by Jeff Woleslagle on Jan 11, 2010
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Ethec's and Dalmarus's early assessment of Star Trek Online's closed beta is the topic of today's newsletter, with the bonus of a link to today's Star Trek Online ship types Q&A with Cryptic's Al Rivera and six other Ten Ton Hammer original pieces. Read on with Loading... Star Trek Online Closed Beta Impressions.
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Dalmarus shared his worthy closed beta impressions of Star Trek Online in an article published today, and having gotten a decent chunk of time to play the game this weekend, for the most part I agree with his opinions. That Cryptic allows players to look distinct while keeping to a Federation or Klingon regs is a triumph worthy of the reigning character creation masters, space combat is engaging (no pun intended) and often entertaining, the strategic map is a brilliant way to handle space travel, and there are a number of bona fide Star Trek moments along the way. Among those moments, my favorite (so far) is the Akura mission, which centers on a distress call from a freighter whose facing both a warp core breach and takeover by Orion borders. The distress call comes as your gliding through the tactical map for the first time- perhaps patrolling the Vulcan sector, perhaps figuring out which mission you want to tackle first -but it was exactly the sort of thing I wanted in a Star Trek game.
Unfortunately, your impressions of certain parts of the game are largely dependent on whether you have sufficient help or perhaps what your last third-person perspective combat experience was. I'd spent much of last week finally playing Batman: Arkham Asylum, probably the most polished, graceful, and cinematic button masher on the market today, so I was perhaps more deeply disappointed with the ground combat than I would have been. That's an unfair comparison, of course, and I probably should have cleansed my reviewing palette with games like Champions Online or something from the Star Trek: Elite Force series. I think that even if I had done so, however, I still would've been disappointed.
I'll be the first to note that Cryptic is fixing bugs and working tirelessly on the game, and the playerbase has already seen enormous improvements. It's fair to say that the ground game (especially the tutorial) has a fair way to go, though, and my current fear is that the enormous potential of the space game might be sapped by the exertions necessary to nurse the ground game to health. As for specific complaints, my rig, which can run games like Crysis on olympian graphics settings with ease, seriously chugged through the opening parts of the tutorial. Gigantic arrows on monitor screens - hard-to-miss elements designed to guide players to the next area -seemed a little patronizing and a poor excuse for intuitive level design. NPC mission-givers offered instructions like "go behind me" when the thing immediately behind them was a half wall littered with consoles. "Keep going! You're needed in Engineering!" would have been both succinct and much more instructive.
The Borg were as creepy as ever, but when you actually engage in combat, you're limited to a ranged phaser attack, a melee attack, a debuff, sprint, an aim mode, and a somersault that seems largely ornamental. Combat was largely of the firing squad variety - debuff, aim, fire - and adding more enemies to to the mix without the kind of AoE and crowd control abilities that make fighting hordes fun just magnified the displeasure. I was hoping for some of the novel combat chains and cowbell that made Champions Online combat enjoyable, but saw none of it. In the end I was more than glad to finish out these missions and return to the rarefied comfort of my captain's chair.
Other areas of the game ranged from epic to unplayble depending purely on what friendlies happen to be in the neighborhood. The Starbase 24 fleet encounter mission Dalmarus enjoyed immensely was my first "defeat" (that's Klingon for "death"), since I bravely flew into the Klingon ranks with a minimum of AI support and no actual player allies. If it sounds foolish of me, it was, but there was no indication that I would need friends, just a distress call similar to the Akura mission. Other missions might have proven nearly as impossible had not a few friendly pilots been in the open instance with me. Perhaps a queue system similar to WoW's battleground queues or WAR's scenarios might have been a better way to handle fleet encounter missions, either that or better automation of AI reinforcements.
All that said, even if Cryptic didn't smooth out some of these space combat niggles, I could write a lot of it off to the learning curve. There's no getting around the fact that STO, like Borderlands, will be much more fun if you treat it purely as a co-op experience, constantly seeking groupmates and largely avoiding the temptation to solo missions with hordes of +1 and up enemies. Ground combat likewise improved as I moved up the primary episode chain and had more weapons and kits at my disposal, as well as player friends to watch my back. There's plenty of potential here, and without being an STO apologist, I think I can see myself playing STO for a while to come. I certainly can't wait to jump into the open beta and see how the game unfolds.
STO beta testers, what do you think? I know there's a whole lot of you out there that were lucky enough to pick up a beta key from our Ten Ton Hammer giveaway last week. For the rest of you, would you play an MMORPG that had limited solo opportunities but made grouping nearly effortless, mostly interaction-less, and rewarding? Share your thoughts in the Loading... forum!
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our PC & Console Games (Non-MMO) forum
Disappointment sets in!
Khalus, our volunteer Final Fantasy XIV guru, is also following the
single-player console game, Final Fantasy XIII. Yesterday, he posted
his disappointment in finding that there would be no death penalty in
the game. "When you're defeated you can choose to continue, but instead
of being returned to your last save point and losing all progress since
then, you're re-spawned next to the enemy or boss that you lost to!" he
says.
Is a game without a death penalty too dumbed down? Do you
feel differently about death penalties in console titles as opposed to
MMOGs? Chat about it!
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"I like that you get respawned next to the boss, that way you can easily get killed again seconds later. lol"
- kitsunegirl
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Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? Tell
us!
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