Awesome looking Star Trek online footage

[Hotcod]

As a huge trek fan I've had my doubts about this project, I still do in fact. But one of my main gripes, which was the ugly as sin nature of everything plant side, has been dismissed.

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It may not be the best looking game ever but by mmo standards it's jumped to near the top of the list. The level of polish that has been added since the last time I saw anything in-game (which was not that long ago) is amazing. Given that I was almost willing to bite almost purely on the what has been reported space combat alone it's now something I will be willing to take a risk on. Like I said, I still have my doubts about the game as a whole, as do a lot of other people but seeing such improvement gives a cause to hope.

[Vigil80]

Right there with you, cod. I've had my eye on the game since before Cryptic had it. Graphically, I have no complaints based on the videos. Now if they would just release some gameplay, what with the game launching next month and all.

[Karak]

Got into beta and purchased. I can't wait.

[CappinCanuck]

Yeah, I've been on this since it was announced, even active on the forums. I'd love to get into the open beta to see what it's all about. I don't think I can make this a 0-day purchase otherwise, not after CO. I guess I could go to a store and preorder, and cancel it before release if I'm not happy... hmm.

Edit: Btw, it's $37 on Gogamer. No early access though. http://www.gogamer.com/Star-Trek-Online-for-PC-Front-Page_stcVVproductId79887250VVcatId444710VVviewprod .htm

[IIntrude]

Just want to echo everything Karak said.

[wsuhoey]

Got into beta and purchased. I can't wait.

Did you ever play Star Trek Bridge Commander?
I loved the combat in that. If yes, are you able to compare?

[Vandabo]

Damn, there were a couple of sweet looking ships in that vid. God, I hope it's good.

[Narradisall]

I wasn't interested in this, but I am tempted to give it a whirl...

Any plans for a 14 day trial thing or something?

[SilentScreams]

I'm not really a Star Trek fan, but this looks pretty good from what I've seen.
I'll probably wait for either a free trial or for a price drop though.

[CappinCanuck]

I wasn't interested in this, but I am tempted to give it a whirl...

Any plans for a 14 day trial thing or something?

I'm not really a Star Trek fan, but this looks pretty good from what I've seen.
I'll probably wait for either a free trial or for a price drop though.

Yeah, my thoughts. I really need to give this a whirl before buying.

MMO's typically drop quickly in price. I wouldn't be surprised to see this at 1/2 price on the Amazon marketplace two to three weeks after release.

[Narradisall]

I imagine this might be one of those games that if it survives its fledgling year might grow, add more zones and races and be truely epic.

It's more that MMO's are a time vortex.... I fear getting too involved.

[Karak]

Did you ever play Star Trek Bridge Commander?
I loved the combat in that. If yes, are you able to compare?

I think I should keep my mouth shut for awhile.
Not a bad thing, just cause.
But how about its awesome:)

[Goronmon]

MMOs generally don't do a trial right at release. There are usually plenty of server issues to deal with without having a large group of free trial players running around making things worse.

[Felonous]

My experience with the beta has killed all interest in the game. The spaceship flight portions of the game are horrible. They killed the sense of distance and openness that should be there for space flight, something that Eve Online nails. Flight in STO while in space feels like a clusterfuck of asteroids and ships all jammed in close at every encounter, I actually feel claustrophobic while in space in STO. The visuals of space in STO make me want to vommit.

I know it is a art style, but it is horrible for a space sci-fi game. Take the over the top, way too bright color schemes that worked well for Champions Online and City of X, turn the saturation up a couple notches and you have STO. Bleh!

[Karak]

My experience with the beta has killed all interest in the game. The spaceship flight portions of the game are horrible. They killed the sense of distance and openness that should be there for space flight, something that Eve Online nails. Flight in STO while in space feels like a clusterfuck of asteroids and ships all jammed in close at every encounter, I actually feel claustrophobic while in space in STO. The visuals of space in STO make me want to vommit.

I know it is a art style, but it is horrible for a space sci-fi game. Take the over the top, way too bright color schemes that worked well for Champions Online and City of X, turn the saturation up a couple notches and you have STO. Bleh!

Sadly I can't give much data other than to say STO seems to fit what ST should be as an MMO. I would have to disagree and say something like EVE for this wouldn't work. I am enjoying the beta and the flight doesn't seem all that bad.
Which beta section did you play?

