First STO in-game screenshots

[Stark]

Don't forget queues of starships waiting for the Prototype BoP to spawn so they can recover the Gold Watch. It'll stretch across the system! Cause traffic jams! Start fights!

JUST LIKE IN STAR TREK.

[Covenant]

While we haven't seen much of the spacegame yet (which is still the big draw for the game, nobody watched Star Trek because of the thrilling gunfights), the decision to already start focusing a lot of energy on a ground combat system that looks yanked from an alpha version of Guild Wars shows they've already failed a shibboleth. I'm still hopeful the space elements will be fun, but the game looks goofy. I really didn't want to be forced to do a lot of footslogging, and this basically confirms that I will. Wouldn't this be an instance of "Stay In The Car"?

[brianeyci]

Yeah it's not just the graphics.

The first screenshots of the interior of the Galaxy and specifically the LCARS system looked like it had potential. The only way Star Trek MMORPG can work is if it's an interesting online version of say... Star Trek 25th Anniversary or Star Trek Judgement Rites.

Elite Force MMORPG would not work... if they're doing it that way, why not make it a total action game with an online component, rather than pretend to be MMORPG?

But they decided to CAN the LCARS apparently for some dumbed down buttons on the bottom, and a ground combat system that looks like you walk around shooting Gorns in some kind of grindfest. It is not just the "look", it's the entire interface design and premise that isn't Trek at all.

Lines of Galaxy waiting for the golden BoP is exactly what'll happen, if development keeps going this way.

[Bounty]

[Gullible Jones]

That is the funniest thing I have seen all day. Thank you!

[Meest]

The game is doomed for other reasons with the new "direction" they are taking. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50065 Looks and sounds like flop already.

In late 2007, it was announced that Perpetual Entertainment was under new management: a non-gaming company seeking to enter gaming. It was announced that Star Trek Online would have a more "casual" approach, and was considering alternative payment strategies, such as allowing players to spend money on in-game items, instead of paying subscription fees. According to an anonymous source, "a number" of employees may have left due to dissatisfaction over the game's new direction.

[Covenant]

Awesome. It's "The Merch MMO" combined with a Star Trek patina. If that doesn't have instant win written all over it, I don't know what does!

I can only assume this was a result of management twisting some arms, rather than an actual game designer plan for the game. The fact that it is SO different from the original intent seems to be a pretty strong indicator that someone outside the brain trust decided to pull rank.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Whoa, check it out, it's the gameplay of that Star Wars mmo... but with Star Trek!

The fact that they were put under the direction of a formerly non-gaming company does explain this though: The non-gaming company looks at all the popular MMO's and sees legions of people slogging through 'wilderness' and whacking creatures, and thus, "You guys gotta make it this way! Forget all that 'innovative' crap!"

[Nephtys]

From the brilliant Korean devs who brought you 'crappy anime sidescroller that you pay money to buy items', comes... Star Trek Online! Watch as you bravely purchase a gold plated +5 wisdom Phaser with 29.99USD where no one has purchased before.

[Flagg]

Don't forget queues of starships waiting for the Prototype BoP to spawn so they can recover the Gold Watch. It'll stretch across the system! Cause traffic jams! Start fights!

JUST LIKE IN STAR TREK.

God damnit 'Lt Cumzontitz', I've been camping [House of Duras Vor'Cha Battlecruiser] for an hour! Stop fucking kill stealing or I'll report you!!!!

[Edward Yee]

Heh... ironically I'd be more likely to play it if they go the "free but pay for goodies" route, than if they go the subscription route. (Although it'd be more kick-ass if they went with a Puzzle Pirates-style "two currencies" system where one can be traded for the other, without requiring RL money.)

[brianeyci]

I spent a day on Star Trek Judgement Rites again to see if I was talking out of my ass. That game, really was Star Trek, really was going where no man had gone before and discovering strange new worlds.

