Star Trek Online: It goes boldly, but not very well «Aggrogate

9Mar/108

Star Trek Online: It goes boldly, but not very well

Star Trek Online is a textbook example of a decent game that simply doesn't do justice to its source material. It's by no means a bad MMO, and in fact brings a handful of welcome new ideas that are just begging to be polished, but it simply isn't Star Trek. Were it not for the Paramount pedigree, STO might have even be seen as a pretty good niche sci-fi MMO, perhaps a spiritual successor to Earth and Beyond, or a more casual-friendly competitor to EVE Online. With the Star Trek license dragging behind it like a chain, though, the game only feels like wasted potential.

It's clear that Cryptic Studios is full of Star Trek fans, and that these fans put a lot of effort into the game. Unfortunately, the effort was misdirected, and the end result is a fanfic playground that fails to capture any of the charm of any of the shows. The technology's there, the settings are there, even some of the characters are there, but it all feels so lifeless. The ships feel more like gun-toting robots than actual vessels filled with crewmen, and the bridge officers feel more like summoned minions than actual characters.

Ever since the original series, Star Trek has emphasized character interaction over visceral action. For every scene with Voyager's bridge crew fighting the Borg or Deep Space Nine's crew fighting the Dominion, there are at least ten scenes of those same crew members talking to each other. Most of the conflict from the shows came from characters dealing with their problems through introspection, discussion, and technical problem solving. Most of the scenes in the shows took place on the bridge of a starship, or the command center of a space station, or in the bars, mess halls, or cabanas the crew frequented when they weren't on duty.

Star Trek Online, conversely, takes all of that interaction and discussion out of the equation. Your bridge crew are bland drones with absolutely no personality or characterization. Your problems are almost always solved with violence, and the few times they aren't they're solved by passively clicking on objects to "scan" them. And, perhaps worst of all, the bridge of your ship and the hangouts of star bases are almost entirely wasted areas you won't use for more than a glorified chat room with other players (who have their own ships, and their own faceless crew members). Half of the episodes in Star Trek's five series took place on their respective shows' ships and starbase. In Star Trek Online, you'll only use your ship for space combat, and your bridge for a chat room (and a useless chat room at that).

There's a ton of Star Trek trivia die-hard fans will appreciate, but that's all it is: trivia. Paris and Torres' kid from Voyager is an NPC for a quest chain. Captain Mackenzie Calhoun from the Star Trek: New Frontier novels is a questgiver. Even Will Riker's transporter-generated clone gets a mention in the game. Sadly, like your own bridge crew, these characters have no personality. They're just mannequins offering you a few lines of text and occasional help in combat. Almost every Trek reference in the game feels like a shallow nod towards Star Trek fans, a thin veneer of enthusiasm covering an empty MMO shell. This is best demonstrated on Deep Space Nine, one of the game's hub starbases and a faithful rendering of the eponymous station from the show... from certain angles. Yes, you can stand in Quark's Bar or on the Promenade, or in the middle of Ops, and if you set the camera just right it looks just like it did from the show. If you zoom out, or walk around, though, you'll quickly see the empty corridors and empty walls that make up the rest of the station. That's the game in a nutshell: occasional moments of "Hey, Star Trek!" with vast lengths of bland, same-y gameplay in between.

Some of the game's elements are actually fun, even if they don't feel like Star Trek. Space combat is the big draw, putting you in the pilot's seat of a Starfleet (or Klingon, in PvP) starship. You steer the ship to get into a good position to fire your fore or aft weapons at the enemy, all while being mindful of your energy levels and shield strength. The different ship classes and wide selection of equipment and crew powers gives you tons of flexibility in how you fight. You could be a heavy cruiser with tons of beam weapons for tanking and shield depleting, or a quick escort ship with phaser cannons and mine layers for devastating assault runs, or a science vessel with buffing and healing skills for supporting other ships in your party. Switching out a few weapons and crew members can vastly change how you play the game.

Ground combat isn't quite as engaging, but it has some redeeming qualities. Instead of flying solo and relying on your bridge crew to grant you skills, you can actually take several crew members with you, where they'll fight at your side. Each crew member has a different selection of ground skills, and you can even customize your own skills by equipping different class-based kits. Unfortunately, the combat quickly boils down to shooting your ranged weapon at the enemy, occasionally hitting a skill hotkey to toss a grenade/erect a shield generator/heal yourself. Your teammates are useful in combat, but they suffer from spotty AI and downright terrible pathfinding. On indoor maps, they can often get stuck on corners, leaving you to deal with the enemies in the next room.

On its own, Star Trek Online is a fairly entertaining MMO with a few great ideas and loads of tedious repetition. As a Star Trek game, it completely misses the point. It doesn't have the narrative appeal of adventure games like 25th Anniversary or A Final Unity, it doesn't have the visceral action appeal of the Elite Force games, and it doesn't have the cerebral, tactical appeal of Bridge Commander. It takes a tiny bit from each game, and blends it with five pounds of MMO conventions to make a slightly Star Trek-flavored bowl of bland mush.

Corredor says, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Land_of_Grey_and_Pink"
Corredor says, "It takes up the entirety of side two"
You say, "I call porn name!"
Andolph gets instantly put in a bad mood. Mum is watching the news. ._.
You say, ""In the Land of Grey and Pink 5: Granny's Goin' Hardcore.""

