On another subject altogether if I may... I just purchased STO and haven't installed it yet (yes I know, late bloomer) and was wondering if I could get some feedback on what all of you generally think about the game? Is it easy to play/figure out? If there are different "seasons" already, would I start out on season 1?
First, i'll start off by welcoming you to STO. For me, it's been quite a bumpy ride since it's original release in February 2010. I'll give you a rundown on it's progress from launch until today:
The game was originally launched with a distinct lack of content, and a necessity to do several "repeatable" missions to reach level cap, which at the time was 41 (Rear Admiral). When Season 1 was launched about 1.5 month later, the game added several much needed features, as well as the start of their proper "Endgame content" known as Special Task Forces (STFs for short). With the release of Season 2 in the end of July, the game got a drastic increase in playable content, an entire new sector block was opened where the player faces off against the Undine (Species 8472), and a raise in level cap to 51 (Vice Admiral).
Season 3 was the final major "Season" update of 2010, which focused primarily on UI updates which included an entirely revamped graphical experience while travelling through "Sector Space" (i.e when your ship is at warp). If you enable "Astrometrics" in the game via toggle, you'll see a similar view of what it looked like originally. The new sector space style is leaps and bound above the original style. By the time of STOs 1-year anniversary on Feb 2nd 2011, the Earth Spacedock was revamped to look like the one you see today, and which is most famous from the TOS movies and TNG. Season 3 also was the start of what Cryptic calls "Featured Episodes", which are episode arcs spanning 5 episodes, and the rewards are generally quite good. To date there are 3 completed episode arcs (Breen, Dividian, Romulan), with a 4th coming later in Season 4 involving Cardassians.
Season 3's biggest feature went live earlier this year, called The Foundry. Players are encouraged and enabled to create/play their own user-made content. The Foundry has had it's fair share of issues, but the goal is to effectively allow the player to create any scenario he/she wants eventually. New features and content will be added over time to the Foundry. The Foundry is nowhere near perfect as is, but with it, there have been many missions made by the players, some of which rival content created by Cryptic.
Season 4 is the latest seasonal update which went live earlier this month (July 7th), and with it came a completely revamped Ground Combat experience. Throughout the games first 3 seasons, the Ground Combat was always somewhat lacking (and frankly boring) compared to the near perfected Space Combat in the game. Ground Combat 2.0 upped the combat pace of the game, a complete rebalance of all ground skills/kits and weapons, and a rebalance to all ground armors/shields. The player is also given the ability to toggle between RPG Mode (default) and FPS Mode. In FPS mode, many abilities were opened up to allow "free fire" such as tossing grenades around, placing AoEs such as the Science force field etc.
In addition to Ground Combat 2.0, the Klingon "First City" on Quo'nos was completely revamped, and the results are most impressive. Later this season, Cryptic will be launching their "Duty Officer" system which will be an added level of customization to players ships/crews, and greatly simplify various common tasks, and generally make them more rewarding. Players will be able to send their "duty officers" on various assignments which can either be combat oriented, or diplomacy oriented, or several variations on them. Depending on the assignment, and the rank/quality of your assigned officers, the rewards can be greatly improved.
Lastly, Season 4 promises to include several more episode arcs (such as the aforementioned Cardassian-centric series), and there are many more things planned for the future.
I'll close with a recommendation to visit the official
Wiki page for Star Trek Online, and read up on the
upcoming content to the game.
Fly safe out there in sector space, and live long and prosper
