STO EUROPE

After an estrange evening of STO, I have much to say about the patch.

First off, the interface. Hmmm, me likes it. Bit confusing at first, but overall much improved. The map works now. Still a little hard figuring where a mission system is in sector space, but overall easy to navigate. The new icons and general overhaul of the dialogs and ickle pictures was a lot more professional looking. Still not 100% Star Trek, but very good nonetheless.

Graphics. Is it me or has there been a big change here. Everything looks tighter and the bloom and filtering much more present. Textures are much improved too?? Hmm. Is it me or what? Even my wife said it looks much better.

Sound. Attack of the Nimoy, woot!. New voiceovers and music. Not to shabby. However, I would of preferred a little more orchestral stylie stuff, mimicking the TV series/movies, but ohh well. The Ferengi music is quite interesting, lol.

Gameplay got a massive overhaul with ground missions being a much better challenge. Space battles are still pretty much the same apart from I didn't notice the AI alpha the crap out of one target, like they were before.

Bugs, the downfall of the update and the reason why I quit last night. Connectivity was terrible and while shopping or switching ship loadouts, everything was taking an age to un-equip and re-equip. The transporter bugs have also been improved for the worse (quite funny tho the first few times). You'd beam up after a ground mission still as your character and proceed to plummet 280,000km down. At one point there was about four of us stuck at the bottom of the map before our ships appeared, lol. Major problems with this bug is A: you can't fly straight up, so it takes a damn age to get back to where you were. B: A stupid dialog about nothing on sensors pops up every 5 seconds. Every time it does, your ship comes to a halt. Grrr.

One hopes there's another patch today. Fingers crossed.