It would be really hard to turn that into a MMO, because I can't think of any mainstream MMO like that. But that's why you make a Star Trek MMO in the first place, not to make another WoW clone which is doomed to failure, but to make a "break the mold" type of game. The "casual" gamer approach is fucking stupid beyond belief. Star Trek was and always will be in the realm of the nerd, of someone who thinks way more than a casual gamer and chews up casual games for breakfast. Yes yes, I know people make fun of Trektards, but face it even Mike is a fan of Star Trek. Star Trek will never appeal to the casual, and trying to make it so is like trying to stuff wrestling into the sci-fi channel. Star Trek is for nerds and trying to make a MMO Star Trek for Halo fans is fucking retarded. If they wanted to do that they should make a normal game.

Anyway Star Trek MMO can work like this: there's two hundred fixed missions, each one of them truly "going where no man has gone before" and requiring different ships and characters with different skills to defeat. Each mission is written like an "episode", like in Judgement Rites or 25th Anniversary. Above all, there cannot be:

• No Levels. Zero levels at all, and zero grinding. It should be like Guild Wars, but even faster leveling. As soon as you come out of tutorial, you should have all the base stats of a veteran Starfleet officer/crewman.
• No persistent inventory. There cannot be inventory in the form of get the golden phaser. That is so not Star Trek. In fact, the entire universe is set up that way with the disdain for money. No Federation Credit. What little inventory there is, should be rare and special artifacts and you should only carry a handful on yourself at all times in addition to standard stuff you can get anywhere. Temporary inventory should exist for missions and puzzles though.

There must be:

• Immersion. The Romulan Warbird, the Galaxy, the hand phaser, are all Star Trek. You should walk around a ship finding canon facts about Star Trek. If that means they include only Galaxy, Intrepid, Sovereign, Defiant and Constitution then so be it.
• Less focus on combat, especially space combat. Combat in Star Trek is about "attack pattern omega" or "lay down a pattern." The computer automates combat in Star Trek to the point you press a button on a console, and that is it.
• Landscape and beautiful scenery, along with strange alien cultures. You should be able to beam down and explore a world, for the sake of exploration. This is why graphics are important in a Star Trek MMO, because it's all about exploring strange new worlds and new civilizations and beautiful art direction is an absolute must.
• Great voice acting. In fact, a library of one hundred voice actors is not inconceivable.

So, it has to be a puzzle game. The game would work like this. You go to a Starbase, and recruit different people with different kinds of skills, for a different kind of mission. Then you head to one of two hundred different planets/starbases/nebula/hot zones and have instantiated missions like Guild Wars. The problem is making two hundred well-written episodes, a kind of King's Quest MMO, and two hundred different scripts. The problem is not as challenging as it seems: almost all stories follow the three different types in Science Fiction like Heinlein says: Boy meets Girl, Little Tailor, Man who Learned Better. With careful thought, you can imagine a "mission generator" which generates interesting but original missions, based on several different mission types or variants of mission types. Each mission would draw on a library of 20 or so standard puzzles.

Some puzzles would be more difficult than others, and this is where the "stats" of a player comes in. A "combat" type of puzzle could be a stop the other guy from hacking, or match up certain attack codes or attack patterns so your phasers shoot from your ship better. But the key puzzles would be non-fighting, the kind where you talk to a lot of NPC's to piece together a plan, bring certain types of inventory together in unique ways.

Anyway those are my ideas, and it's a lot more sustainable than a WoW clone with Korean model item purchase. Ugh.

[Darth Smiley]

Star Trek is for nerds and trying to make a MMO Star Trek for Halo fans is fucking retarded

Agreed. If they try this, the game will certainly flop. They'll alienate both non-Trekkies, by simply being star trek ('lolz star trek is for nerds, lets play Wow'), and Trekkies, by NOT being star trek enough.

[Aaron]

I love the ship, it looks like a g-spot vibrator with wings. Can it get any better?

