Moloth - The M-Forums

Looks pretty!

Moloth wrote:

i'm.... hopeful and skeptical. more skeptical.

i was hoping the graphics would be a bit more subdued and realistic.

You're always skeptical. It what you choose to define yourself as.

Subdued and realistic eh? Gotcha! Add more brown and bloom lighting!

HA!

looks like Cryptic (City of Heroes, Champions Online) got ST:O...

http://www.startrekonline.com/

space combat!

i dunno... depends on whether or not i have my own Akira-class starship that day..

Pre-order is up on Steam

Moloth wrote:

The more and more i see of this game (from my in-the-Beta buddy), the more i think this game is actually going to be GOOD.

Isn't that how we felt about Champions Online too?

what Spooki said.

Also, the simplicity of CO kinda killed it for me. Not enough to do. STO looks like it might have more 'meat' to sink our teeth into.

Moloth wrote:

* Exclusive “KHAAAN!” Emote: An unforgettable moment from the second Star Trek Film. This exclusive emote allows players to relive Kirk’s unforgettable moment of fury, with the timeless cry… “KHAAAN!”

The game is worth it for this alone.

Got to play for a long while last night.. until about 9:00 EST, the game was nearly unplayable with map errors, disconnects, lagging and various server issues. they took down the game for about an hour, patched it and it ran like a dream afterwards!

this is a just a quick list..

LIKE:
space combat - it borrows heavily, but not completely, from the Starfleet Command games (which, in turn, are based upon the table-top strategy wargame Starfleet Battles). this is not a bad thing at all. The 'naval battle' concept of the ships being large vessels with facings, maneuverability, weapon arcs and powerlevels to different subsystems is well represented and makes the combat elegant, complex and yet still a little frantic. The special abilities that your BOffs (Bridge Officers) grant to you are useful and sensical. Space is pretty and varied. The ships are expertly rendered. The scale has been tweaked a bit and may still. The sounds are familiar, crisp and accurate.  someone said that playing in space battles is like watching a moving promotional screenshot.. i can agree with that! Its damn pretty.

Ground combat - Like the space battles, they're fast, frantic and yet still retain a heart of strategy. using your BOffs as 'pets', you can utilize their placement and special abilities for greater effect. Flanking is an effective tactic that actually gives you a straight-up bonus to damage, for instance. Line of Sight and cover are accounted for. giving your BOffs different weapon, shield and Kit loadouts can alter the playstyle to a noticeable degree.

Playstyle - I REALLY enjoy how complex the character progression is in the game. You're not just a 'Level 5 Vulcan Science Officer'... Rank, skill points and training make up a complex interplay of your character/crew. As you kill opponents and complete missions, you earn skill points, sometimes one at a time. this makes for a constant trickle of skill points that are spendable at any time, as opposed to a "DING! you have 50 skill points to spend!" every few hours of game time. You also get "Officer Skill Points" which, of course, you use to train your BOffs. Just like you, as they gain rank as you skill them up. The skills themselves are varied, useful and are more like talent trees than "here is your one thing that you do, but now you're a little better at it" kind of leveling. Highly customizable, and because you can have somewhere around half a dozen BOffs, it allows you to really min-max the synchronicity of your entire crew.

The gear and items make sense and allow to you really customize your playstyle, in both ground combat and space combat.

The customization of your avatar, uniform and ship are WONDERFUL and yet still very respectful to the Star Trek universe. im very pleased how Cryptic expanded the ST universe and yet retained its feel and principles. its hard to forget that you're in the ST universe.

NEEDS SOME WORK:

Animations - the ground combat/walking around a space station animations are stiff and utterly un-inspired. Your character looks like a barely pose-able plastic doll. When you're used to the fluid and very natural animations of WoW, STO kind feels like playing with a poorly articulated marionette.

Engine - im not a fan of Cryptic's core engine (that both Champions Online and STO are built upon). The way items are 'picked up' and moved around on the UI feels clunky and detached. some of the environments have scaling issues (why is this room/door/item so goddamn BIG??) and feel sterile and cold. Even the interior of a starship should have a warmth and life about it (think about ST:TNG). My complaint about the characters feeling they're somehow super-imposed on the environment, instead of being IN or a PART of the environment, still hold true for STO as it did for CO. This may be due to the way they're animated, too. its a matter of polish and an artistic eye for realism.

content - of course, its WAYYYY too early to form much of an opinion on the core content of missions, community missions and PvP, but im concerned its going to be as grindy and un-inspired as CO. There's a pacing issue that makes the missions seem rushed and shallow.  No reflection or moral gravitas given to anything. yeah, i know its an MMO, but its also Star Trek.

there are several more topics to comment on (interstellar travel, grouping functions, loot, crafting, the difference between the classes of ships, Fleet Actions, etc) that i simply havent had enough exposure to in order to form an opinion. So, i'll leave those for another day.

you Transport down to a planet, to your ship and to a station, which usually causes a quick loading screen. personally, i dont find it all that bothersome.

i LOVE managing the entire bridge crew instead of just one PC. you actually playing a CREW, not just a single person. your 'character' is the entire bridge crew and the ship itself. its all very well integrated and seamless. i like it.

troo, troo.