Here's a suggestion for Steam users. I don't know if this will actually work, but its worth a shot.
Download the game client from one of the available sources and install it. Even if you reserve through Steam, your game account is still tied to Cryptic. You ought to be able to log in through the normal game client as long as you've linked your Cryptic account to your Steam reserve code.
In other words, just bypass Steam altogether for now. You can go back later and install it on Steam, but if you're wanting to jump right in on Tuesday, its worth a shot to just try the regular old client.
Sadly as was pointed out over at SA Forums, it's a catch-22. We don't have the keys, and we don't get the keys until Steam releases the client on there system. Similarly we still don't get the key (I think) until the download is finished.
You can still get the client. Its an 8gb file. It will take a while to download and install. Very likely by the time many people finish getting the client, Steam will have sent out the codes and they would then have a bit of a head start on the download.
And again, like I said, it was just a suggestion and I don't even know if it would work. But wouldn't hurt anything to try.
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited January 2010
Seen on the STO forums:
Just_Bri_Thanks on
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
No no, what i'm saying is, Steam won't send an email or anything with the beta key. It'll be a bit like, say, the Dawn of War II game, where your key is tied to your game, and it pops up to remind you to input it after you've downloaded it.
I posted this elsewhere, but I figured I'd post it here as well. Screenshots below the spoilertag.
First, my starting light cruiser. Take the primary and secondary hulls of a Centaur, the struts of a Miranda, and the nacelles of a Shikahr, and what do you get?
The cutest little Star Trek ship ever.
And one more angle on the top, with more direct lighting:
I absolutely love this ship, I don't get the hate people have for the Miranda. By the time I got some decent shields and better phaser arrays, I was destroying me some klangons. Hell, I could go toe to toe with a Negh'var plus friends and survive it all, if I flew intelligently.
Anyway, just in case you weren't convinced that the game isn't totally gorgeous, I present a counterarugment:
Yes, that's ingame (in fact you see that in an early episode mission). Yes, that's now serving as my desktop.
Shootin' klangons, firin' everything. Sadly it was just a Bird of Prey and at some distance so you can't see it very well.
If anyone tells you the game doesn't look Trek? You can tell them to stuff it.
Anyway, here's Team duMertresel in all its glory. Left to right is my human science officer, my assault-weapon-toting chief engineer who is basically an Abh, my dashing captain front and center, my attempt at kitbashing a Tholian (you can't really do it, but I tried), and my Bajoran medical officer at far right.
Also, I think we kind of fail at this whole "stealth infiltration" thing. :saddowns:
Also, yes, the klangons do in fact use war pigs in their parties. In fact, one of the officer types is a dude who summons in MORE pigs if you don't kill him. I kept expecting them to say "dabu".
Also, the interiors are really authentic and Trek. Even Klingon stuff shows up properly.
In short, I have to agree with a few others that even with the glitches and unfinished bits of closed beta? It's easily the best Trek game ever made. I've never had as much fun with a Trek game as I have with STO. The content feels Trek, there's tons of callbacks to the shows, and it all feels very authentic. I can't wait to play more in-depth in OB and beyond.
Ahh yeah I didn't think about that WMain00, but you're right. Very likely your code will pop up when you launch the game. That's pretty bogus.
I bought champions from Steam, and to get the code so I could even have access to the game I had to dig into the damn registry. I will never buy an MMO off steam after that debacle.
Do guilds get to have their own starbases? That would be my top requested feature if it isn't already in the game. Private guild starbases with repair bays, medical bays, social hubs, and other stuff.
About the only scaling issue I really had was with the turbolift doors. That's the only time I felt "what the hell, these are way too huge by half. I didn't realize they were allowing 15-foot-tall gorillas onto bridges now."
The interesting thing is, though... while the architecture feels a bit odd for Starfleet, with the Klingons? The outsized feel of everything is perfect. It's big and grand and epic and very, very Klingon. I loved the Great Hall to bits.
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
Do guilds get to have their own starbases? That would be my top requested feature if it isn't already in the game. Private guild starbases with repair bays, medical bays, social hubs, and other stuff.
I would look for guild space in Champions Online before I expected to find it in STO.
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...and when you are done with that; take a folding
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
Ahh yeah I didn't think about that WMain00, but you're right. Very likely your code will pop up when you launch the game. That's pretty bogus.