[DarkSilver]

According to this month's Game Informer (Issue 177), the ship seen in the Screen-shot is dubbed a "Tahoe" class Starship.

There's a interview in there which sheds some more light on the game.....which really really is pushing me in the "not even gonna bother" camp - unless I get into Beta and see the Beta is totally wtfpwnage awesome.

The pics from the game we see, is again, concept art, it can't be anything in engine due to the stylization being different. The big main image of what I could only guess to be a Borg world, or some sort of giant Borg Sphere construct, located in a Trinary system, with several others in the background, along with borgified asteroids, and a Cube. There's also concept art of 4 new Starfleet ships, the Iowa, Sacagawea, the Edison (a shuttlecraft thing) and the aforementioned Tahoe (lovespawn of the Galaxy, Intrepid and Soverign classes)

Anyway, here's part of the interview (I'm retyping it for those who don't get GameInformer). Their interviewing Greg Faillace (art director) and Ryan Dening (lead concept artist).

For alot of readers, this may be the first time they've heard about Star Trek Online. Can you give us a brief summary of the game and when it is set in the Star Trek mythology?

Faillace: Sure thing. The game takes place a few decades after the movie Nemesis. After years of peace and newly formed alliences with old foes, a number of new (and not-so-new) threats have suddenly emerged to threaten the galaxy. You start out as a Starfleet Cadet, adventuring into the expanse of the universe, confronting the challenges and fighting back the chaos. You'll be exploring new worlds and cultures that have never been seen as well as experiencing familiar people and places from the shows and films.

Now I'm going to stop there and let you digest that.

I'm not going to repost more, if you want to see the rest, go find a copy of Game Informer, none of it really gives me a sense of hope for the game.....

[Oni Koneko Damien]

*sigh* Guess I'll have to camp the 'Elite Ferengi Warrior' spawn-point for six hours straight to make it to a Level 12 Security Specialist Officer. Can anyone lend me a 'Prime Directive Devotion' buff so I can heal faster?

[PREDATOR490]

Borg 'asteroids' ...
What the fuck ?
Your telling me they intend to make the Borg the equivelent of belt NPC rats in EVE ?
Or are we to believe the Borg have 'adapted' to asteroid mining ?

(To Asteroid belt)
"We are the Borg, stop spinning and surrender your ore. Your... (minerals?) will adapt to service us. Resistance is Futile !"

*Borg ship ruthlessly mines poor asteroid bastard with its scorching beams of doom for over 9000 points of completely shitty concept damage.


After Nemesis...
Admiral Janeway... yeah fucked already.
So... how are the Borg involved if Janeway destroyed them ?
If she didnt you would expect the Borg to be mighty pissed off to the extent they rape the Federation in retaliation. Even ignoring that, a single cube has repeatedly swept through entire fleets of Federation vessels so having multiple npc spawns of Borg technology is retarded. If the Borg arent showing up to retaliate then... why would they be in the region ?

The Federation cant enter the DQ so logically the only way for the Borg to become a viable target is for them to come to the Federation borders and bringing fleets of NPC Borg spawn locations implies Borg fleets. Story / RP wise its going to be pointless and should easily annoy most Trek fans when you have a group for 5 - 6 players farming the crap out of cubes on a daily basis. Even if they did it right, being attacked by the Borg and losing would logically mean major character death since you end up assimilated.

...years of peace and newly formed alliences with old foes...

Unless this is an alliance with the Borg... which would actually be one way of gobsmacking the hell out of a Star Trek crowd. I gather its either the Klingons and/or Romulans.
I find it unlikely they would do the Dominion and I cant really think of any 'old foes' worthy of an alliance within the AQ / BQ. Cant think of any in the DQ or GQ Either for that matter.

...a number of new (and not-so-new) threats have suddenly emerged to threaten the galaxy.

