I’ve started playing Star Trek Online again. It’s been a good couple of years since I last tried this game, as I played in the beta and subsequently for about 40-50 hours or so immediately after launch. I liked it a great deal back then, but wasn’t playing it enough to justify the monthly subscription fee so, like many other MMOs I’ve left in my wake, I set it aside, saying to myself that I might check it out again were it ever to go free-to-play.
The astute among you will be aware that Star Trek Online has, in fact, been free-to-play for some time now. I, too, am aware of this and have had the thing installed for quite a while but never got around to picking it up again. Until now.
It’s been so long since I last played I ditched my old character and recreated it to play from the start again. I was originally doing pretty well, but I can’t remember what the hell I was doing, so I figured it better to start again and re-learn the game mechanics — along with discovering what’s been added since I last played. (Quite a lot, as it happens.)
For those groaning at the prospect of yet another MMO with a hotbar, hold it right there. Star Trek Online is worthy of note for several reasons. Yes, it has a hotbar, but no it most certainly isn’t World of Warcraft in space. I remember thinking on its original release that, slightly rough edges aside, it’s the Star Trek game that I always wanted to play. And my opinion stands today — arguably even more so.
For the uninitiated, Star Trek Online starts with a bang. The Borg are attacking, and the player, a new Ensign serving aboard a fairly pathetic little ship, is tasked with helping out. This process conveniently introduces all the basics of play, including running around inside places, shooting things, talking to things and interacting with things. The player subsequently gets to join a bunch of other Federation vessels in taking down a crippled Borg ship and eventually, thanks to the rest of the crew ending up dead, gets a promotion to Lieutenant and the chance to take command of aforementioned pathetic little ship. Thus begins their grand adventure in the stars.
Once the player is out of the introductory tutorial series of missions, they’re able to explore the galaxy and take on a wide variety of missions, ranging from story-heavy “episodes” to exploration missions where uncharted sectors have to be, well, charted. Along the way, they’ll engage in space combat, beam down to places and investigate mysterious goings-on, reconfigure the tachyon pulse emitters to scramble the grub-nuts frequencies and generally do all the things that Star Trek people do.
It’s a deep game that has only grown and changed for the better since launch. There is always something for the player to do, be that pursuing a mission, participating in a multiplayer “Fleet Action” cooperative event, taking on the Klingon Empire in PvP combat, taking part in any of the nightly special events, exploring the stars looking for research material which may be used to develop better equipment or simply chilling out in some recognisable Trek locales like Deep Space Nine or Starfleet Academy.
The space combat is worthy of special note. It’s often said that the space combat genre is all but dead, but it’s most certainly alive and well in Star Trek Online, though X-Wing this ain’t. Since pretty much all the ships in Star Trek are what other games would refer to as “capital ships”, combat unfolds rather more like a naval skirmish than a fast-paced dogfight. It’s all about manoeuvring around your opponent, flying alongside them, then letting rip with a broadside of phaser fire from both arrays, punching a hole in their shields and filling them with hot torpedo death.
If it were just a basic space shooter, it would be quite fun, but there’s plenty of depth there, too. You can tweak the power systems to prioritise attack, defense, speed or whatever, rebalance the shields to provide more protection in a particular direction, use your three bridge officers’ special abilities to aid yourself or hamper the enemy, and use your character’s own personal specialisms to turn the tide of the battle in your favour. At times it’s like being in the middle of a battle from something like Homeworld, particularly when taking part in the cooperative “Fleet Action” events or flying with some companions.
As you progress through the game, you get new ships and equipment with which to customise them, including some recognisable models from the Trek series. Yes, you can essentially fly Voyager, Defiant or the Enterprise if you want to. A bunch of alternative ships are available for real-money purchases, including some absolutely hulking behemoths that look very impressive — particularly when you’re still in the pathetic little starting ship.
And this isn’t even getting into the flourishing user-generated content community. Star Trek Online features the ability for players to create their own missions using a tool called The Foundry (that will also be seen in Cryptic’s upcoming D&D MMO Neverwinter) and then publish them for the community to play at any time. I haven’t yet delved into this side of things, but it’s a big part of what drew me back in. The Architect facility in City of Heroes was a source of considerable entertainment for me, so I’m looking forward to something similar here.
Above all, Star Trek Online is a great example of how to get a free-to-play MMO right — and a truly excellent sci-fi game to boot. You can have a completely satisfying experience right up to the level cap without paying a single cent if you want to, or you can pick and choose how you want to customise your experience. So far as I can tell, none of it unbalances the game — always a big concern in titles like this — and is primarily there for bragging rights or visual customisation.
Check it out on Steam. No, there’s no Mac version. (Boo!)