I bought champions from Steam, and to get the code so I could even have access to the game I had to dig into the damn registry. I will never buy an MMO off steam after that debacle.
y'know you can right click on champions in steam and then click on view cd key
I posted this elsewhere, but I figured I'd post it here as well. Screenshots below the spoilertag.
First, my starting light cruiser. Take the primary and secondary hulls of a Centaur, the struts of a Miranda, and the nacelles of a Shikahr, and what do you get?
The cutest little Star Trek ship ever.
And one more angle on the top, with more direct lighting:
I absolutely love this ship, I don't get the hate people have for the Miranda. By the time I got some decent shields and better phaser arrays, I was destroying me some klangons. Hell, I could go toe to toe with a Negh'var plus friends and survive it all, if I flew intelligently.
Anyway, just in case you weren't convinced that the game isn't totally gorgeous, I present a counterarugment:
Yes, that's ingame (in fact you see that in an early episode mission). Yes, that's now serving as my desktop.
Shootin' klangons, firin' everything. Sadly it was just a Bird of Prey and at some distance so you can't see it very well.
If anyone tells you the game doesn't look Trek? You can tell them to stuff it.
Anyway, here's Team duMertresel in all its glory. Left to right is my human science officer, my assault-weapon-toting chief engineer who is basically an Abh, my dashing captain front and center, my attempt at kitbashing a Tholian (you can't really do it, but I tried), and my Bajoran medical officer at far right.
Also, I think we kind of fail at this whole "stealth infiltration" thing. :saddowns:
Also, yes, the klangons do in fact use war pigs in their parties. In fact, one of the officer types is a dude who summons in MORE pigs if you don't kill him. I kept expecting them to say "dabu".
Also, the interiors are really authentic and Trek. Even Klingon stuff shows up properly.
In short, I have to agree with a few others that even with the glitches and unfinished bits of closed beta? It's easily the best Trek game ever made. I've never had as much fun with a Trek game as I have with STO. The content feels Trek, there's tons of callbacks to the shows, and it all feels very authentic. I can't wait to play more in-depth in OB and beyond.
Why hello there goonsir.
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
About the only scaling issue I really had was with the turbolift doors. That's the only time I felt "what the hell, these are way too huge by half. I didn't realize they were allowing 15-foot-tall gorillas onto bridges now."
The interesting thing is, though... while the architecture feels a bit odd for Starfleet, with the Klingons? The outsized feel of everything is perfect. It's big and grand and epic and very, very Klingon. I loved the Great Hall to bits.
Yeah, the Klingon Bridge felt pretty good.
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Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited January 2010
The ceiling is still a tad high, but I agree that it seems to be about right.
Edit: Here are some bridge images to compare with, borrowed from the site in the watermarks:
Just_Bri_Thanks on
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
So if anyone gets bored instantly with their open beta account (or key for that matter), I've got one, and would love to have another one so I can play with my wife!
To you and everyone trying to get into open beta or whatever, you can get a 99 cent pre order at target with key that lasts through the head start and (usually) 4 days into the retail release.
By then you'll have your steam key or whatever you need to play. Yeah you can link multiple preorders and keys to the same account. No, preorder alone won't get you items; you need both preorder and retail codes of the same store to work. But it will unlock open and headstart and 4 days of release.
About the only scaling issue I really had was with the turbolift doors. That's the only time I felt "what the hell, these are way too huge by half. I didn't realize they were allowing 15-foot-tall gorillas onto bridges now."
The interesting thing is, though... while the architecture feels a bit odd for Starfleet, with the Klingons? The outsized feel of everything is perfect. It's big and grand and epic and very, very Klingon. I loved the Great Hall to bits.
Yeah, the Klingon Bridge felt pretty good.
Maybe.....try these on.
I know it has something to do with collision detection but I couldn't find the post.
You can bet there will be tons of bitching about it, but it doesn't really matter. You are going to be in space 99% of the time anywho.
EDIT:
Here is the defiant bridge with the scale drawing.
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited January 2010
Uh, that bridge is the NX-01 Enterprise.
Just_Bri_Thanks on
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I thought there would be more talk with the nda lifted. sky didn't write his writeup yet, either. No questions? Pretty much today is the only day to ask because tomorrow the beta's open and I'll be too busy playing. I guess I'll continue posting while at work :whistle:
What is the current method for unlocking Klingons?
