I know Ting mentioned he had preordered, is anyone else going to try it out?

I will be flying an Escort myself. Open beta next week!

http://www.startrekonline.com/

Open Beta Starts 10AM PST tomorrow!!

I'm patched and ready to go!

Weeee...

How is the game, is this going to turn into an Aion fail where everyone is all apeshit about the game then it just turns into a big fail boat on the sea of suck.

I just got done with Mass Effect which I really enjoyed, so I'd like to get into a good Sci Fi game.

I agree wep that a good scifi mmo might be the changeup i need but in reality all mmo's are zomfg up front and suck weeners in the end. i honestly have been thinking about picking up eve jstu for the fact that i know it used to be a pos and its like rated super good nwo and gets great reviews. i assume cause its old i can play 15 day free trial or some shit so may check it out sometime, though RoM is the f2p fotm atm so ill float that for now.

Well I am going on the assumption that the closed beta NDA is over so I will share what I know and like about the game as well as some dislikes.

First its divided into two different playstyles, space and ground. So with this your character skills are separated into two sets.
Character customization is very diverse once you look at everything you have to choose from that makes up how you approach combat both on the ground and in space.
You can choose a pregen standard Trek race or you can create your own including what traits that race has.
Next you choose one of three specializations: Engineer, Tactical, Science

Engineer is about keeping your ship alive through the use of shield boosts and other power allocation shifts. On the ground they focus on making turrets and mines as well as healing allies shields.

Tactical is straight forward combat through damage increases and modifcations to your weapons. On the ground they get grenades and martial arts moves.

Science is more about using your ships systems in different and creative ways such as shield draining and detecting cloaked ships. On the ground they focus on healing hp and other things (haven't played one yet so can't say much about them).

In a more wow/war sense the engineer is the hunter/engineer (duh), the tactical is the rogue and can do some tanking, and the science is support.

The next step in defining your character happens at level 10 when you are promoted to Lieutenant Commander and get to choose your first ship.

The three ship classes are Cruiser, Escort, and Science.

Cruisers are large with large power reserves and crew complements. They have equal weapon slots forward and aft and tend to do well with broadsiding tactics. They also have the best defenses (hull and shield) Cruisers have more engineering stations than science and tactical.

Escorts are the damage dealing ship, they are fast and maneuverable but have the weakest defenses. They are also the only class of ship able to slot the high damage cannon type weapons. They have more tactical stations than engineering and science.

Science vessels are built for support they are in between cruisers and escorts but have more science stations so they can pull of more tricks that effect other targets rather than straight damage and power allocations.

The next notable thing about defining your character is your bridge crew. You can have any number of bridge officers and up to 4 of them can join you in ground combat. They are limited to use on your ship by their rank and their specialization. Each tactical, science and engineering station on your ship can be manned by a bridge offficer and each station allows your bridge officer to use a specific skill up to the rank of the station. So a lieutenant commander at a ensign station can only use his ensign power, but if put at a Lt. Cmdr. station he can use his ensign power, Lt. power, and Lt. Cmdr. power.

Each bridge officer has 8 skills that are randomly selected from the pool for their specialization. 4 ranks of skills with one ground and one space skill at each rank. So you can promote your officers and they can use their ground skills although their space skills are still limited by station on the bridge.

Bridge officers can be obtained through quests or bought for merits (the abstract standing with starfleet) you then activate a bridge officer and either have him join the crew or train one of your crewman a new skill (replaces the old one). All bridge officers are customizable but unless they are of the "unknown" race you will be limited to what race they are.

There is also equipment that further defines your character as well as your ship. There is a variety of armor, shields, and weapons that you can equip your captain and bridge officers with. Captains get the benefit of being able to equip two weapons at once and they can also equip kits which give you different powers such as some martial arts skills or the ability to make a turret that restores allies shields.

For your ships there are different engines, shields, and other similiar things. There are also consoles which go into the bridge officer stations and provide static boosts such as magnifying powers and providing better damage resistance. Also there are a variety of weapons such as torpedoes that are good versus hulls and beam arrays that do better against shields, weapons have lots of different damage types as well as effects.

So you can make a science officer and put him in an escort and he would play a lot differently than if he was in a cruiser.

Klingons differ from the Federation in that they level up through pvp. Their ship selection is also more limited. Klingons have the advantage of being able to use any bridge officer in any station, doesn't matter their specialization.

So all in all you can make very different characters for any role you want. During CB I played a tactical officer in an escort and was tearing things up really quick. My roomate played an engineer in a Cruiser and was a great tank and also had an ability that restored my shields so if I started to take too much damage he could save my ass.

If anyone has any questions just ask and I will answer to the best of my ability.

I'm gonna give it a shot. My character name is Quagmire and my ship name is the U.S.S KobeBryant Maru

lol your a retard hahahaha

i looked and eve has a 14 day trial too so i will liekly try it in a coupel days when i am bored with rom. let me know how sto is i woudlnt mind getting into something but i refuse to dump $50 on more nonsense.

It is pretty cool, takes getting used to a sci-fi MMO environment after doing the fantasy/WoW MMO stuff for so long. The customization is pretty cool on how to build up your starship and bridge officers. It is a nice break from the typical hack and slash game, I'm actually reading the tips on what the hell to do. The very basics are there of getting an assignment to earn points/cash or whatever, typical stores, exchanges, etc...but beyond that seems pretty fresh.

The ship combat seems kind of slow but at the same time I've found myself busy manuevering around to keep my strong shields forward and using my crew abilities to keep my ship in one piece. The ground combat is a little different, flanking an enemy gets bonus dmg and you can do a 3rd person tactical shooter thing of diving out of enemy fire lines quickly by double tapping movement keys.

I'd say grab it and play it during open beta, typical shit is going to happen..shards are brought down to do emergency patches, server lag in newb areas, etc., but I think it is a nice break from the dungeon crawl thing. I've heard Cryptic had a really bad reputation for fucking up a good thing, I just hope they pull their heads of their ass on this one

I take it we have no vent server anymore..not that it was used that much If this game becomes popular and doesn't look like people will lose interest I'll fork out the cash for a 20 person vent server..pretty cheap at TypeFrag. We need to bring Josh back so he can play!! The Federation does have a drug policy though.

I am Captain Obvious aboard the U.S.S. Epic Fail

I killed the vent when I rebuilt my the server, should be back up this weekend.

I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to really test beta yet.

If I do pick up the game it will be casual when as I arena in WOW.

Yea the starter ship is kinda slow, I think Cruiser is about the same then science and escort is the zippiest. Its not really a big deal in combat unless you are trying to maneuver behind an enemy. Also if you want to turn faster you can put more power into aux and also cut your speed to somewhere between 75 and 50 % to get better turning.

Ground combat pvp can be pretty fun and it plays fast. Just equip a sniper rifle and you have good burst damage. And once you get the hang of the expose/exploit system you can pull off some impressive one shots lol. (at least on npcs)