Reviewing MMOs is a bad idea. Those games change so much on the way that reading the old reviews feels a lot like reading about entirely different game. Yet in this case? I think I'll make an exception. See, at this point the game doesn't change that much anymore. Publisher moved it to another developer, the one that is known to keep old MMOs alive, while instead of expansions, we've got new story episodes dropping now and then. Guess, it's a good time to look back at STO. Lots of you, people, dislike Enterprise opening, but let's just admit it – it's been a long road.

It all started almost 15 years ago, in 2010. It was about a year before Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Lord of the Rings Online just went f2p... And here it was. A long-awaited game based on one of the most influential Sci-Fi shows in history. And you know what? It was pretty cool. Cryptic, creators of games like City of Heroes and Champions Online, sure knew how to think outside the box. What did we get? Well, a lot of stuff, actually. The players were divided between two factions – United Federation of Planets and Klingon Defense Force (still are, while non-human and non-Klingon chars simply join as allies), while gameplay revolves around two things – WoW-like instances on ground and space combat.

In other words, we've got not one, but two games. The ground operations are our usual MMO stuff. Grab the gun, equip some skills and then kill things. The usual. Far from being bad, since some of such operations are pretty creative (a bit too creative at times if you know what I mean), but still, nothing special. Heck, some people prefer not to play ground missions at all and stick with... Yeah. You guessed it. The main dish. Space. The final frontier.

The space battles in STO is, exactly as it should be, a ship porn. There's a vast selection of ships in this game, both those from original media (shows, movies, books...), and exclusive to the game. And while usually, I'm not a fan of made up stuff, this time? I must say, those ships are great. So great there are actually collectible models with those. And I do have lots of them. Now think about it. Picking up your favorite Star Trek ship, hiring a crew and then doing something I can somewhat compare to, say, World of Tanks with 'em? Sounds like a dream, right? Well, in a way it is. But. Only after a year on market, STO followed LoTRO into the f2p territory. And, as you can easily guess, all the best ships are sold separately now. Wait, wait, wait! Don't close this page yet, keep reading.

See, unlike most of the other f2p games, STO actually has pretty nice f2p model. You do earn premium currency with time (even more if you have more than one toon) and there's a never-ending cycle of giveaways and events that'll reward you with top tier ships. Which won't be as good as those that you'll pay for, of course, but still, those are pretty solid. In other words, the game is 100% playable for free. If you'll want to become top player, you'll still want to pay, say, the price of a Final Fantasy XIV, but that's it. That'll be enough for you to do PVP and stuff. And after that? After that you won't need to invest anything. One of the reasons I like this game. I mean, usually, f2p games are very hard on your wallet, while those that require subscription make me feel bad about literally burning money while not playing. This here? Is totally my kind of stuff. In a way, it feels a lot like “buy to play”. You buy some stuff to make one of them top builds and then forget about paying completely.

It's not that simple, though. The thing is, in its current form, STO heavily revolves around dailies. So-called endeavors are a very long series of daily tasks that provide major bonuses to your stats account-wide. Nothing complicated, just kill some enemies here and do certain “instances” (called TFO) there. Usually takes about 30 minutes per day, but it means you'll need to be there. Every. Bloody. Day. Those events I've mentioned are like that too. Just be there. Otherwise even paying the real money won't help. I mean, what's the point paying for a good ship with the best hardware if you miss things like +50% damage from endeavors? And to complete your endeavors? You'll need to play for, like, a couple of years. Again, you won't need to invest lot of time. STO is not one of those games that can ruin your personal life. But still, it's one of those games that you visit. Every day.

Even if you won't want to be a top player, though, STO is a lot of fun. Why? Well, because of its story. It's smart (love it what they did with the V'ger from the first movie), there's a lot of lore involved from all the shows, and the best of all? The story is voiced by real actors. Lots and lots of our favorites are there – from Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock) to Sonequa Martin-Green (Michael Burnham). Even the passed actors are presented in a form of archive sound, while Scotty is voiced by James Doohan's son, Christopher. Same Christopher, who played Scotty in that awesome fan series Star Trek Continues. The other guys from STC are here too, while story also brings back characters nobody expected to see again. Like, we all loved Jadzia from DS9, but there was also something very special about Ezri, who showed us just how hard things can be for joined Trill. It was a shame that she only had one season. Good news! Nicole de Boer and her character is in STO too. You like Trek? You should totally play through story at least once. And you know what? It's free for everybody. No need to pay for the new episodes, no need to be a top player to clear the whole thing.

