I got in the Star Trek Online Closed Beta through FilePlanet. Since Open Beta begins on Tuesday anyways, here goes.
I managed to get in about 12 hours of gameplay over the weekend, after missing the first key distribution day and time loss due to patching.
You start in either the Tactical, Science or Engineering branch. Spending skill points is a rather confusing process since you have both ground and space skills. Some seem to affect both, but with little description you’re just guessing. Hopefully they’ll beef up their descriptions. There is supposed to be an indefinite number of skill points you can gain though, which is nice.
I started as a Tactical officer and got a Plasma Grenade kit very early on, allowing me to use them in ground battles. I selected the science officer as my first. That gave me a heal in ground battles and a nice Tachyon beam skill for space battles. Picked up an Engineer using points and then got a Tactical officer in another mission.
It seems like the majority of missions are space missions. The combat plays much like PotBS but much much quicker. 3D space isn’t really used which isn’t entirely too much of a surprise. No dorsal and ventral shields. I’ve always wanted to do a barrel roll in a starship, no go. The amount of upgrades you can add to your ship is decent. Shield management, be prepared for a lot of shield management.
The missions are way more fun in a team, both ground and space. I never went actively looking for a team, but the teams I’ve been placed in for open instances have been great.
The local EB Games didn’t have the preorder bonus, so I’ll likely preorder over Direct2Drive.
