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Thread: Trek MMORPG News

  1. #1

    Trek MMORPG News

    “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

    -- Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

  2. #2
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    What I have seen so far form the game looks really promising, too bad I probably won't have the time to play it. I began mmorpging with Star Wars Galaxies and found it not too exiting, especially after the diverse "upgrades". I tried LOTRO as well and found it amazing, this game was simply brilliant - yet I ceased playing after some months, because I simply had not the time. When a game that I really liked as LOTRO, cannot "keep" me, I doubt STO can, although becoming a starship Captain is tempting.
    Anyway, the game looks cool, the concept drawing are interesting, gives the whole Trek universe a new touch, but sticks true enough for my taste. Is there actually any hint on the timeframe the game takes place?
    We came in peace, for all mankind - Apollo 11

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Evan van Eyk
    Is there actually any hint on the timeframe the game takes place?
    From the above article: "Because the game will be set a few generations following the last Trek film, players shouldn't expect to run into James T. Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard. 'There might be a ship called Enterprise flying around, but it's probably not the same ship anymore,' said Emmert. 'Most of the characters will have either retired or passed on'..."
    “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

    -- Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

  4. #4
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    Is there a monthly fee beyond the software purchase price?
    Anyhoo, just some random thoughts...

    "My philosophy is 'you don't need me to tell you how to play -- I'll just provide some rules and ideas to use and get out of your way.'"
    -- Monte Cook

    "Min/Maxing and munchkinism aren't problems with the game: they're problems with the players."
    -- excerpt from Guardians of Order's Role-Playing Game Manifesto

    A GENERATION KIKAIDA fan

    DISCLAIMER: I Am Not A Lawyer

  5. #5
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    Being a long time holder of a Cryptic account . . . I hope that they do as good of a job with this property as they have done with CoH/CoV

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    "The Federation needs men like you, doctor. Men of conscience. Men of principle. Men who can sleep at night... You're also the reason Section Thirty-one exists -- someone has to protect men like you from a universe that doesn't share your sense of right and wrong." Sloan, Section Thirty-One

  6. #6
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    Just got through watching the video of the webcast from the Vegas Trek con with Cryptic's CCO Jack Emmert... here's a rundown:

    Star Trek Online takes place in 2409, 30 years after ST: Nemesis. Many familiar places will be seen, some new enemies have arisen, some allies have become enemies and vice versa. Cryptic plans to update their website on a regular basis with story updates each containing a year's worth of backstory material to catch potential players on the Trek universe as depicted in the game.

    Story material will be taken from the novels and comic books as well as the TV series and movies (Corps of Engineers, the Excalibur from New Frontier, and the I.K.S. Gorkon were specifically mentioned).

    Player characters will start out as low-ranked COs of small vessels with a player-controlled, but AI-driven "bridge crew" that the player upgrades and equips along with their character, sort of like "pets" in other MMOs. Bridge crew members (or other PCs) are what you'll assemble away teams from for beam-downs.

    The player will also have a "general crew" (the redshirts, as Emmert put it) which provide gameplay bonuses depending on their race and skillsets.

    Gameplay will take place in space, on planets, and within the interior of the player character's ship.

    Starship control and combat will have a tactical element where players will be issue commands to their crew during spaceflight and combat (Emmert: "send a security team to Deck 5, repair a hull breach on deck 6, divert power from engines to shields").

    Ground play in contrast will be fast-paced third-person style play with squad-based tactics and both hand-to-hand and ranged combat. Characters will have personal shields for defense.

    Player characters will be fully customizable in terms of race and physical appearance. Playable races will include (but not be limited) to Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Ferengi, but players will be able to able to create new custome alien races, either from existing Trek lore or from the player's imagination.

    Ships are also customizable within a certain extent as the character advances in experience and rank. The various components (nacelles, hull, etc.) can be upgraded, and color and decals can be added.

    Players will either play as officers of Starfleet or as soldiers of the Klingon Defense Force, with new factions available later on (Emmert specifically mentioned the Romulans and the Dominion), and each faction's central command will issue mission orders to the characters. While Emmert was loathe to elaborate at present, he mentioned that the Federation-Klingon alliance probably ceased to exist and that each faction could participate in PvP gameplay against one another.

