Star Trek Guru Joins Star Trek Online Development Team As Consultant

[RainOfTerror]

Well known as the creator of the unique graphic user interface for the Star Trek computer system LCARS (Library Computer Access and Retrieval System), Michael Okuda will be working with Perpetual to integrate the same look-and-feel into tStar Trek Online's own interface, as well as to help visualize the future of the Star Trek universe.

Read more details over at WorthPlaying. (http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=27553)

[Evil Avatar]

Personally, I always thought LCARS sucked big donkey dick. I prefer the more militaristic analog feel that Star Trek 2 had than the "Mac" feel of LCARS.

Okuda's new uniforms aren't bad, but the boots look like something stolen off the feet of Matrix Reloaded extra's.

[bean19]

I'm scared of Perpetual having this license. . . I'd much rather an experienced developer (with lots of money) had the license.

They are developing 2 MMOs right now (the other being Gods and Heroes (http://www.godsandheroes.com/pages/gameinfo.html), and their site (http://www.perpetual.com/pages/news.html#WelcomeAboard) indicates they have veteran developers. Both games look to be innovative and fun in their design concepts, but I remain skeptic (even cyncial).

[Cupelix]

This is yet another game that sounds like it could be so much fun; particularly with how much of a TNG nerd I used to be. But I know that deep down, it's just going to be like every other MMO with a different set of graphics. Still, I cross my fingers. Maybe I can pray for no monthly fee? That's the only thing that's going to keep me playing Guild Wars.

[Conner Dain]

I love most all things Star Trek (except for Voyager and the recent Enterprise) but this looks like it will be just another MMOG. Of course, a Star Trek MMOG is a natural, as it seems most dedicated Trek nerds have been looking for new and different ways to escape into the world of Trek for years. This will give them that opportunity.

[Heretic Machine]

That's the only thing that's going to keep me playing Guild Wars.

Not an MMO. Read their own FAQ.

[stmfuller]

OMG...I'm very excited about ST: Online.
Of course with the recent shit trying to call itself star trek lately, I'm going to have to wait for some reviews.
But this is a game I could really get into...with an Everquest-like madness.
I'm sure if the game rocks hard enough, someone will find me dead in my computer room...

MUST...BOLDLY...GO...SHATNER...(me dies).

[Justin_McElroy]

The real world: a place to boldy go where no nerd will ever go again.

[Cupelix]

Not an MMO. Read their own FAQ.Not to thread hijack, but yes, it really is. Just because they try to say its not an MMO doesn't mean it's not an MMO. Does it have lots of players? Yes. Is it online only? Yes. Is the world persistant? Yes. Instancing the world outside of towns does not suddenly make it not an MMO. They trimmed out all of the annoyances from "classic" MMO's like large travel time - that's great - but it's still an MMO at heart.


On topic - there's still very little detail about Star Trek Online, from what I remember, correct? I'm going to be interested to see how the whole Captaining thing works out - have they said whether you will actually serve on a ship below other PC's?

[stmfuller]

On topic - there's still very little detail about Star Trek Online, from what I remember, correct? I'm going to be interested to see how the whole Captaining thing works out - have they said whether you will actually serve on a ship below other PC's?
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/gaming/news/article/6632.html
The answer is yes...but they don't know how it'll work yet.
I'd assume that it'd be a lot like becoming a jedi in Star Wars Galaxies...time consuming.

There are so many possibilities.
It's too bad the time period is set AFTER nemesis...it would have been cooler if the game had started in the early TNG-Wolf 359 time period and grown from there.
It would be really cool to be able to play out some of the most memmorible moments of Star Trek TNG and DS9.

Also, I think a mirror universe server would rock...Time to grab your pointy beards!!!

[critch]

Guild Wars is as much of a MMO as Diablo 2 is.

I can't wait for Star Trek. It's my next MMO. Hopefully it will do something else than the same ol' same ol'.

[Tennistoad]

I'll bet the ferrengis will be running this, and the monthly fee will be like $20.

/with my laggy dsl I'm going to be one of the first transporter accidents 8-(

//maybe they can include an interface for my coffee machine with voice recog. 8-)

[Alexious]

Not an MMO. Read their own FAQ.
OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! Not this again...