Sounds like a perfect MMO, right? Well... Not really. If something, STO is far from perfection. It can be clunky, it's managed by ridiculously small team, which, instead of fixing ages old bugs, keep bringing the new ones in updates, cosmetics are half-broken and very hard to manage, while, the worst of all, there's no open world areas. Well, technically, those exist, but they just... don't feel right. Galaxy map is empty and useless (Cryptic tried to fix that by adding encounters and mini operations called “patrols” for different systems, but all in all, it didn't help and exploring just isn't a thing), while so-called battlezones are painfully repetitive and, most likely, you'll only be doing those for endeavors. And it's a huge problem. Summer / winter festivals, where lots of people gather on special locations show exactly how much fun this game can be with proper open world environment, but no. It is not a thing.

STO is just that. A game you visit every day for 30-60 minutes, clear endeavors, do a couple of favorite TFOs and then quit because there's nothing else to do (if you finished story that is). That's probably why the majority of players here are old alcoholics who keep whining about how bad the “new Trek” is. Don't get me wrong, the audience here is far from being toxic as in, say, WoW, but still, “I'm so drunk”, “Discovery is the worst!” and “Let's talk politics” is what zone chat is all about. You have been warned. In other words, you want MMO experience with a huge world and lots of things to do? This here is not it. Technically, there's a lot of things here, but at this point most of those don't matter (even transwarp feature can be ignored by simply utilizing new “jump to an episode” option). And in a way? It's a good thing. With a fair monetization policy and with no need to invest too much time? STO is, like, perfect addition to your Star Trek experience. Dixi.

