Comments on: Space, the Final Frontier. Hands on with STO.

By: A holiday, a holiday, the first one of the year! Best of 2009. « Welcome to Spinksville!

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:07:41 +0000

[...] Space, the Final Frontier. In which I get 10 minutes with the Star Trek Online demo and like what I see. [...]

By: We Fly Spitfires

We Fly Spitfires — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:52:09 +0000

Sounds very positive and makes me just that little bit more excited about the game. And yes, I am that guy who responds to people at work with the phrase “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” when they ask me what I want to drink. They hate me.

By: badjawa

badjawa — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:10:33 +0000

Wotcha everyone,

If I remember rightly, the main reason that Star Fleet Command 3 used two dimensions was that it was based heavily on a boardgame/wargame of Star Fleet actions. with three dimensions being hard to replicate on a tabletop with miniatures, it was largely two dimensional.
I really enjoyed playing it; if Star Trek Online is half as good, it will be a great aspect to the game.

Cheers,
Hawley.

By: Bertie

Bertie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:47:01 +0000

Any word on how the 3rd Dimension is implemented here? Some space games treat it as a first class citizen and end up stumbling with a hard to manage interface; others, like the above mentioned SFC, blow it off entirely; many end up with what some call “2.5D”, that is, one of the dimensions isn’t as important as the other two (this often seems to work best in practice).

By: Suicidal Zebra

Suicidal Zebra — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:20:08 +0000

I was at the expo on Saturday and had a long and involved conversation with a one of the Cryptic STO Reps. I came away impressed with the depth of thought that had gone into the back-end system (yay for simultaneous the planned world-wide releases, international games servers and all players on one server cluster) and transition between Ship-to-Ship and Away Team gameplay.

My chief concern was whether the game had enough depth to hold anyone’s interest for longer than the trial period, but it was very difficult to draw many conclusions from the short demo. There’s a heck of a lot potential for some really cool features in the game, it’ll be interesting to see what the finished product looks like.

By: Longasc

Longasc — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:49:44 +0000

Your description of the space combat reminds me of Star Fleet Command III (SFC3). You can easily google some info about it if you want.

The strength of its combat was that it is very simple at heart, yet still has quite some depth. Getting engaged in the close dogfight and turning wildly, while hitting not very hard or very much, is what most players do initially. But there are weapon arcs, turning rates, and all that. Federation ships usually have little focused fire power but some extra 360° lasers, while Klingons usually have mostly forward aimed disruptor cannons and supreme maneuverability.

And it is not rocket science, as I mentioned – it is easy to control and to learn, but has surprising depth -> they would have done a smart thing if they adopted the combat system of this quite successful and popular Star Trek game series.

Awww… I would so like to work for the Tal’Shiar again…

http://www.gamershell.com/pc/starfleet_command_3/screenshots.html

Some SFC3 screenshots – they somewhat reveal the combat mechanics/UI, maybe you find something familiar to this in STO.

My main gripe is that I fear this game might become a wonderful, wonderful game with next to no content and an item shop. TBH I do not have much faith in Cryptic.

By: spinks

spinks — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:07:39 +0000

I feel bad because I know this isn’t a very useful first impressions post, but I was asked what I thought of it.

And basically what I thought was that I’d like to play it some more to make up my mind, but I really liked the feel of the space battles and it did feel like Trek.

I think, Larisa, when you’re thinking about trying a game that sounds a bit different from what you’re used to, it might be worth waiting for whatever free trial they eventually decide to offer. Because you need to really try it out to see if it’s something you’d enjoy or not.

By: Larísa

Larísa — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:52:34 +0000

If there will ever be an MMO which can lure me away from WoW it will be Star Trek. I’m a fan since many years… Altough if I’m really honest with myself I don’t think I would ever fit into that world. Vehicle fights, 3 d-fights… it’s never been my strong side in WoW, to put it kindly.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:44:24 +0000

Ah, I loved Pirates. Ship combat was slow…ish, but it *felt right* as a nautical engagement in game form.

Thanks for the link! I’m looking forward to this one.