whatsoever.

Example: Ground Mission - Scan debris
: You land on the surface with an away party. There will be 3-5 items you need to scan on the surface. 2...maybe 3 of those items will have a random group of aliens just standing around it waiting to shoot at you. Let your away party handle most of the shooting and you take out single targets while they are distracted with your away party. Easy as cake. Scan your items and leave.

All of the ground and space missions are pretty much variations of those 2. Along with that you have people who are playing the game as well...SOMETIMES when they are doing the same mission as you, you get paired with them. What this does is increase the difficulty and number of enemies. This pairing IS random and often more than not the other guy will be a douche bag. This is pretty much the closest you'll really get to the whole online aspect to the game at the starting levels. I hear when you reach max level though this somewhat improves. I didn't bother.

As far as improving your ships capabilities. Every 10 levels or so you gain a new ship. You start off with a ship that can do a little of everything. Then you move on to a ship that does a specific duty. Either tank, dps or science ship. It's fairly simple to understand...only thing that needs explaination is the science ship. This ship does attacks that disrupt or disable the other ships SYSTEMS... As far as this concept is concerned the game isn't bad. This concept is implemented horribley however so don't buy into it.

And one last thing. I'm pretty sure the company that made the game KNOW's its a rip off and figured people would buy into it quickly. At launch and I think even now they have the option to buy into the game for a "Life-time" membership for like 300 bucks. You get the game, you get the "life-time" membership and end up hating it like most people do and now your out 300 bucks.

Anyways. Don't buy this game. I would of given it 0 stars but amazon wouldn't let me.

Imagine a Star Trek RPG where you have your own ship and crew and you travel the galaxy, exploring strange new world and seeking out new civilizations, involving yourself in first contact missions, talking to new species, fighting new enemies and feeling like anything could be over the next horizon.

Now throw all that away, because instead we got a tired MMO.

There is no real RPG here for fans of classic RPGs. The dialogue is bland and perfunctory, without choice or consequence in any serious measure. The enemies are all normal Star Trek enemies, and basically reskins of each other. The exploration is limited to pressing a button on a shiny object and getting some useless mineral reward. If you imagine a game like Mass Effect, Dragon Age or Fallout with the Star Trek license you will be severely disappointed, because you end up with a bland and stale traditional MMO with no feeling of story, exploration or discovery what-so-ever. I think we all pretty much knew this would happen when this was announced as a Cryptic MMO instead of a single-player RPG, but it is still disappointing to see.

Space combat is probably the saving grace here... very fun, and though insanely repetitive it never really grows old much. Ground combat is fun but extremely buggy the last time I played, just not a polished experience at all. Even if combat was awesome across the board though, you still need a reason to fight, and STO gives you nothing... no story, no innovative missions, NOTHING.

Unless you love Guild Wars style MMO missions, avoid at all costs, despite the license. I wish I did.

I have been a fan of Star Trek for many years now, and the first thing I think of when I think of Star Trek Online is... "Where's the Trek?!" It certainly doesn't feel very much like Star Trek, even if it looks like it. Some have even complained about the proliferate non-canon ships at end-game, but that is neither here nor there. The excuse of war is used to make a game that is all about shooting something and destroying it. There is no real diplomacy, there is no real discovery. Fly in, shoot it up, then warp out. Even in times of war that is not the policy of the Federation. I don't think Captain Picard, Sisko, or Janeway would intentionally blow up a base that houses Jem'Hadar babies. In Star Trek Online -- you will.

Warp is another reason this doesn't feel like Star Trek. You warp around at impulse speeds in the "Sector Map". This is nothing more than an attempt to make the game feel larger by increasing travel time... but in the end it only succeeds at reminding you just how small the game is. Space has been sliced up, and placed into small neatly-packed instances... complete with border walls (remember the plasma walls in City of Heroes... well, take away the plasma and put a sign up instead that says "next zone over is *zone name*"). The other problem with sector space, and the fundamental design of the entire game, is it adds more load screens. Let's say you're starting out at Earth (Sol) Space Dock, and you have a mission to head to a planet in the Regulus Sector Block to investigate a situation: first you leave the station (load screen), then you warp to sector space (load screen), then you spend 5-15 minutes flying through sector space to the Regulus border (load screen), then you spend another 5 or so minutes flying to the system that houses the planet you need (load screen), then you finally warp in to, usually, only see one planet... and proceed with blowing up the problem, and exit the system (load screen). Luckily, you can hail starfleet and report back in without wasting time going back to Sol. The point is -- the game has entirely too many load screens. Even such minor transitions as entering Quark's bar on Ds9 require, you guessed it, a load screen.

If you were hoping to knock your opponents shields down, then beam over to their ship and phaser-stun their crew to win a fight... you will be disappointed. The bridge is only there to serve as fluff... it has no function whatsoever. You won't spend any time actually aboard your ship, instead you will pilot it from a 3rd person perspective at all times.

