OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

[Pattern Ghost]

I think I know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask just in case:

When you zoom close to your character, the camera jumps over to stand to the character's right. It's super annoying. Any way to make it not do that?

Finished first mission after tutorial. Or maybe it was a continuation of the tutorial, I dunno. Rescue mission that rewards you with second crew member. Was OK. Controls are still a bit to get used to. Clunky is a word that comes to mind, but still pretty playable.

I like it well enough, but the length of the missions (do this! great! now do that! thanks! can you just do just one more little thing for me... ) makes me not want to login unless I'm sure that I'm going to have enough time to sit through one without interruptions. Given the medical stuff, I haven't logged in as much as I otherwise might have.

[RexMundi]

I'm getting the hang of it now. Almost regret shelling out a couple of bucks for a Tier 3 ship but I couldn't help it always liked the looks of the Excelsior Class....

Got up to Captain and snagged me a freebie Galaxy Class to wallow around in...... May tweak it's look a little bit if I can get over my OCD long enough to pull the trigger on a look I like, heh...

~Rex

[Nolgroth]

I started playing last Thursday after I was sorely disappointed with another space game ( Evochron Mercenary) that I paid for. I figured the worst that could happen is that I wouldn't want to play a game that was basically free. On the contrary, I am hooked like I never was with Champs Online. There is a sense that this game was built so that I could have fun all by myself and didn't have to have other players to back me up. At the same time, I can jump into a fleet action and have had enormous amounts of fun (and even more frustration) doing so.

Right now I am running around in something that basically looks like the new movie's Enterprise. I sort of miss my old compact Light Cruiser, but the addition of the extra hardpoint in the aft makes up for it. I got to play around with the 2nd Anniversary event ship (can't remember the name) and have an unlock for it when I reach Rear Admiral rank. That thing was glorious, with something like 8 hardpoints, 6 of which were Phaser Arrays and two were Quantum Torpedo launchers. Wish I had that sucker when I responded to the Borg assault fleet action.

And that brings me to my biggest tip of the day; DON'T DO THE BORG FLEET ACTION quest until you are ready. I dropped into that thing with my Light Cruiser. I successfully managed to get the attention of a Borg cube and then successfully got obliterated in less than three seconds after that. A complete success! Of course, I am judging success by the fact that I successfully accomplished the unintended goal of getting owned. Worse, the cubes had moved up close to the spawn point so I was batting 0/10 by the time I was able to get away from the mission.

I would not go back into that quest with anything less than a Galaxy class with the highest level shields, phasers, and photon torpedoes I could muster. Further, Shield Batteries and an Ensign with the Emergency Power to Shields ability would be on my list of absolute minimums. Another Engineer with Emergency Repair would be nice too. Somehow, I get the feeling that would still only delay the inevitable.

The anti-Klingon action at Starbase 24 was also tough, but at least there I gave more than I got.

The incidental patrol and exploration missions have been great fun. The storyline missions have been fun too. Overall, this is the MMO I have been waiting for. It does a good job, IMO, of capturing the feel of Star Trek. There are some oddities (the queue for entering the Starfleet base and Memory Alpha) but overall, I felt like I was in the Star Trek universe. The ships are excellently rendered and space combat is pretty awesome. The game also does a fair job of mixing ship and ground play into one game. It isn't entirely seamless, but it is close.

Crafting is a bit cumbersome. I want to craft more, but having to travel all the way to Memory Alpha just to do some crafting is a little annoying. And by a little, I really mean a lot. I understand DS-9 has some crafting areas in it too, but I have not made it there yet.

[Nolgroth]

I'm getting the hang of it now. Almost regret shelling out a couple of bucks for a Tier 3 ship but I couldn't help it always liked the looks of the Excelsior Class....

You and me both. One of the greatest designs from Star Trek of any period. My other favorite is the Voyager. I didn't really like the series, but I do like the lines on that ship.

[Vanguard]

I gave it a try after I gave up on Battlestar Galactica Online.

And like some here, I'm hooked. Not 100% sure what I'm doing but just made it to Lt Commander tonight and have outfitted my new little Escort and have been able to do some damage.

I'm a bit too timid to try any of the "fleet" actions since I don't think I'm up to par just yet and I'm not sure how to enter them solo (not that's a good idea but . . . ).

