When you first launch Star Trek Online you will be treated to an introduction to game narrated by Leonard Nimoy which explains some of the back-story and ties it into the 2009 Star Trek movie. This intro was one of the last elements of the game added to the beta over last weekend, and so a few fans captured it and put it online. Check it out below.
Leonard Nimoy brings you into the world of Star Trek Online
STO video (thanks to SciFiCajun for the cap)
Fans of the Star Trek movie will recognize the references in the intro to the destruction of Romulus, Red Matter, and the black hole that sent Spock Prime back to the "other reality". The intro then catches you up on the next 21 years after those events with the war between the Klingons, and then bringing you right up to the Borg attack on the Vega colony and the USS Khitomer, which is the first mission (and tutorial) for Star Trek Online. The EMH Mark VI on board the Khitimer (voiced by Zachary Quinto) takes you through the tutorial.
More Nimoy
The above video is not the extent of Nimoy’s voice work from the game. You can here some more of it in the behind the scenes video below.
Head Start begins Friday
The ‘head start’ is an early release of the game for those who have pre-ordered. That begins this Friday, January 29th. The official launch of the game is on Tuesday February 2nd. The head start is available for those who pre-order. You can pre-order the game from TrekMovie’s preferred retail partner Amazon (where you can select either the Standard or Collector’s Edition). The Amazon editions also include am exclusive Borg bridge officer, and a $10 credit for a future game purchase at Amazon. (Remember purchase of the game includes 30 days free trial, after that there is a monthly fee).
(Cryptic also has a list of additional retailers)
Looks cool but why use those Heinous way too much neon and way too many portholes, Next Genny designs? Blah!
Thought we would see newer cooler (maybe more retro) bigger but TOS design asthetic ships
DAMN GOOD VIDEO
STAR TREK DOES GO STAR WARS ONLINE
“The Dominion is rebuilding it’s forces. Now the borg have reappeared and have attacked the Vega colony.”
Coooooool. Spock mentioning foes from two different series.
Did they even bother to consult the book authors when writing the story for this game?
would love to see some exploration/raiding clips
#5) The books are not cannon. And they’re only read by a handful of nerds anyways…. but so will the game…. guess i see your point then… :)
Would someone please explain to me how Spock knows what happens in the prime timeline after he’s gone through the black hole?
#8
Clever writing?
I don’t like the story, too much war and not enough exploration and questing
nimoy is the man!!!!
#10, I agree completely. Where’s the STAR TREK in all this? I want to boldly go, not boldly go to war. Why does every ST game since Judgement rites completely miss the point?
I’m with somethoughts- there was an opportunity here to do a Star Trek game where you could interact with other fans and boldly go- instead, looks like I am just blowing stuff up. No thanks.
Can people who’ve played the Beta tell me if there’s more than just phasers and torpedoes? And in the name of the Great Bird, why is it since the end of DS9, every story set after has to be about “a possible end to the Federation”? Loved DS9; but it did war- been done, and done well, let’s move on, shall we? I’m not saying there shouldn’t be action, but as Picard said, remember when we used to be explorers?
Can we not refer to STXI as ST09?
Jeez. Again with the “cannon”?
Oh, that would be a cool game, weerd1. Scan a planet. Go to another planet. Scan. Talk to the native lifeforms. Scan again. Game over.
Sign me up for that one.
Looks like its going to be good. However, I’ll probably wait until I upgrade my computer before I invest in the game. Also, I believe I read somewhere that you can sign up for a lifetime subscription, although it is a couple hundred bucks.
Ok, gotta agree that this is too much Wars and not enough Trek…ok not any trek. Star Trek was about hope and that video is pretty depressing. Even though Nimoy sounds great in that, well he sounds like Nimoy, not Spock. I honestly think that Patrick Stewart or someone TNG would have been better to have voiced that. Plus yeah, Spock wouldn’t know anything past going through that black hole and ending up in ST09’s timeline. This game looks to me like a generic wartime space MMO with a star trek paint job. The story looks like something out of a fan fic, not something well written. I honestly think if we ever get another Star Trek on TV it will show the post-VOY time as nothing like this.
