Interested in Star Trek Online Playthroughs?

[Procstar]

Hello! As with everybody else here, I'm sure we have all enjoyed Chuck's play through of Star Wars: The Old Republic with his critiques of the game, his explanations on the characters and his whit about the entire plot.

Since he has already done two classes in Star Wars: The Old Republic, what would the community think if he did walkthroughs of Star Trek Online. I could think of a few advantages for him to look into that:

1. Star Trek has always been Chuck's bread and butter and Star Trek Online is chock-full of references to the past TV shows and films.

2. The grinding is very minimal. The game overall is nice toward casual players. I argue it is even more casual than Star Wars: The Old Republic.

3. The campaigns are very self-contained and relatively short. They just deal with a small subsection of the galaxy / TV show and move on from there.

4. The game is getting injected with new material due to Discovery being active and Picard / Lower Decks being on its way.

The only downfall I can see are the relative glitches that appear every so often in the game, but they're not game-breaking. He is (I'm sure) quite busy with other projects, so this might be yet another thing to add to his plate unless he finds the idea relatively fun.

I would imagine such a series to be similar to his Star Wars: The Old Republic playthroughs - a mixture of deconstructing the game and snarking about the storyline.

What do you guys think? Do you think this is something you guys would watch? If you do play the game, what do you think would be the most interesting campaign for him to try? Personally, I think the Romulan tutorial missions are the best because they have the potential of tying into Picard - something Chuck will probably review in the future.

[Deledrius]

I've played it and it's pretty awful, so I can't say I'd be excited to put Chuck through that. I'm sure he'd make it entertaining if he did, because he's done a very good job with TOR and papers over the poor writing with his own character, and it might make STO bearable. Still, I feel no pressing need for it personally.

The writing for the missions in STO is generally on par with the average-to-below-average episodes of Voyager (seemingly the main inspiration for the game's writers in general) so it won't be a pleasant experience for him. The terrible voice acting just makes the stilted dialog worse, too.

[Eishtmo]

It's not bad, but it can be pretty weak. When it's good, it's quite good, but still tends toward the "Star Trek amusement park" moniker it earned long ago.

What it does well is take the various elements from the various series and meld them together in interesting (though maybe not strictly logical) ways. Character is a very strong weakness, but that's because developing new characters is not a strong suit of the game devs. They're much better at expanding actual Star Trek characters. Sela finally completes her development in STO, for example. But she isn't a crewmember or even focused on for much of the game.

It doesn't help that they're constantly changing stuff around, including opening missions that shouldn't to multiple factions. Worse, there's basically little in terms of player choice, especially compared to TOR. The few times there is a choice, they don't really MEAN anything ultimately.

There's not much meat to the story. It's a game that's fun to shoot things, but that's about it. Even the best stories, Victory is Life and Delta Rising (yes it is, I will fight you) aren't strong enough on their own to support much of anything. AKA, it's not worth it.

[Karha of Honor]

I would be excited if all characters had voices like in SWTOR.

[Nealithi]

Yes and no. I would like Chuck to try certain missions from specific points of view.
I mean the Hakeev arc is best written for a Romulan.
Agents of Yesterday is a fun romp till they swiftly get dumped in the future.
The Discovery missions are well done and you get to see Lorca and Landry before they were on the Discovery.
The klingon tutorial is actually the cleanest for why your character got command of a ship.

But that is cherry picking good elements.
Lots of early missions have been bugged due to updates and they don't get fixed. Some older missions have thankfully been yanked because they were just that bad. And your career path has very little meaning.

I enjoy this game. But I hope CBS and Perfect World eventually work on STO 2 where it is done well from the beginning and not started with bad code and amputated launch times. The review I would want Chuck to do is not the game itself. But the process of its creation and how it was Frankensteined into existence and still managed to be good enough to survive this long.

[Eishtmo]

The review I would want Chuck to do is not the game itself. But the process of its creation and how it was Frankensteined into existence and still managed to be good enough to survive this long.

That might be outside of his territory as it were. Well, maybe not by much anyway. Still, that would be an interesting story for someone to tell.

[BunBun299]

I have played this game pretty much every day since it came to Xbox One almost 3 years ago. I love it. I consider it the only source of good Trek these days. Of course, I do mentally write in personalities for my customized crews, so for me, that kinda makes up for the game's weakness when it comes to character. Beyond the tutorial levels, your crew has no personality at all. I know the story is rather thin, but it's been such a long drought of Star Trek for me, that getting to play in a Star Trek theme park like STO just makes me happy.

I actually dislike that they stripped away a bunch of missions last year. Particularly the ones dealing with the Guardian of Forever. The Klingon War section just seems gutted now.

I would gladly watch Chuck's review of it, if he did one. On the condition that he made himself a custom crew to go with his Captain, so he could assign them little personalies as he goes, kinda like he does with his SWTOR.

On the off chance that Chuck is willing to do a review, and if he played on Xbox One (though I strongly suspect he'd do it on PC if at all) I would gladly help in anyway I could, such as crafting gear for his ship, or getting him into an advanced Fleet.

[Eishtmo]

Making up your own characters, both in design and personality, is the only way to get a good story out of STO. All of my characters (14!) have their own backgrounds, goals and hangups. And they all exist at the same time so each gets a collection of missions to do. Hell I have stories for some of the bridge officers too.

But those are my stories, in my head. In game there is nothing. Theme park is the best description of STO, but that doesn't mean it's bad, just not very strong storywise.

And yes, they gutted the Klingon war arc taking out the second half of it. Such a waste of a good villian.

[J!!]

meh. i tried the klingon tutorial mission once, but found the gameplay so underwhelming that i just never bothered to give it a second chance. and everything i've heard about the story makes it sound like nothing but fanfic, which i have no interest in.

[Nealithi]

The review I would want Chuck to do is not the game itself. But the process of its creation and how it was Frankensteined into existence and still managed to be good enough to survive this long.

That might be outside of his territory as it were. Well, maybe not by much anyway. Still, that would be an interesting story for someone to tell.

Not sure how outside his territory. I was riveted by his comics history series. And many of his reviews are preceded with a short on how it got made. Some times those are far more interesting stories than the movies or shows themselves. Or at least an amusing add on. (Looking at you Back to the Future. "But it's his mom." )