Tomorrow Cryptic Studios holds their "Star Trek Online Revealed" panel at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention (with a little help from Leonard Nimoy), but some details of this new MMORPG have already emerged. Cryptic’s Chief Creative Officer gave a pre-show interview to the AP that provided some details, plus CBS showed a few new screenshots at their Products presentation on Friday.
A totally new game
Jack Emmert of Cryptic confirmed with AP that even though they purchased the license from Perpetual Entertainment shortly before they went belly up, Cryptic started over: Emmert stated:
We took no assets. There was nothing to be had, to be honest. We’re building everything from the ground up.
This is now becoming evident in some of the details that he revealed, here is a quick summary:
- Players start the game choosing to be captain of their own small ship
- Two choices of factions, Federation or Klingon
- Customize character by choosing many alien races (including Gorn) OR customize your own new alien race
- Progression through the game means rank, better ship and more ‘crew’
The game is still set in the post-Nemesis universe, but a good time after so don’t expect to run into the TNG era crews and ships as we last saw them. Emmert noted:
There might be a ship called Enterprise flying around, but it’s probably not the same ship anymore, Most of the characters will have either retired or passed on, but you’ll definitely be going to all the places you know and love from ‘Star Trek.’ Expect to see oldies like Vulcan and Bajor but also fan favorites like Andoria and Qo’noS.
First screenshots showing characters
At 1:30 PM (PST) Sunday, Cryptic will reveal the first in game footage from STO. It is said to be real game footage and not concept art. This event will be streamed live on the web, more details at the official site. But during the CBS Products presentation on Friday, four new screenshots were revealed that showed characters in the game. The shots below are a bit fuzzy (sorry), but these were only on the screen for a few seconds. You could clearly see that the uniforms retain much of the TNG look, as do the ships. Below you can see and Enterprise D inside and out and also a Borg cube.
Win a lifetime subscription
Cryptic have not yet revealed pricing information on the game, but for five lucky people it will not matter. On the official site they have announced they will give away a free copy of the game and lifetime subscription to five lucky winners.. You need to register at the site to qualify for the prize, see here for more details.
Big push at Vegas
Cryptic are really making a big push here in Vegas. Besides being one of the premiere events and including Leonard Nimoy on Sunday, you can’t turn around without seeing someone wearing one of the thousands of Star Trek Online T-Shirts that are being handed out in front, complete with Star Trek Online plastic bags that also contain a flyer promoting the Sunday event.
Available in large and extra large
Since first tying Cryptic to Star Trek Online back in January, TrekMovie has been the premiere site for news on this exciting project. Keep checking back for more full coverage of Star Trek Online Revealed, including TrekMovie’s own interview with Jack Emmert.
To say they took no assets is clearly incorrect. ALL of the concept art on the website, and even the station inside the screenshots on their website, were designed by Perpetual employees while Perpetual were making the game.
I’m excited. I just hope that Cryptic isn’t too formulaic and that it isn’t just City of Heroes and Villians with a Star Trek look.
I like the concept, but I’m still on the fence, and what I see of the graphics do not bowl me over… but then, one might expect an MMORPG to be a less impressive in graphics than, say, Mass Effect or Assassin’s Creed (my current favorites), and borrow a bit from World or Warcrack, er… Warcraft. (I seem to detect a similarity in the look of the characters’ bodies and in their stances, but I’m going on some sketchy details here.) First and foremost, I want to hear more about what kinds of missions the player is to go on; hopefully, it includes a combination of combat, diplomacy and relationship-building, and not combat alone — I like a RPG to have depth and nuance — and for all of this to tie into a good storyline. Basically, I’m still judging Sci-Fi RPGs by the standard of Knights of the Old Republic….
Does this mean that there isn’t going to be a ship with multipal real people as crew? This looks more like multiplayer Star Trek Legacy than Star Trek Online.
‘Does this mean that there isn’t going to be a ship with multipal real people as crew? ‘
Probably not, but that would be a ridiculously hard concept to make work anyway. The great thing about an episode of Star Trek is all the action in operating a ship around the clock as a crew can be condensed into 40 minutes + ad breaks! As a real time, 24 hour online world I imagine the novelty of being a nobody at the bottom of the chain scrubbing bulkheads would wear off VERY quickly.
Wow, combat on the bridge, very cool. Wish the pictures were a little less blurry.
@Sam, Cryptic said that there was not going to be a multiplayer crew, one player, one captain, one ship.
Very cool.
