Star Trek Online Hands-On and Guild System Details

PC Games Hardware has a write-up on their experience with a beta version of Star Trek Online that will be released in two months. It includes a hands-on description of game play, and vague idea of system benchmarking. Some of the impressions are subject to change as developers continue to tweak the game. Click here to read the whole thing.

Highlights:
- Character Creator provides higher level of customization then even WoW or Aion
- Ship Creator not as flexible but provides basic structure with wide variety of combinations using superstructure parts, colors to make unique looking ships.
- Ground combat similar to most MMOs but later ability to add bridge officers that you can give orders to opens up the possibilities.
- "the space battles are quite tactical but nevertheless accessible" with some fights taking "some time" to finish.
- Game engine is best on duel-core systems, not set up to take advantage of more cores. DirectX 10 and 11 is not supported (not sure what that means on Vista or Windows 7 machines).
- As far as system, it appears any system from last two years with a separate graphics card might work. I get the feeling if WoW plays on the machine, Star Trek will too.

In addition, click here to read an interview with Stephen D'Angelo, the Lead Programmer on the game as he talks about the fleet system aka the guild system.

Highlights:
- Fleets formed at Star Base for a few, currently requires at least five players, later two will be enough
- 7 ranks per fleet, each can be renamed with privileges assigned independently (invite members, remove, banking, privacy settings, etc).
- Currently fleet vaults are a set size and fleet sizes are capped at 250 with plan to increase the cap.
- Special characters will be allowed in fleet names
- One in game benefit of joining a fleet is an extra uniform slot so can create a fleet costume. That abilities includes design, layout and choose a fleet insignia from large set of predefined logos.
- Later will be possible to add fleet insignia on to the ship
- Another is a fleet log that tracks major events such as boss defeats, leveling, etc accomplished by fleet members (current limit is 500 with intent to expand).

Overall it sounds like the Guild System needs a lot of work that will take place after the game launches once they have additional input from players on what they need to make it effective.