I presume the Borg are the not-so-new but I am more concerned with the "threaten the galaxy" deal. The Federation is most certainly not a protector of the galaxy which makes me wonder if they will pull some new technology stuff like stargates or hyperspace to allow them access across the galaxy.
Makes it easier to understand the Borg being a factor but unless they want to literally incorporate everything from the Dominion down to the Kazon in an EVE style universe they are setting themselves up a tall order to meet the expectations of fans wanting to travel to meet all the races we have seen.

You'll be exploring new worlds and cultures that have never been seen as well as experiencing familiar people and places from the shows and films.

I would just love to see the result of this...

"Helm, set course for RISA, Maximum Warp"

If you include something like avatar characters then you will get more than a few people wanting to "explore" these kind of planets constantly

Overall, I think this game is doomed. Setting it decades later is no doubt an attempt to distance themselves from the series but even that length of time isnt going to save them when the concept will be shit. Making Star Trek a freeverse game dosent seem that wise to me. Star Trek is as much about stories as it is shooting shit up so unless you plan on having an RP evolving universe it will stagnate very quickly.
Even more so whent he content will be 'dumbed' down so that Trek Nerds get annoyed at the inconsistencies and sacrifices made in the name of 'balance' and 'gameplay'.

[Coalition]

Admiral Janeway... yeah fucked already.
So... how are the Borg involved if Janeway destroyed them ?
If she didnt you would expect the Borg to be mighty pissed off to the extent they rape the Federation in retaliation. Even ignoring that, a single cube has repeatedly swept through entire fleets of Federation vessels so having multiple npc spawns of Borg technology is retarded. If the Borg arent showing up to retaliate then... why would they be in the region ?

For Janeway, you'd have diplomatic missions that occur far away from where their ship actually is, so they spend 3-4 real life days traveling there, doing amission for a few measly XP/credits/something, and then have to return.

The Federation cant enter the DQ so logically the only way for the Borg to become a viable target is for them to come to the Federation borders and bringing fleets of NPC Borg spawn locations implies Borg fleets. Story / RP wise its going to be pointless and should easily annoy most Trek fans when you have a group for 5 - 6 players farming the crap out of cubes on a daily basis. Even if they did it right, being attacked by the Borg and losing would logically mean major character death since you end up assimilated.

Agreed on the Borg. I'd see them announcing that at the end of each month there will be a 24-hour hardcore mode, where actual death will mean character death (so they have to start all over). This will be a nice set of fights between Federation, Klingon, Romulan, etc fleets, while anyone who doesn't want to participate can log off and do regular Survey missions.

At the end of the year, they announce that there will be a 2-3 day hardcore setting, within a certain area, and announce the location. Watch all the PKers travel there, and as the fight starts heating up, the Borg cube shows up on one side. Nobody notices it at first, but both sides see an extra enemy marker on their screen. They both head in to engage it.

As they get closer, they see it is a Borg vessel. Let the brown-pants begin.

After the battle (where lots of ships are destroyed, and lots of new cadets out of the Academy, Klingon glory-seeking sons emerge/Romulan protege's/etc) everyone starts getting their ship up to date to be ready for next year.

Each year a Borg vessel comes in, but in the meantime the programmers are also studying the old battle, and developing counters to everything. Not 'invincible' tags, or 'insta-kill' tags, just using the existing weapons and defenses to counter known threats. If the primary force used cloaked Klingon ships for quick strikes, next year's Borg would develop a sort of scanner that detected them farther out. Make the Borg react to each prior attack, learning from their opponent. Make each ship unique as well.

Scout ships would be needed to penetrate existing Borg defenses and figure out the weaknesses, while heavier ships would be needed to escort them. Defiant ships would partner up with Galaxy-class vessels modified for cargo, and restock as necessary.

Each battle would be different for the players, making them have to come up with new tactics each time. The programmers would be looking at allthe prior battles as well, so a prior tactic cannot be re-used as easily.

