Star Trek Online - PS4 or XBO?

[Flabyo]

The console versions of Star Trek Online launched in the US earlier this week, and are due in Europe at some point soon (I've seen the 9th mooted, but nothing official).

It's free to play, like Neverwinter was. And like Neverwinter it being a reworking of a fairly old game now means it comes with multiple years worth of expansions etc... already in place.

Watched a little bit of Twitch streaming of it, and it seems like it's probably worth trying, but I don't know whether to go XBO or PS4.

Anyone else likely to be playing and have a platform preference?

[Flabyo]

It looks like the PS4 version is available in Europe as well now, so I'm going to give that a try this evening.

Might still end up playing on XBO anyway if there's likely to be more people I know there.

[countstex]

I've played STO a littl eon PC several times over the past few years. There's some good stuff there, though it often felt like a single player game player game to me, as you always have your away team with you. Can be fun though, I found the space battles most enjoyable, long lasting naval style battles, all about ensuring your shields are up and manoeuvring to suit your current weapon systems.

No idea how it work on a controller mind!

[AndrewBrown]

I played it on Steam when it first went free2play. I enjoyed the space missions and the character customization, but in my first ground mission I gunned down about fifty Borg drones, which is pretty lol if you know about the Borg. Apparently they've improved it a lot since then, though. I'm going to give it another chance this weekend on PS4.

[Flabyo]

Initial impressions after playing on PS4 for about 5 hours last night.

The camera is awful. It has three fixed zoom levels that are basically 'far too close', 'thats just a bit further out than I'd like' and 'who can possibly play this that far zoomed out?'. Jump is on X, the advanced interaction menu is on 'hold x'. So I keep bringing it up when I don't want to. It says something about pressing in the L stick during space combat to do something with shields but it doesn't appear to do anything.

It's pretty clunky, but I've not played an MMO outside of World of Warcraft that doesn't feel a bit clunk. It's no worse than the console versions of Neverwinter though and I got on with that just fine. (Parts of it actually remind me of Anarchy Online actually)

Speaking of Neverwinter, if you know how that works on console in terms of the multiple currencies, loot boxes, injury penalties for dying etc... this is basically the same.

There don't appear to be any PvE instance queues running at the moment, so the game does feel oddly solo in experience right now.

Despite all of that though, it is pretty fun to play. I'm definitely preferring the space sections to the on foot ones, even with the poor little Miranda class ship you start with it quickly opens up lots of customisation options so you can look a little more unique. And looking at the storylines list the fact there's already 6 years or so of content in there means if you do get into it there's plenty to work through.

And when you realise there's going to be a lot of Leonard Nimoy dialogue in it, you might feel a little sad for a while.

[Flabyo]

Oh, also, playing on PS4 with PS+ it seems unlocks a few of the costume packs for free in the in-game store. So you can have everyone run around in miniskirts for no real reason.

[AndrewBrown]

I don't understand why anyone would use any costume but the fabulous Dominion War-era Starfleet uniforms. Those things were pure class.

[Flabyo]

I don't think those are free...

[AndrewBrown]

They were on PC! Very disappointing.

I spent last night playing the game, got through a few episodes. It's definitely a step up from when I played it in 2012 (the "liberate-the-colony-from-the-borg" mission was literally a small sandbox where you ran around shooting drones until you the mission ended), but I'm not sure I'm going to stick with it for the long haul.

[Flabyo]

It's very buggy at the moment, I think I'm going to leave off it for a bit and see if it gets bette with a patch or two.

[Flabyo]

So, a bit of an update, if anyone is even reading these...

The entire first arc you play (at least if you're Federation), the 'Klingon War', felt very single player to me. All the missions were just you, and were explicitly blocked from bringing in other players. That falls away though once you finish that arc and start the next, it immediately feels more like an MMO as you see other players out there doing the missions alongside you and so on. Weird that it takes until past level 20 before it actually turns into an MMO though.

Still quite buggy, quest I'm on outright crashes the PS4 every time. Most people in the in-game chat say to skip it (normally you can't skip storyline quests, this one you can, which suggests they know it's bugged)

The story setting is pretty fun if you're a Trek nerd. We're essentially still in the main prime universe, but *after* Spock got blasted back in time creating the movie one. So about 20 years after the end of DS9 / Voyager. Some characters from those shows are still around but doing new things (Janeway is an admiral leading research into what caused the supernova that destroyed the Romulans, Tuvok is captain of Voyager, etc...). The early arcs have a little bit too much reliance on time travel, but if you really know your Trek there's loads of nods to events from episodes across the whole spectrum of the show.

They need to sort out the rough edges, that camera is truly dreadful, but for a freebie it's not yet gone out of its way to push me towards buying any of the real money add ons yet. Very much like Neverwinter in that respect.

[AndrewBrown]

I still can't get on with how the game turns Borg drones into cave rats for you to grind beginner XP on.

[Flabyo]

There's apparently a story reason for why they're so weak in the game, but I'm nowhere near that far through the quest lines.

Even so, they're an odd choice for the early game grunts. You end up fighting the Gorn and Klingons for most of the first 20 levels or so once you get past that initial Borg mission. I guess they wanted a spectacle moment.


Had a little wander around DS9 in it the other day. It really highlights one of the major issues with the game, everything in the on foot parts is way too big. All the rooms, hallways and doors appear to be for characters about three time taller than you are. My guess is that it's this way to accommodate the really far out default camera, but it means that what should be tight cramped spaces on the station are vast open ones instead.

[AndrewBrown]

I remember reading about the OUTRAGE people had when they put DS9 in the game and Morn wasn't in Quark's bar. THE SCANDAL. Apparently he is now there in his proper seat, however.

[Flabyo]

Update yesterday, fixed the crash I was getting, so on we go! I've reached level 30 now so get to the first actually difficult 'which ship do you want next' choice.

Earlier ranks the choices have been between familiar yet not very cool ships.

At this rank, you pick one from Galaxy Class, Intrepid Class or Defiant Class. Yeah, you can have *one* of the big tv show ships for free, but which one?

(oh, and randomly in a large space battle quest I was playing last night the actual USS Voyager showed up to help. Nothing draws any attention to the fact, its just there, shooting away alongside everyone else)

[AndrewBrown]

Obviously the answer is Defiant Class.