By Jason Van Horn
People are always looking for the latest and greatest MMO. Whether it's because
they've become complacent and bored or just want to see someone come along and
dethrone the king of them all, people are always clamoring for that new "it"
game. The latest "it" game is Star Trek Online, where players take on the role
of a captain in the Star Trek universe. It's a game not without its flaws, but
when everything is said and done, I can't seem to stay away.
Star Trek Online takes place after events told in the most recent Star Trek
film, where the planet Romulus has been destroyed. Instead of following old
Spock through the looking glass and into the alternate dimension that the Star
Trek films now inhabit, we're instead left behind to see the Federation try to
pickup the pieces in a universe where everything is going to hell.
You start the game as a lowly ensign, trying to help out in a dire situation
when a Borg invasion suddenly happens. Throughout the course of the tutorial
you'll learn about the controls, ground and space combat, and much more. Before
all that, however, it's off to the character creator system. For those who don't
want to divert too much from the lore of Star Trek, the game comes with several
pre-existing Federation alien races, including groups such as the Vulcans,
Trill, and Humans. The pre-existing alien races usually have two traits that you
must accept, though the game allows you to choose two other innate abilities to
go with them. If you'd rather create your own deformed monstrosity and have
complete control over their development, there are options for that too.
Much like with Cryptic's Champions Online, the character creator in Star Trek
Online is up there with the best. You can still tweak and change pre-existing
characters, but you're not given as much freedom as if you created a new race
straight from scratch. You can choose everything from the type of forehead your
character has to the ears, nose ridges, and much more. The game also has an
absurd amount of custom sliders, so you can adjust your character's eyes to sit
way up on his head, give him a tiny thin nose, give him a cranium The Coneheads
would be envious of, and all-in-all make any kind of freak or monstrosity you
can think of. Much like with Champions Online, I had a lot of fun just
experimenting around and seeing what all I could make.
The tutorial does a good job at presenting the basics of STO, but one thing that
becomes evident pretty quickly is that STO is a fairly daunting game for the
first few hours. I get around when it comes to MMOs, but you actually have to
sit down, think, and read in order to get the most from the game. Whereas in
past games roles were easily defined as tanks, nukes, healers, and there were
stats for strength, intelligence, and wisdom, there is nary a mention of those
anywhere in this game. Instead, you've got to worry about disruptor rays,
photons, power fluctuations, and much more. Because the game breaks so far from
the usual dictionary when it comes to MMOs, everything won't immediately "click"
with the player.
Players pick one of three different character classes/jobs/roles. You can be a
tactical officer, engineering officer, or science officer. Tactical officers are
all about bringing the firepower to a fight, no matter if it is on land or in
space. Engineering officers are there to maintain efficiency and control the
enemy. Science officers are the healers and status inflictors. Each role is
specially made for a certain type of ship (tactical=escort, engineering=cruiser,
and science=science), but you aren't relegated to those roles if you don't want
to be, as any player no matter their class can choose to specialize and fly
any ship type they want. If you'd rather fill a DPS role in the game, grab an
escort ship and fire away. While perhaps not beneficial or cost efficient,
players can even theoretically specialize in multiple ships, grabbing one or the
other to fit the needs of the group.
There also isn't much of a reason to worry about missing out on something if you
pick one class over the others, because soon enough you'll have your very own
away team and bridge party to help round your character out. A unique mechanic
of STO is the bridge officer system, which lets you hire and train characters to
help you in combat. You can update them with new personal shields, weaponry,
healing items, and upgrade (through a skill tree) their existing abilities,
learn new ones, and in general have them grow as you do and change to fit your
personal style. If you like torpedoes, for instance, you can have a tactical
officer become proficient with their High Yield ability, which fires consecutive
shots at one enemy, or you can train them to spread out torpedo shots with an
AoE effect. Besides "buying" the power from vendors, you can also buy and earn
new officers and simply use them for the sole purpose of having a pre-existing
officer learn a new power for free.
Beyond building up the skills/abilities of your crew, there's also your own
character to take into consideration. The points system is easy enough to use,
but it can be daunting looking at the information boxes for any given ability
and not fully understanding what that skill is particularly useful for or if it
will even help you out in the long run. You can place points into your away team
so they're better in the field, improve the usefulness of your mines, etc;
points are rewarded for battle and completing episodes (aka quests). Once your
character reaches a special level and you've spent enough skill points in that
rank, you'll then upgrade and move up the chain of command, meaning bigger and
better ships and more powerful abilities too.