Ground combat is lankey and a complete mess. NPC's appear to have no AI whatsoever and stumble on their own feet, as well as having surprising difficulty getting through a door big enough to fly a type 5 shuttle through. Most of the time you just want the ground missions to end quickly so that you can get back to space fighting.

While space combat is fun at first, it doesn't take long to become tedious. All of the missions are basically copy/paste scenarios. Even the episode content gets highly repetitive. You might enjoy the game for awhile, but for most people it won't take long for boredom to set in. Once it does, don't expect it to lift. There is also no death penalty whatsoever, which makes space combat even more tedious. There is no risk, and so you're just going through the motions without even thinking about it. Just like Champions Online this game could have been something truly remarkable, but the small-scale design just doesn't allow that to happen. There is a reason Cryptic can pump out games so quickly with their new engine -- because it doesn't require much content at all. The illusion doesn't last, and you soon realize that what you are playing is more akin to arena net than MMO.

The one saving grace, besides the well-constructed graphics and good artwork, is the pvp. If you play Klingons that's all the game will offer you, as they have no PvE content to speak of yet. The PvP can be quite entertaining and rewarding, however. The problem is that it becomes just as much of a rinse/repeat exercise as the PvE content does. Playing Klingon makes this resonate even more, since it is the grind that gains you levels. It is also what makes the game feel more like arena net than MMO... the PvP has no more depth than a console game would. Even while playing Federation and going back and forth between PvE and PvP... eventually you will realize that you are doing the same five or six missions over and over and over. The objective for all of them: shoot to kill (and occasionally hit "F" five times on the glowing objects on a barren world).

The one thing they did right was character customization. But with Cryptic, at this point, that is pretty much a foregone conclusion. If you are looking for casual gameplay and just some space-shooting then you will likely enjoy this game. If you are looking for something that is a true realization of the Trek franchise in an immersive and expansive MMO environment... expect to be let down dramatically. I would easily say this game is worth an initial $50 investment. I have gotten as much enjoyable game time as I might with any console game in a similar price range. The $15 monthly fee, on the other hand, doesn't quite seem worth it to me.

What a drag - The concept sounded so cool esp to me being an old trekkie, but the execution is very careless, uninspired, and unimaginative. I barely made it through the tutorial and was bored to tears and frustrated with the clumsy interface especially when on the ground off the ship in FPS mode (sort of). The mouse control of the direction of the camera instead of your character so far seem very counter intuitive and I wish they would have just made the control like most other FPS games where wasd keys control basic movement/strafing and you use the mouse to make your character look in different directions-the way it's set up currently makes trying to target enemies in a chaotic battle situation trickier than it should be. And there is no basic fire button (i.e. with your mouse buttons, which are used exclusively to select targets and weapons)-instead you press different number keys for different attacks which isn't necessarily bad, but I find myself wanting to just click my mouse to fire a phaser instead of the number '1' or '2' on the keyboard. The graphics are pretty good, but not spectacular (esp. in FPS mode) and I have settings turned up pretty high, but who cares about eye candy which we have enough of in today's games - what about substance?

There's none of that either, missions are repetitive and dialogue is very one dimensional with a lot of times only one option to choose if any. The ship combat is pretty lame lacking a fully 3 dimensional environment to maneuver in- your ship cannot perform a complete loop in other words which makes the whole flying in space thing really unconvincing. Another quark is that your ship cannot collide with things which to me is disappointing and takes away from an immersive atmosphere.

In general the level of interaction and freedom of action in the online galaxy is much more limited than I thought it would be - and the gameplay begins to feel a little linear with nothing much to do besides accept whatever combat mission pops up on your screen. One thing that would have been nice (and obvious to implement) would be a hailing function to communicate with enemies and friends alike (AI or not) which is almost non-existent in the game. Instead you press 'f' to have a short one way dialogue with a computer controlled ship-doesn't feel much like being in Star Trek. To communicate with other players online, you use a generic text box in the corner of the screen which is really unimaginative.

The universe just doesn't feel that big either and right now I'm trying to figure out how to drop out of warp when I want and beam down to places (particularly Starbase 24) which apparently isn't intuitive (what a surprise). I find myself visiting my ship bridge where you can't do anything but walk around on it, but I like to got here and imagine what could have been done with this feature, and the whole game for the matter.

The base is there for what could have been a really cool MMO, but Unless this game gets a serious overhaul, I would say don't waste your money (notice the huge price drop as the game hasn't been out that long--I think people are catching on). To top it off I have to pay $15 a month to play this?? No thanks. My advice is wait and see if they "finish" the game which could be great, but until then don't waste your cash.

A cursory glance in the game's direction could have you overlooking an MMO with alot of potential, and, especially in these early days of release, a burgeoning population that will ensure that you're not flying it alone (all the time). In fact, popularity amongst those willing to boldly go where none have before has far exceeded expectation to the point where Cryptic have had to make quick moves to make sure the crashes and server issues that plagued a swamped beta didn't persist.