[Hotcod]

The spaceship flight portions of the game are horrible. They killed the sense of distance and openness that should be there for space flight// Flight in STO while in space feels like a clusterfuck of asteroids and ships all jammed in close at every encounter, I actually feel claustrophobic while in space in STO.

Sounds so unlike startrek

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Oh wait, sorry, that last one is from the game... i didn't notice since it pretty much looks exactly the same as any startrek battle ever. Now look I am sorry for being snarky but I felt I had to make a point. Star Trek space battles are amazingly close quarters in terms of what the reality of space battle might be like. This is 'cus showing "realistic" space battles on screen would be boring to watch. Something like Eve which does not have an established frame of reference for the combat can take a more "realistic" bent in it's combat towards the kind of stuff you are more likely to get in books. Since it's the strategy (either reading or engaging in) that makes those battles interesting. Expecting a star trek game to drop it's established frame of reference for space fights for something more open is idiotic and if you didn't realise what the combat was going to be like going in, well dear god man have you never watched star trek?!

I don't care if you don't like the combat since I can't comment on fun of it but I just think complaining about the game for being like the show is counter intuitive

[edit]
Heavily edited... i might keep editing as i find more space battles to add in :P

[CappinCanuck]

The battles look pretty good to me :) Well, I would have liked localised explosions where weapons hit shits but all my lobbying was in vein.

[Squidbot]

Tell me they aren't going with the one server for all system they used for Champions, please?

[Hawkzombie]

I'm tempted...but it's in the hands of Cryptic, and their last two MMOs have sucked hardcore for me, especially Champions...

I wanna get the Digital Deluxe Edition simply for the KHAAAN!! Emote...how sad is that?

[Karak]

I'm tempted...but it's in the hands of Cryptic, and their last two MMOs have sucked hardcore for me, especially Champions...

I wanna get the Digital Deluxe Edition simply for the KHAAAN!! Emote...how sad is that?

Nothing at all.
Thats the one I got:)

[kyrieee]

I thought that looked like shit but I'm a bit of a pessimist

[Khrymsyn]

I wanna get the Digital Deluxe Edition simply for the KHAAAN!! Emote...how sad is that?

Seriously?

That might convince me to break my no MMO rule, at least for a little while. =)
KHHHHAAAAAAAAAAN

[Rune_74]

I can't confirm or deny that it is good...or that I had a ton of fun playing the beta.

[Deadend]

Tell me they aren't going with the one server for all system they used for Champions, please?

It even has the same friendslist and engine, down to showing your friends who are playing Champions at that moment. So I hear.

I also hear that if a Cryptic MMO ever left you feeling disappointed and angry due to their nerfing methods, you should expect the same.

Basically, if you LOOOVE Champions, aside from it being about super-heroes, you will love Star Trek Online as it's the same shit, different day.

[SilentScreams]

Crap. I forgot who was making STO...

Such a shame. :(

[Savok]

Champions was the most disappointing MMO experience I've ever had, I simply can not trust Cryptic to do anything right, especially this.

[SilentScreams]

I loved City of Heroes, which is why I gave them the benefit of the doubt with Champions. CoH is probably my 3rd favourite MMO, whereas Champions is the most disappointing one I've played since Horizons (which I only even remember because it was so astoundingly bad).

I'm definitely holding off on STO until some reviews come out and probably a free trial too.

[Rune_74]

So champions at launch vs CoH now or at launch? CoH has alot more content at the moment but it definately has huge problems.

[Darkmatter]

My experience with the beta has killed all interest in the game. The spaceship flight portions of the game are horrible. They killed the sense of distance and openness that should be there for space flight, something that Eve Online nails. Flight in STO while in space feels like a clusterfuck of asteroids and ships all jammed in close at every encounter, I actually feel claustrophobic while in space in STO. The visuals of space in STO make me want to vommit.

I know it is a art style, but it is horrible for a space sci-fi game. Take the over the top, way too bright color schemes that worked well for Champions Online and City of X, turn the saturation up a couple notches and you have STO. Bleh!

So can I have your beta? :)

[Wolvie]

Oh man that looks awesome! I agree with ya though cod, I have my doubts as well. But my brother is buying this day one, and I am going to talk to him before I bite. Although I must admit, I am a huge Trek fan, and I want this just for the space battles alone.