    Exploration will be as important as combat in the game, and players will be discovering new worlds and civilizations. Emmert said that they had developed an "infinite exploration system" where planets, races, and entire solar systems would be created and continually added post-launch, including pre-warp civilizations that could be studied from afar. Exploration is beneficial inasmuch that new knowledge and technology could be brought into your faction's use and members of newly discovered species could be recruited into your crew. How much favor each of these new species has with each faction will factor into what they can offer the player's crew.

    Intergalactic commerce will be a part of gameplay as well. This is where guilds ("fleets") come in, as resources will be pooled for building space stations, mining platforms, satellites, shipyards. Shipyards can be used to construct new ships which can then be divvied out to players in the fleet. As such, forming or joining a fleet within the game becomes very beneficial. Emmert invited potential players to the forums at startrekonline.com, where fleets are already forming and recruiting. He also mentioned a contest on the forums where five people will win a copy of the game and a lifetime subscription.

    Emmert said the release date is set, but he couldn't announce it just yet.

    Additional details discovered during the Q&A portion:

    Emmert mentioned that each of his development team was assigned to watch an entire run of one of the series, and that he himself was devouring the novels.

    "A Star Trek writer" was hired to develop the game's stories, and the game's plotlines will be reflective of what's come before.

    STO will be developed to run on as many hardware profiles as they intend for their Champions Online MMO; they cited World of Warcraft's ability to be played on nearly any consumer computer system as their goal.

    Holographic crew members will be available.

    Ship interiors will be full environments with decks, layouts, sickbays, engine rooms, holodecks, etc. Ship compartments will be customizable.

    When asked about player death, Emmert said they hadn't gotten to that aspect in development yet, but said that he felt the days of outrageous penalties for PC death in MMOs had long passed.

    Chain/campaign quests will be available in the form of "tours of duty" issued as orders by the player's faction's central command.

    The characters will be CG-animated and not motion-captured.

    The dev team are hoping to make the game something that's entertaining for them to play before the game ships, a response Emmert gave to a fan who asked what Cryptic plans to do to prevent the game from being a "grind-fest."

    STO forum members will be where the dev team will look first for beta-testers. Emmert said again he couldn't reveal the game's release date, but he could say the game will be out in "less than three years."

    There will be dynamic events added post-launch. Emmert mentioned Borg invasions and Tholian incursions, and he said that player actions would affect the story.

    PvP will be part of the game between the Federation and Klingon factions.

    Any missions, including tours of duty, can (and some absolutely should) be played cooperatively with other players.

    The game will not penalize casual players who don't have time to play constantly and have to compete with "13-year-olds that put in eight hours a day."

    While player characters start out as starship CO's, they will have career paths classic to the franchise (science, engineering, security, etc.).

    Cryptic hasn't made a firm decision yet on whether the game will be played on one large server or multiple smaller servers, but Emmert said his personal preference was a single server that everyone could play on.

    Diplomacy will be a part of gameplay.

    A young boy asked Emmert how old a player had to be to play STO, to which he replied that the game, like all MMOs, should be played by youngsters with their parents' permission and supervision.

    Emmert couldn't confirm Linux or Mac versions of the game, but said that for sure versions for those platforms would not be available at launch.

    The bridge crews would be controlled in a similar manner to masterminds in City of Villains.

    The development of fleets and the galactic economy would be different than that of Eve Online, and, when asked about griefing, Emmert said the game would be more about developing one's resources rather than fighting other players or fleets for theirs.

    Emmert elaborated on how much of the Pocket Books material would be included in the game; he and another dev team member are assigned to cover all of Pocket's post-Nemesis literature. Due to the "soft canon" nature of the books and the sometimes contradictory elements between them, while elements from the books will be used, the books will be used largely as inspiration rather than hard canon.

    Boarding other ships will be more a social activity than a gameplay element.

