Star Trek: Online - First Contact

Star Trek is a franchise that I never really bothered with until recently, when a friend of mine recommended the TV series to me. Perhaps what caught my attention most was that Kate Mulgrew - who plays Flemeth in Dragon Age - plays Captain Janeway in Voyager, but that's a story for another time. I watched a little of Voyager, then moved onto the original series with Captain Kirk, then found myself falling in love with the series. Imagine my utter delight when I found out there is actually an MMORPG for it! 

In all honesty, that delight was almost doused when I watched gameplay videos and found its graphics and animations a little...lacking. It was quite a personal shame, as I always scoff when people complain about a game's graphics. I held off downloading it for a while, before thinking "to hell with it" and finally got it on my computer.

First impressions? Great for Trekkies, but for those who are not, this is just another MMORPG with sweet space combat.

It was with keen anticipation that I clicked the "Engage" button on the launcher, only to be brought to a loading screen that would be my best friend for the following 10 minutes. 

All right, not the best of first impressions, but I rolled with it. (The loading times do get shorter after you launch the game a few times.) It is with great pleasure that I say the character creation lifted my slightly-dampened spirits greatly. There are three factions to choose from: Starfleet, Klingon, and Romulan. The level of character detail that you can tweak from there is amazing - it goes down to even your scar orientation and colour, your character's height and posture. You can even mix and match your outfit to your inner-fashionista's heart's content. Say hello to my tactical officer (modeled after Cassandra from Dragon Age - yes, it's taking over my life right now, let's not go there):

Story & Characters

After finally getting out of character creation, I found myself in Starfleet academy as a fresh graduate awaiting her first assignment. A few conversations later, I finally get assigned to the U.S.S. Pentaghast (don't ask, really), serving under Captain Taggart as his second-in-command. That is quite a leap for a fresh cadet indeed, and my sixth sense told me something was going to happen to Taggart that will plant me in the Captain's seat with supernatural speed. And something did. The ship gets attacked and boarded by Klingons, who kidnap the good Captain, who then orders his second-in-command - me - to take out the ship with him still on it. A victory with a sacrifice, that puts me in command of the ship. Perhaps it is just me, but the Captain's sacrifice did not upset me in the slightest. There was not enough time for him to make a very deep impression and, let's be honest, he was just there to ease you into the tutorial. Here's a picture of the brave Captain right before his heroic death.

Now with my very own ship, the usual "take quest, complete, rinse and repeat" MMO routine takes over. Stopping a Borg invasion and saving planets from being assimilated seems to be the main theme in the first episode of the game.

Storyline wise, I got what I expected. The quests themselves were not very spectacular - but it is the usual Star Trek fare: crew gets in, helps people in need, gets out. What's lacking is really the establishment of original characters I actually care about. In my playthrough so far, the only people I remotely care about are those in my squad, the ones who accompany me on ground missions. 

Other than that, the characters in missions seem so two-dimensional. If there was not a quest log requiring me to interact with them, I would have been less than willing to do so.

Added on to that, I feel as if some characters in STO are there for the sake of fan service. It started with Captain Taggart's addressing his second-in-command as "Number One", which hints at his previous service under Captain Picard or Pike. Then, mentioning Admiral Janeway and her experience with the Borg. The last bit of reference I've encountered is Admiral Akira Sulu, descendant of Hikaru Sulu. 

Of course, I feel the twinge of excitement at the mention of these characters, but sometimes it feels as if my enthusiasm for the game is borrowed from my love for the TV series; that I'm compelled to play the game for passing references to the characters I love. This is all to be expected, obviously. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does emphasise the point that I'm not that taken in by the game's story yet. Maybe it will be a slow burn. I'll play more to find out.

Gameplay

Ah, I really am torn about gameplay. There is no need for me to go through the basics. It is what everyone expects from an MMO - walk around, talk to NPCs, interact and fight with other players, and kill enemies. Now, let's talk about what helps set this game apart: their combat. STO's missions are split into two categories: space and ground combat. One that I love, and one that I could do without. Let's start with the bad, shall we?

The ground combat. Oh, all those times I've daydreamed about being on Captain Janeway's away team, firing my blasters at enemies and completing my mission. I've imagined my blood racing while the team worked in sync to accomplish their goals. Exciting and fun shooter stuff. It's too bad that I haven't been able to realise it in STO. First of all, what bugged me the most is how lifeless the weapons were. I'd click my mouse, then patiently wait while a beam slowly emerges from my blaster to lovingly caress the enemy into submission. Then I'd click again and again until I've massaged everyone to death. It was terribly, terribly dull. 