Also I think its been asked before but not really talked about much, but how is the PVP in the game? Does it have battlegrounds or any sort of attack/defend scenarios or other objective based scenarios?
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ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
edited January 2010
The NDA is gone? If so i'll type up my impressions of the game.
Can someone talk about how the different ship classes actually play out? Is it a straight DPS/Tank/Support thing, or is there more to it? If I play a cruiser am I going to be bored because I'm so slow and I don't put out as much pew pew as the escorts?
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited January 2010
Any character can use any ship, but what you can do with them varies. Cruisers favor using more engineering bridge officers, Escorts favor tactical bridge officers, and science vessels... yeah.
Any of the three types can tank by configuring power to shields, or DPS by configuring power to weapons.
Escorts have fewer guns than cruisers, but the ones they do have can be much stronger. Cruisers need more guns because they have to cover all arcs, being unable to turn so fast. Escorts are zippy, so can bring the forward arc to bear more easily.
Science vessels have lots of cool toys more than emphasis on guns.
Just_Bri_Thanks on
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
So, my impressions from the CB are that, basically, I want to play more of this game. Maybe I'm just missing a fun modern space combat game, or missing a Trek game in general, but it was definitely an enjoyable experience. There's still some rough edges, as has been stated by others, but I felt once I got past the first 10 levels, the game really grabbed me.
Anyway, here are some shots I took
Here's my Tactical class character
Three ships seen from above in sector space. I'm in the middle, and Pika is on the right
My starter ship after a bad bit in a fleet action
My final ship, mostly an Akira with an Oslo saucer
Lastly, an NPC fleet and me before one of the most frustrating missions I encountered this weekend
All in all, at this moment, it's a confirmed buy for me. I like my Trek, and I like pretty ships in space.
I've been trying to think of what I wanted to say all weekend now, since my fiance and I got into CB, but I'm at a loss - for intelligent commentary, anyway. I'm more of the "casual/ADD" MMO fan, and he's more of the Trek fan in general, but we both enjoyed the hell out of the beta and played pretty much every chance we got all weekend.
I love, love, LOVE the aesthetics of the game, from character looks to ground scenery to ship customization to space itself. I don't have a problem with instancing to begin with (I cut my MMO teeth on Guild Wars) but I thought the transitions were handled appropriately, signifying entering a turbolift, or beaming somewhere or warping, etc.
Ground combat was exciting! There is a rather shaky-cam kind of effect that we could really do without (and possibly gave us headaches), but I felt a lot better about it actually participating in the ground combat than from what I gathered watching it in Youtube videos. Space combat on the other hand was smooth as butter and a hell of a trip (for me, who has never done that kind of combat before). It got the complexity thumbs up from my RTS-playing partner, yet didn't scare the button-masher in me off either.
We started to get into the story as well and I'm trying to decide whether the episodes feel more like LOTRO's Books or Guild Wars's Missions. Right now they're kind of like pleasant surprises breaking up the single-mindedness of patrol missions, and I'm enjoying it a lot.
We didn't partake in a lot of PvP, but what we saw was more fun than the CO cage matches (actual objectives and control points! woo hoo!) and more along the lines of Warhammer scenarios, which earns a big thumbs-up from both of us. I liked/didn't like (yeah, mixed feelings) being able to be "pulled" into a hostile encounter a la FF games while flying around sector space.
Starbase 24 was a bit of a chaotic mess, though our overall impression is positive. We thought we were done when we'd survived the onslaught, then were pleasantly surprised to find there were 2-3 more parts to the mission to complete outside of the fleet action.
All in all, we are both even more excited about finally getting to settle down with the retail version than we were before entering CB. I have not had this much fun, this consistently, in an MMO since the early days of Warhammer and before that, Guild Wars. There are still a lot of kinks to work out and we reported several bugs over the weekend, but we still want to get in on the ground floor and I'm hoping that STO achieves at least enough success to be able to keep plugging away for a few years - hopefully even more than that, though.
I think everyone is going to want to blow stuff up. I am really hoping the other two options have some kind of appeal to me.