Guild Wars is as much of a MMO as Diablo 2 is.
JUST STOP! Get up right now and back away from the keyboard. This horse has already been beaten... to... death. Death I say!

[Heretic Machine]

Not to thread hijack, but yes, it really is. Just because they try to say its not an MMO doesn't mean it's not an MMO. Does it have lots of players? Yes. Is it online only? Yes. Is the world persistant? Yes. Instancing the world outside of towns does not suddenly make it not an MMO. They trimmed out all of the annoyances from "classic" MMO's like large travel time - that's great - but it's still an MMO at heart.


Read their own FAQ: http://www.guildwars.com/faq/default.html

Is Guild Wars an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)?

Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs, but it also has some key differences. Like existing MMOs, Guild Wars is played entirely online in a secure hosted environment. Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them. Unlike many MMOs, when players form a party and embark upon a quest in Guild Wars, they get their own private copy of the area where the quest takes place. This design eliminates some of the frustrating gameplay elements commonly associated with MMOs, such as spawn camping, loot stealing, and standing in a queue in order to complete a quest.
Guild Wars takes place in a large virtual world made up of many different zones, and players can walk from one end of the world to the other. In Guild Wars much of the tedium of traveling through the world has been eliminated. Players can instantly return to any safe area (town or outpost) that they have previously visited just by clicking on it in the world overview map.

Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience. Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill, not time spent playing or the size of one's guild. As characters progress, they acquire a diverse set of skills and items, enabling them to use new strategies in combat. Players can do battle in open arenas or compete in guild-vs-guild warfare or the international tournament. Engaging in combat is always the player's choice, however; there is no player-killing in cooperative areas of the world.

Players in Guild Wars can play with or against players from around the world in the global tournaments and arenas. And while players are initially placed in a region based on their selected language (so that there is a greater likelihood that others will be speaking their language) they can join up in the always-available International District to form parties and to play with anyone from anywhere in the world.


Now, back on topic... I'd really like this game to be good. Or at least better than Earth & Beyond, with an actual crew and large ships and such. It's really something I've dreamed about for quite some time. I have to wonder how they're going to handle a ship's chief engineer just logging off and not coming back though... I guess it could work sort of like WoW's PvP Rank system, in that you have to continually perform well or you'll get demoted.

Also, how are they going to include anywhere near the number of races that exist in the Star Trek universe?

EDIT: Oh, and who bets that the GM's are The Q?

EDIT 2: Oh... and another thing. How much detail can they really go into with each ship? I mean, do they really expect to have every room accessable on every single Galaxy class starship?

[Cupelix]

Read their own FAQ: You said that once already, I already did, and you didn't need to be a prick and quote the whole thing. Their reasonings for not wanting to call it an MMO, however, are pretty much marketing reasons only. If you want to convince yourself its not an MMO, that's pretty much probably just to make yourself feel better about playing one.

As for STO - the FAQ from StarTrek.com makes me a little nervous, to be honest. It's clear that they've announced the game while having no real clue as to how any of it will work. Much of it seems somewhat unworkable, unless they went a direction like Guild Wars and made the game highly instanced. If your ship was its own little world, perhaps some of the game mechanics would be more plausible - any way I try to think about it though, the whole thing becomes a little overwhelming. I will not be surprised if this gets A) canned or B) heavily scaled back.

[XenonCJ]

I'm interested to see how advancement works. Obviously "leveling" would be difficult to implement, I don't expect that at the start you'll get quests like "You must clear the sewer rats from underneath StarFleet Academy"

So we must assume it's skill based, perhaps like SWG, and UO are.

So how are they going to make the transition from Ship exporation\combat to planetside exporation\combat?

Maybe at 1st you can run a simple shuttlecraft or Klingon Bird of Prey solo, but you may need your whole "guild" to run a real Capital Ship, like a Galaxy class Federation Starship, a K'tinga Class Kilngon Battle Cruiser, or a Romulan War Bird.

And By the way - STFU about stupid Guild Wars - no one cares if it's "considered or not considered an MMORPG" except you meganerds seriously.