Filed under: PC, Review Leave a comment

Kriegsfall

“Most of the conflict from the shows came from characters dealing with their problems through introspection, discussion, and technical problem solving…” – If Cryptic had made a game about the “real” Star Trek, as you describe it here, I wouldn’t go near it. MMOs are chiefly about combat, either against another player or the computer, gaining big shiny things to flaunt to other players, and other forms of player interaction. The actual life of the characters is handled by RPers.
Vodolaz

What the Star Trek franchise needs is a Bioware rpg along the lines of Knights of the Old Republic.
http://www.thereheis.com SLEZE

“Most of the conflict from the shows came from characters dealing with their problems through introspection, discussion, and technical problem solving…”

I think you would rather play some sort of Star Trek RPG. That is now how MMOs work. Although there are quests with dialog, I don’t think people want to play a game where an android is searching for his humanity by shacking up with a woman with mental problems (for example).
Chris Robbins

Turbine should have been given this game. LOTRO is an incredible, immersive and convinving masterpiece, they could have done STO justice.
http://www.stmmo.info/star-trek-online-review-it-goes-boldly-but-not-very-well/ Star Trek Online Review: It goes boldly, but not very well | STMMO.info

[...] Excerpt from: Star Trek Online Review: It goes boldly, but not very well [...]
John Richard Scott

I think what a lot of MMOers forget these days is that WoW was not perfect coming out of the shoot. At launch, it only had 2 raids, UBRS and MC, the honor system wasn’t in place until 5 months after launch, and battlegrounds didn’t exist until 2 months after that, and 20 man raids didn’t exist until 2 patches after that. A lot of things that seem so commonplace in a MMO now took almost a full year to gain speed in WoW, now everyone expects games to come out and be as good as almost 5 years of constant development in WoW immediately. That’s just not realistic.

I must say, I’m a huge fan, and while I’ll admit grinding can be tedious at times (mostly because I was undergeared and had open teaming turned off by mistake), I’m having a blast of a time.

a TRUE Star Trek game would never work as a game. Would you pay money to sit at a conference table and listen to your bridge crews concerns? No. Thats why there is a lot of combat. Sure, it bends the canon a little, but within the story it makes sense, and they have a lot more planed.

So lets not put the nails in the coffin yet till at least 2-3 major patches in. Trust me, if I gave you the release version of WoW, you’d call it crap.
http://www.internettoughguys.com Internet Tough Guy

Yes a lot of people seem to forget that WOW did not have anything at launch, but what you are failing to see is they have it NOW…

Meaning these game developers know what needs to be done in order to keep the player interested, time after time again we see MMOs come out and the same excuse every time. WOW did not have this. Well listen up, its not about WOW not having it on release date. Its about what people are accustom to and about what your game does NOT have.

Your not going to drive a car that goes 22miles per hour are you? You people seem to forget that the Ford did not have fuel injection when it came out, lets just ride this old tech along and hope it picks up a following. It does not work like this.

Point being is they need to stop bring out games that do now follow or add to what is the standard set. If people keep comparing MMOs to Blizzards WOW then that there is the standard, this is what needs to be done and in order to keep the user’s attention span and need to spend countless or hours of their life on.

Good ideas but not enough thought in all these games. Good ideas but not enough time testing, Good ideas but very impatient companies in wanting to put out a game to make investors happy. Its hard to make a game yes. Its hard to get backing of an idea as well. But when it comes to ideas we need people i think that play games like WOW there to offer more of a diagram of what needs to be done.

And im the one to do that. Ill just charge a few hundred thousand a year thank you

ITG
Your friendly Internet Tough Guy
http://www.thecelticsyndicate.com/2010/03/09/star-trek-online-review-it-goes-boldly-but-not-very-well/ The Celtic Syndicate » Star Trek Online Review: It goes boldly, but not very well

[...] Read more at aggrogate.com… [...]
kthonic

I am in the same boat as the writer of the article, when it comes down to it I want an awesome game that actually brings what I love about a setting to the front. Most new MMOs take the approach that if you take WoW and put it in a different setting then you will have a instant winner on your hands. What has made WoW so successful is that it constantly changes and updates. Incidently, if a person already plays WoW they probably won’t be interested in another monthly fee for a clone of WoW, particularly since WoW was there first and the person has already invested time and energy into their WoW character. To pull people away from WoW a game will need to be different and better in some way, attracting people who are frustrated with WoW’s many shortcomings or hope for more polished game play.
Rhapses

MMO’s work differently to other games. MMO’s are a living game, constantly being worked on, improved, patched, etc. You cannot fully and accurately compare a new MMO with another MMO that has been out for longer. It simply isn’t fair. It’s like comparing a 10 year old with a 40 year old professor. One is simply gonna be more knowledgable and experienced than the other.

Now if it wasn’t an MMO, then sure, it could have been lacking, but fact of the matter is, do you spend those 5+ years in constant development trying to make a game as good as or better than WoW, or do you release it, make some money, and improve it? Just so you guys have more understanding, think of it like this.. Those extra 5 years in development trying to make it as good as WoW will never be achieved since those 5 years in development would mean WoW will always have an advantage (they can spend those same 5 years further improving their own game).

So please stop comparing MMO’s against other MMO’s based on their content. Yes STO has bugs and glytches which need to be fixed, but if you want something to be as good as WoW, then go back and kiddie it up with the others and play WoW and only WoW.

If you want something different, then STO is good. But please stop comparing a child MMO to an aged (i refuse to say mature) MMO.