“The familiarity of the Star Trek Universe makes it a lot of fun to play”
The mantra is ingrained in pop culture …
“Space … the final frontier … these are the voyages of …”
Well, try this as an amendment of that phrase: “ … these are your voyages.”
Maybe not as catchy, but the drift is right. Star Trek Online, from Cryptic Studios is gearing up to wrap into space at the start of February with a massively multiplayer experience that is certain to attract a lot of attention.
The game takes place in the 24th century with gamers taking on the role of captain of their own ship. Ships are customizable as are player species – both a bold move when it comes to MMOs, but Cryptic has been down that customization path before. Considering that City of Heroes brought player customization to new levels, Cryptic could be taking that notion to the next level.
The time was right “to explore strange new world, to seek out new life and new civilizations” and to boldly ask questions of the dev team (pardon the paraphrase, Trekkies).
Daniel Stahl, producer on Star Trek Online, took time away from the ramp-up to release to chat with GameZone about the title.
And with that … “energize!”
Question: First off, how long do we all have to wear the red shirts of death when we start the game?
Daniel: Fortunately, all Starfleet players start as an officer and select whether they are science, engineering or tactical (red shirt) at character creation. Every player character is high enough rank to captain a starship, so you don’t have to worry about grinding out XP (experience points) as someone’s fall guy. That said, if you’re feeling lucky, choose the red shirt and see how long you can last before you bite it on an away mission.
There has been so much lore integrated into the license from the television shows and the movies, as well as the novels and previous video-games. How did you decide what you should use and how you could create a believably playable world and still have it retain the flavor or feel of the Star Trek universe (and not tread toward the generic space game)?
Daniel: A vital question was, “what time period the game would be set in?” The lore spans a significant amount of time and we ultimately decided on the unknown future so that players can experience the story without knowing how it ends.
This also allows us to use pretty much anything and everything that has appeared before, but focus on cool new technology hinted at towards the end of Voyager and in Star Trek Nemesis. Personal shields are an example of this.
We also added planets, settings, and locales from all of the series so that no matter when you watched Star Trek, you’ll see something you are familiar with.
Will some of the iconic figures of the TV show and/or movies make cameos in the game? What will their roles be? Will they merely be wall decorations – as in other games – or will they have a vital part to play in the storylines and the progression of player characters?
Daniel: In Star Trek Online, you are the captain. We want you to live your story with your ship and crew. There will be familiar characters and villains that you’ll run into throughout the progression of the game but for the most part you are not going to see named characters like Picard or Janeway walking around Earth Spacedock. The players are the main characters.
You promise a unique combat experience. What will make it so unique? Will the combat be limited to ship-v-ship, or do you plan for planet forays that may take on FPS elements?
Daniel: When you are in space, you are in command of your ship and the unique crew you have trained to man your bridge. The officers you have trained up add their skills to your ships capabilities when seated on your bridge. As you are traveling throughout the galaxy you will encounter enemy starships and you’ll have to prove your meddle in ship-to-ship battle. That is only half of the combat experience.
When you are on the ground, you take control of your captain and up to four of your personal bridge officers as an away team. Similar to space, the ground skills you’ve trained your officers with come into play.
There is a solid mix of tactical combat in both space as your ship, and on the ground as your captain and away team. It’s pretty cool.
How many playable races will there be? How deep is the ship customization ability?
Daniel: Starfleet characters can choose between Human, Vulcan, Bajoran, Bolian, Andorian, Ferengi, to name a few. Klingon characters can choose between Klingon, Gorn, Orion, and Nausicaan. The list keeps growing every week as we get closer to launch.
In addition, players can create their own unique alien species and customize how it looks and what innate powers it has. This is a very robust creator similar to past Cryptic Studios games. You could spend hours making an amazingly unique alien. In addition to your captain, you can also customize your officer’s appearance
It doesn’t stop there! For each class and tier of ship, you can also customize the saucer, nacelles, stanchions, struts, body, lighting, and color schemes based on the parts available to that basic class of ship. It is a ship modelers dream.
Does the skill progression follow the tree route that other MMORPGs have, or have you re-imagined those elements.
Daniel: At character creation you choose a career between science, tactical and engineering. From there you gain points as you progress through content which can be spent on skills available to your career within your current rank. Once you’ve gained enough points and spent them, you qualify for promotions to the next rank. There are also basic skills that all officers receive at different points in their career.
A similar version of this exists for your officers. They progress, ranking and skilling up similar to your captain, however they cannot be promoted to your captain’s rank, and must stay a rank behind.
In all, the rank up system is robust and allows a lot of creativity in making captains and officers unique.
There have been, in the past, some stunning games that made the vastness of space visually impressive and a compelling place to be. Wing Commander was one of the first and EVE Online has done a stellar job. What was your reference for the visual style of this game and what will you be giving players, graphically, that advances the genre of space games?
Daniel: The environment artists started out being very true to the show, representing space in a very dark and starfield way. We then realized that tactical deep space combat becomes very disorienting because there is little in the way to give you a point of reference.
They started adding more and more elements to our maps. Asteroids, planets, nebulas, you name it until we felt we able to keep our bearings in space.
From there things just went crazy and we started looking at NASA deep space shots and began to push the boundary of what could possibly be “out there.” What the artists have done is make some of the most breathtaking space maps I’ve seen, and I’ve played a lot of space games.
The screenshots online should give you a quick idea of what we’ve done to advance the look and feel for space settings. Breathtaking!
How will missions make use of the multiplayer elements? Will you have to be part of an armada for certain missions, or will there be a hierarchy within the Federation (if so, how does one move up the ranks)? What social elements will be in place (like enclaves, clans or guilds)?
Daniel: Most missions are broken down into instances where we allow up to five players to form a fleet. There are additional systems where large scale Fleet Actions are taking place where up to 25 players can fight alongside one another to complete the objectives of the encounter.
As players progress, they rank up from Lieutenant all the way up to Admiral.
Players can also form their own Fleets (guilds) and assign standing within their own fleet, but that doesn’t impact the players’ skills or performance in any way.
What do you think makes this such a compelling license to use for a game?
Daniel: The familiarity of the Star Trek Universe makes it a lot of fun to play. It is hard to find someone who doesn’t know that Vulcans are logical and Klingons are warriors. You’ll enjoy seeing familiar locations and hearing sounds that are buried into your subconscious.
From a development standpoint, there is a monstrous amount of source material, including vast photos and reference shots of just about anything you can think of from Star Trek. If we ever have a question about “what goes here,” you really can in most instances look it up online and it will show you.
That is how much the world loves Star Trek.
Who is your favorite Star Trek character and why? What has been your favorite movie or television segment? If you could be anyone in the Star Trek Universe, who would it be and why?
Daniel: Kirk is my favorite character because of his charisma knows no bounds, yet he is always a personal struggle.
My favorite movie was the original motion picture because I think it shows a side of Kirk that speaks to the above.
It sure would be fun to be Kirk. I’d judo chop and ask questions latehttp://www.gamezone.com/news/12_11_09_08_15AM.htm
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