Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Played Lately: Star Trek Online

  • Back when Steam put Star Trek Online on sale for a vanishingly small amount (less than cup of Starbucks coffee, at least), I thought to myself, "Anjin, I don't think you gave STO the effort it deserves. There are plenty of people who have a great time. How about I try it again the right way?" So I bought the cheapest MMO ever (price-wise, that's not a comment about quality) and gave it another go.

  • My trial character was still there, pacing around the character select screen. She was deleted real quick. I can't go back to an old character unless I've spent a long time with them. Considering the fact that she had only just escaped the tutorial, I wasn't losing anything by starting over. I rolled up a new character (almost identical to the last) and began the tutorial.

  • Once again, like in my last play through, it took me two play sessions to get out of the tutorial. I don't know why this bothers me when I'm just fine with long tutorials in other games (like Rift and Cryptic's own Champions Online.) And when I got out, I headed to spacedock, tried a mission, quit, and never restarted it again. That, it turns out, was the exact same place I quit during the trial.

  • I could see where the game had been improved, but none of that made it fun to me. And once again, it feels more like the problem is with me, not STO. Since I'm not a big fan of the franchise, its Star-Trekiness is not enough to keep my attention. So all I'm left with are game systems and design choices that leave me baffled. It seems silly to me in some ways that I'm sure fans could overlook.

  • My subscription ran out Friday and there is little chance that I will renew it. But at least I gave it the old Star Fleet try one more time.


© 2011 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

4 comments:

  1. As I've proved with multiple tries to play AoC, if you're not a fan of the setting for a game then playing it is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.

    ReplyDelete
  2. To be honest, I think if I hadn't gotten STO again during that same Steam sale I would have canceled my sub for the last month. But as it was, 3 dollars and change was too much of a good deal, even if I didn't plan on playing much the extra goodies and ingame points made the purchase worth it.

    I play STO in bouts, mostly whenever they have their feature eps or a big update. I think Season 4 is right around the corner, so I'm going to be looking at some play time very soon to check out the duty officers and revamps to ground combat.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Season 4 is supposed to launch this week, possibly tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @ Blue Kae - That's an apt description. I feel very much like a square peg in STO.

    @ MMOGC - STO has done a great job giving people reasons to come back from time to time. Enjoy yourself!

    ReplyDelete