Star Trek: Online Play Preview

Star Trek: Online releases next months, and some are working their way through the game now, and sharing their experiences and thoughts on the game.

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“Star Trek Online begins as every other MMO does, with character creation,” explained Horner. “This being a Cryptic game means a mountain of options awaits you, practically begging you to slide, tweak and adjust every possible scale or option. Champions Online’s character creator’s stances make a return here, albeit with new options like ‘Android’ and ‘Gruff’ for those looking to create a very Star Trek character.”

Horner made a robot as a character, because “What Data fan wouldn’t?”

After creating his character, it was time to move on to the tutorial for the game. “The tutorial starts off with a bang in the form of the monotone meanies known as the Borg,” said Horner. “You’ll begin aboard the bridge of your assigned ship as a simple ensign. The ship’s captain will ask to speak with you and upon doing so, you’ll be given orders to assist a nearby ship. There’s some movie/TV show references here I won’t spoil. After running around fighting off Borg and helping to stabilize various situations, you’ll be asked to take the helm of the very ship you were sent to rescue. This is where you get your field promotion and to opportunity to prove that you can handle a starship.”

Speaking of Starships, Horner found customizing them “equally as impressive as character customization. With your starting ship — a Miranda class vessel, there’s three choices within each of those four sections (nacelle, strut, saucer and pylon types). I’ve been pretty surprised with how much variety people can squeeze out, especially since you can apply colored patterns to your ship as well. The patterns have an organized, military feel to them. So don’t fret, you won’t see people flying around in ships that have flames or skulls on them. This is still Star Trek, after all.”

After the tutorial, it was on to actual missions. “Most of my missions took place near and on planets, but some occurred within space stations or in unexplored territory,” said Horner. “Missions are given out by all sorts of NPCs, but Admirals are a primary source of the story-driven Episode Missions. These are designed to simulate the feel of a Star Trek episode within the game itself and I completed quite a few of them. Most of them last quite some time and consist of several different objectives, although, yes, once in a while I killed X of Y.”

Horner summed up his experience. “I’ve come away from my early impressions of Star Trek Online with a very positive feeling,” he said. “Being a beta, it’s impossible to discuss level pacing, enemy difficulty and other aspects of the game that are still in development. However, I can say that my time spent with the game seemed to slip away into the late hours of the night and that’s never anything but a good sign. Time will tell how everything pans out for Cryptic’s second project post NCsoft, but, and you’ll have to excuse the pun, the stars seem to be aligning in a promising position.”
http://www.trektoday.com/content/2010/01/star-trek-online-play-preview/