Exclusive: Star Trek Online Interview

Of the plethora of MMORPG titles in development and coming out each year, there’s one based on a certain massive sci-fi franchise that many having be eagerly anticipating for quite some time. That of course, is Star Trek Online, set to release next February and marking Star Trek’s first entrance into the MMO genre.

We recently sent a set of questions to Cryptic Studios about the game and its features, and Daniel Stahl, Producer on Star Trek Online, graciously took the time to answer all of them for us.

From starship vs. planetary gameplay, story elements, fleet battles and social gaming to working with other captains and the benefits of doing so, all of these are discussed below.

With Star Trek Online based in the Star Trek universe with familiar locales, ship designs, lore, etc., will there be any direct ties to specific characters, episodes, events from the different series’ and movies or other nods to the hardcore fans?

Absolutely! As players progress through the game, we expect fans to find numerous references and visual ties to events from past episodes and movies. Our writers have done a wonderful job of incorporatingelements from all of the TV series as well as the movies. Players will come face to face with the Guardian of Forever, Alpha Quadrant Dominion, the Mirror-Universe, original series Klingons, and even deal with the destruction of Romulus from the most recent movie.

Will STO be inviting and friendly to non-Trek fans and/or casual gamers and what do you feel will help draw them in?

We hope that casual gamer looking for something new will find a unique and satisfying game experience in Star Trek Online. There is fun and addictive gameplay at the core of STO that doesn’t require you to be a fan or even know who the Klingon are. Anyone who’s dreamed of exploring the galaxy in a starship will find something to love about this game. The beauty of entering orbit around a planetary system I’ve never seen before still makes me smile every time.

In terms of player controls, HUD displays, terminology and progression, will STO be familiar to experienced/advanced MMO gamers?

Our philosophy has been to strike a balance between making the game accessible to fans that’ve never played a game like this before, and the experienced MMO player. The game can be played with minimal control input to help those who aren’t familiar with keyboard gaming. Most of our controls and HUDelements do have varying levels of complexity that can be toggled on or off, and the advanced player will find a rich set of options to alter the control scheme to their preference. For example, all beam weapons are mapped to the spacebar by default, but the advanced player looking for more control can trigger each weapon bank individually through keyboard or UI commands. The complexity is there if you want it.

This game combines both the space elements of games like EVE and ground exploration and combat to more standard MMO fare – what else does STO do to differentiate itself from the competition?

With the game set in the Star Trek universe, many standard MMO conventions take on new dimensions. Economy and wealth take a back seat to exploration and personal development. A player’s career as a Starfleet officer drives theirprogression to complete objectives and earn ranks. Having control over other officers allows players to build a personal connection to their crew from the very start of the game. Just like Kirk and Spock, the player will develop relationships between their Captain and Officers. My tactical officer Spevak and I go way back and I never go on an away mission without him.

In terms of story elements and the basis for the game’s universe, what made you decide on having the game take place 30 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis?

Setting the game in the timeline after Nemesis allows players freedom to continue the story of Star Trek without being locked into a known future. It provides uncertainty and the unknown asplayers will need to discover what happens next. Where have the Romulans gone after the destruction of their home world? What happened to theDominion after the war? Is there another chance for peace with the Klingons? Are the Borg still a threat? If the game was set in the past, you’d know the answers.

Prior to the closing of Perpetual Entertainment, they were developing Star Trek Online for several years. What major elements of the game did you keep going forward and what elements did you change in molding STO to Cryptic’s plans for the title?

The number one element we continued forward was the spirit to make Star Trek Online the game that fans have been waiting for. Perpetual had a beautiful vision for how the game should look and feel. While we have built the game from the ground up on our own technology, there are game play elements and visuals that will look strikingly similar to the original Perpetual concept drawings. The spirit is there.

We understand that STO will allow each player to command there own vessel. Will there be an opportunity for friends or guild-mates to climb onboard, socialize and/or share one large ship? If not, is that something we could see down the road in the form of an update/expansion?