[Cupelix]

Maybe at 1st you can run a simple shuttlecraft or Klingon Bird of Prey solo, but you may need your whole "guild" to run a real Capital Ship, like a Galaxy class Federation Starship, a K'tinga Class Kilngon Battle Cruiser, or a Romulan War Bird.
If only they were implementing those factions in the initial run. According to their FAQ, all players will be part of Starfleet. That means you can't be a Romulan or a Klingon. Clearly that's expansion pack material right there - but I must be honest that part of me was hoping to wield a Bat'leth (someone with more ST knowledge can correct that spelling if it's wrong :P)

[Heretic Machine]

I hope by "members of Starfleet" they don't mean that we'll be exclusivley human...

[Cupelix]

From the FAQ:

What are the playable races? What professions can I choose?
The following playable races & professions are being considered:
Races: Vulcan, Bolian, Human, Trill, Bajoran, Andorian, Tellarite
Departments: flight control, medical, science, tactical/security, engineering

I find Bajoran to be a particularly odd choice, since I thought there were very few Bajoran's in Starfleet based on DS9. Though, I suppose this is 20 years post Nemesis, so things could have changed. Vulcans - now we can all count how many Mr. Sp0ck characters there are.

[Nimos]

From the FAQ:

What are the playable races? What professions can I choose?
The following playable races & professions are being considered:
Races: Vulcan, Bolian, Human, Trill, Bajoran, Andorian, Tellarite
Departments: flight control, medical, science, tactical/security, engineering

I find Bajoran to be a particularly odd choice, since I thought there were very few Bajoran's in Starfleet based on DS9. Though, I suppose this is 20 years post Nemesis, so things could have changed. Vulcans - now we can all count how many Mr. Sp0ck characters there are.

damn...and i was actually looking forward to playing with the Borg...
and flying those borg cubes... :-(

[Babbster]

I find Bajoran to be a particularly odd choice, since I thought there were very few Bajoran's in Starfleet based on DS9. Though, I suppose this is 20 years post Nemesis, so things could have changed. Vulcans - now we can all count how many Mr. Sp0ck characters there are.

Non-geeked-out answer: Bajorans are a natural because they were featured prominently in two series, and they are one of the more fleshed-out races so people can feel comfortable playing in that role (in those rare instances where people do that kind of thing in an MMO"RP"G).

Geeked-out answer: In the post-DS9 books (which I highly recommend to fans of the series - I really enjoyed Avatar [2 books], Mission Gamma [4 books] and Unity [1 book]) Bajor manages to finally join the Federation and the Bajoran Militia members were offered commissions in Starfleet. Given their prominence in terms of proximity to the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant and the key role they played in the Dominion War, they're definitely a big deal in the Alpha Quadrant.

I'm going to slink back under my geeky rock now... :)

[saneman]

While I don't entirely agree with your opinion on LCARS (I think the original is quite good, and it has just gone downhill from there .. i don't quite get where it's Mac-like, but I guess I'm thinking of different screens), I'll certainly agree on the visual superiority of Nick Meyer-Trek over all others.

Even in Star Trek 6, where one could play an enjoyable game of "spot the redressed TNG set", there was still a damn distinctive visual style, which makes recent TV attempts at 'darkening up' Trek look pitiful.

As for this game... eh. I really thought I'd be all over Star Wars: Galaxies, but it was WoW that broke my mmo cherry. Haven't gone near Galaxies. Hopefully they can do something truly different with this game, but I still don't know how interesting it'll be.

[Heretic Machine]

Geeked-out answer: In the post-DS9 books (which I highly recommend to fans of the series - I really enjoyed Avatar [2 books], Mission Gamma [4 books] and Unity [1 book]) Bajor manages to finally join the Federation and the Bajoran Militia members were offered commissions in Starfleet. Given their prominence in terms of proximity to the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant and the key role they played in the Dominion War, they're definitely a big deal in the Alpha Quadrant

Dammit, you beat me to it...

[mindstrike]

Well after looking at the Screenshot/Animation of the Warp core engine, this game might be too feature full.... I realize someone will want to play this Engineer role... but to much micro management can make one loose focus on the fun behind it.

(Played Bridge Commander and loved it...)