1. Sound
The sound is okay. The musical accompaniment is Star Trek, but typically should be muted by many players after a certain time, because it repeats itself constantly. As a veteran MMO you change at some point yet again to MP3. On the plus side is that STO has a jukebox in there that it allows from the game on programs like iTunes to access music play it.
2. Graphics
In space, the graphics are solid. The ships look great and the fights come effectively therefore. During ground combat is seen but clearly the weaknesses of the engine. The environment on the ground looks very ugly and partly out only on details for characters and weapons were taken. Especially the many planets (at which you can move only in very small demarcated areas) have this shortcoming.
3. Fight
Again, it should be noted again that the fight in space works quite well. Apart from the fact that ships like the Galaxy (Enterprise of the Next Generation series) of the Mobility ago to roughly behave like gorged swine. If you fly first in one direction, then you fly out there also. No time will take "some time". The ground combat is again clearly the weakness. One sees little progress with the rise of the character. The skills are mostly redundant and the away team consisting of 4 Bridge Officers can the opponents virtually alone do (takes only a little). Strange is that the basic engine is based on Cryptic's Champions Online, which is itself only from ground combat.
4. Is Star Trek?
This is now a little more difficult. Many magazines are a know to "Trekkies" out give regarding this game. This I can not do so. Why? It's pretty simple. Let us just once before, Star Trek Online would be transferred to a Star Trek series.
The weekly episodes would consist of the following contents:
- The Enterprise warped into a system that is used by hostile Romulans, Klingons, Hirogen or whatever you called and threatened them with destruction. Instead of negotiating, all ships are destroyed first. After that beamed to the planet, pulverized everything is there, then beamed back to the ship, even pulverized a few ships and then gets a commendation Starfleet - Episode end
- Alternatively, warped into a system that scans 5 anomalies, cargo, artifacts or whatever and the supervisor would be - Episode end
- Man in a warped system sees 5 or 6 groups of enemy ships, and this ..... Episode destroyed end
- It comes in a system sees a planet, flies out beaming down, scanned a few "things" and either shoot here a few enemy aliens or finds an empty planet, after scanning - Episode end
As you can see, the variations are quite limited. 95% of the game consists of ships blow up or vaporize aliens. A stunning setting not know the weapons and ships there just by tactical approach disable is also not possible.
Add to this the problem that one depending on level speed for about 50 to 90 hours of play, the game has completely. That is, one has any available content by. In terms of new content is currently very Cryptic keeps covered. That's been a problem, as one needs to pay a month 13-14 Euro as in other games after the first 30 days. The price is higher than in other games, since you pay the monthly fee in the US plus have to pay European tax on it (and every month, the EU wirds pleased).
5. Conclusion:
The basic structure of the game is not bad per se, but by the ever repetitive missions, STO is very boring. MMO veterans will feel challenged, as the game is veeeery easy. One can not really die in PVE, if you do not necessarily daring enough. A long-term motivation is not currently available, as there are at level 45 nothing to do, except that you collect brands by a daily quest, which allows players access to mostly useless objects. These Cryptic tried to give the game by missing information more depth what strikes miserably failed. Due to lack of descriptions for objects, you can often only guess what certain bonuses allow. This brings no depth to the game, but only creates room for frustration.
All in all it is an unfinished game with monotonous missions, which after 45 levels you through.
Note from 05.03.2010
The first "instance" (STO when they are called Special Task Force) has been deployed on the server yesterday. There is an average debacle. The space combat is very short with about 15-20 minutes. After three hours come consisting of blunt Trash Grind in ground combat. After the first half of the map you will encounter a boss who is not a boss. It is very easy to defeat. The end boss is endless errors and poor gameplay mechanics almost invincible. Tactically, the battle is there to compare very simple and with WoW in its early days. Only problem is that, in 2010 hardly anyone can more delight with such content that would have been OK in 2005. This is especially true if the whole thing is wrong without end
Finally, it should be noted again that the long-term motivation is still missing. Once you have the instance once, the game is over. There is no reason to harm this seizure more than once. The items are no better than what you would otherwise get, and there is nothing else special.