Is it just me or does Nimoy say “Runumen Homeworld”? (40 sec.)
@ #13 Weerd1:
I was in Beta since October. There is definitely a lot of combat in STO. Keep in mind that it is a video game, and that video games in general are mostly combat.
The one thing that I think you would enjoy in STO is Exploring (meaning doing Exploration missions). You go to an uncharted Sector and find a system and see what’s there. It could be more combat, but it could also be data gathering (crafting materials), finding out what happened to people that disappeared on some station or settlement, or assisting a colony that merely needs supplies (which you have to get from trading cargo ships back in Sector Space). It has great variety and I think you’d enjoy it.
@13 – There is a lot of combat, both on ground and in space. However, there are also missions were you investigate a malfunction in a facility, or deliver medical supplies, or run around an uncharted planet scanning things. Typically those are the patrol or exploration missions, and some of those have no combat at all. Simply scan a few things or access a computer terminal and the mission is over, move on to the next. But honestly, as nice as it is that they’ve incorporated that into the game, it’s actually quite boring. The only real challenges that would arise in the game are either combat-based or trying to find something and getting lost lol. Without the combat aspect, it would be rather boring. And unfortunately, there’s only so much content they can produce right now, plus there are limitations in the way the game is set up. They can only do so much, so generating enough content to go ‘exploring’ and trying to come up with mission objectives and rewards, especially in an MMO with hundreds or thousands of other players, would be rather difficult.
I don’t think anyone could have reasonably expected STO to not primarily focus on combat. However I had hoped it would be more like for every two missions that end up with you shooting at something, there’d be one that was pure exploration and/or diplomacy. Instead, what I got was nine episodes where you have to mash your face against the phaser key until you kill everything that moves and one person who told me “Hi we need 10 Shield generators can you go back to starbase buy them out of your own pocket then give them to us kthnx?”
@13. LIke Ashely says, it’s not all blowing stuff up. I played the Beta and it seemed maybe half is blowing up stuff, and half is scan a planet, find some probes, that sort of thing. Also some missions were both. Go download sensor data, while fighting off the Klingons. Plus you can just go flying around the galaxy. I went to Andoria and beamed down, though that was not my orders from Starfleet.
Definitely excited about Feb 2nd.
Guys… Let’s face it, war makes for a good video game. Yes, I’d like a little more creativity mixed in with the combat (hello, this is ‘Trek, there are like a zillion directions to go with ANYTHING) but it looks pretty good.
#7 :: I think it’s a foregone (I probably misspelled that… and that…) conclusion that more people will buy STO than will read the DS9 relaunch novels. But we can still enjoy them and wish that they were tied in with what looks like an awesome game.
(Mirror universe, Iliana Ghemor gone nuts, the crazy Ascendants about to blow up Bajor and everyone else, the Founders dispersing, etc. etc…)
Oh no.
I’m a pretty upbeat, positive person and planned to subscribe lifetime. But the first thing I see is the embarrassing “star explodes and threatens the quadrant” mistake.
Carl Sagan was interviewed by ABC “Science” correspondent Lynn Sherr when astronomers discovered evidence of the first extrasolar planet around Vega, 25 ly distant. Lynn was super angry at Carl because he said it wouldn’t be feasible to send a manned mission. Sally Ride looked on helplessly as Sherr implored her to explain why Professor Sagan did not want to try.
I’m tired of cringing at this clown science. Please hire a high school grad to vet this stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjzZhTS_xa0
I don’t mind the war elements. I want to do both, 50/50. Have all these rival factions. Have the option in many cases of choosing diplomacy over battle. But then, diplomacy is tricky, and you owe favors. And so little mini-quests for diplomacy begin. And exploration. And all that jazz.
I just recently tried playing Mass Effect for X-Box, having watched my brother play it and realizing it’s absurdly close to the mark for how a great Star Trek game could be. So I loaded up a game, made a character, got halfway through the first area, and quit because I could care less about “Alliance” so-and-sos and Turian Specters. Tourian is Mother Brain’s lair, and BioWare needs to make a Star Trek game!
