Now Open Beta Is Really Over...

...and damn that was a hell of a finale!

I have to admit, even though I knew there was some sort of surprise in store, I didn't expect a Borg invasion. That was a lot of fun, but only as long as there were a decent amount of ships in the same area. Trying to take on a Borg ship solo is basically insta-death, and once enough Federation ships had left the area, there was really no point in sticking around. Still, it was a pretty awesome fleet battle while it lasted, and best of all I didn't have to take months to get myself into 0.0 space and heavily armed in order to participate, as you do in EvE. I made it out to 0.0 in EvE, but I never got a chance to participate in a major fleet battle. In STO, I've already been in a pretty decent one, and I'm betting there will be plenty more after launch.

Funny how I love both games but I've already done more varied stuff in STO in terms of space combat than I did in all the time I played EvE. Not that combat in EvE isn't good, but it's just a different kind of combat and one PvE mission is much like another except in terms of strength of the forces you go up against. There's a heck of a lot more variety in STO, and that's not even counting the ground combat, which EvE doesn't have so it's not fair to compare.

One thing that tells me that this game is going to be huge, bigger than EvE, bigger than probably most MMOs, is the forums. It's not unusual to see comment threads going on for a hundred pages or more, and that level of participation tells you something. If there are that many people motivated to participate in the forums, can you imagine how many are participating in the game?

It's no surprise to me that STO is this popular. Each mission I did was at least somewhat unique unto itself, with it's own storyline, graphics, goals, obstacles, giving it the flavor of an episode of Star Trek. One thing I would like to see is a bit more story on some of these missions, a bit more than "Help us! We need you to _______". There are some notable exceptions I discovered that were terrific such as the Guardian of Forever mission, but I'd still like to see more.

Now we really wait a few days. I'm hoping I'll be able to log in Friday and spend some time in-game. After a pretty awesome open beta and finale, I can't wait to see how they try to top it.

Well, at least now I have three full days to get some work done. Chances are, I wouldn't have had much time to play until Friday or Saturday anyway. Works for me.

First Steps Into The Final Frontier

It was only four days before it ended that I finally managed to wrangle myself a key to Star Trek Online's Closed Beta. It didn't really start off well, what with a four-hour client download, but it was interesting enough (and Star Trek enough) to hold my interest and keep playing despite the annoying "betaness" of it all.

Open beta has brought with it continuing improvements, as the game seems to become more polished and fun to play with every patch. I knew I was going to want to play this game enough that I preordered the collector's edition. I was willing to go that far sight unseen just because it's Star Trek. Once I got a taste and good idea of what this game is about, I gave STO the greatest vote of support and confidence any player can offer. I bought a lifetime subscription.

Buying a lifetime subscription to any game this early on has to be at least something of a risk, but I think it's a very safe bet that this game will be around for a while, a long while, in fact. If all goes as I anticipate, I think the folks at Cryptic are going to make a whole lot of money from this game. Still, just the fact that I'm confident the game will be around long enough to make it worth the $239 bucks I just blew on a lifetime subscription wouldn't be enough, in and of itself, to get me to shell out that much (bringing the total with the collector's edition to a little over $300 spent on STO).

No, what got me to drop the big bucks on this game is that it's fun. Even though it's more directed in certain ways than some MMOs, I feel like I'm more in control of my own experience in STO than in others. Until recently I played EvE, and in that game there reaches a point where pretty much everything you do in the game of any significance has to be done in concert with other players. I reached that point, and the problem became that my real life schedule is so irregular that there's really no way for me to coordinate with other players. In STO, I play when I want to (and have time to) play, I team when I want to team, I coordinate with other players when and as I have the time to do so. This game has a lot of what I love about EvE but almost none of what I hate about it.

And then, there's the other factor: It's Star Trek, and because it's Star Trek, it's special. No I'm not into it enough to speak fluent Klingon or anything deeply concerning like that, but I've been a fan just about all my life and so it's a comfortable and fun universe to play in.  

As far as the game itself, right now I feel like I'm just wandering around, learning what I need to learn, trying things to see what happens, all those things you do in beta that you'd probably never dare try once it counts. I'm trying and retrying missions (the last patch gave starter ships a nice power boost and some missions I couldn't solo the first time were beatable afterward), and just basically trying to learn the game as best I can before they wipe the servers and it all starts for real.

For now, at least, it really feels like the final frontier. Everything is new and and just waiting to be discovered. I've made a bet that I'll still feel that way a year or ever two years from now, a pretty expensive bet at that. Call it a hunch, but I have a feeling that it's going to pay off.

Stick around. I have a feeling this is going to get interesting.