I finally got to play in the Star Trek Online Closed Beta this morning. My first impression is MAKE IT SO!

This article contains spoilers about game play and early missions.

I logged on this morning and got two hours of play time. The website likes to scare you about system requirements but my computer is massively outdated and the game runs fine for me. (Albeit at a lower quality setting but it still looked great!)





My character was easy to set up. I got to choose to be a Starfleet Officer in Engineering, Science or Tactical. I could be male or female and Human, Andorian, Vulcan, Bajoran, Bolian, Betazoid… and some others that I can’t remember just yet. You can also make up your own race. The clothing options are for uniforms only but they have an array of designs to choose from. If you are a female character you get a choice of 3 feminine stances. It is such a relief from the warrior princess stances of games past.

I am a Vulcan Science Officer. I get the default 2 abilities that come with being Vulcan and 2 more abilities of my choice. Of course, I forgot them. I also forgot my name. It could be T’Pel or something like that. I do remember my ship’s name, Ilesha.



Upon entering the game, everyone is dumped into a Starfleet Lounge. Looks like a chat/ hangout area. Someone was yelling about loosing their dad at Wolf 359. I wanted to get away from that buzz kill so I headed out to my assignment. I guess they wanted to make it as engaging as possible from the start because everything starts with a The Borg attack. Maneuvering about the game is pretty easy and the first levels of game play do a good job of teaching you how to use the game without trapping you in a training level like World of Warcraft. The WASD style movements aren’t as precise as I’d like but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.



From the start, you are put right in the middle of the action with getting on turbo lifts, helping injured soldiers, destroying Borg weapons and even a bit of hand-to-hand combat with The Borg. I don’t usually like playing games where combat is involved because I get all stressed out and worried about my hand-eye coordination. Because the Borg don’t really attack unless you are a threat, they are really easy to kill early on. It helped me gains some battle confidence.



I made it to level two where I got my pick of an officer to help me with combat. I chose a tactical officer. The next mission was aboard my ship. Flying the ship is cool but it’s a bit tricky and difficult to control at times. Ships also don’t move fast… or I don’t know how to make it move fast. I sat there trying to accelerate for a long time. I’ll have to look at it more to see if I was doing something wrong. After I became more familiar with the ship, I managed to save some crew and destroy some Borg drones. It was at this time that the Game Gods sent a system-wide message that they would be closing down playtime. So that’s it.



I can see that I will play this game. It is accessible and non-threatening to a person like me who has avoided MMORPGs for a long time. It is fun, I like the world, it is beautiful and the most important thing is that I don’t feel overwhelmed with levels and damage… yet.


The Star Trek Online Open Beta begins tomorrow, January 12, 2010 at 10 a.m. PST. The game is officially released on February 2, 2010.
Star Trek Online Pre-Order – Pre-ordering gets you a key to the open beta.


You can friend me in-world by searching for my username fancyfembot. My ship is the Ilesha and I’ll post my character’s name here when I remember it.


Check out some fan screenshots: Star Trek Online (beta): Impressions


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