Players can further tweak the game to their liking by the way in which they
outfit their characters and ships, which will often coincide with the abilities
you've put training points into. You can equip characters with personal shields,
more powerful weapons, body armor, and even KITs on your main character. KITs
are an in-game system where by equipping it, you instantly learn the move and
can use it until you remove the KIT. So, if I want to be able to heal people, I
first need a KIT that has the Medical Tricorder on it, and then all I have to do
is wear it in order to use that ability. Customization really plays an important
factor when it comes to your ship, as you have to know what kind of play style
you want to have. As a science vessel, I've got my ship decked out with one beam
weapon in the front (so I can target subsystems), a torpedo launcher on the
front and back, and then a mine launcher as well. Given my ability to heal and
how easily I can become a target, having torpedoes and mines on my backside let
me not only have a lot of options in a fight, but can let me continue a fight
while I'm fleeing for my life. Furthermore, there are consoles you'll add to
your ship, which can reduce penalties or improve abilities depending on how you
have your ship setup.
Gameplay is primarily split between ground and space combat, with the bulk of my
time being spent up in the air. Playing somewhat like Pirates of the Burning
Sea's ship combat, players have a wide variety of factors to take into
consideration when going into a fight. You've not only got to position yourself
close enough to an enemy to be able to attack them, but you've got powers to
activate when ready, shield positioning, hull strength, and much, much more to
think about. It's confusing and a little too much when starting, but once you
get a few fights under your belt you'll be good to go. Instead of dialing in a
number and watching as a character goes through a canned animation, you've
actively got to be involved in the fighting, moving around, and jockeying for
position. The same can be said of the game's ground combat, as it's much more
action oriented than many MMOs out there. You can crouch for better accuracy,
run up to a character to perform a melee attack, double tap in a direction to
duck and roll out of blaster fire, and you are even rewarded with extra damage
if you can flank an enemy. There isn't "as" much thinking needed when it comes
to ground combat, but it's still an enjoyable time.
In terms of quests, STO features a handful of different themes, which are played
out in episodes. Primarily, quests are broken down into a handful of categories.
1) Destroy all enemies. 2) Engage in Fleet Action (large public quest
skirmishes). 3) Seek out enemy signals in patrol blocks. 4) Search for clues or
information to solve a problem. 5) Run around a planet's surface and click on
various objects. 6) Do random quests in an exploration zone. For the most part,
quests are generally fun; especially multi-part quests that run the gamut of the
categories. With that said, there are some boring quests, where you only have to
deliver rations to an alien race, or where you run around on the planet's
surface looking for things to click. The story driven episodes are much more
interesting than the run-of-the-mill quests, but at least many of the quests
give incentives, like merits and badges that you can put toward new equipment.
One feature I like, but which I found myself getting less and less involved with
as I moved into areas where there weren't so many new characters, is that the
game will often instant group you with people who are on the same mission. These
instant groups are usually less personal than a guild (fleet in STO) group, but
they get the job done, and occasionally you'll find a talkative group and one
you'll want to stick around with. On the other hand, there are times when the
increased group number makes for a harder fight, and when new players don't know
when to help in combat and run for their lives, you can sometimes find yourself
facing down a fleet of enemies while the other players roam around aimlessly and
gather resources instead of fighting.
Speaking of resources, they are the fundamental system behind the crafting
system, which isn't so much about taking items and making something out of
nothing, but rather taking an existing item, gathering the right resources, and
then using them to update the item into a better version. After you've done
enough for one person, you can go work for someone with more advanced upgrades,
and so on and so on. It's not a terribly deep system at all, but for someone who
doesn't particularly care about crafting, it's streamlined and easy enough to
grasp, but it lacks the complexity for those who really love nothing more than
mining for ore and crafting item after item.
Outside of the PvE, there's of course the PvP system, which is geared
differently in several different ways. First up, if you're a member of the
Federation, you can quickly and easily join PvP queues to get involved in some
action depending on your preferences. You can engage in large scale fights with
actual Klingon characters controlled by other players, small scale fights,
ground skirmishes, etc. Each queue can have its own rules too, so you could play
a ground team deathmatch one moment, and then the next time play a control point
capturing game out in space. I initially didn't like the ground PvP, as it was
hard to start a game filled with people and get going. Instead, a lot of time
was spent dueling one person and waiting for more to join. Once the full team
was assembled, however, ground PvP was an action-packed blast, as players ran
for cover, duck and rolled, fired weapons, and charged at enemies with giant
blades. Federation PvP is great when you just want to mix it up quick, plus
you're still given rewards and merits to help you in your PvE adventure.
