OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

[Pattern Ghost]

Looks like STO went FTP on the 17th. I'm downloading it now. Anyone else try it out yet? Opinions? Is the FTP model as liberal as the CO one? (IE, lots of stuff to do for the freeps.)

[RexMundi]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

Actually far more liberal in a lot of ways. Tried it, and it tends to occupy more of my time then the CO which I am paying for. Considering reversing that situation.

 

~Rex

[sinanju]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

I'm playing with it. I tried the FTP Champions Online and only played around with it once or twice. (I've spent more time designing costumes in it than playing it by far, though there's no good way I've found to export useful pictures).

 

STO has been more entertaining, though I have very little idea what I'm doing compared to what I think I _could_ be doing. Still, it's been fun. The space battles are fun. The ground combat is less so. I've been slavishly following the tutorials so as to learn as much as I could until recently. Now I'm just tooling around the universe in the USS Heavy Metal seeing what's there to be seen.

[Greywind]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

I've been fiddling with it, but the laptop I get online with has been overheating. CO is bad. STO is a lot worse. I can only assume that it's the graphics pushing one of the processors.

[dmjalund]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

I'm playing with it. I tried the FTP Champions Online and only played around with it once or twice. (I've spent more time designing costumes in it than playing it by far, though there's no good way I've found to export useful pictures).

 

STO has been more entertaining, though I have very little idea what I'm doing compared to what I think I _could_ be doing. Still, it's been fun. The space battles are fun. The ground combat is less so. I've been slavishly following the tutorials so as to learn as much as I could until recently. Now I'm just tooling around the universe in the USS Heavy Metal seeing what's there to be seen.

Boldly going forward 'cause you cannot find reverse

[CptPatriot]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

I'm playing with it. I tried the FTP Champions Online and only played around with it once or twice. (I've spent more time designing costumes in it than playing it by far, though there's no good way I've found to export useful pictures).

 

STO has been more entertaining, though I have very little idea what I'm doing compared to what I think I _could_ be doing. Still, it's been fun. The space battles are fun. The ground combat is less so. I've been slavishly following the tutorials so as to learn as much as I could until recently. Now I'm just tooling around the universe in the USS Heavy Metal seeing what's there to be seen.

 

The new powerhouse has a green screen room, so you can do your screenshots and set your alpha channel to the background color. Just remember to turn antialiasing off to make separating the background easier. Another piece of advice is to try using screenshots with TGA instead of JPG to eliminate JPG artifacting.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

I had Malwarebytes alerts on a Moldovan IP address trying to gain access through Pando Media Booster today, after installing the game last night.

 

I already had Pando Media Booster installed, but it was set not to run in the background. Apparently, the good folks at Perfect World saw fit to turn that setting off for me.

 

PMB is allegedly safe, and it's possible the IP address is a dynamic one that some legit user (or even a scammer legitimately playing the game is possible I suppose) got it today.

 

Either way, it's annoying that the bastards are stealing my bandwidth without asking. Turbine backed off on leaving the thing run in the background after taking flak for this issue. Some people have very limited plans, and have found themselves on the receiving end of very large bills or having their access cut off or restricted for exceeding their bandwidth because of this program. (Not a huge issue for me, but folks in other countries have been burned by this.)

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

Got my Vulcan science officer, T'Pau of the USS Heart and Soul through the tutorials last night. Pretty interesting game. Lots of stuff to keep track of and lots of keybinds to remember.

[sinanju]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

USS Heart and Soul, eh?

 

I'm flying the USS Heavy Metal (named after that ship in others of my games, named after the movie).

 

I've seen the USS Peter Venkman, which amused me greatly.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

Yeah, I can't believe another smart-alec didn't think of it already. =)

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

Speaking of ship names, when you get a new ship, do you have to get a new name? Or can you reuse the same name on the new ship, either by repeating it or just renaming the first ship to something else and renaming the new ship to the first name?

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

Boldly going forward 'cause you cannot find reverse

 

I tried some space battles today. I drive like a drunken maniac, but it was pretty fun.

 

Do the things have a reverse? 'Cause that'd help.

[Greywind]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

Speaking of ship names' date=' when you get a new ship, do you have to get a new name? Or can you reuse the same name on the new ship, either by repeating it or just renaming the first ship to something else and renaming the new ship to the first name?[/quote']

Eh, not sure. I've got a ShiKahr-class U.S.S. Cumberland and an Excalibur-class U.S.S. Defiance.

[Greywind]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

I tried some space battles today. I drive like a drunken maniac, but it was pretty fun.

 

Do the things have a reverse? 'Cause that'd help.

Keep mashing Q. Otherwise, there's a double arrow underneath the speedometer.

[Scott Heine]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

Yeah, I gave it a try. I didn't enjoy it for some reason. It's not that I dislike the genre or anything, and I think they've done a creative job implementing Trek into an MMO. But gameplay itself just felt cumbersome, and I often found myself trying to figure out where I was, what I was supposed to be doing, what were my long-term goals, etc. By the time I was stuck chasing around the academy trying to beat out other players in order to click on these floating blinkies with absolutely no idea why, I kinda lost interest.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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

 

~Rex

[Nolgroth]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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]

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet?

 

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.