The Dark Knights

Ok, maybe Im just being a bit harsh, but as a huge trek fan I was really hoping for more from the game. You know its bad…when you get the game for FREE and you feel a bit ripped off.

If you are a die hard STO fan… just realize I dont hate the game, I dont want it to fail… Im just trying to figure out why the hell Cryptic made some of the choices they did. Let’s look at graphics.

Now before you say anything, yes I know graphics mean nothing really but Eye candy. Doesnt tell us a damn bit about game play, and there are some games out there that run in 256 color on a 386 that would put some current games to shame. So… no debate there at all. However, since its my site, I did want to compare STO a “Current AAA title” vs EvE a 2003 indy release.

First off lets take a look at STO.

Thats a bit of footage of me on my fresh character roaming around saving some poor helpless ship from possible destruction. I will say STO has the sounds of trek down great, and the weapon animations themselves arent to shabby. It’s not as nice as say watching The Next Generation CGI effects sadly, but it’ll do.

Ok lets take a gander at some footage in EvE I snapped on my way to Jita.

Now personally, I think its rather sad that Cryptic cant throw out something to rival a game that was released in 2003… but Im a bit biased. Im curious to see what people think. Do you think Cryptic rushed it? Cut corners? or am I simply just being overly critical and need to shut up.

Well most folks in TDK know Im a rather hardcore Sci Fi fan. If its space, has aliens, and some form of lasers then I simply cant get enough.

Due to this I just happen to be a rather big Star Trek fan. I havent up till now purchased the game as my time in beta was rather unimpressive…but…as a trekkie its rather hard to resist the urge of Leonard Nemoy calling to me at night.

Thankfully my problem was solved when a buddy and guildmate (Seires) decided to hook me up with a copy. Man o Man was I excited. Downloaded the game fast as possible from Direct2drive at a blazing 2.2megs a second and in no time was patched and ready to go.

Right as I go to log in, bam server crash. I go to the forums and a Cryptic employee posts about an unexpected downtime…however he copy and pastes an OLD post about a scheduled maintenance…wtf… ok typos happen but usually you fix them when you notice, well not this guy. Its 2 hours later and he still has the wrong notification up.

Oh well no worries servers down for 20 minutes and they patch…wait… how do you have an unscheduled downtime / crash and then follow it with a patch. Come again? Oh well… no worries shit happens.

I create my toon get into game and start the rather lengthy (1 hour plus) tutorial. Its been about 40 minutes since the server crashed and Im almost done with the ground phase of the tutorial when my toon starts rubber banding like mad. Sure enough server goes down. I head to the forums again, still have the same broken announcement about the previous downtime unfixed…and no new announcement. Hopefully someone there knows there was a crash.

After talking to a few of the other rather angry forum denizens it turns out this is the 5th “Unscheduled emergency downtime” for the day. Folks are now calling it Star Trek Offline and apparently Cryptic is trying to get in touch with Guinness Books so they can nock off Funcom with Anarchy Online as the most unstable launch of all time.

Well grats Cryptic, you definitely made one hell of a first impression on me. Something tells me many refunds and charge backs will be springing up over the weekend.