[Felonous]

4HBjpR0XzUE

Oh wait, sorry, that last one is from the game... i didn't notice since it pretty much looks exactly the same as any startrek battle ever. Now look I am sorry for being snarky but I felt I had to make a point. Star Trek space battles are amazingly close quarters in terms of what the reality of space battle might be like. This is 'cus showing "realistic" space battles on screen would be boring to watch. Something like Eve which does not have an established frame of reference for the combat can take a more "realistic" bent in it's combat towards the kind of stuff you are more likely to get in books. Since it's the strategy (either reading or engaging in) that makes those battles interesting. Expecting a star trek game to drop it's established frame of reference for space fights for something more open is idiotic and if you didn't realise what the combat was going to be like going in, well dear god man have you never watched star trek?!

I don't care if you don't like the combat since I can't comment on fun of it but I just think complaining about the game for being like the show is counter intuitive

Thanks for posting the video clip of space flight/combat but it only supports my opinion that I posted. Just look at the amount of objects and debris, and how cluttered the visuals are in space. It's like that for EVERY combat encounter that I have played through. My argument was that there is just too much crap on the screen when you are flying around in space, which actually looks nothing like what you see in the video clips from the shows.

Yes, in a lot of the TV series they have the ships in close range of each other when in combat, but that's for visual effect so that you have both sides of the conflict in the shot. And while that works well for something you want to show on TV it just does not work well when implemented as it is in STO.

[Hotcod]

So you admit that the combat looks like the TV show? Then the argument is settled. I don't care if you dislike the game but bashing it for being like the tv show is dumb. no matter there reasons there is a look and feel to the space and combat of the TV show that sto sets out to recreate. End of story. No more argument on that front.

If you want to talk about flying around space then, well, if you have short range combat then it would be silly to have a large expanse of space for it to happen in. You also have to keep the level of "interest" in that space comparable to the space combat else the game will feel disjointed and strange. Short range combat = more cluttered space. Longer range combat = less cluttered space.

I'm playing x3:TC at the moment which is in the middle ground between what i've seen of sto and what i've played of something like eve. It's combat is relatively close and so it's sectors of space rather large, you need the time compression to deal with the flight times and the like, are also not huge and are packed with things, stations, ships, asteroids in an attempt to keep the visuals interesting and the game play flowing.

Again this is not me judging you for not enjoying it. That's perfectly fine and when i get my hands on it I may even agree. But for the most part the things that you are citing as disliking where always going to be that way or close to it due to the factors stemming from the look of the TV show and films. Dislike it all you want but asking for it to be different is just a bit silly in my eyes.

[KillerMcDead]

Let me just go on the record as saying that my pants are filled with excitement over this game. I CANNOT FUCKING WAIT! Open-Beta tomorrow! Lets hope they dont bugger it up!

[CappinCanuck]

I may go pick up a preorder and cancel today for the beta access. I'm fighting with myself though. I can't believe I'm considering getting into another MMO -- the time sucking vortex that they are.

I hope I can make it to March, when BF BC2 and SupCom2 will cradle me through my MMO woes.

[Knightsaber]

The NDA lifts in about an hour according to the forums.

In any case, the closed beta was a good time, I liked it. Far better than CO. Far Far far far better. It takes a few hours to get the hang of it, and people approach combat like idiots and complain about how hard it is, but really it isn't.

I pre-ordered it and plan on playing it quite a bit after I finish ME2, of course.

[Hotcod]

pre ordered on steam 'cus i'm weak... may be something i come to regret, only the second time i've broken the pre order rule for mmos (first being wow) but i mean, it's startrek!

[Primus]

Was in beta, didn't participate much because it was so bad. The flight sections are terrible.

[Karak]

Maybe I played a different beta than others. I have been enjoying the pants off this.

It has some typical MMO problems, but to me and just my opinion here, the flight is totally fine. Maybe I didn't do the things others were doing. But man it's been fucking awesome.

I had a couple glitches here and there that were fixed within hours of reporting them.
The generators for the characters and ships are awesome. For the amount I played I just really dug it.

Graphically I would say its pretty damn good. Lots of shit going on, explosions, particle systems are all very close to what I would expect from a next gen mmo. Also all the skills and trees for people in your ship...really took the cake. I loved the way the ship is basically a character and your characters are characters. Very well done.

[Hotcod]

woot, steam download is up, have activated my account. I've not been this excited about a mmo since WoW heh

[Vigil80]

Wait, so, get it from Steam and start playing tonight, or get it somewhere else and wait for three weeks?

Guess I'm cancelling my GameStop preorder. Kinda miffed that Steam's version isn't the one with the extra skill points, but as someone pointed out in another thread, I doubt they'd let a preorder item unbalance the game much.