I actually was leaning more towards a Science officer. I'm a sucker for healing so running around playing Bashir during ground PvP was fun as hell during closed beta. Plus, debuffing enemy ships and being able to detect stealth peaks my interest far more than blowing stuff up. Luckily it sounds like I'll have plenty of Kirks to fly beside and help.
Any character can use any ship, but what you can do with them varies. Cruisers favor using more engineering bridge officers, Escorts favor tactical bridge officers, and science vessels... yeah.
Any of the three types can tank by configuring power to shields, or DPS by configuring power to weapons.
Escorts have fewer guns than cruisers, but the ones they do have can be much stronger. Cruisers need more guns because they have to cover all arcs, being unable to turn so fast. Escorts are zippy, so can bring the forward arc to bear more easily.
Science vessels have lots of cool toys more than emphasis on guns.
Well. I'll be playing a rather tanky orientated Cruiser. Firstly because i'm sick to death of looking for tanks when playing an mmo. Secondly because, well, Constitution, Galaxy and Sovreign.
I haven't played the game yet to know how it actually is, but from the outside I'm kind of disappointed that "medical" isn't a fourth career choice.
I mean, medical officers might not necessarily be captain material, but McCoy, Crusher, and Bashir were all major parts of their respective shows, and it seems weird that players cannot take on that role directly.
I'm going to use the Open Beta to see how Engineer plays. I may go Eng/Escort if I feel it goes well. Tac/Escort was fun and I exploded things well, but often would get exploded as well in groups because your fore shield gets pounded /a lot/.
Posts
Sadly as was pointed out over at SA Forums, it's a catch-22. We don't have the keys, and we don't get the keys until Steam releases the client on there system. Similarly we still don't get the key (I think) until the download is finished.
I'm highly unimpressed at the moment by Steam.
And again, like I said, it was just a suggestion and I don't even know if it would work. But wouldn't hurt anything to try.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
The cutest little Star Trek ship ever.
And one more angle on the top, with more direct lighting:
I absolutely love this ship, I don't get the hate people have for the Miranda. By the time I got some decent shields and better phaser arrays, I was destroying me some klangons. Hell, I could go toe to toe with a Negh'var plus friends and survive it all, if I flew intelligently.
Anyway, just in case you weren't convinced that the game isn't totally gorgeous, I present a counterarugment:
Yes, that's ingame (in fact you see that in an early episode mission). Yes, that's now serving as my desktop.
Shootin' klangons, firin' everything. Sadly it was just a Bird of Prey and at some distance so you can't see it very well.
If anyone tells you the game doesn't look Trek? You can tell them to stuff it.
Anyway, here's Team duMertresel in all its glory. Left to right is my human science officer, my assault-weapon-toting chief engineer who is basically an Abh, my dashing captain front and center, my attempt at kitbashing a Tholian (you can't really do it, but I tried), and my Bajoran medical officer at far right.
Also, I think we kind of fail at this whole "stealth infiltration" thing. :saddowns:
Also, yes, the klangons do in fact use war pigs in their parties. In fact, one of the officer types is a dude who summons in MORE pigs if you don't kill him. I kept expecting them to say "dabu".
Also, the interiors are really authentic and Trek. Even Klingon stuff shows up properly.
In short, I have to agree with a few others that even with the glitches and unfinished bits of closed beta? It's easily the best Trek game ever made. I've never had as much fun with a Trek game as I have with STO. The content feels Trek, there's tons of callbacks to the shows, and it all feels very authentic. I can't wait to play more in-depth in OB and beyond.
But I must say my experience in the CB was hella fun.
I never asked for this!
I bought champions from Steam, and to get the code so I could even have access to the game I had to dig into the damn registry. I will never buy an MMO off steam after that debacle.
PSN = PessimistMaximus
This is the problem with all the ground based stuff.
You are going to see A LOT of complaints on this. Especially the bridges, which are cool but feel like fucking castles and shit.
I noticed it a lot when running around DS9.
DS9 doesn't feel like DS9 without Morn though.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Ah, yes. The Boff-targetable Lesbian Makeout power. Truly, one of the best skills in the game.
Do guilds get to have their own starbases? That would be my top requested feature if it isn't already in the game. Private guild starbases with repair bays, medical bays, social hubs, and other stuff.
The interesting thing is, though... while the architecture feels a bit odd for Starfleet, with the Klingons? The outsized feel of everything is perfect. It's big and grand and epic and very, very Klingon. I loved the Great Hall to bits.