As for being Free to Play do far I haven't really run into any restrictions that are "forcing" me to purchase any Cryptic Points. (Although, I have looked into it and it REALLY irritates me that every time I try and look at purchasing them it redirects me to the Perfect World website and they want me to first purchase Zen and then convert it (100 Zen = 80 Cryptic Points) to CPs. I'd rather just purchase the CPs directly.

Other than that, I like the ship-to-ship combat. It does feel like a Star Trek battle and the ground combat is just as entertaining. The cool thing about both the space and ground missions is that they're not all "go here and kill that". You get to do research and other type of stuff too.

Basically I think it's one of the better free-to-play games out there . . .

[Nolgroth]

Don't forget that you can also play fan created content. Played one today that was totally in the tradition of the classic time loop episodes that you see from time to time.

[Tom]

I was shocked to discover I can actually run it on my machine. I get a message telling me my graphics card is pathetic by gamer standards, but it allows me to run it at reduced settings. I haven't done much past the tutorial, but my notoriously short attention span for video games hasn't cut in yet.

(course, it's Trek and I'm in the mood for some sci fi -- on the down side, I'm not on 'vacation' anymore and work has a wonderful way of draining all my available brain cells)

[RexMundi]

Damn tempted to start over now that I kinda know what I'm doing......

~Rex

[Nolgroth]

Damn tempted to start over now that I kinda know what I'm doing......

~Rex

I want to try it again with another archetype.

[Nolgroth]

Alrighty then. After clocking in roughly 175 hours, I gave up. For the most part, I was enjoying the game, but it got to a point where Cryptic broke my one, golden rule; I hate to restart a mission. Period. I can tolerate it once or maybe twice, but when it exceeds that, I get frustrated and angry. Now I am at that point where the frustration far outweighs whatever nuggets of fun I was having.

Specific Issue: I am a Level 50 Tactical Officer with Level XI rated gear from the M.A.C.O. store. My skills are all geared towards attack and defense. I beam down to a planet. I see a lowly grunt. I shoot him. He takes a quarter of his shields, stands up and shoots me dead in two shots. This is happening more often now, in general, but especially in the Quest missions (specifically the Romulan storyline). To make matters worse, my landing party always seems to be outnumbered 2:1. In addition, it seems like the storyline spawned NPC ships cheat. I have a special ability to drop a miniature singularity to trap ships. Even the Borg PVE ships at least get slowed down. Not so with the Romulan ships. It doesn't even faze them.

Since I have ground through as much of the PVE and PVP areas as I can stomach, the only thing I had left was the quest. Being as there seems to be some serious balance issues, I figure it is time to give up. Sad, because I truly thought this was going to be the online game that won me over. At first it did a really solid job of it too. Not sure why I felt the need to share, but it was cathartic getting that frustration out somewhere.

[RexMundi]

I Just started over again. I've noticed a lot of tweaks here and there. So far it's my alternate, free time to burn not wanting to think to much entertainment. Before I started over I had gotten to around 33rd or so, so I haven't run into something like that. Could be a fluke, then again it could be mmo power creep as well.

Anyway back to putting around in my ship, heh....

~Rex

[Pattern Ghost]

Alrighty then.

Could it just be a bug with the Romulan units? Mebbe take a break until they fix it, and maybe put in some new content as well.

[Nolgroth]

Could it just be a bug with the Romulan units? Mebbe take a break until they fix it, and maybe put in some new content as well.

Well a break is inevitable anyway. Mass Effect 3 hits the shelves a day before my vacation.

I have been having a blast playing the Co-OP multiplayer demo with my son and some of his friends.

[Nolgroth]

Anyway back to putting around in my ship, heh....

~Rex

Ship combat is still pretty cool, but I was getting burned out on the grinding. A little unsolicited advise for Tactical officers; get an escort, mount cannons, train bridge officers in Cannon Rapid Fire. Approach an enemy ship. Pop the Rapid Fire ability and a Weapons Battery. Observe the sheer destruction that ensues. That is what will ultimately bring me back, if anything does.

[John T]

Been in STO off and on since P2P days, not much lost with F2P. I'm online there periodically, if anyone here wants to friend me @Captain_Thiraas there. Can also introduce to folks there that I know from CoH, and have two fleets, the Paragon Expeditionary Fleet and the Arachnos Armada, if anyone's so inclined.