The third dimension can be quite useful, as the players might set up most of the defenses along the northern border, but the Borg come in from the +Z axis (aka on top), and head 'down'. Watch the players scramble to meet the threat.

Unless this is an alliance with the Borg... which would actually be one way of gobsmacking the hell out of a Star Trek crowd. I gather its either the Klingons and/or Romulans.

At first I'd see the initial wars, but as the players see the steady Borg attacks (1/year), eventually all the powers would group together. Of course, for the first year, there might be a few wars over strategic planets, different factions trying to gain influence, etc.

You could bring back and 8472 threat, where the faction that decided for peace is overthrown. However, it requires an advanced ship to open the rift to their dimension (a Survey/Science mission gone horribly wrong). To make sure that the player in that faction has some loyalty, this type of 'Oops' would only be available to people that have had several months if not years of real-time, and several hundred hours of game time with that faction (so you don't get a Klingon loyalist joining the Federation, opennig the portal on a Fed/Cardassian/Romulan border, then laughing as all their ships head to that point).

[PREDATOR490]

According to that quote. Your only going to be able to join starfleet. That makes me believe PVP will be non existant beyond duels. You cant really form 'corps' or 'guilds' in a Star Trek setting when your in Starfleet. At best you would be able to pass off fleet gangs / player groups.

The easiest way to incorporate the Borg would be having an actual player / GM playing the Borg ship(s) which would certainly make it rather dynamic. Having an actual intelligent person behind the controls would make it difficult and the person would be able to choose his strategy based on the objective rather than a poor AI.
I really doubt you will get any form of Borg Adaption ingame due to the problems it will create. Unless you allow people to 'remodulate' weapons then as soon as a Borg ship adapted you would have everyone using that damage type rendered useless. Basic way to solve that is to have the Borg ship generate resistances over time so the longer it takes to destroy, the less damage weapons will do, thus making it important to take out the Borg ship quickly before it becomes nearly untouchable.

I'm not liking the idea of new ships either. There is nothing wrong with the ships we have seen now for a basic game. Adding new ships, especially at the expense of ships we know is a mistake.

I'm hoping they go for an EVE style training system of skills rather than 'grinding' for killing 'monsters'. EVE system makes more sense in the context of Star Trek and being a cadet. Basically, a STO could be vastly more appealing if they copied some of the concept from EVE.

[wautd]

It was not like I was having high hopes for STO in the first place, but it looks like they've dropped the bar really low now

[Oskuro]

Psh, you're thinking too simple. You must assemble KIRK'S TORN SHIRT! This ultra rare legendary(that every tank will have after the first year) will grant immense bonuses in hand to hand KirkFu Combat, and grant +10 to lovemaking of your favorite Cyber buddy.

I'd actually play the game if that made it in. Unfortunately, the Trek franchise seems to take itself way too seriously lately (post-TNG) to be fun anymore.


What I gather from the ship screenshot, is that this game will probably be guilty of the same sin most other Star Trek games are guilty of... No real 3D movement! Come on, we're in space, stop restricting us to a single plane of action!
When seeing this, I always think that Kirk (One of the best, if not the best, Trek characters) defeats Khan (In the best Trek movie) by actually moving in 3D!


If I had my way with the game, I'd make it a hybrid between Freelancer (for the flight mechanics and open-endedness), The Sims/Dungeon Keeper/Evil Genius (for starship and crew management), maybe adding some Tomb Raider-looking stuff (puzzles and some combat) for the away missions/ boarding action, and finally, organizing it all with a feel similar to the 25th anniversary game (A game that, ironically, allowed true 3d movement in the space battles).


Of course, if I had my way, the game would be set between "The Final Frontier" and "The Undiscovered Country", since, IMO: (TOS+TOSMovies)-(Generations) > (The rest of Trek).

--------------------------Edit:
Holy Fuck! I hadn't noticed you choose to beam down directly from the quest dialog! Argh! Does that mean the starships are simply glorified mounts?