About a year ago, I had the opportunity to take a look at the Star Trek: Online beta.
At that point, they still had quite a long way to go – if I recall correctly.
Well, for Christmas, I received a copy of Star Trek: Online, so I hopped back into the Trek Universe. After a year, has it improved any?
I’d have to say “Yes”. Kinda.
One of my big complaints a year ago was the lack of immersion. That there was no place to really role play. That has been fixed, for the most part. There are off-duty costumes available now, and you have more of a ship that you can walk around if you so choose (Engineering, Sickbay, the Lounge, Captain’s Quarters, the Bridge and a Ready Room now, vs just the Bridge a year ago).
You can beam down to Vulcan, or Risa, or any number of worlds and just wander around if you like, so it does feel more like Star Trek now.
The missions have a bit more variety than what they used to. There are still the ‘warp into system, kill aliens, beam down, kill more aliens, then back into orbit to kill yet more aliens’ quests – but they’re also incorporating quests where you have to talk to NPCs and pay attention to what they have to say. One rather innovative quests finds your character having to figure out how to make a cure for a virus that you and your crew have been exposed to.
Compare to World of Warcraft, it still lacks in a number of important places:
It just doesn’t run as smooth. Maybe that’s my PC, but maybe it’s the engine that Cryptic uses. I suspect the engine.
There isn’t nearly as strong a sense of ‘community’ as there is one a Warcraft server. Maybe that’s because there is only one ST:O server… maybe it’s because of the nature of the game… but it seems much more a single-player game that you play in a multi-player environment, than an MMO. As an example, I’ve spent the last week looking for a ‘Fleet’ in Star Trek: Online to join. I have not yet found one, though I think I’ve finally got leads on a couple.
I can’t imagine having to spend a week looking for a ‘Guild’ in Warcraft. You’ve pratically got to beat off guild invites by about level 10.
And this may be a little thing, but when you click on NPC’s to talk to them, they don’t move. They don’t look at you. They don’t make any emotes. If they have something to say, you get their portrait in a window, like you are talking to them from the ready room of your ship. It can be disconcerting to be talking to the Admiral’s image, and you are standing in front of him in his office.
I think, in the end, that there is a desire to “not be Warcraft”. While I appreciate the thought, I think that MMO Developers are taking that too far in many cases. Warcraft is a good game because it works, and because Blizzard isn’t shy about ‘borrowing’ concepts from other MMO’s. I’d much rather have a game that works really well, even if it looks a little like Warcraft.
Because, heck, in the end what I really want is ‘World of Warcraft’ in space. Star Trek: Online is not that. But it is fun to play.