    There's a trailer that was shown that can be viewed on the game's website at www.startrekonline.com.
    chris "mac" mccarver
    world's angriest creative mind

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by RaconteurX View Post
    From the above article: "Because the game will be set a few generations following the last Trek film, players shouldn't expect to run into James T. Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard. 'There might be a ship called Enterprise flying around, but it's probably not the same ship anymore,' said Emmert. 'Most of the characters will have either retired or passed on'..."
    Erm, ok, and I thought I can read... Well, never to late to learn it...
    Thanks though.

    @Mac417: Thanks for the details. Actually this sounds awesome and I hope that I will find the time to play it. Depending on the price, this might actually be a possibility, at least after I got my diploma ( which will hopefully happen within one year ).
    We came in peace, for all mankind - Apollo 11

  8. #8
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    I gotta wonder what vessel classes you will have access to. I have to wonder what the new classes are and where the fit into the total force of Starfleet. I see that the uniforms have been changed yet again . . . I guess they don't like everyone having to zoom into someone's neck to see rank. What no enlisted? Why not the traditional arm ranks of the old naval traditions? Or shoulder chevrons?

    Customized ships decals? Man command will have a field day with that one.

    Lets start up a role-playing guild.

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  9. #9
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    Must... resist... not ending up playing another...

    Nah, who am I kidding. Where do I sign up?

    With the release being so far away as "Within three years" a bit to much can still happen to the project. Well, 6 month from now is also within 3 years. So who knows

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    Trek Online Game Developing


  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by JALU3 View Post
    I gotta wonder what vessel classes you will have access to. I have to wonder what the new classes are and where the fit into the total force of Starfleet. I see that the uniforms have been changed yet again . . . I guess they don't like everyone having to zoom into someone's neck to see rank. What no enlisted? Why not the traditional arm ranks of the old naval traditions? Or shoulder chevrons?

    Customized ships decals? Man command will have a field day with that one.

    Lets start up a role-playing guild.
    I imagine the "general crew" will largely be made up of NCOs.

    Oh, and reading off the STO's website FAQ, I'm guessing they're shooting for a simultaneous PC and console launch.
    chris "mac" mccarver
    world's angriest creative mind

  12. #12
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    So anyone want to come up names for our rpging guild for the ST:O?

    How about name it after a task force mentioned in the show, or a squadron mentioned in the show . . . or a fleet number mentioned in the show? Or how about simply with the url of this forum?

    DeviantArt Slacker MAL Support US Servicemembers
    "The Federation needs men like you, doctor. Men of conscience. Men of principle. Men who can sleep at night... You're also the reason Section Thirty-one exists -- someone has to protect men like you from a universe that doesn't share your sense of right and wrong." Sloan, Section Thirty-One

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    Guess to many of us want to join separate fleets. So one guild may not work, and the only one I seen so far that allows multiple guilds/groups is SecondLife. But quite a few of them allows user made chat channels. So maybe one TrekRPGnet channel (group, if it is possible to member of more than one), and at least a Federation guild.

    Personally, I like the idea of using a fleet number. After all, each player seems to be in command of a ship. But to me, it don't have to be a fleet that is mentioned in the show.

  14. #14
    You'd think that, with a launch window "within three years", they could have a Mac version ready to go as well.
    “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

    -- Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by RaconteurX View Post
    You'd think that, with a launch window "within three years", they could have a Mac version ready to go as well.
    If they want more $$, I am sure they will have a Mac version.

    Now back to the fleet name. Anyone up for 3rd fleet (homeported here in Sunny San Diego). Or how about the 10th or 12th fleet?

    I am good with Task force as well, as they can have either a number or name designation. How about Task Force 473? Or HJow about TF 58 full of Akiras with Peregrines aboard?

    DeviantArt Slacker MAL Support US Servicemembers
    "The Federation needs men like you, doctor. Men of conscience. Men of principle. Men who can sleep at night... You're also the reason Section Thirty-one exists -- someone has to protect men like you from a universe that doesn't share your sense of right and wrong." Sloan, Section Thirty-One

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