Since January when TrekMovie first linked Cryptic Studios and the MMORPG Star Trek Online (formerly being developed by Perpetual), it has become one of the worst kept secrets in the gaming biz. In early June Cryptic put up an un-labeled (but clearly Star Trek Online related) countdown timer on their website, and it hits 0:00 at midnight tonight (Pacific).
What will we see?
The most likely event is going to be a re-launch of official Star Trek Online website (which has been saying ‘coming soon’ for a few months now), with an official acknowledgement of Cryptic Studios involvement. However it is likely that details will be sketchy, as Creation Entertainment has recently added a new event to their Las Vegas Convention Schedule titled "Star Trek Online Revealed." That event is at 1:30 PM Sunday August 10th. So perhaps it is time for another countdown timer.
The guys at the Hailing Frequencies Star Trek gaming podcast will be doing a live show tonight to track the countdown event. TrekMovie’s Anthony has been invited to participate, and will call in if post Comic Con schedule allows. So listen in to the show and keep track of things at Cryptics website tonight.
Cryptic has already kind of admitted it
Although Cryptic Studios will still not officially acknowledge their involvement in Star Trek Online, they have actually let the cat out the bag in a new job posting. Warcry Network points to a job placement ad in the new Game Career Guide.
Oops
I want to play classic trek.. If I can’t wear a yellow shirt, it will not be fun!
All sounds pretty exciting! I’m looking forward to Star Trek Online :)
what is this anyways? is it some sort of online RPG?
I intend to make several security crewmen all named Camisa Roja and kill them in various ways on several servers. then I’ll make a nice Science officer. If Cryptic was smart, they would offer lifetime memberships like Turbine did with LOTR. I would subscribe to both STO and Champions and force friends to play them as well. Champions is looking really good.
I hope it is good – it will have to be good to compete with EvE online the best Sci-FI MMORPG currently out there. I played that for a while and it is a good MMORPG.
I soon became disheartened by the fact that though these games are good in principle and concept. They could go on forever while you pump endless amounts of money into them each month…while the developers just continue to stretch out the game before they finally and ultimately go bust, close their servers and all your time and effort and money is lost. That is what I don’t think works about these games. I love their principle, but a game that takes more effort, time and money than real life…is where it stops being a game, and therefore less fun.
I remember hearing grown adults nearly in tears because they had just lost a character or wasted a few hours of training time.
I think that MMORGS are still in their infancy, and until the economics of how they are run are worked out they will not get better. They have more cons than pros currently I think.
I hope STO offers something fun and different.
One of the big differences between STO and EvE (based on the original STO project) is that in STO there is both starship play and ground/starbase play. A little more variety, in other words. I always found EvE to get a bit monotonous after a while, though it looked really nice.
It beter be good, because I don’t like WOWlike games, yet I’m buying it for sure. And I’ll get very upset if I dont like it.
Wait!. I’m not making any sense, Am I?
Sorry, I’ve been working the whole weekend (About to publish a book) and my brain melted down nine hours ago.
I tried playing eve and was bored within a couple of hours. These games are a phenomenal waste of time. To quote The Shat, “Get a Life!”
I haven’t really played any of the online games out there — I’m not really into games anyway — but I am interested in trying this one. My wife loves playing these games (she’s beta-testing Warhammer at the moment) and is always trying to get me to game with her. Might be fun (if it’s any good).
Not before time, I’ve been waiting a long time for this. I’m sure the wait will be well worth it.
I’ve played several MMO and am currently an active EverQuest player. I love fantasy based MMOs, but I’ve been a Star Trek fan even longer. So to say I’m very interested in this game would be an understatement. I’ll be watching for the announcement quite eagerly, though I know we won’t be getting a LOT of game information, since they’ll still be quite early in the production phase.
Is it pathetic that I’ve already come up with a Vulcan character to play and a name and background story despite the fact I don’t know ANYTHING about this game and that it’s still going to a LONG time before it’s ready? :)
1 – Agreed. Why on Earth with a new movie featuring the TOS characters, why would you go with a post-TNG time frame?
Re : 12 Cryptic have totally scrapped all of Perptual’s previous work.
So nobody has any idea what era it will be set in yet.
JJ Abrams mentioned he is into computer gaming, perhaps Cryptic will team up with him. Cant remember when he said so, but it was on this website.
I’ve never played this type of game…or have I? Forgive my ignorance, but I’m not really sure what a MMPORG is. I think I have a vague idea after perusing the Champions Online website. I haven’t played any games in a long time. I used to enjoy POV games and had a good time playing my PC-based versions of Starfeelt Academy and especially Voyager: Elite Force. However, that was several years ago. I’m anxious to learn more about this game being a huge Trekkie. But, if they are pay subscription based games, I doubt my finaces will ever allow me the luxury.
@1 and 12 These remarks are becoming so sad! Classic Trek is only a small part of the Star Trek universe so why not have a post TNG timeframe? Besides, who would want to play a game based upon cardboard sets and sixties look and feel? Certainly not nowadays young gamers (which I presume are the majority of players online).
Second, this game was being developed long before there was even talks about a new Star Trek movie. Since nothing is known about the new film (visual aspects) it is silly to think the game will be based on this new film.
