I like Star Trek, but never played STO. Just wondering from people who have how well it compares to swtor. Has anyone played the F2P version? How is that?

I've heard the story and VA isn't as good as this game, but what game is? I've been reading some excellent LPs though and they've made me curious.

I'm not too impressed with swtor's content drought (SoE excepted) and looking for another game, preferably one that I can play free.

Character customisation options are streets ahead of SWTOR's, although they tend to look a bit stiiff compared to SWTOR's.

Most missions consist of arriving at a system, having a big fight in space, and then going down onto a planet and fighting there as well. Space combat is deeply not fun, and there's a couple of seriously OP abilities that are easy to get hold of, allowing you to suck off all of an enemy ship's shields, (Er, yes, some enemies have this ability, too, and will use it against you. It's still OP.)

The storytelling is fairly standard Star Trek, with the usual suspects as foes and allies.

Firstly I haven't played for a few years now so I don't know how much has changed.

I'm a big fan of Star Trek (I live for TNG and DS9), so I found the stories very enjoyable. I liked the locations visited and the different alien species which we rarely see in the show have more prominence. I love the look/variety of the ships (the kid in me still gets excited seeing a Romulan D'deridex or a Klingon Bird of Prey) and I remember really enjoyed their Christmas Event.

What turned me off were the space battles, I found them very boring and tedious and ultimately it was what stopped me engaging further into the stories/game. This is 100% my personal opinion and you may find the space battles lots of fun but for me they were the killer that stopped me going back.

If you like Star Trek I would definitely give it a go and see for yourself.

I've been enjoying it. Found a fun guild (Fleet). It helps if you are a Star Trek fan, for certain. Plays a bit like a cross between EVE online and Mass Effect. The game is OLD (almost 12 years I guess) and feels a bit... not so much clunky, but not as smooth as SWTOR, as far as some of the character animations go, though the player character still feels very life like. The vertex weighting is not as good as it is in SWTOR. (That's one of the things that I have always been very impressed with in SWTOR).

While the game is free to play and playable without spending a dime, there is a cash market. Some things are not so expensive and some things are. A "costume" can be around $5 while some of the "expansion pack" are $120. But as I said, you don't really "need" any off that stuff. The random loot boxes are a little different. The boxes are free... the keys to open them are not. So the gambling wall for some items is there and can get expensive. There is also a market in game where you can trade cash currency for one of the in game currencies.

The other players tend to be helpful to new players, but like any MMO your going to have some that aren't. Most will tell you to play the game a little bit before you drop any real money on it.

Personally I think the game is worth a download to try out. You can run it through Steam I guess, or Arc has it's own thing similar to Origin. How much you enjoy the game is very likely to depend on how much you like Star Trek. If you decide it's not for you, then you haven't lost anything but time. There are some things I had trouble with when first tried playing it. For instance to login, you might have to use the email rather than user name or it won't work. The security "AI" they use is very proactive. It doesn't take much to set it off and it will prevent new players from logging in, or doing certain higher risk activities, such as trading cash market items with other players until a week long cooldown expires, for example. However, my experience with their customer service has been positive thus far.

Anyhow, just a little rundown off what I have seen from the game in my week or so playing it. Mileage may very.

I'd really like to like STO. Some pretty big design decisions play many of my heartstrings.. Things like ship, ship to ship combat, bridgecrew being such prominent parts of the game..that stuff rubs my navy fetish well enough!

Sadly, it all looks and plays just too janky and feels so dated and low budget somehow. Like age old OG Star Trek tv show. I can't quite get into it.

I like Star Trek, but never played STO. Just wondering from people who have how well it compares to swtor. Has anyone played the F2P version? How is that?

 

I've heard the story and VA isn't as good as this game, but what game is? I've been reading some excellent LPs though and they've made me curious.

 

I'm not too impressed with swtor's content drought (SoE excepted) and looking for another game, preferably one that I can play free.

don't know if you still visit, but i was 'away' for a while. I found it a good game, but the combat gets more repetitive than here. Saying that, they have tons more content, so it will take you a while to get through it all. The space combat is more fun than here, but can be a bit difficult to use. I'd sign up as a free player, give it a look, and if you enjoy it, I'd sub.

Also, I've been trying some other games

Magic the gathering MMO is on beta, it's a little basic at the moment, but is improving, and looks like it's going to be really fun, beta is open and free, worth a look

FF14 has a free option at the moment, again, I gave it a go, it has cross platform play which is cool, as I was able to join the same server as my sons, and he gave me the noob tour (normally the other way around, he was delighted...lol) But i enjoyed it so much, I subbed, and pre ordered the new xpac. Another game definitely worth a look

GW2 is fun, although I haven't been tempted to sub, yet. But it's fun, and has enough content as a free player.

I tried LoTR, was ok, but nothing that kept pulling me back.

Neverwinter is the same.

If I think of anymore before my time here runs out, I'll add them...lol

I stopped playing STO after a few months of playing.

I was leveling up through the story to get used to the game and to help dictate if endgame was even worth it, especially since I was spoiled by SWTOR story-wise and wanted to see how STO held up by comparison. Customization was awesome, as well as some of the quests. Never payed much attention to text-based questing in MMOs, but STO was certainly an exception (or was STO voiced?). I did hate that the default dialogue of one particular quest was to kill someone, with the other, more merciful option being locked behind a crafting skill. It was out of character for me and really killed the experience.

As soon as you reach the level bracket of the expansions, the game expected you to have expansion tier gear. Due to level scaling, I got creamed, with my only option to to induce myself into endgame. Obviously I did not like the game enough to bother with that, no thanks to this.

I stopped playing STO after a few months of playing.

 

I was leveling up through the story to get used to the game and to help dictate if endgame was even worth it, especially since I was spoiled by SWTOR story-wise and wanted to see how STO held up by comparison. Customization was awesome, as well as some of the quests. Never payed much attention to text-based questing in MMOs, but STO was certainly an exception (or was STO voiced?). I did hate that the default dialogue of one particular quest was to kill someone, with the other, more merciful option being locked behind a crafting skill. It was out of character for me and really killed the experience.

 

As soon as you reach the level bracket of the expansions, the game expected you to have expansion tier gear. Due to level scaling, I got creamed, with my only option to to induce myself into endgame. Obviously I did not like the game enough to bother with that, no thanks to this.

The problem is, story wise, swtor players are really spoiled, if this is your first mmo, and then you go to another it can be very disappointing. I've never had any mission where you needed a crafted item to pick an option, might have been introduced after I stopped, or I might have had the item already. But that does seem like a really bad choice.

I've gone back a couple of times, tried other factions, etc, but was so heavily involved with this, I didn't spend too much time there, might give it a go when my sub finishes for old time sake, and see what's changed