We’ll see. There are some positive things in what they’ve announced are being added in the next month or so. Maybe the headstart patch will also have some nice surprises.

However, many of the things you criticize are things I also would like to see fixed. In particular, always having an option to disable rather than destroy or kill would be truly awesome. And by “always”, I don’t just mean in PvE missions, but also in PvP. Granted, with the respawn, there wouldn’t be much difference between having one’s ship disabled for a few minutes while your crew frantically repaired it, and being blown up and respawning, but it would feel more Trek.

I also would really like the 360×360 full range of motion, and hope that it’s at least on their drawing board. I suspect you’re correct that it was not entirely a deliberate choice (although someone may have said, “Hey, let’s keep this simple!”), but imposed by the fact that this is a port of another game’s engine.

Those two things alone would go a long, long way…

A great pity as when I heard there was going to be a Star Trek MMO I had rather hoped it would be more like (pre-NGE) SWG and make a good sandbox for RPing. Obv. that is not to be :-(.

How much would I pay for an Eve Online set in either the Star Wars or Star Trek universe?

Seeing as Cryptic has decided to charge for a zone they’re adding to Champions, I’m expecting we’re going to be paying to see STO properly sorted out.

They’re already working on another secret MMO project too. If only they would work on one at a time, and do it right, instead of making half a game and calling it done. If the effort put into STO and Champions were combined, you might have gotten something that would be worth subscribing to. I get the feeling that they’re relying on box sales, rather than expecting people to subscribe for long.

I will be trying very hard not to fall for their hype in the future.

The game will disappoint anyone who expects more than Starfleet Comman III / PotBS combat in space. There are some story missions modeled after the TV series, mostly TOS, like the Guardian of Forever, the Doomsday Device etc, but you never have a choice. And the direction the game is taking is one towards “Dark Trek”. I also noticed this in WoW with the torture quests, the trend in the Bond movies towards more violence and a general applause by the public. You know, suddenly war is again the answer that allows us to treat enemies like things and to show no mercy. After all, it is war and we are following orders. The storywriters seem to lack the imagination for more, unfortunately. They should at least give people choices now an then. At one point in one of the first Captain rank missions you are given a choice to side with the brutal Sector 31 or Starfleet. I just wonder if it will really make a different for your future career/missions. Personally I miss a bit the Explorer feeling of Enterprise, the sense of Wonder of the original series, and the humanism of Picard a lot. And I doubt if I will need 30 days at all to see all the content, I guess 14-20 and I am Admiral whatsoever, and there are apparently no missions for this rank right now nor some endgame content like major fleet battles with the Klingons.

The Klingons simply got no content – the idea to add content after the game launches broke many games the neck. Let’s see if the Star Trek can carry the game for so long. ARENAS are the most simple form of PvP ever, and it makes me wonder that MMO companies have still so much trouble to balance them and make them fun. Many matches involved a Federate Minefield versus cloaked Klingons waiting for one to come out. It was not really fun and if Klingons have nothing else to do for ages… the other mission types ended in a draw as most players did not know what to do exactly.

The 45° angle can become a problem in space combat. Beams give you an edge if you manage to dive below ships with Cannons, 45-90° guns and Torpedo Launchers will simply not be able to hit you and they cannot dive harder than 45°. I had incredible trouble to shoot NPCs and players below my escort, only my 360° rear turret was firing. The ideal position for fed players with beams taking on Klingons is 6km above or below, this will even allow you to bring all beams to bear on the same target.

Ground combat: They had some nice ideas and abilities and buttons to push, in the end it is a mess. I can go afk and wait for my guys to shoot them all down. In some “elite” missions near the end of the Commander levels mobs took ages to take down – strong shields and all that, I really had to knock down and keep down some guys who regenerated their shields all the time. The problem was, they never ever managed to shoot me or one of my men down. The whole balance is still out of whack and the whole stuff is not too exciting.

Why have they not made it a MMOFPS? Given how action oriented they tried to made the tactical part, they could have kept the flanking bonus and let people shoot with the mouse button instead of pressing 1 and 2 over and over! :( I hate the ground missions, they take time and I am almost glad if they are just press F at 5 signatures and then beam up…

Another thing was the anomalies we “F”ed all the time. Memory Alpha has only improvements for MkII equipment. Later on I found no ways to exchange higher tier anomaly stuff from MkIII onwards for anything at all.

I fear Cryptic is already planning the next game in typical Cryptic style, using the same engine and menu and style, going for action and for sure not for story or the pretense to deliver anything more. They probably aim for the next niche and will offer people a lifetime membership before Beta, sub fees higher than the usual standard and respecs will be sold in the item shop, just like for Champions. At least they seem to be good at making money.

Champions was not a Juggernaut of content, and STO is a lightweight, too. I wonder if I will one day hate Cryptic so much that I will not even consider looking at their next game following this scheme.

But well, so far I had quite fun with the space combat. Feels almost like a petty excuse still to play STO.

Thanks for your comments! I’ve enjoyed doing my STO beta liveblog. I think I’ll definitely do something like this again in the future.

The theme of “killing witnesses” strikes me as similar to that “starfleet secret section in DS9″ that inoculated Odo with a virus in order to genocide the Changeling – meaning that Starfleet has a dark side, for which anything goes.

Problem: you don’t have any option but to join that dark side and do that work. *sigh*

As for the graphics engines being the same for space and ground, I’d guess that they couldn’t afford to make a full-fledged space engine, and they couldn’t afford to launch without either space or ground. Doesn’t change that the odds for them to change space combat to permit full 3D movement someday are slim at best.

Thank you for your STO posts, I enjoyed them very much.

In PotBS, you CAN disable ships, and accept their surrender. It is not remotely a difficult problem that requires a single player game. Just takes a little effort and vision.

It is hardly as if crafting systems are an unsolved problem in MMO design either. Nor is being able to fly at a greater angle than 45%. Or giving the Klingons some content for launch.