Admittedly, I was somewhat skeptical of how good the final product was going to be when I saw some of the early information about what was in development, but having enjoyed the open beta and head start now thanks to my pre-order here, I would recommend it for any fan of games like EVE, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Star Wars Galaxies and, of course, City of Heroes/Villians and Champions Online. The game has elements familiar to all of these, but still manages to have a few distinguishing points that have it stand apart, rather than being too derivative of these forebears. However, it might be the Star Trek furniture used to decorate the space that achieves this alone, since despite the ingenuity of random mission generator in the Genesis system - which creates planets and spaces to explore - it and alot of the other concepts and developments contained in the gamespace have drawn on Star Trek lore to be conceived.

Not that that's a bad thing. Writing staff working in Cryptic are sure to please Trekkies with the quality of the research they've done and the writing that they've produced from it. Central storylines are engaging and very loyal to the universe. Full marks to anyone holding a pen there.

As mentioned in another review here the game is very combat focused. While there's elements of exploration, politics and scientific inquiry in mission elements those exploring the space will find their Star Trek experience defined mostly by their skills with phasers rather than their brains.

Without a solid crafting system, for example, the game seems to be lacking in terms of a long-term endeavor. While the game's obviously targeted to reward casual players, and reduces alot of grind that exists in other MMOs, when there's an absence of social engagement (particularly for fleets now forming) other than some phaser-play, some may feel they're eating alot of sugar without some other essential dietary requirements that will make consumption good over the long-term.

I do have a lingering fear that the game's destined for a magnesium flash that burns hot, bright and impressive but quickly disappears once the substance of it's been devoured. Hopefully a community develops that has the persistence and passion similar to that found in SWG - born from the same genre and with a following as comparably huge (and obsessed!). As with their Star Wars 'competition', Trekkies will no doubt keep this game alive, so it's a good thing that their beloved universe is being treated reverently, but without more community oriented play beyond PvP and combat action, and the potential for the more cerebral aspects and themes of the Star Trek universe to get overlooked, many of those now shooting about could lose interest in a short amount of time. EVE has a culture that makes the potential isolation of it's vast spaces all the smaller and SWG has sandbox elements that allow players to use their own imagination, but Star Trek Online, despite being richly and densely populated, still feels very empty at it's core. You can only shoot a beam of rippling energy so many times before the button-mash gets old. There are many more aspects to this game that would utilize the rich storylines it's being drawn from.

Early days, however, and hard to know what's planned or what could develop. At this stage though, thumbs up for a game that will engage many a captain, especially those looking to team up with buddies and get right into the thick of the action. Let's hope it remains as satisfying and lively as it is right now.

As the saying goes "It's a mile wide and an inch deep". That means that while the Star Trek franchise has a lot of potential this game does not deliver on that potential.

The Good:

Space battles are fairly fun
The story while not inventive is serviceable
Character customization is very good

The Bad:

Ground combat is underdeveloped
Quests are basically the same as in all other MMOs
The auction house interface is crude and primitive
The economy is out of balance but that is fairly normal for a new MMO
Server stability is poor but that is also fairly normal for a new MMO

The Ugly:

The Klingon faction is only about 12% developed. There are very very few PvE (Player Vs. Environment) quests and in the PvP (Player Vs. Player) quests your nothing more than easily killed cannon fodder for Federation players.

Very little end game content. They have added a little end game content last patch but it's like trying to fill an empty lake with a thimble.

Loot is confusing. It's a bit hard to figure out what an item does such as, Trans-spacial Deflectors: +7 Anomaly.... What????? After you do figure out what something does it's somewhat hard to understand if it's better or worse than another item. It's not as clear cut as in other MMO's.

Update: The path finding AI is as dumb as a mentally challenged cockroach. Every time I walk through a door two or three of my crew will get stuck trying to make it through. I don't know what the problem is the door is fairly wide but the crew member just runs in place against the wall. Sometimes when on a planet crew members will fall down a cliff and cannot get out. "Help I've fallen, and I can't get up!".

Summary:

This game was released far to early, it needed about 6-8 months more work then a month and a half open beta before it would be on solid ground. As it stands I would say to wait for the first expansion, just as some people wait for the first service pack before buying a new version of Windows.

Unfortunately for Cryptic Star Wars: The Old Republic is due out about the time they might have an expansion out for Star Trek Online. The Old Republic looks to be a much higher quality game that Star Trek Online but we will see.

I will stay with Star Trek Online for a while and see what happens but I'm not anticipating Star Trek Online to rise in quality to challenge Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Cryptic had the chance to have a rich well like franchise turn into a great and profitable MMO but they went the cheap and easy path by just slapping Star Trek makeup onto Champions Online and rushed even that out the door before it was fully cooked. They are milking the franchise name kinda like Star Trek Enterprise did with the TV series.