Anyone Play Star Trek Online?

Just started trying this one out to consider for The Summer Of Free this year. Definitely some cool things going for this game!

I'm playing on a year-old, average power laptop, so doesn't require a high end machine. Also avoids a lot of the same boring interface and gameplay tropes of your average MMORPGs.

Not sure how I feel about the controls, but keyboard and mouse always feel more clunky to me to begin with. It also has a little more depth than I might be interested in.

Great pacing, though. Starts out with a borg invasion and everything is going down the crapper, chaos and battle everywhere. Star Trek with some of the Battlestar Galactica treatment.

Anyway, I think this might be a decent game, and VERY good for a free-to-play experience. But my personal preferences may either make me not the best judge of it, or keep me from giving it the full five hours I demand of myself for a "first five review". SO...

Anyone interested in giving this game five hours (not consecutive, of course) and writing or recording their first five impressions of the game? Would love to use it on the show!

Game website- https://register.perfectworld.com/sto_splash

I think I'll try it out on my laptop and give you a first 5.

Star Wars Old Republic apparently just went to free-to-play. Thinking I may try that on my laptop as well. If I have the space (and time).

Sweet! That would be awesome, Drew!

BTW, as I understand SWTOR still requires you fork over some cash if you want the full, unfettered experience. But if you find it worthwhile and not tempting to spend money on, I'd love to get your "first 5" on that too if you feel like it!

Thanks!

as a serious fan of both ST and SW, I think I can do both. Since it's SoF, I'll see about giving my first 5 of the free experience.

Paeter wrote:BTW, as I understand SWTOR still requires you fork over some cash if you want the full, unfettered experience. But if you find it worthwhile and not tempting to spend money on, I'd love to get your "first 5" on that too if you feel like it!

Well, actually they all do. SWTOR has three levels of access: free, preferred, and subscriber. Free is for those who haven't paid anything at all. Preferred is for those who have spent at least $5 at some point. And subscriber is those who pay the monthly (or however frequently).

Here is a feature comparison chart for each level - http://www.swtor.com/free/features that will help. You can also check out this comparison chart comparing SWTOR, STO, and LOTRO - http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/122/1226788p1.html.

SWTOR got some bad press (imagine that with the internet!) when they first went F2P but they have since loosened some of the restrictions for Free players. In my opinion some of the things are even still a little too tight, but then again, it's free...why complain? I'd recommend dropping the one-time $5 on an extra XP boost or whatever and this will get you to Preferred status. This loosens things up quite a bit and makes the game very doable for a long time.

Even free gives you two character slots which will give you a LOT of play time. I've not played Mass Effect, but I've heard that each character is about three times the play time of Mass Effect. And you get two for free; there's eight total!

Anyway, I hope that helps get you started. If you join up on SWTOR, hit me up on the "Jedi Covenant" server.

Thanks for the info, Whiteboy.

F2P is a tricky game and I quickly discovered that not all F2P games are created equal. I almost considered the idea of adding a "freeness" rating to Summer Of Free reviews, but decided that would be too much work to define.

But one F2P game may allow for a complete experience of the story and gameplay, while only charging for extras that may or may not affect gameplay. DCU Online can be played from beginning to end 100% free, but certain power sets (like Green Lantern powers and Lightning Powers) and other non-essential goodies have to be purchased. Other games may only be free to a certain character level, or the game may be crippled in some way unless you spend money.

Sorting through all of that is part of what I hope the SoF can help with, in addition to finding entertainment that GOOD in addition to being free.

My experience so far with Star Trek has been good and I'm hopeful for SWTOR, but we'll see! I look forward to your reviews Drew!

Well, we all know Star Wars is better than Star Trek. /duck

From what I hear, the same is true for the games, but they are different kinds of games with different kinds of gameplay. So my guess is that, like the movies, which game is better will be determined by what you're looking for and what you like in a game.

Okay, game is downloaded and a little bit of time played. Looking to spend some time this weekend getting most of y first five impression down.

Drew.Rub wrote:Okay, game is downloaded and a little bit of time played. Looking to spend some time this weekend getting most of y first five impression down.

Yeah, there are at least two very different games there. The crew member/away mission parts, where you control a single character of your creation, and the ship exploration/combat parts. I'm primarily a console gamer, so controls took a little adjusting, but I thought it was pretty cool with a lot of potential and depth.(Also loved the "Battlestar" treatment the game starts you with. Everything is being blown to crap and the ship is barely holding together, borg are attacking aboard the ship and you're trying to get from one end of the vessel to the other. Great theme! Of course potential, depth and great theme don't make a game good, so I'll look forward to your thoughts, Drew! Hopefully they executed these promising elements in a way that delivers!

Resurrecting this topic because it looks like Drew won't have the time he thought he would to try out the game.

I've got a Star Trek themed Summer Of Free segment coming up on the SBU Podcast in mid-July, so if anyone is interested in doing a "first five" review of Star Trek Online it would make a great addition!