For those who prefer PvP 24/7, you'll want to look into playing the Klingon side
of the war. Upon reaching an early and easily attainable level on the Federation
side, you're given the option of creating your own Klingon character, and going
through the create a character process much like you did with your Federation
character. You can make your own character or choose one of the pre-existing bad
guys like the Klingons, Gorn, or Orion. After partaking in a quick episode
guide, you'll battle a few NPC enemies, get a good idea of your surroundings,
and then off you go to fight. If you play on the side of the Klingons, there
isn't much in the way of PvE, so you'll only really want to delve into one of
these characters if you want to be the biggest bad ass to be feared in the
galaxy. Not only will you be able to engage in the same PvP between the Klingons
and Federation that you could experience on that side, but you can also engage
in House Battles, which is Klingon on Klingon violence. Much like with the
Federation side, you can buy new ships, new weapons, consoles, bridge officers,
and advance in ranks and improve powers. As for quests, since there isn't much
in the way of PvE, a lot of quests have you killing "x" amount of players, but
if you love violence, that shouldn't bother you too much.
There's a lot to enjoy when it comes to Star Trek Online, but there are some
annoyances I've had with the game. For starters, it takes forever to get
somewhere, as you not only have sectors you have to cross into, but new zones
too. If you're told to go to Memory Alpha, it's not easy to find it if you
haven't been there. When you're in the same area as a place you need to go, you
can easily go to the map screen, find what places are in that area, then click
on one to auto go there. If the place you need to go is outside your zone,
you've got to be able to know which sectors to go to and in which order or else
you can get lost. It becomes slightly easier as the game progresses to read the
map system and know where to go next, but even after all these hours later, I'm
constantly having to switch back and forth between map menus, just to find where
I'm trying to go.
Another problem is that it's sometimes too difficult working with items either
in your inventory, on your person, ship, or in a store. For items that have a
lot of stats and figures to analyze, their popup screen can often take up the
area you're looking at, hiding whatever's behind there. So imagine trying to
sell something to a vendor, the item menu pops up, and suddenly you just sold
something you didn't want to because you couldn't see behind it. It's also not
that easy to compare and contrast items when you're looking to see what to keep
and what to sell. Like many of the game's problems, they're easily overcome with
time, but it sucks to have them there in the first place.
Graphically, STO is quite lovely in almost all aspects. When you're flying
around in space and there's broken asteroids all around and the sun is casting a
wondrous illumination across the planet's surface, it really is a very awe
worthy moment. When you land on planets, there's a wide variety of landscapes,
ranging from sandy crags to lush forests; instead of merely transitioning into a
new level restricted area to correspond with the level you are, it instead feels
like you're really going out there and exploring space and finding new worlds.
The only downside to the graphics is the character animations, as they're quite
jerky and spastic at times, so they aren't as fluid as they could be. On the
audio side of things, STO features an amazing score, which has a style of
orchestrated music that should feel very familiar to longtime Star Trek fans.
When you're engaged in a dogfight with an enemy ship and the background music is
building up as if it's playing in direct response to your actions, it really
feels like an epic movie moment. There's some pretty good voice work too when
it's available and the sound of explosions and lasers firing sound excellent
too.
Looking at my time spent in the game, I've been having a blast so far. I found a
cool guild early-on that I've teamed with, I've enjoyed the mind game that is
trying to craft that perfect character, and I've been having a lot of fun with
the PvP, which is something that's often hard for me to get into when it comes
to MMOs. There are some problems with the game, but the same thing can be said
for every game. I had some memory leakage and client crashes during the first
few days, but it's ran smoothly and solidly for me since a couple of patches
have been implemented since release.
The greatest fear I have about Star Trek Online is that it won't be the game the
diehard fans want. I know a good bit of lore, have watched a lot of the various
series, and have seen all the movies, but I wouldn't say that makes me anything
more than a casual observer. As that, the game features everything I'd
personally want from a MMO set in the Star Trek universe. For some, however, it
won't be. They'll want the 100% accurate mythology to be adhered to regardless
if that makes the game fun or not. They'll want and expect the character depth
found in an episode of Deep Space Nine. The problem is that those things can't
be easily placed in a game of this nature. The game has faults, but none that
otherwise hurt my enjoyment of the game. And yet, as always, there are people in
forum threads already claiming the game is a failure and that they won't be
subscribing outside their free time. To each their own, but to this sci-fi fan
and geek gamer, Star Trek Online is a game I see myself living a long and
prosperous life with.
4 out of 5
Link:
http://www.startrekonline.com/
MPOGD Game Page:
http://www.mpogd.com/games/game.asp?ID=5086
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