Every player will have access to the Bridge of their own vessels at launch and can invite friends over to visit and socialize. When we looked at the suggestion of having otherplayers perform duties on another player’s bridge, it was not much fun for those not driving the ship. It was frustrating sitting on a bridge and yelling “go that way… no that way!” In the end, we found it more fun when everyone can drive their own ship.

Can you walk around the interior of your own vessel?

At launch you will be able to walk around the Bridge of each of your vessels. We are considering other locations on your ship you could visit in future updates, but with so many ships and everyone wanting a different configuration, there needs to be a lot of options to make it live up to Cryptic’s customization standards.

We understand that players have a multitude of popular Trek alien races to choose from with the bonus of being able to create their own race. What does race-creation entail and can otherplayers join/choose a race that someone else has created?

We want players to let their imaginations run wild in our alien character creator. Not only can players determine origin and species traits, but there are a wide range of visual options to create an alien that looks like no other. Various foreheads, ears, noses, and eyes are just some options that really let Star Trek aliens come to life. Add in multiple textures and color schemes and we can’t wait to see what players come up with. We frequently snap screenshots of player’s custom aliens walking around Earth Spacedock during Beta Tests and pass them around the office.

With every player acting as a captain of their own solo star ship, how will Away teams for surface missions be formed? Will each captain need to fly their ship to a planet and form an away team consisting of the captains?

Most ground missions in Star Trek Online are setup for a five person away team. If the player is by themselves, this means the captain and four of their bridge crew. If twoplayers are teamed then it is the captains and the team leader decides who gets to bring the remaining bridge crew, so forth and so on. With five players , the away team would be all five captains. Keep in mind that in the game the term “captain” may refer to both the character piloting the ship as well as the Starfleet rank of Captain. For example, a Lieutenant Commander can be qualified to “captain” a starship.

What size parties can we expect to see for surface and space missions?(ie. Will we see large fleets of dozens of player-controlled vessels working together on a mission?)

While most ground and space missions are setup for a team of five players, there are larger scale conflicts known as Fleet Actions where up to twenty players can be in the same battle. For PVP battles we are still testing the limits to see how many players we can get on each side, as we all want to see epic massive space battles. Fleet Actions can take place both in space and on the ground.

Will the majority of gameplay be in space or on planet surfaces?

Travel happens in space and when a player reaches a new system they must establish orbit before they can beam down to a surface. For this reason alone, there are slightly more space maps than ground maps, although we want there to be a nice balance between the two.

Are their public meeting areas in-game such as on planets or space stations?

There are social locations both in space stations as well as famous planetary locations that will be familiar to fans, such as Risa and Vulcan. The Klingon Empire has some of these as well, although I can’t attest to how “social” they are.

There’s been some concern online that the game may entail loads of solo space-faring making the experience feel single-player due to the nature of the game. Is there anything being done to ensure that the game/universe feels like a community and a massively multiplayer experience or is that mainly up to the individual users and their playstyle?

We are adding social features to help players find one another easily and incentives to join together for missions. We’ve also implemented an auto-grouping feature that looks for players entering the same systems at the same time to perform a similar task and automatically places the players in a small fleet to take away the hassle of looking for groups to complete missions. In addition we scale mission difficulty based on the number of players attempting the episode together to make it more of a challenge, and the rewards are scaled appropriately.

Last but not least, we have to touch on one other thing: Many fans were disheartened about the cancellation of the Marvel Universe MMO – With DC Comics releasing DCU soon and Marvel making headlines everywhere with the Disney merger and upcoming slate of blockbuster films, are there any chances of that project re-starting in the future with Cryptic Studios involved?

At this time Cryptic is solely focused on Champions and Star Trek. Any announcement of future projects (whatever those will be) will not come until after the release ofStar Trek Online.

Thank you for your excellent questions and we look forward to seeing everyone online!

A big thanks to Daniel Stahl and the team working on Star Trek Online for taking the time to read and answer our questions.

Things are gearing up for this MMO’s release and we at Game Rant are excited to see what the game will bring to the genre.

Star Trek Online goes live February 2, 2010.

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