Star Trek Online

I'll be staying clear of that one. 3 months of beta-testing means it'll be full of bugs and exploits.

When you need a key for open beta it's not really an open beta, but a marketing stunt. If you didnt sign up for the beta a long time ago you can probably only get the key from places like Fileplanet etc.

I've been signed up for the closed beta for ages with the usual no response.  *sigh*

I'm not a big fan of Cryptic, but I was pleasantly surprised with how fun Champions Online was over that free weekend a short time ago.  Lots of flaws in the game, but I was having too much fun zapping things with my power armor to care.  Spent hours in the power training room setting and resetting skills to try them out and match them to my character.  It greatly amused me that you could focus on picking powers that matched the aesthetics of how you thought your character should fight and actually end up with a strong hero.

Anyway, the few ship specs they've released seem pretty interesting, and I like the idea of the three different ship classes requiring different tactics and officers to use effectively.  The space battles are almost assuredly going to feel like ST, though I'm worried the game's popularity may be hurt by repeated admissions that they're going to be between slow, lumbering ships exploiting firing angles as today's gamers seem more entertained by zipping around at high speed.

The ground battles still look terrible from the little I've seen.  Multiple modes on hand phasers and batt'leths being strong points, I was left pretty dismayed and confused when I heard an article reference a 'gatling phaser'.  That's going to be awfully strange if nonstandard away team equipment becomes commonplace.

The recent news that ship bridges are in definitely bumps up my hopes for the game, but with The Old Republic on its way and WoW still stomping everything to death that dares rise up against it, I'm wary and afraid it won't last long.

I am very excited about it . I am not an MMORPG fan, but it's Star Trek and it is supposed to have different mechanics than "classic" MMORPGs, especially for the space battles, which look alot like in Star Trek: Starfleet Command. I will definitely try it out.

If it cost money per month, I'm out of it.  (Obviously I have no researched this game).

I've lost 2 years of my life to Evercrack, and I'm done with paying and feeling obligated to play an MMORPG.

Cannot wait.

I like MMOs and I like star trek, so I signed up in spetember. TBH I'm not into MMOs at the moment, but I just want to play with the star trek stuff for an hour or so!

I'm a huge Trek fan, but MMO = NoNoNo . Wish someone would redo Elite Force with the HL2 engine or maybe a new Armada game.

I'll subscribe once the client is free, I refuse to pay 50$ for the first month of play.

I'll try it out. I do play Eve. I'll also try The Old Republic... other than that no other mmos are really interesting to me...

DethAdder- I agree it would be sweet for a remake of Elite Fore and Star Trek Armarda 3... hell Bridge Commander and Starfleet Command wouldn't hurt either...

What lordkosc said.  MMO clients should be at most $20.  $15 for the first month, $5 for the DVD and manual.  Paying $50 at launch at be a late beta tester is just foolish.  No MMO has EVER been solid at launch.  Usually at least 3-6 months to iron out server problems, major bugs, exploits, etc.

I actually remember downloading the original STO demo back before cryptic picked it up. It looked interesting, but since then it looks like Cryptic has put some work in and its going to actually continue the storyline instead of parralleling the already established shows. I look forward to it dropping and Ill be picking it up.

I've purchased a few over the years myself, but I absolutely hate the bussiness model they use. It's a cash grab up front and the idea that once that happens you'll feel obligated enough to keep forking out a monthly fee even as they fix the game to the status it should have been at release.

The last one I purchased was a year after it's release and included the expansion pack. Alternatively, maybe they should give 60-90 days if they insist on a quick paycheck upfront.

The reviews are coming in....and they're not very gentle.  Even IGN (who are about as lenient as they come) only gives STO a 6.8 rating.  Gamespy has been the harshest so far, only rating it 2 out of 5 stars. 

Pretty simple...  when ME1 and ME2 give you a better "Star Trek feel" than the actual Star Trek franchise, then it's doomed.

Cryptic really dropped the ball on this one.  And Star Trek fans are not forgiving.  This is going to get a lot uglier before it gets forgotten.  Cryptic may not recover.

I'd like to know how ME1 and ME2 resemble anything like Star Trek, let alone more than STO.

Oh I see that was hyberbole.

If you don't see any of the game mechanics that Cryptic took from ME1 and tried to replicate them in STO, then I apologize for your short-sightedness.  Right down to the number of team members you can bring on away missions...  You're right, it doesn't resemble ME1 and ME2.  Because it was POORLY implemented.  If they would have exactly copied it, it wouldn't be such a clunky mess.

The only thing that really makes it truly different is the space combat and MMO aspect, both of which are arguably poorly done.

The only thing Star Trek about STO are the skins. When you have to put a fictional universe typically based on exploration, diplomacy and peace in a constant state of war just to get your game to make sense, you know there is very little trek involved.

Star Trek has had some war, namely conflicts with the Borg and the whole Dominion Wars thing.  And the Earth-Romulan war.  And the conflicts between the UFP and the Klingons.  Sure, TOS and TNG were peaceful, but aside from that there's been a lot of war in the ST universe.

I played on my friends account the last couple days because he wanted me to start playing also. Gotta say not my cup of tea. The space battles are fun for awhile, but oh my god away missions make me want to vomit. So bad, terribad actually.

It wasn't constant war though. I mean, there is a quest in this game that pretty much has you beem down to a Bar and pretty much kill everyone in it because of an argument. DS9 had it's Dominion Wars, sure, but it wasn't war war war the entire series. Voyager had a lot of battles too but it wasn't constant battles either. STO pretty much divdes up all the species and puts them on Team A or Team B and says fight.

Don't get me wrong. I liked the space battles, but there wasn't enough there for me as a gamer to keep me interested and there certainly wasn't enough trek to make me wait around to see what else they might do with it.

Humm sounds as if they leaned too heavily on the idea of short attention span fools who made barrens chat famous...

Oh wait, thats the mass market. Damn.

I really like WoW, but I just went mostly clean too. Raiding was seriously affecting real life. It's only been two days, but I'm already sleeping better, my wife is happier, and I've seen more of my friends.

Right now I'm a super casual player instead of the serious raider I used to be. Much better.

I raided in EQ2 which was kinda fun but it got very boring very fast when your not at the top be you still have to repeat 5 boring runs every week. Not to mention surrounded by some idiots.

Instead I got into playing duo. Its a nice challange and way more fun. We duo the solo content (usually by pulling as many mobs as possible and AOE em down) the group quests and most of the normal difficulty dungeons. We found that in some places you simple REQUIRE 3 players. Without the basic architype of tank healer dps the game dosn't function. But we don't have a 3rd person that fits our play style.

This is the main problem when trying other MMOs, is it going to be a fun duo experince or is it going to be forcing larger groups?