Having gotten a chance to join the open beta, I didn’t want to waste that time on learning and doing everything wrong and then having to start all over again during official launch with everyone else.

At that time, there weren’t much guide options, there was the Killer Guides STO Guide which was available on the same day open beta started. So, that’s the one I got. My personal rating? It was definitely a worthwhile buy. Although it’s still not fully complete (I got the very first version of the STO guide), for a total newbie during open beta, it was extremely helpful.

From the table of content and how the guide is written, I can tell that the guide is going to be solid. Can’t wait to get the final version before STO’s official release. My recommendation: get a copy if you want to get into more exciting part of the game fast. At the very least, coming from a long time gamer, I found the STO guide a great buy. The guide publisher also has other STO guides planned for launch which I’ll definitely be looking into.

The gates to the epic world of Star Trek is opening in months to come and our STO GUIDES .com is responding with our own STO tips and guide reviews. After all these years, I can finally say that there is a MMORPG that is worthy to bear the Star Trek trademark.

Cryptic Studios just announced the release of this exciting game, which will be released on February 2, 2010. For those of you who are new to this game: Star Trek Online is unlike other conventional MMORPG. First, the game does not use “leveling” for character progression, but rather a skill-based character progression. Basically, you start as a Ensign and rank up to progress until you are a Admiral. Ranking up will allow you to not only access more STO classes’ specific skill, but to access more powerful starships you can purchase. Furthermore, you can rank up your 4 subordinates too. In other words, your subordinates have the exact flexibility in customization as your own avatar. I think that is indeed very innovative of Cryptic Studios. Especially during ‘Away Missions’ you will take command of your avatar and 4 other subordinates who will take orders from you, the captain, to form a team of 5. Assign your subordinates with caution as it can mean life and death.

As you see, customization plays a big role in Star Trek Online. Space combat on the other hand will allow you to command only 1 STO ship unfortunately. However, ship battles have its own complexity like controling energy to different systems to boost a certain attribute while sacrificing another attribute by decreasing its effectiveness. Moreover, you will have control over shields and which shield you want to boost, while again sacrificing another shield effectiveness. Shield controling, hints a bit to how important positioning plays a big role in starship combat. In fact, positioning effects your offence too. If you position the ships in a certain way, more weapons on your ship can take aim and fire at your enemies.

Player Progression is at the heart of every MMORG, and is often what potential players wonder the most about. How long will it take for me to get to the good content? What do I do to gain experience or some equivalent? How entertaining and interesting this road to the top is can often make or break a game.

Star Trek Online is skill-based rather than level-based, which means that the player is awarded skill points rather than experience (although in rough practice they are basically the same). These points are used to improve skills that are available to you. As you move up through the ranks in Starfleet or the STO Klingon Empire these skills become more and more refined, so that at the end of the game your character is hyper-specialized.

There are five ranks (excluding the Ensign rank, which is played in the Tutorial) available with the launch of STO. They are Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, Captain and Admiral. Each rank has a set of skills available to it that expands once a player reaches the next rank. These skills also become more refined, to reflect a character’s increasing specialization and knowledge in a certain skill set. To advance to the next rank, a character needs to spend a set number of skill points on available skills. It is not required to max out certain skills, just to have the correct number of points required for the next rank.

Since every player will be one of the five ranks, the variety comes from both the skills a character chooses and from a character’s selected career path. The known Star Trek Online career paths are Engineer, Doctor, Tactical Officer and Science Officer. A character’s chosen career path alters which skills are available to them at each level. An Engineer career would have skills such as Modification or Maintenance, while a Doctor career would have something completely different.

In STO, skill points can be acquired in game through the traditional completing missions and events tactic. Some pre-order packages (such as the one for sale from Wal-Mart) are also offering additional skill points for a player’s characters if they purchase the pre-order.