[h1][i]“It's been a long road~”[/i] 🎵 ~Diane Warren, Russell Watson[/h1] Reviewing MMOs is a bad idea. Those games change so much on the way that reading the old reviews feels a lot like reading about entirely different game. Yet in this case? I think I'll make an exception. See, at this point the game doesn't change that much anymore. Publisher moved it to another developer, the one that is known to keep old MMOs alive, while instead of expansions, we've got new story episodes dropping now and then. Guess, it's a good time to look back at [b]STO[/b]. Lots of you, people, dislike [b]Enterprise[/b] opening, but let's just admit it – it's been a long road. It all started almost 15 years ago, in 2010. It was about a year before [b]Star Wars: The Old Republic[/b], [b]The Lord of the Rings Online[/b] just went f2p... And here it was. A long-awaited game based on one of the most influential Sci-Fi shows in history. And you know what? It was pretty cool. [b]Cryptic[/b], creators of games like [b]City of Heroes[/b] and [b]Champions Online[/b], sure knew how to think outside the box. What did we get? Well, a lot of stuff, actually. The players were divided between two factions – [b]United Federation of Planets[/b] and [b]Klingon Defense Force[/b] (still are, while non-human and non-[b]Klingon[/b] chars simply join as allies), while gameplay revolves around two things – [b]WoW[/b]-like instances on ground and space combat. In other words, we've got not one, but two games. The ground operations are our usual MMO stuff. Grab the gun, equip some skills and then kill things. The usual. Far from being bad, since some of such operations are pretty creative (a bit too creative at times if you know what I mean), but still, nothing special. Heck, some people prefer not to play ground missions at all and stick with... Yeah. You guessed it. The main dish. Space. [i]The final frontier.[/i] The space battles in [b]STO[/b] is, exactly as it should be, a ship porn. There's a vast selection of ships in this game, both those from original media (shows, movies, books...), and exclusive to the game. And while usually, I'm not a fan of made up stuff, this time? I must say, those ships are great. So great there are actually collectible models with those. And I do have lots of them. Now think about it. Picking up your favorite [b]Star Trek[/b] ship, hiring a crew and then doing something I can somewhat compare to, say, [b]World of Tanks[/b] with 'em? Sounds like a dream, right? Well, in a way it is. [i]But[/i]. Only after a year on market, [b]STO[/b] followed [b]LoTRO[/b] into the f2p territory. And, as you can easily guess, all the best ships are sold separately now. Wait, wait, wait! Don't close this page yet, keep reading. See, unlike most of the other f2p games, [b]STO[/b] actually has pretty nice f2p model. You [i]do[/i] earn premium currency with time (even more if you have more than one toon) and there's a never-ending cycle of giveaways and events that'll reward you with top tier ships. Which won't be as good as those that you'll pay for, of course, but still, those are pretty solid. In other words, the game is 100% playable for free. If you'll want to become top player, you'll still want to pay, say, the price of a [b]Final Fantasy XIV[/b], but that's it. That'll be enough for you to do PVP and stuff. And after that? After that you won't need to invest anything. One of the reasons I like this game. I mean, usually, f2p games are very hard on your wallet, while those that require subscription make me feel bad about literally burning money while not playing. This here? Is totally my kind of stuff. In a way, it feels a lot like “buy to play”. You buy some stuff to make one of them top builds and then forget about paying completely. It's not that simple, though. The thing is, in its current form, [b]STO[/b] heavily revolves around dailies. So-called endeavors are a very long series of daily tasks that provide major bonuses to your stats account-wide. Nothing complicated, just kill some enemies here and do certain “instances” (called TFO) there. Usually takes about 30 minutes per day, but it means you'll need to be there. Every. Bloody. Day. Those events I've mentioned are like that too. Just be there. Otherwise even paying the real money won't help. I mean, what's the point paying for a good ship with the best hardware if you miss things like +50% damage from endeavors? And to complete your endeavors? You'll need to play for, like, a couple of years. Again, you won't need to invest lot of time. [b]STO[/b] is not one of those games that can ruin your personal life. But still, it's one of those games that you visit. Every day. Even if you won't want to be a top player, though, [b]STO[/b] is a lot of fun. Why? Well, because of its story. It's smart (love it what they did with the [b]V'ger[/b] from the first movie), there's a lot of lore involved from all the shows, and the best of all? The story is voiced by real actors. Lots and lots of our favorites are there – from [b]Leonard Nimoy[/b] ([b]Mr. Spock[/b]) to [b]Sonequa Martin-Green[/b] ([b]Michael Burnham[/b]). Even the passed actors are presented in a form of archive sound, while [b]Scotty[/b] is voiced by [b]James Doohan[/b]'s son, [b]Christopher[/b]. Same [b]Christopher[/b], who played [b]Scotty[/b] in that awesome fan series [b]Star Trek Continues[/b]. The other guys from [b]STC[/b] are here too, while story also brings back characters nobody expected to see again. Like, we all loved [b]Jadzia[/b] from [b]DS9[/b], but there was also something very special about [b]Ezri[/b], who showed us just how hard things can be for joined [b]Trill[/b]. It was a shame that she only had one season. Good news! [b]Nicole de Boer[/b] and her character is in [b]STO[/b] too. You like [b]Trek[/b]? You should totally play through story at least once. And you know what? It's free for everybody. No need to pay for the new episodes, no need to be a top player to clear the whole thing. Sounds like a perfect MMO, right? Well... Not really. If something, [b]STO[/b] is far from perfection. It can be clunky, it's managed by ridiculously small team, which, instead of fixing ages old bugs, keep bringing the new ones in updates, cosmetics are half-broken and very hard to manage, while, the worst of all, there's no open world areas. Well, technically, those exist, but they just... don't feel right. Galaxy map is empty and useless ([b]Cryptic[/b] tried to fix that by adding encounters and mini operations called “patrols” for different systems, but all in all, it didn't help and exploring just isn't a thing), while so-called battlezones are painfully repetitive and, most likely, you'll only be doing those for endeavors. And it's a [i]huge[/i] problem. Summer / winter festivals, where lots of people gather on special locations show exactly how much fun this game can be with proper open world environment, but no. It is not a thing. [b]STO[/b] is just that. A game you visit every day for 30-60 minutes, clear endeavors, do a couple of favorite TFOs and then quit because there's nothing else to do (if you finished story that is). That's probably why the majority of players here are old alcoholics who keep whining about how bad the “new [b]Trek[/b]” is. Don't get me wrong, the audience here is far from being toxic as in, say, [b]WoW[/b], but still, “I'm so drunk”, “[b]Discovery[/b] is the worst!” and “Let's talk politics” is what zone chat is all about. You have been warned. In other words, you want MMO experience with a huge world and lots of things to do? This here is not it. Technically, there's [i]a lot[/i] of things here, but at this point most of those don't matter (even transwarp feature can be ignored by simply utilizing new “jump to an episode” option). And in a way? It's a good thing. With a fair monetization policy and with no need to invest too much time? [b]STO[/b] is, like, perfect addition to your [b]Star Trek[/b] experience. Dixi.