I hope it’s still set post-Nemesis. They’ve got the greatest amount of source material to work from, and the freedom to develop new races and technologies without being too restricted by existing canon.
Besides, I’m sure there will be holoprograms, temporal anomalies, museum ships and whatnot to represent TOS and ENT.
Yeah, from a game perspective a post Nemesis setting would give them a LOT more to work with, and there can always be time travel and ways to include TOS era missions and settings.
How about a TOS movie era game? You have all the cool characters and plants pretty much established.
I can imagine the Guardian of Forever… kind or representing the WoW Dark Portal for Burning Crusade…. am I right?
anyways… looking forward to the “gangster planet” sweet.
send down some “heaters” Scotty
solution for number 1.
Go out and buy a yellow shirt.
And then play the game.
Fun will then ensue.
Will trekmovie keep us updated on this?
#20 IodownX
The Guardian of Forever would be great for the game. It would allow one to jump to any Star Trek era. As long as Harlan Ellison is cool with it.
FOUR AND A HALF HOURS LEFT! I’m extremely excited for Star Trek Online. I love MMOs, but haven’t really played one since WoW a couple of years ago. STO would change that!
OMG ! wasn’t this game cancelled?
“I want to play classic trek.. If I can’t wear a yellow shirt, it will not be fun!”
…HAW! That’ll be the rub: all new players must start out as a red shirt. They’ll stay that way until they survive their first Away Team mission, and only then will they have a minor chance of moving to a safer profession, such as Kirk’s Yeoman :-P
I just hope there’s hot green chicks in it.
i liked the first contact outfits but i also liked the newer ones abit better the ones from last episode of TNG and voyager uniforms
…T-minus 14 minutes or so.
it’s 2 in the morning here in Texas, and all I get for waiting is a “launch time!” window pop up?
Launch! Not a bad website at all.
“Star Trek Online web site is currently offline”
…Wow. Impressed am I. :-P
i went to startrekonline.com and it worked. try it.
i was able to go on it also there is a new counter thing up for around 14 day’s might be when first gameplay footage comes out
I watched the countdown to 0 and when it hit 0, a windows message box came up that said Launch Time! and now the page wont load lol. I imagine it’s because they are putting up the new pages.
It might take a few minuets for them to update the web site
…Otay, it’s up now. Someone tell’em their frames aren’t quite lined up – the bottom graphics are clearly not aligned. Usually occurs in embedded frames-within-frames and they’ve got mismatched cellpadding. Really common mistake.
It’s launch time! And hence the reason why the page just won’t load! It’s great irony.
See this:
http://startrekonline.com/
What I’m seeing is that it would be a great time if I were a game designer, and needed a job? Hmmm…
wow. way to be picky, people.
“Someone tell’em their frames aren’t quite lined up…”
#39 Oh thanks! Yes, that is much better!!! *goes back to the site to read*
There’s another countdown on the STOnline website….13 days and counting!
…Again, it’s back up. Bottom of the main frame isn’t aligned properly, but it actually looks pretty nice. The great thing is that they didn’t go overboard and do some massive Flash site that takes 10 minutes to load. But now that I think about it, a Flash site wouldn’t have been that unwelcome, as there’d be lots of nice graphics to rip off :-)
…Screenshots look nice, although I must admit the tech designs don’t look TOS by any definition. Might be a sign that those of you wanting to play TOS-style might be SOL.
classic
get it together trekonline as this is more egg on the face
Looks like Anthony was right again! *waves to Anthony!* Hi Anthony! Hope you are enjoying your post Comic-Con euphoria! From what I’ve seen it looks like a great time was had by all!
What is with the TOS era anyways it is way outdated not grand in scale by any measure. The two greatest and most developed eras of Star Trek are the original crew movie era, and TNG. Nothing else compares to it, certainly not TOS.
…Yup. This is a TNG-era MMORPG. Notice the graphics on the forum header:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/
…And the fact that it’s the Enterprise-E on the main site header. This means two things:
1) They’re using the TNG era to avoid spoiling and/or having to deal with Abrams’ regurgitation.
2) Old Trekkers like me and some of the others around here won’t get to play TOS-era scenarios.
Ah well, there’s always digging up that old Unreal Tournament editor and doing a total TOS conversion for the original UT…
“What is with the TOS era anyways it is way outdated not grand in scale by any measure. “
…Two reasons:
1) It’s really hard to beat the original, no matter how hard you argue as to how much better looking everything that came afterwards was.
2) Every single FPS that was Trek-related has been set in the TNG-era. TOS has *never* been done before. It *deserves* to be done.
…Now, be totally honest – how many of you would *NOT* want an MMORPG or even an FPS that allowed you to walk every square inch of deck, turbolift and Jeffries Tube of the original Enterprise? That’s what’s never been produced(*), outside of a Doom 2 total conversion that saw very limited distribution.
(*) The closest I personally have ever come to this was work I did on a CATIA-based Enterprise “walk-thru” almost 25 years ago on an IBM 4381. We got only Deck 5’s basic layout before the demo project was declared “proof of concept” and they cancelled the project before we could get the other decks even started. Bastards…
It now features Star Trek: The Original Typeface.