I've been following Star Trek Online for some time now, as I saw it when it was nothing but concept art and developers theorizing what it would be like within an office party of the now defunct Perpetual Entertainment at the Game Developers Conference a few years ago. I had more worries and became less confident of the game after the shake-up, because for the most part the last well-known sci-fi property to be adapted into the MMO format Star Wars didn't fly too well, and then there's of course the Statgate MMO that has stalled in development hell. After getting into the Star Trek Online to play the game for myself, however, I find my worries relieved and replaced now with a newfound enjoyment and thrill at the possibility as to what might come next. There's a learning curve for even veteran MMO players, but once the ropes are learned the game's a blast to play.



Players start by choosing their character, which offers two different ways to go. If you want a basic character, you can choose from a handful of traditional alien races from Star Trek lore, ranging from Humans to Vulcans. While it might be frowned upon by the more uptight Star Trek lore enthusiasts that insist on canon being adhered to the letter, the much more appealing choice is to make your own alien race. Though not as epic and all encompassing as Cryptic's brilliant Champions Online character creation toolset, Star Trek Online's comes pretty darn close. There's a ton of choices to be made, as there's a bunch of different options for colors, ears, noses, facial features, facial hair, and much more. The features of your alien can then be further tweaked by adjusting the sliders to produce things such as longer arms, elongated craniums, short aliens, tall aliens, etc. By the time I was finished, my character felt distinctly like my own, and made the experience of leading my captain that much more engaging.



After you select your character, you're thrust into the heat of things, as the Borg are attacking your ship. Some people have said that having such a fearsome foe be so easily dispatched in the opening is doing the game a disservice, but for the most part it felt right to me. The Borg are a species that even more casual fans of Star Trek are familiar with, so it's only proper to use them so early-on, even if they're just going to get their butts kicked during the tutorial. People have got to remember that Cryptic aren't just trying to make a game that appeals to the diehard fans, but to newcomers as well.



By the time you've finished the tutorial, you'll have learned the ropes of the game's main two components: ground and space combat. It's funny to see it in chat, but it's pretty evenly split between those who enjoy the ground combat more and those who enjoy space combat more. Personally, I enjoyed them both, but more different reasons. One thing I noticed is that neither combat mode felt like a more traditional MMO, which to me is a good thing. While having such distinct modes from the competition made the learning curve steeper than I would've thought, ultimately the end justifies the means, and by the time you've spent a few hours with the game, you've got the feel of things.



Ground combat is much more action oriented and free flowing than merely tapping a key, running into position, and then attacking the enemy with a handful of keystrokes. Instead, players can flank enemies, sprint away, duck and roll, perform melee combat, and much more. Ground moves have a very short cool-down timer too, so you won't be waiting long for new moves to be unleashed. Another way in which the game is different is that you rarely go into combat alone, as you usually have a team of officers at your disposal. Officers come in three flavors: tactical, engineering, and science. Tactical officers would be most closely associated with warriors and tanks, as they're all about bringing the firepower. The engineering troops, meanwhile, are more for debuffs and crowd control, and science officers are the medical doctors and healers of the group. While you'll usually handpick your away team based on the captains you have, if you go into combat with a group of other players, you'll usually only go down with your captain character (or with NPC helpers split between how many people involved in the fight).



When it comes to space combat, it's hard to compare it to anything for reference beyond the Pirates of the Burning Sea, though replace pirate ships with space ships and give the game a new spatial axis to play with. Combat in space is definitely slow, but more so in a tactical chess match sort of way. Space combat is also arguably the hardest combat mode to get used to, as there's a lot of factors to be mindful of when attacking or being attacked. How far do I have to get to attack? Should I focus my energy on attack, defense, speed, or a balance of all of them? Should I try to build one of my four shield zones up or focus on them all at once? When is the proper time to unleash one of my captain's special moves? Which enemy should I focus on first? Should I press them with my front or get them with my side weapons? There's a lot to understand in the beginning, but it doesn't take too long to get in the groove of things.



Space combat is primarily concerned around the proper positioning of your ship and the maintenance of its shields; every ship has shields, which when depleted leaves their hull vulnerable and then open for attack and being destroyed. A ship's shields come in four quadrants: front, back, left, and right. As enemy fire depletes a shield quadrant, it makes you more open to death. When your shields start to deplete, it's up to you to use consumables to heal/raise yourself, use reserve energy to focus on healing and maintaining one quadrant, healing all quadrants at once, and/or trying to maneuver your ship so that its weak side is away from the enemy so that it can recover. Meanwhile, players have weapons in the front, side, and back, so that some weapons aren't available unless the proper port/position is facing the enemy. There's also various powers that captains can use to quickly lower an enemy's shield, raise your attack power, etc. So, as you can see, space combat is very focused on strategy and proper ship placement.



Another factor I like about Star Trek Online is its grouping system. First up, there are large-scale instance zones, where many players can go and fight, usually trying to kill so many enemies, and then once conditions are met players are rewarded for their efforts based on how much they contributed; think of the open quests of Warhammer and Champions Online. The feature I liked most, however, was how the game will instant group people should they be attempting the same quest in the same sector. I'm one to go solo most of my time and only join a group to complete group content, but by having Star Trek Online force me into groups, I actually found myself enjoying the game more. There were a few times where I instantly left a group after a quest was done (usually because they didn't talk any), but there were sometimes where I'd find a group, we'd chat, and then continue on and tackle several other quests while we were together.



When you aren't partaking on missions or doing world quests, most of your time will be spent inside a space station. While in a space station, you can run around and find new quests, go to the various stores to buy equipment for both your characters and ships, buy new ships, visit the bank, etc. You can even customize your ship by either choosing one of several defaults or by picking the pieces and the details of those parts. The space stations also make for great meeting places and a way to show off your character to other people.



Perhaps the best thing about Star Trek Online is how well the game manages to capture the feel of the franchise. Whether it's the game client patcher you tell to "engage" or the visual of Deep Space Nine coming into view as you're on approach, the game simply feels like the franchise Roddenberry started all those years ago. I've only been able to play a handful of hours of early content, so things might change, but the only aspect that hasn't been brought over from the series is the diplomatic and exploration aspect. Fans know that it didn't matter the name of the captain or the name of the series the Enterprise never solved all its problems by shooting first and asking questions later. Star Trek was much more about going out into the universe and finding new species and coming to an understanding together. If the game can include more of that element, it will truly be the Star Trek experience.



It won't be long until the game comes out a fact that I'm grateful for, because after getting a taste of the actual game, I can't wait to spend even more time with it. There were some aspects of the game I wasn't able to experience right away for this piece like Klingon characters and PVP but hopefully we'll get to talk about those soon or at least be able to when our proper review of the game comes out after the game's launch.