I would look for guild space in Champions Online before I expected to find it in STO.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
y'know you can right click on champions in steam and then click on view cd key
Why hello there goonsir.
Yeah, the Klingon Bridge felt pretty good.
Edit: Here are some bridge images to compare with, borrowed from the site in the watermarks:
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
By then you'll have your steam key or whatever you need to play. Yeah you can link multiple preorders and keys to the same account. No, preorder alone won't get you items; you need both preorder and retail codes of the same store to work. But it will unlock open and headstart and 4 days of release.
Maybe.....try these on.
I know it has something to do with collision detection but I couldn't find the post.
You can bet there will be tons of bitching about it, but it doesn't really matter. You are going to be in space 99% of the time anywho.
EDIT:
Here is the defiant bridge with the scale drawing.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
defiant, nx01, defiant, nx01....
you get the idea.
Also I think its been asked before but not really talked about much, but how is the PVP in the game? Does it have battlegrounds or any sort of attack/defend scenarios or other objective based scenarios?
Any of the three types can tank by configuring power to shields, or DPS by configuring power to weapons.
Escorts have fewer guns than cruisers, but the ones they do have can be much stronger. Cruisers need more guns because they have to cover all arcs, being unable to turn so fast. Escorts are zippy, so can bring the forward arc to bear more easily.
Science vessels have lots of cool toys more than emphasis on guns.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Anyway, here are some shots I took
Three ships seen from above in sector space. I'm in the middle, and Pika is on the right
My starter ship after a bad bit in a fleet action
My final ship, mostly an Akira with an Oslo saucer
Lastly, an NPC fleet and me before one of the most frustrating missions I encountered this weekend
All in all, at this moment, it's a confirmed buy for me. I like my Trek, and I like pretty ships in space.
I love, love, LOVE the aesthetics of the game, from character looks to ground scenery to ship customization to space itself. I don't have a problem with instancing to begin with (I cut my MMO teeth on Guild Wars) but I thought the transitions were handled appropriately, signifying entering a turbolift, or beaming somewhere or warping, etc.
Ground combat was exciting! There is a rather shaky-cam kind of effect that we could really do without (and possibly gave us headaches), but I felt a lot better about it actually participating in the ground combat than from what I gathered watching it in Youtube videos. Space combat on the other hand was smooth as butter and a hell of a trip (for me, who has never done that kind of combat before). It got the complexity thumbs up from my RTS-playing partner, yet didn't scare the button-masher in me off either.
We started to get into the story as well and I'm trying to decide whether the episodes feel more like LOTRO's Books or Guild Wars's Missions. Right now they're kind of like pleasant surprises breaking up the single-mindedness of patrol missions, and I'm enjoying it a lot.
We didn't partake in a lot of PvP, but what we saw was more fun than the CO cage matches (actual objectives and control points! woo hoo!) and more along the lines of Warhammer scenarios, which earns a big thumbs-up from both of us. I liked/didn't like (yeah, mixed feelings) being able to be "pulled" into a hostile encounter a la FF games while flying around sector space.
Starbase 24 was a bit of a chaotic mess, though our overall impression is positive. We thought we were done when we'd survived the onslaught, then were pleasantly surprised to find there were 2-3 more parts to the mission to complete outside of the fleet action.
All in all, we are both even more excited about finally getting to settle down with the retail version than we were before entering CB. I have not had this much fun, this consistently, in an MMO since the early days of Warhammer and before that, Guild Wars. There are still a lot of kinks to work out and we reported several bugs over the weekend, but we still want to get in on the ground floor and I'm hoping that STO achieves at least enough success to be able to keep plugging away for a few years - hopefully even more than that, though.
I never asked for this!
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I actually was leaning more towards a Science officer. I'm a sucker for healing so running around playing Bashir during ground PvP was fun as hell during closed beta. Plus, debuffing enemy ships and being able to detect stealth peaks my interest far more than blowing stuff up. Luckily it sounds like I'll have plenty of Kirks to fly beside and help.
Support characters ftw!
Cool. Thanks for the info.
I mean, medical officers might not necessarily be captain material, but McCoy, Crusher, and Bashir were all major parts of their respective shows, and it seems weird that players cannot take on that role directly.