And So Now We Wait...

...for four very long days.

They finally pulled the plug on STO Open Beta just a few minutes ago as I write this. I can't complain. Despite the server going up and down like a yo-yo during most of it, I got plenty of play time, more than enough to explore and get a pretty good idea of what this game is about, or at least, where it's starting from. I've fought Klingons, Nausicans, and Gorn, I've rescued ships and planets in distress...in fact I've done a hell of a lot.

A pity I never got my promotion to Lt. Commander. I'd earned it, I just didn't get to Earth Spacedock in time to make it official. Oh well, it doesn't really matter, anyway. With what I learned in beta, I'll be promoted quickly enough, especially with the head start.

It's funny. The last time I was in beta for a Cryptic game, Champions, I was thoroughly unimpressed. Lots of people apparently love the game, but it just didn't do it for me. I joined the Champions beta thinking I'd love it because I was a huge comics fan as a kid, but for some reason I just didn't find it to be all that great, certainly not enough to invest real money in. Yet, here I am investing piles of money in a different Cryptic game. While certain aspects of the ground battles in STO are very reminiscent of Champions, the rest of it is completely different. I didn't care for the ground combat as it was presented in Champions, but in STO it works, in large part because the style of combat fits the game better than Champions, and I'm slowly becoming pretty good at it. I just wish is that they'd started open beta earlier so I'd had a little more time to practice.

I was talking to a friend tonight and told her that I'd gotten the STO collector's edition and a lifetime subscription to the game. She thought I was crazy for spending that much on a video game, saying for that I could buy myself an XBox for that money. I had to laugh. What could I possibly need an XBox for when I have a nice, fast, relatively brand-new PC? If I want crappy games with substandard graphics, I don't need to buy XBox games, there are plenty of those for the PC, too.

But I digress...

Actually, while I have no interest in owning an XBox and consider it a source of pride that I have never and will never own one, my friend's comment did get me thinking: $300+ is not a bank-breaker but it is a significant amount of money for me, more than I've ever spent on any single game. Even if you totaled up all the subscription time, maps, and other stuff I've bought relevant to playing EvE I doubt it's as much in total as I've already spent on STO, and the frakking game hasn't even launched yet.

I don't know if it's just the fact that I'm a total Trekkie and had to have it all, or something else. I know I'm critical of video games enough just in general and MMOs in particular that if I didn't really like the game there's no way I'd buy a lifetime subscription, Star Trek or not. I did buy a year's subscription to EvE but RL got in the way and I didn't play very much for the second half of that year. These days, I'm kind of skittish about investing in a game I'm not sure of and tend to go with the quarterly plan, as I did when I played Fallen Earth.

This time, I don't know, it just felt right so I went for it. A game I enjoy playing, based on a sci-fi universe I dearly love, and one that looks like it's going to be hugely popular and therefore successful and long-running. STO gives every indication of being a Trekkie's wet dream that only gets even better over time, and that, for me, is worth every penny. Sure there are technical bugs right now, but if the quality of the game itself, the story, the graphics, the gameplay, stays as high as what I've seen (and hopefully gets even better) I believe this game is going to be a serious contender in the MMO wars.

STO offers me something that an XBox will never give me, and I don't have to play with pottymouthed fourteen-year-olds to get it. Thank Goddess most at that age don't really care about Star Trek, and will go off and kill orcs with other foulmouthed children...elsewhere.

Now I feel like a little girl who already knows what she's getting for her birthday but doesn't know exactly what it'll look like when she tears open the wrapping paper. Sure, I have an idea of what to expect on Friday, but I also know there's a lot we haven't seen yet.

In the meantime, I suppose we can speculate, and perhaps I will, but in my next post. It's now 2am local time, and it's time to hit the sack.

Four days is a long time.

UPDATE: Literally seconds after I posted this, Cryptic announced that they are extending Open Beta until Tuesday at 6pm! Woo-hoo!