I still think the potential for a hugely successful game has never been tapped. I mean, why no action RPG set in the Orginal Series time? Why always limiting what a player can start as? A Captain to start the game? Why not have a choice: an orion trader, an archaeologist, engineer, doctor, helmsman, navigator, and work your way up to Captain? Maybe after the new movie comes out we’ll be seeing more TOS era products.
I was very excited about this whole thing until you told us it won’t be available for Macs in the previous story. : (
Looking to be fantastic! I can’t wait to see more.
9. Nope, no Mac plans. But it is coming to a console, either the PS3 of Xbox 360 (they haven’t said which yet).
Darn, the sweepstakes are only for US and Canada residents. Show the rest of the world some love, Cryptic! Haha.
“Progression through the game means rank, better ship and more ‘crew’”
It’ll be interesting to see how that gets implemented. I’m assuming the crew will be NPCs, so I’m curious to see how you will be able to interact with them and what kind of control you’ll have.
I think they should implement a feature where your NPC crew can start a mutiny if you don’t keep them happy…especially on a Klingon ship. :)
the first version of the game seemed to have a very nice concept. the art and first images looked amazing and gave an exciting new approach to the future of the star trek universe.
those first screens from cryptics version don’t look too promising.
i agree with #13, it makes me sad how the look and especially the uniforms have changed :(
Aww…I’m disappointed that everyone is going to be a captain. I had no particular desire to play captain, but I liked the idea of serving under one. Oh well, I’ll still check the game out; that’s for sure.
drool
Have you heard of NDA’s Pascale?.
Monthly Fee to play a game? Never got that, not even if you get to captain your own ship.
Hmmm…..I’m kinda mixed on this. It would’ve been nice to have a ship be kinda like a clan within a faction…where you and a few friends could be on the same ship.
I don’t play any MMORG’s right now…..I’ve been waiting to see if this game would change my mind about that. I guess more waiting and seeing in the future.
tobad it’s not its not the type of game that you could play in the time frames of all Series and Movies as you move through the game, with BOTH Ship to Ship combat AND Hand to Hand combat.
I don’t play MMORPGs either but it seems strange that there wouldn’t be one where a player could take on any role, from Academy cadet to Captain. If people are willing to start as little nobody peasants serfs in traditional MMORPGs, why couldn’t they be cadets or Ensigns? The model would be so easy to convert – Ship = Town. Ranks/assignments = occupations. Does anybody think there would couldn’t be as many quests/mysteries on any starship as there are in some Second Life or World of Warcraft village? Wouldn’t it be fun if the whole Engineering crew had a quest, while the Bridge crew had their own?
Velike dude, jako ih volim.
I’ve previously stated that i’m really looking forward to the game. But i’m a bit let down that everyone starts as a captain. How can this be viable? It was always gonna be tough to make a solid MMO based on the Star Trek Universe but i think that there were certainly better ideas than “oh lets have everyone start as a captain.” Why not an ensign or cadet?
The details also mention that as you progress you increase rank and gain better ships. So as an Admiral what kind of quests will you get? Desk based quests?
I dont wanna write the game off so soon, its still in development so i’m hoping that it comes good and i probably will take up a free trial (if they do one). Lets just keep our fingers crossed.
p.s I’m really looking forward to seeing some ingame footage as well just to see the progress.
Thanks for the Details! :D
I’m betting that you don’t actually start as ‘captain’, and that this is a paraphrased way of saying that you start out in charge of a small ship w/ limited crew maybe?
Who knows, maybe there’s plenty of game to be had even if you do start as captain, but I agree it would have been cooler to earn your own ship instead of being handed one at the beginning of the game.
This all looks pretty pre-Nemesis to me.
I really can’t believe they are going to pass this game up on the Mac. Look at what Blizzard has down with WoW. I don’t even play any MMOs as it is now, but with STO coming, I’ll be all over this! It’s money!
But the sad truth of it is, I’ll probably have to run Windows under Boot Camp. :-/
It’s difficult to tell from these shots, but it seems the characters have sort of a “Team Fortress 2”-look. I think that might actually work, particularly when it comes to milieus such as starship interiors.
That Borg Cube looks plenty large and scary; I just hope they won’t be commonplace!
Limited races was the biggest problem with perpetuals STO. Good to see it wont be a problem.
This game looks pretty iffy to me. The last team of developers looked like they were making a pretty cool game. I dont know what this new team is thinking.
Stop making crappy Star Trek games… PLEASE!
18. sebimeyer, Its not captain that calls for the monthly fee, its the fact that to play the game you connect to off site servers that have operational overhead. New content and balancing is often done as well. There is significant ongoing costs to operating that environment.