I hate to think that the Spock I loved is living out the end of his life an “an alternate reality”. And what a depressing looking game. I hate the new movie. There, I said it, again.
“The Romulans want revenge for their lost world.”
Um, take it up with the supernova, guys.
Is the idea that _all_ Romulans are crazy enough to seek vengeance for a natural disaster just because Spock didn’t work fast enough?
That’s a whole lot of crazy.
I haven’t played the game, not yet at least, but I’ve read about it. It has to have some fighting in it. You have to be able to control the ship and make it fire phasers and all that. And it would be good to have some fighting with hand held phasers also. It’s a good point though that there should also be some exploring. You should be able to go down to the surfaces of planets and look around and use the tricorder. And search for planets when you’re on the ship. Maybe they’ll focus more on that at some point.
By the time they can make the game we want, we’ll already be exploring deep space for real.
@28
Can’t you say it somewhere else? For frak’s sake…how about something new?
I dare someone to tell me that Leonard Nimoy (and that other guy) being in the next Star Trek movie would be a bad thing : )
You can also play as a Klingon. For the Klingons, battle is glorious.
29. Hell maybe. Why did the Feds get a 300 year old (or however the the hell years old he would be by then) Vulcan to be spry and speedy? If I were a pointy-eared, ridge-head I’d go Mugatosh*t too!
@33
in 2012 LN will be 80!
some folks need to remember that
#35: Just picture the scale of it. Imagine something semi-comparable here on Earth … the mother of all storms is coming, a super-hurricane that will scour the northeastern United States clean of life, level the cities, whatever. Some comparable level of (as another poster so ably put it) clown science in natural disaster form.
And there’s a guy in China. He phones us up and says “I’ll stop it; I have a hurricane sucking project I’m working on. I think I can stop it.”
And then he doesn’t do it in time.
Where in this scenario does it make sense – no matter how much grief and destruction we’re talking about – where does it make sense that all the survivors are going to seek “revenge” for the storm, now? It was a natural disaster. I mean, where does it even make sense that anyone hung a lot of hopes on the Chinese guy to begin with?
It was ridiculous enough with Nero, but the entire race of Romulans? I mean, unless we’re specifically proposing that Romulans are just morons. WTF.
Okay, I think it should be known that the supernova DOES have a whole plot-line in the game, and isn’t just a part of the historical background… And there’s reasonable explanations (at least for the Trek universe) for why it was so dangerous, why the Romulans want revenge, etc. etc.
38. I forgot the ; ). Though if you look to the Katrina hurrican example, lots of people blamed the ineptitude of those who responded not so well. Though it didn’t extend to warfare or assassination. One could argue that Spock was FEMA, Bush, Homeland Security, Nagin, Blanco all rolled into one. Way to GO, Spocko, ya’ old frak! ;)
Your point taken on the ridiculousness of aspects of XI is well taken.
As was true with the movie, Nimoy’s presence will say to many, this is legitimate Star Trek, check it out.
It’s just a fact that Star Trek games are going to go heavier on combat. 25th Anniversary, Judgment Rites, and A Final Unity all were great efforts to be true to the whole of Star Trek, but they were in the adventure/hidden object/puzzle solving genre and their combat elements were shaky. It’s hard to do a perfect hybrid and know it will appeal to the largest audience.
I find it incredible… is there ANYTHING StarTrek, that the fans will not slate? C’mon people, it’s getting boring….
I think the game will be fun, and allow people who have never beamed down to a star trek planet to take it all in. The game is combat oriented, which, I have always like (my favorite star trek games: #1 bridge commander #2 star trek legacy [xbox version has great controls, and i always listen to star trek audio books or soundtracks while listening to the game so I’m always in the mood and playing something interesting while playing the period centric ships that each eras books have. Its actually a lot of fun and one of the most star trek immersive experiences ive ever had] #3 star trek armada 2 #4 star trek elite force 2 #5 star trek starfleet academy) there are a lot of various story centric missions in the game. the fact that you can explore the various planets for me counts for a lot. i also loved City of Heroes, Cryptics last game, so I have an irregular and biased view of these types of games, but it also means I;m going to love STO.
