Well its not that big of a deal unless your a trekkie like me. I played when it first Came out but got tired of geting blow to hell and back,but now its time to pwn 100's of newbs daily.all former acct's are still active. So ill see you out there

capt. Bracy

Free and worth every penny.

I'm a huge Trekkie, participated in the beta and pre-ordered the game. Played for 6 hours and shut it down in disgust. It's an even worse MMO than the old Star Wars Galaxies SoE put out in the early 2000s was. And I didn't think that was possible.

I'm glad you enjoy it, but I think it's a big blob of dithering, festering, vapid donkey spunk.

For Trek universe ship to ship combat people should be playing Starfleet Command.

Still, I'll be downloading the F2P stuff just to check it out.

The only thing I didn't like about sto was that I had too pay for it. But now its f2p I'm gonna pick it up again, hell runescape is 10x more crappy than any thing I've played,ever and I still play that game

Encryptshun wrote:Free and worth every penny.

I'm a huge Trekkie, participated in the beta and pre-ordered the game. Played for 6 hours and shut it down in disgust. It's an even worse MMO than the old Star Wars Galaxies SoE put out in the early 2000s was. And I didn't think that was possible.

I'm glad you enjoy it, but I think it's a big blob of dithering, festering, vapid donkey spunk.

SWG, bad? Yeah, after SOE revamped it twice and alienated more of its playerbase each time. SWG's peak was 2004-2005, easily. I miss that game and am waiting patiently for the emulator.

I've been playing STO, the interface is pretty horrible, but meh... since it's free maybe I'll continue to waste more time with it.

I also beta tested and then subscribed to STO for a while. It's unfortunate that Cryptic decided to use the Champions Online engine to power it. Space combat feels exactly like what it is: planetary combat with different player models and pitch control. You don't even have full 3D movement...pitch is limited to less than 180* of variance. During the beta, there was a very common bug where you'd spawn in space stations as your ship instead of your captain.
I really like the systems- and shield-oriented combat setup as a basic concept, but it's not enough to support an entire MMO. Plus, you can get a better version of that same combat system in the DS/PSP Star Trek: Tactical Assault games without having to pay a subscription or bother with grouping.

When Champions Online went FTP (I had subscribed to the game for a few months after launch, in addition to participating in the beta) I was excited...until I actually tried to play again. Cryptic's games hinge on customization, and the FTP configurations remove customization completely. So you've got a "free car" with no engine and no wheels. Great.
Now, everyone in Champions looks the same because few are paying for the extra customization options.
I expect the same of STO, so I haven't booted it up since the FTP launch.

I think what REALLY killed STO for me was the same thing that killed Champions for me: it's NOT an MMO. It's sharded, and heavily. You never share a shard with more than ~20 people. It's very hard to justify paying a subscription fee for a game that doesn't feel "massively" multiplayer. Hell, it's hard to justify a subscription fee for one that DOES. But you never feel like you're sharing the world with a population of real humans in STO or Champions. It feels like Diablo, but with a few more people together at once. Yes, you can change shards for grouping purposes, but that doesn't make the world feel any more populous. It's a very bad setup, and it ended up hurting the experience for me. Guild Wars does it that way, but you don't pay for a subscription to it, so it works well. And the GW system is far better designed and much less clunky.

I think STO AND Champions should have been FTP from the start, and I don't think the current "lock out everything that makes the game worth playing for free players" setup is the right way to go about it. There are HORDES of other FTP MMOs out there that manage to feel "whole" without having to pay a dime, and most of them aren't sharded into oblivion. If Cryptic can't pull off proper FTP with either of their current games, they should probably start looking for other work.

I keep thinking that I'm playing Star Trek: Bridge Commander and expect a full range of motion and control during space combat. That game is from circa 2002 and has graphics roughly on-par with STO, and much better space combat IMO.