The missions in the game are limited. It’s either go attack and destroy enemies or go find out something, then attack and destroy enemies. They do a good job of mixing things up so you sometimes have away missions to play through (yep, attack and destroy enemies) in between a lot of space battles. It’s still grinding, but it doesn’t feel like it because there’s such a wide range of ways to do it. They even had a mission that was purely a fact-finding expedition where you go and settle a dispute with some miners. But they could have made that far more interesting because the feeling was, as one player said, "I went all the way to that system just to answer six questions?" My reply was "It’s called diplomacy," however, there could have been something more. There are also other missions where you just have to go activate some devices and they feel like they’re just there as filler.

There are even specific areas set aside just for PvP in the Neutral Zone where Klingons and Federation can mix it up in a variety of online PvP modes including resource grabbing, deathmatch, etc. As a Klingon you are encouraged to engage the Federation at any chance and even to engage in combat with other houses just as a matter of polite society, for Klingons anyway. Sometimes though, you’ll run into what you think is a PvP level which will end up just being a forced multiplayer co-op environment. There are many would-be PvP levels that are really just this sort of team up against a fleet of NPCs. Of course, as with many MMOs that means you’ll be on a team of players that don’t know what teamwork is. Though I have been surprised by how much teamwork actually does show up here.

Crafting in the game just plain sucks. The only way to do it is to run around the galaxy gathering up anomalous data readings. Then you take those and a specific item and trade them in for an upgraded one. It’s all very cut and dry and I was extremely disappointed to find out that there’s no experimentation, no creation of unique items and frankly, nothing interesting at all in it. You have to run a science mission which then gives you access to someone who upgrades Mark II items. After a certain amount of exchange with that player you can then move up to Mark III items with someone else, etc, etc. Yawn! It’s not a crafting system at all in fact. If this is their answer to a non-violent scientific side to the game, it’s an almost complete failure on their part.

The space battles can be epic, in a very proper use of that word. Fleet actions take you and up to twenty other ships and throw you into a massive space battle that could last up to an hour depending on how quickly the fleet dispatches the enemies and achieves the goals that are set forth. These are the times when the game really shines because it’s non-stop action and while you’re technically ’grinding,’ it’s not at all like standard grinding. However, as with many MMOs, no matter what you do in these missions, the game’s story does not change at all. If you beat back the Gorn or take out a massive Klingon force trying to slip in and steal a sector from the Federation, they’ll still be there doing it later. The story doesn’t really progress and there’s no actual change in who has control of what sector. The maps and borders are stationary and don’t look like they will ever change.

As far as I’m concerned, the major flaw in the game comes in your lack of gameplay options and the horrible crafting system. You are either a Starfleet Officer or a Klingon Defense Fleet Officer (for now). There is no being a Ferengi and living a life dedicated to the acquisition of wealth. There is no being a bar owner on a Starship or Starbase. There’s no being a bounty hunter, a crazy hitchhiking alien or anything else. It’s just this, or that and that’s all you get. But it’s an MMO and if we know one thing about MMOs it’s that they evolve over time and Cryptic is actively working to do that. MMOs expand and new features are added and hopefully, these are high on the list, after they squash tens of thousands of bugs. So for now, there is no Q or Continuum, there is no visiting the home of the Prophets in the Bajoran Wormole. Just for now, we hope.