[Widgetcraft]

I'd just like to remind everyone that Champions Online was a lot of fun in beta too. Up until like a day or two before launch, when everything went horribly wrong.

[SilentScreams]

I'd just like to remind everyone that Champions Online was a lot of fun in beta too. Up until like a day or two before launch, when everything went horribly wrong.

You have a point, which is why I'm going to wait and see what they "fix" with patches after launch before I buy.

[Vigil80]

I wish I could be so objective, but... it's Star Trek, man.

[Savok]

"Players were reporting moments of enjoyment and stretches of bug free content, this has now been fixed"

[bstiff]

I'd just like to remind everyone that Champions Online was a lot of fun in beta too. Up until like a day or two before launch, when everything went horribly wrong.


Things were reasonable up until launch day, that's when they decided to nuke the fun out of the game. It would be interesting to know how many headstart people they lost after that maneuver. I know I was one of them.

[Knightsaber]

They swore and promised not to do that again. I'd link the post, but that forum no longer exists. :)

[Vigil80]

I should say they ought to swear and promise. It evidently killed a budding game in one fell swoop.

[SilentScreams]

It did. I could have seen myself playing Champions for a long time based on my beta experience, but the game they released was nothing like the one I loved. It simply wasn't fun.

[Narradisall]

open beta eh?

I may give it a whirl. It can pile on top of all the other games I don't have time to play.

[Panthera]

Things were reasonable up until launch day, that's when they decided to nuke the fun out of the game. It would be interesting to know how many headstart people they lost after that maneuver. I know I was one of them.

How did they do that?

[J Arcane]

How did they do that?
The same way they did it to CoH mid-life. Management realized that players were levelling through content to quickly, thus threatening long-term subscription revenues, so in search of a quick fix, they nerfed everyone and everything in the game hard rather than spending the time to make more content.

The end result was a massive jump in difficulty, major content and level gaps, dismantling of any sense of immersion in a superhero world, and an overall destruction of what had been a fun and exciting game.

[Savok]

I will always stand by my statements that Enhancement Diversification technically made CoH a better game on a number of levels, it just sucked it had to happen so late in its life.

CO's nerf however was just horribly lazy design.

[bstiff]

The same way they did it to CoH mid-life. Management realized that players were levelling through content to quickly, thus threatening long-term subscription revenues, so in search of a quick fix, they nerfed everyone and everything in the game hard rather than spending the time to make more content.

The end result was a massive jump in difficulty, major content and level gaps, dismantling of any sense of immersion in a superhero world, and an overall destruction of what had been a fun and exciting game.

If this was done during the open beta or even head start, I could see it as tweaking. Doing it on launch day just reeked of bait and switch. Prior to the update pretty much any build or combination of powers were viable, after the nerf, only certian builds/powers had any kind of usefulness or survivability. Combined with cryptics policy of just deleting any threads concerning the update Im surprised CO survived it's first week. I think it took them like two weeks to realize that they had overreacted and they started tuning down the nerfs but by that time it was too late for a lot of people.

The beta is up now btw, It killed my internet for a few minutes.

[Felonous]

So you admit that the combat looks like the TV show? Then the argument is settled. I don't care if you dislike the game but bashing it for being like the tv show is dumb. no matter there reasons there is a look and feel to the space and combat of the TV show that sto sets out to recreate. End of story. No more argument on that front

Learn to read, at NO point did I say it looked like the show. In fact, what I said was this:

My argument was that there is just too much crap on the screen when you are flying around in space, which actually looks nothing like what you see in the video clips from the shows.

Are we even talking about the same thing, you keeps spouting shit that doesn't have anything to do what what I have said.

[Hotcod]

Learn to read, at NO point did I say it looked like the show. In fact, what I said was this:

Yes, in a lot of the TV series they have the ships in close range of each other when in combat.

too short?

edit:

http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http://www.youtube.com/v/_XCWGc3KF-w&start1=40&video2=http://www.youtube.com/v/4HBjpR0XzUE&start2=60

turn the sound off on the sto video and tell me you honestly don't think that STO does a good job of looking like the combat from the TV show. I get that STO is too cluttered for you, I'm not trying debating that personal choice of yours, all I'm trying to get across is expecting something radically different from what is there, given the source material, is a pipe dream. And I think rightly so.

Having now played the game, i can say that it feel like playing startrek. Add more distance and less "clutter" in to the space combat space would start to detract from that... could it be different and better? likely yes, but not in the ways you suggest it should be.