I'm playing it and have a lifetime subscription. :y: I have an avatar that is just about to ding Commander level.
It is gorgeous. The artwork is outstanding. It also ties heavily into the new Trek although familiar places like DS9 are there as well.
It was also rushed to market too soon and is very limited in content currently. Therefore it is
very repetitive. It's not really a true MMO as it is highly instanced, generally no more than 5 man teams. There is a boat load of zoning. You can solo the game without grouping much. But some of the grouping missions are very fun... if you don't get bonehead teammates.
You
WILL be grinding some repeatable missions, but some of them are loads of fun. Likewise a few are, "Auaagh, not this again!"
There is both ground and space-based combat. Leveling yourself and your bridge officers/away team is pretty cool with various skills that affect both styles of combat. I got bored with PvP years ago (13yr MMOG vet) so I usually don't participate and can't really comment on it but the one Klingon (the PvP race) that attacked me on a shared map got vaporized. :bangbang: There is currently no death penalty although the devs say something is in the works. Btw, the Klingons are waaaaay not fleshed out enough but they are working on it.
Gold (energy credits) farmers are rampant and I get tells/mail advertising their services pretty heavily. There is no real crafting yet and I haven't really engaged in what they do call crafting. Exploration is limited to the various zones available. You can go to any zone at any time but getting 2-hit (one for the shield, one for the hull) by a +30 Mob is not very fun.
I cannot comment on the end game gameplay as I don't have an avatar at Rear Admiral level yet. Since I pay no monthly fee, I see no need to play a certain number or hours or to powerlevel in any way. Sorry, but I'm trying to avoid burnout and accept that much of the content will be added along the way. In fact a new Borg mission (raid) got added last week for RA-level players.
There is also the matter of Cryptic/Atari and their handling of the community. It's... not good. They seem to continually miscommunicate, misunderestimate and generally anger their playerbase. Nor is their testing very thorough. Sometimes I wonder if they really have run an MMOG before. They love the microtransaction model so expect to pay a little more if you want different races, clothing or just another character slot.
Ok this is getting long so here is my take. Wait. Watch Cryptic's progress and by the time the next Trek movie rolls out, this game should be rocking. That is assuming Cryptic doesn't anger their community and chase everyone off.
