Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Having seen a bit of the ship-to-ship and man-to-alien combat in previous Star Trek Online footage, we’re still waiting to get an angle on what will be central to the game: doing diplomacy, managing your crew, commanding a Starship, and all that Federation jazz. No change in this trailer, but it’s starting to look a lot more polished than previous in-game footage. Moreover, I think it’s pretty easy to be cynical towards this, but the truth is this game is likely to light a commercial touchpaper and become very popular indeed. It’s not just a popular licence, but I think it might just be different enough as an MMO to drag people away from established games. There’s a definite thirst for interesting MMOs right now, and this is certainly going to qualify. The site is crammed with new screens, and they’re now taking beta applications.
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There scarcely seems like a more logical target for online worlding than Star Trek, so hopefully Cryptic will get it right with Star Trek Online. They seem to be bang on with the sub-par special effects, at least judging by the exploding ships in this trailer. I’ve made more cataclysmic explosions with a balloon than the ones we see here. Nevertheless it’s good to see the game in motion – the third-person away team stuff seems a lot more developed, but perhaps that’s only to be expected, given the Cryptic back-catalog. Anyway, enough with my space-cynicism, I am like a Cardassian who hasn’t had his dinner – go watch!
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As I mentioned earlier, I spent a lot of the weekend at the MCM Expo. I eventually managed to tear myself away from my table and go looking for electro-entertainment. Alas, mainly console – or console versions of PC games we’ve already covered like Borderlands. And Assassin’s Creed 2, which I would have looked at, but I was scared away by the Marge Simpson cosplayer who looks as if they’d peeled Marge and was wearing her yellow skin as a skin-suit ala Silence Of the Lamb’s Buffalo Bill. However, Star Trek Online was there, and I spent some time getting familiar with what Cryptic have been up to…
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Cryptic must really be feeling the pressure with their upcoming Star Trek MMO – it now has to both live up to the success of JJ Abram’s Pretty People In Space reboot and shrug off the so-so reviews which their last game, Champions Online, is tarred with. Their most recent response, oddly, is to really play up to the Star Trek hardcore…
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As you might expect from the Star Trek MMO, there’s going to be loads of scope to create blue-in-the-face Federation lackeys, and continue Star Treks fine tradition of sticking things to the foreheads of humanoids. It looks pretty nifty in action, even if we saw this years ago in Eve Online. Trailer after the jump.
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VG247 point out this fan Q&A in which Cryptic studios executive producer Craig “Zinc” Zinkievich affirmed that players in Star Trek Online would be expected to explore space, and not just grind missions for Starfleet.

“So we don’t view exploration as a ‘break’ from other gameplay – it’s integral. Expect to be encouraged to boldly go! And as an incentive to explore space, discovering new civilizations is one of the major ways to open up new resources and equipment and make new alien recruits available to you, your fleet and your faction.”

That sounds pretty positive to me – although I wonder how quickly gamers will explore up the galaxy if it’s pre-made. (”We can’t land here, it’s a level 36 planet!”)

Cryptic Studios, they of City Of Heroes and Champions Online, have revealed their new MMO, Star Trek Online. Beyond the jump is the first trailer, which is packed with in-game footage. Borg cubes warp, Federation ships explode, and dudes get phasered in the midriff. Is the trailer set to stun(ning?) Maybe! Oh my aching sides.
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After a troubled few years in development at now-defunct studio Perpetual Entertainment (oh, the terrible irony of the name), Star Trek Online recently fell into the strong but tender (like a mother lioness, or a warrior vicar) hands of Cryptic Studios. Who promptly dazzled us with environment art. Sigh.

On Sunday though, we’ll get to see what the game’s like. It’s the official Star Trek Convention in Vegas at the weekend, which sounds a little like a lost chapter from Fear & Loathing but pertinently will also feature the first in-game footage of STO. Introduced by none other than Leonard “the cosmic ballet continues” Nimoy. Big leagues, baby.

Fortunately, us proles can watch the unveiling from afar, with a webcast due to appear here at 1.30pm PDT on the 10th August. Which is, I believe, 9.30pm in Her Majesty’s Royal Imperial Kindgom of England-land time.

Cryptic Studios, those folks developing the mighty-lookin’ Champions Online, have unveiled the Star Trek Online website. This, we must assume, means that they really are developing Star Trek Online.

The site has some fairly dull environment screenshots, as well as some concrete information on the game. Apparently you’re going to be the captain of a “customisable” ship and crew, exploring, fighting, talking to aliens and all that jazz. You can play as either a Federation flunkie, or a Klingon er… clinger-on? Action takes place on ships, planets, or in space combat. Sounds like everything a Star Trek game should be, and I think Cryptic might just be the folks to pull it off.

The last we’d heard of sci-fi MMO Star Trek Online was that developers Perpetual Entertainment had been booted from the project. Now though it seems the project is back online. The Trekkie forums are alive with fans trying to figure out who has been brought in on the project, but all we have so far is that the site is still owned by CBS and some unfounded speculation that Cryptic (of City Of Heroes fame) are to be brought in. Cryptic would make a good candidate, if they hadn’t already just announced a new MMO. I suppose they could make two MMOs at once, but I think that’d be unprecedented.

I think a decent crew-of-roaming-spaceship MMO could really work, but it’s hard to imagine anyone breaking the mould of current MMO trends to make this the kind of game we’d all want to play.