There’s real potential for some kind of kick-ass Star Trek-themed computer game someday, which will hopefully have truly impressive design-work and graphics to go along with some terrific gameplay….
I don’t know about this particular game’s gameplay, but this doesn’t seem to be it where the design-work and graphics are concerned unfortunately…. and as a designer myself, I can see enough from the fuzzy screenshots to tell….
What I’d personally like to see is a game which covers the look of EVERY Trek ‘era’, to keep everyone happy….along with the kind of high-quality graphics that this franchise truly deserves.
Oh, and I’d really appreciate that ‘LEGO Star Trek’ game sometime if possible, as that could be a humorous blast. I see that ‘Batman’ is joining ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ in getting a dedicated LEGO game now, so this might not be the pipe-dream I originally thought, if the movie hits big…. :)
a LEGO star trek game Would be hilarious. lol. neat idea.
Yeah, those screenshots look pretty PS2’ish to me. I mean, haven’t we seen this look before? oh say, from like 1996…
Woah, now that’s more like it. That Galaxy class bridge set looks SHARP. Can’t really see the uniforms in these pictures, but hopefully they won’t be the garbage rubber Batman suits that Perpetual came up with.
Also, concerning operating as crew on the ship, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think that’s a brilliant idea. I mean, sure having your own ship would be cool at some point but i think if you just get it right off the bat without having to work for it then that would lose it’s novelty REALLY quickly. However, if you had to work up from a lowly Ensign through the chain of command a la leveling like you would in any other MMORPG, you’d feel like you actually accomplished something. That’s why the ST rank system is perfectly suited for this kind of thing.
…and who want’s to fly around a ship full of NPCs anyway? You’re not really in charge of anyone/anything. There’s nothing special about what you’re doing, and you have no real responsibility to your ship. If you’re looking for that kind of gameplay, go play Bridge Commander, and let me scrub my bulkheads as I damn well please. :P
I would think that group ship-crews would work very well. Look at how other MMO’s assign roles in grouping: tank, healer, dps, etc. Why wouldn’t you map similar concepts into Weapons, Medical, Shields etc?
“There might be a ship called Enterprise flying around, but it’s probably not the same ship anymore, Most of the characters will have either retired or passed on”
Bad move…
Mac users: Use Sun’s VirtualBox (www.virtualbox.org) to install Windows as a virtual desktop running from your Mac OS. It’s free, community supported and very stable. I run it on my MacBook Pro (2007 model) without any problems.
Of course, it means buying a copy of Windows, but at least you can still run Windows software. :) Or go with Parallels or VMware, among other virtualization software, to get Windows functionality.
And #34: AGREED.
Yes! Free t-shirts! Unfortunately, they only had large and extra large (while I take a medium). I got the large one, and I hope it shrinks in the wash.
Perpetual’s idea and concept of the game as well as artwork and screenshots looked faaaar more better than this. This is going to be another crappy game made really fast and without any care for details, just to drain out more money out of ST franchise.
I got my free t-shirt too, and signed up on the website a while back at the first announcement! Always love that free stuff!
I am a bit concerned about the PS3 version, if it indeed materializes, because as anyone that has Guitar Hero knows, you can’t play against players that have different systems, you can only play against other players that have PS3. So I’m hoping that they may have found a way around that problem. But as far as graphics go, every game I have seen on PS3 has had spectacular graphics, so I am hopeful for that!
Wow, people here sure make large assumptions based on a few fuzzy pictures. The graphics, from what I can tell from a few fuzzy photos, are the same as the Perpetual design. Particularly space. It looks identical. The ships look great. I don’t see a problem there.
Where the difference may be is in the Character modeling. Just from those fuzzy shots it looks like they have a bit of a comic book style to them. Not cartoony, just stylized. Which is what I believe Perpetual was wanting to go for anyway.
The environments look exactly how Perpetual was going for as well. They look wide open, broad and well detailed. I see no difference. Perpetual didn’t show much, but what they showed looked very similiar to this.
As for the uniforms, well we have no idea if what that pic has are final or not. The game is likely so huge, we probably have tons of options. I did like Perpetuals design choice though.
But whatever, In like 30 minutes we are about to find out a heck of a lot more anyway.
Yeah, no Mac or Linux support in this first version (as told there before the audience at the convention).
star trek bridge commander works well as your bridge crew are your user options……picking the race and gender of crew members would be good to give a more customisable aspect to players. an expansion every 6 months with a new race and a few new solar systems would be brilliant…but screenshots so far for this are sketchy.
OMG cant wait!! looks so real and awesome.. i would play all day every day and night ,,, cant wait!