Topic: Star Trek Online Beta?

[Bigred]

So here it is a month later and I got one character pretty much at the level cap ((Rear Admiral) RA 5 is cap, I'm RA 4)

I could have made it here much faster but took my time playing it.  SO leveling is pretty quick and easy.

Game play is still fun, I'm looking forward to starting my next toon. 

End game is not that great.  They don't have a ton of end game content, no big raids to go on, no epic team quests, just 3 dailies to run through to get badges to spend on uber gear.  You can do PVP as much as you want as well.

They say the content will be added.  I'm almost wondering if they made it this easy to level up or if they thought it would take longer.

However, I'm still enjoying it enough to keep playing, though I'm not sure if that will last until the Old Republic come out in the fall.

[BigCöx]

I've had some second thoughts about getting involved in another recurring expense, so I haven't decided whether to pick it up yet or not. I was a little unhappy that I preordered and never got a Head Start code, and that I couldn't use my Gamestop gift card on the digital download deluxe version Gamestop was advertising on their site. Yeah, those are all Gamestop problems, not Cryptic's fault, but I'm still rethinking whether or not I want to buy this or not.

[Bigred]

So the game went Live on Tuesday, Headstart began Last Friday (Thats when I started) I've made it to my Tier 2 Ship and chose to run an Escort, but if I wanted to buy another ship it would be pretty easy.  "MOney" is very easy to make once you get into the later stages of Lt., and very easy once  Lt. Cmnd. (thats tier 2)

Game stability has been steadily improving while I've been on.  The weekend was constantly up and down, but they say they are getting more capacity this weekend so I imagine another weekend of up down servers.

I have begun to notice that there is a certain amount of the old wash/rinse/repeat happening.  But none the less I am still finding the space battles extremely fun, expecially now that I'm in teir 2.  Like any MMO there are some group quests that you can go on, and I haven't tried those yet.  I would say the game play style is very similar to Warhammer, with instanced battles where you work or not with other players to achieve a goal, typically destroying a certain number of patrols.  While you might be able to solo (If your a high enough level) its much easier and quicker with a group.

The ground action is fine and some people might find it as enjoyable as the space battles, if thats your thing.  There is just as much leveling and spec'ing for ground battles as there is for space battles.  I'm going the route of mostly space battles and just making sure my away team has good enough gear for the ground.

You upgrade your ship weapons and systems, you can updgrade your ground weapons and systems, you upgrade your space skills, you upgrade your ground skills, you upgrade your bridge officer ground equipment, and you upgrade your bridge officer space and ground abilities.  So there is tons to upgrade which is pretty sweet.

All in all, its a fun game with repition similar to any other MMO, but it branches out in the Warhammer style instances, PVP, and other actions, as well as differeing in the amount of skills to upgrade. 

[Bigred]

Yeah I've been trying to play since about 8pm last night, only been able to get on for an hour or so, they are having tons of down time.  Hopefully its fixing things, and not more issues being added.

So far this, down time, and server crashes, is typical of most Beta's for MMO's I've been lucky enough to be a part of.  I think the game has some great potential. 

I'm loving this cruiser, I have no issues taking on several ships at once now.

I'm having issues now trying to figure out why my promoted Tactical Bridge Officer, cannot use his second ability (Available when he got promoted).  It says on the ship that the slot he is in doesn't allow him to use Lt. Abilities.  I'm not sure how I make the slot he is in able to be for Lt.  The slot my Engineer Bridge Office is in is good for Lt.  I don't know its confusing and there is no guide except the forums so hopefully they can answer that question.

[BigCöx]

ok, just took the plunge and pre-ordered the game from Gamestop. The Open Beta ends on Tuesday, but there's a "head start" period that starts on the 29th, I should get a code for that emailed to me tomorrow or Tuesday. Just hit level 7 last night and should get to 8 once the server gets back up today, but I'm crossing my fingers - we were doing the War Zone op with the Borg cubes and just won the encounter when the server went down, so I'm betting the stats weren't recorded

[Bigred]

Made Lt. Commander this morning, thats lvl 11, and got my first upgraded ship.  Decided to go with a cruiser, Basically the Heavy hitter, Heavy Shield, multi-purpose pig of a ship.  The other I was considering was the Escort (Small, fast manuverable and heavy hitting).

While I am enjoying the Cruiser, I don't think I like having mines, I think Torpedoes do much better.  I have Mk II torps in the front and MkIII mines in the back (Releases cluster of 5 proximity mines), the Torps are better, especially as I don't move very fast and if I have torps and phasers on the front and back then the little ships flying around me basically can't get away from the torpedoes.

This is the last weekend for the Beta then the game goes live.  I think this will be a very enjoyable game, I look forward to playing it until StarWars TOR comes out later this year.

Still need to have more information on what some of the improvements do, but its interesting trying to figure it out, but it won't be very interesting once the game actually starts.

[Bigred]

Yeah, I keep buying things but only know a small amount about them.  I mean whats the difference between Deflector dish +7.5 and Deflector Shield 7.5?  These were science consoles.

I'm at about halfway through level 9.  I've found that playing in PvP levels you up pretty quick.  Plus you get these honor badges which you can take to K7 station and trade in for ship weapon upgrades or consoles.

In Game name - Bigred

[BigCöx]

yeah, I really need to read some sort of instructions, documentations, etc, just kinda figuring it out as I go along now - we'll have to link up in the game sometime and wipe out some quests. I'm almost up to Lt. Commander (and my next ship)

[Bigred]

Well I broke down and got the pre-order.  Been reading tons of things about it, some good most bad.

I would say the two blatently obvious issues I see with it so far, is the space flight is not true 3 full axis movement, which is unfortunate, but not a big deal.

And some of the descriptions of the components, upgrades, skills, and how they are effected by leveling them up is not very clear at all.  This is a bigger issue, because from what I understand once you level up something there is no going back and redristributing the points.  I hope they get better explanations of some of these things.

The program is still pretty glichty and I imagine it will be released that way, so far every MMO I've been in was released with all kind of little glitchy issues.

The space battles are pretty fun, kind of like ocean battles, I wish they had full 3 axis movement it would have made it more challanging, but its fun either way.

[PFof2]

looks awesome!

[BigCöx]

more STO shots...

pic 1 - escorting a disabled freighter to safety (with 2 other players)

pic 2 - on an away mission with my red shirt. He survived!

pic 3 - Cruissssssssssssssssin' at Full Impulse

pic 4 - Finishing off an Orion Cruiser

pic 5 - at Earth spacedock

[BigCöx]

it's pretty good - the space combat stuff is fun, the ground stuff is ok, there's definitely some stuff that needs to be tweaked in the few weeks before release, but this could be a pretty interesting game...here's my ship:

[BigCöx]

I'm glad I got a beta key, because I don't think I'm sold on the whole game concept yet, and I'd hate to put down the money just to quit it after a few months. Finished downloading the 6GB game client, going to install it soon

[Bigred]

Lucky Bastard.

I've been thinking of pre-ordering just to get in early.

[BigCöx]

Anyone else enter and get a key for the Star Trek Online Beta? I just got an email saying I got one, going to get it setup ASAP