Thanks everyone for the feedback, but I do have to ask @16 Mark if he’s ever watched this show from the 60s called “Star Trek”? In it, a spaceship representing a group of politically aligned planets goes around through space and visits strange new worlds which sometimes have people with cool sixties jumpsuits who need them to figure out a problem to save their planet. Every now and then they do get in a scuffle, but most of their conflicts are things they have to think their way out of, or figure out how to get the new culture to help themselves. In a couple of episodes, they even end a war or two, or prevent them from happening in the first place. It was a really good mix of brains AND action, and had plenty of just going from planet to planet. I hope someone makes a game like that old show- I have a feeling it would be a little more than just scan/warp/repeat. ;)
Weerd1, you’re probably better off just ignoring this game. You can not consider it Trek, that’s okay. There are those that will enjoy it for what it is, and those who won’t enjoy it because of what it is. The fact of the matter is, it’s here, it exists, and it is within the Star Trek universe. Now, Mark may or may not be as big a fan of the shows as either of us, but his point is still valid. It’s an MMO, not a television show. It’s a whole other medium geared toward a whole other crowd, and many of the aspects that you want to see in this game simply won’t translate well, generate enough interest, and won’t make enough money. And unfortunately, money here in the year 2010 is what makes any of this possible.
I was in closed and open Beta and i like it so far. As said in this thread most of the games have combat in it because the have to make a game that is fun. If its too “all day” life noone would play it. The point with STO is that the Federation is in need of protection. The Klingons have choosen war. If someone declares war on you, you cant just say… ah… now.. we are all explorers… we dont fight. Even Picard, the most pacifistic Captain in all the Series was going into fighting and war to protect the federation and its people.
In Fact TNG is the only show that is this much exploration focused. All the other Shows have a great amount of fighting. Kirk, Siko, Janeway … yes, and even TNG has a lof of Phasers and Photones.
The thing is not the fighting, its more like.. is there a reason to fight or can we solve it without it. Thats what Star Trek TNG was talking about. To try it with talking and .. if you get attacked to save your life, your ship and the federation.
Besides, all of you will go to a spacefigth with fun. In reality fighting isnt that much fun. People (and gamers) are looking for challanges to FIGHT. its a lot more in this game than fighting, i can promise you this. But its reasonable to fight in this Game, its defending, not agressiv war mongering fighting. You allways have a reason. Rescuing hostages out of a Borg complex is not done with diplomatie, i can tall you that =)
CU out there
anyone know what time the head-starts begin at?
32
ok….something new
something borrowed, something blue.
Ashley and Daniel, I do see your point, and very much understand the need of the buck. I was hoping (and maybe this is so?) that as an MMO, you could command a ship on the front lines if you want to blow stuff up, but get assigned to explore the final frontier and spend time solving puzzles (why does the Horta have a cave full of silicon nodules?) if you wanted as well. I am not saying there can’t be action- I WANT action, but I’ve already played (and loved) Starfleet Command, and I want more than that out of this. I want it to be an immersive environment where I can span the gamut of Trek style adventures. Maybe it’s there, but none of the trailers so far have shown me that. I think I am going to wait and see if it does before I drop the cash.
I did not mean to disparage anyone who enjoys shoot ’em ups- again, I’ve played a LOT of SFC (and SFB when we still had a thing called ‘paper’ for games), and I apologize if I came off as one of the haters. JJ’s Trek gave me brains and action; so did TOS and DS9. I was hoping this would too.
“Shoehorn” is the term I’d use for fitting Nimoy in this game, although I understand the marketing value in it.
I am really looking forward to the game and plan to ignore, as much as possible, any overt connections to Abrams abortion. I am curious if they will come up for a decent (Trek) reason why the Romulan supernova was so disastrous to an entire quadrant, though I don’t hold out much hope.