The inclusion of an accompanying squad does help to liven the battlefield up a little, but it doesn't do much good. Sure, having a squad member throw a grenade does make things a tad bit more exciting. But I'm used to the idea of having to use strategies in battle when I'm given a squad. It may be that the squad AI is so good that I don't have to micro-manage everything, but it may also be that the squad is just there to help you live out your Star Trek fantasies. Of being beamed down with a group of trusted comrades to spectacularly shoot your way out of a tense situation. I guess I've ragged on the ground combat enough. To sum it up: boring.

Now, let's move on to a much, much more promising field: space combat. Honestly, STO  should have let the player's first taste of combat be in space, not on the ground. It would have made a much better first impression. The space combat is good. Very good. There is a pressure on you to use at least some vague form of strategy to win a battle. 

You can put the ship on attack, defend, speed, or balanced mode. You have to keep an eye on your ship's shields, and divert power from other areas to reinforce one side when it gets hammered badly. When your shield goes down, face the other shielded side to the enemy. Want to hurt the enemy more, and quickly? Face your port or starboard sides to the enemy ship so both your forward and aft weapons can fire on them simultaneously. Concentrate your fire on one side of the enemy's ship to penetrate the shield faster and hurt the ship itself. Use your officers' skills to boost your attack power, incapacitate the enemy ship, or quicken shield regeneration. It was all wonderfully tactic-y. 

But the real magic shines when you maneuver your ship alongside other players. I stumbled across a PvE event by accident, which required a group of ships to beat back a Borg incursion. There was no tutorial for these events though. So the fresh-faced me, after wondering why everyone was still waiting at the beginning of the mission, impatiently flew straight at a Borg ship alone and got decimated.

All right. So I got respawned back alongside my brethren, and learnt that it was indeed a party-based mission. A few seconds of waiting later, we garnered enough numbers to take the Borg head-on. Let me tell you: the moment the ship squadron engaged the enemy forces in battle, I was head-over-heels in love. The feel was just...epic. How many times have I imagined engaging in space battles with other ship captains, concentrating fire on a humongous boss to take it out? It was glorious.

Look at that. Teamwork taking down a gigantic Borg Cube. These are what I live for in STO now. But it really does cast a huge shadow over its ground combat missions. Compared to the epic space battles, having to run on the ground with an absolutely lacklustre blaster rifle seems more like a necessary chore than anything else. I know, I know. It's called Star Trek, not Ground Trek. But you'd think they'd be able to balance it out more in terms of enjoy-ability. Both are aspects of the game, after all.

Aesthetics

I have a staunch belief that graphics should not play that big of a role in determining whether a game is good or not. That's why I pushed past my initial disappointment. A few hours into the game, and its look grew onto me. It was then that I realised I was comparing it too much to Star Wars: The Old Republic - the other MMO I'd been playing recently. Taken on its own, STO's environments do look beautiful - on the ground, mostly. In space, there is nothing much beyond a vast black void with a few space stations scattered in between. On ground, however, it really does immerse you in futuristic look. Running around the Earth Spacedock does have its own shine. The "alien-ness" of other worlds are portrayed rather neatly as well.

So the environment design does bring the feel of the Star Trek universe together.

Now comes my first little pet peeve for this game: animations. I know, okay, I'm being hypocritical. But I really can't stand when dialogue is not synched with the character's lips. It really bugs me. Even in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, where lips were lagging only about 0.5 seconds behind spoken dialogue, it was a constant source of distraction and annoyance. Here, in STO,  there is no effort at lip-synching. At all. So I've just taken to reading the dialogue instead of looking at characters, which doesn't really do much for immersion.

General body animations are rather limited as well. It does seem a little odd to the eye, but it is something that I can overlook and get used to.

The other pet peeve I have with STO is its minimap. The icons are so big that it obscures the surrounding area around it. A minimap is supposed to show me where I need to go, and how I can go there without zooming in and out incessantly. Not frustrate me and my squinting eyes.

All in all, despite several frustrations, I believe I'll be playing this game for quite a while yet. Though I believe it may be due more in part to the "Trekkie" side of me than being an avid MMO player.