Looks like there is a bit of trouble over at Perpetual Entertainment, the young company that is building the "Star Trek Online" MMORPG slated for early 2009. Their launch title, the Roman-themed "Gods & Heroes" game, was to premiere sometime this year but has suffered from various delays and now it appears it is being put on indefinite hold. According to an official announcement the move was to allow the company to focus on Star Trek Online, and TrekMovie.com has been told that STO is still on track and will actually benefit from the move.
From the official announcement on the Gods and Heroes site:
The Perpetual team is faced with a unique challenge of simultaneously developing both Gods & Heroes and Star Trek Online in addition to growing our Online Game Platform business. After assessing all of Perpetual’s opportunities, we have made the decision to put the development of Gods & Heroes on indefinite hold.
…
Moving forward, we’re shifting our collective focus, resources and development efforts to Perpetual’s Platform Services division and Star Trek Online, thereby ensuring that the game lives up to the high level of expectation set by the dedicated Star Trek fan base.
Daron Stinnett assures TrekMovie.com that the decision will be to the benefit of STO, saying:
It is a testament to our commitment to quality and the strength of our Star Trek and Platform efforts that has enabled us to endure such a difficult decision. Perpetual Entertainment is now more focused and Star Trek Online is going stronger than ever and we’re looking forward to sharing the results of our hard work and revealing more about Star Trek Online in the coming year
As has been stated before on TrekMovie.com, this game is the second largest Trek project outside of the new film. On one hand the news is a bit worrying to Trek gamers. It may be hard to get worked up over the upcoming new Trek game if the company behind it pulled the plug on their first game just a few months before launch. On the other hand it may be good news for STO which will now be the sole game being developed by the Perpetual and it may get the focus and resources it needs to be a successful game. Let’s hope that Star Trek Online doesn’t become another "Secrets of Vulcan Fury"
Good….I can’t wait to get back into the post TNG Universe!!!
get back? but we were never there!
Weren’t the final 5 seasons of DS9 and all of Voyager post-TNG? ;)
THIRD!
I have always been leary of these MMORPG thingies to begin with. Its gonna come out real late, never at all or be something I just won’t be able to figure out how to play. It looks really complicated.
I meant to around the TNG era….my favorite era….one more TNG film please…..
Cosnidering the potential fan base of STO is quite larger than G&H, it’s no wonder they’ve switched their focus to STO.
Dear Timelord: MMO’s aren’t any more difficult to play than other video games, more time consuming maybe, but not more difficult.
This is not the first news from perpetual that could potentially impact ST:O negativly. Earlier in the year, they had downsized their staff. And now they put one of theirn two flagship games on hold indefintly? Sounds like perpetual is having a few internal issues. Let’s jsut hope they stay afloat long enough to release the game, and make enough money off it to keep it running.
STO STO STO STO!!!!!
Wow that’s surprising. I am guessing there is way more to the story than we can know… Gods and Heroes won lots of E3 awards last year, so it’s not like it was a bad game.
Thinking about it, my guess is that they want to have the game ready as close to Trek XI as possible. With all the buzz it’s been getting lately, it would make perfect sense. Ultimately, they probably can’t afford to fully develop two games at once, so they take the GNH staff and put them on STO to get it out in time… I would bet GNH is going to be released a year after STO. I really doubt it would be shelved forever, unless STO is such a big hit that they just develop new content for STO.
#10: I agree that they probably want to ride the Trek hype machine. It makes sense seeing how the movie’s garnered more fan reaction (and more importantly more mainstream attention) than any other Trek project in the past two decades.
Anyway, GNH isn’t exactly the groundbreaking setting that STO is.
I’ve worked in the games industry in the past, and the fact is that most games never make it to the shelves. The publishers are fairly risk averse, and the game will be reviewed every month with the bottom line and an every changing marketplace foremost in their thoughts.
So games tend to pulled at the last minute because they looked at it what is almost the final version and decided not to blow the dev costs all over again on marketing and production, which normally cost about the same.
They would look to STO and think, wellllll, we can blame that and look like Trek heroes, but in all likilihood, the game was either deeply broken, or just not all that special and the publisher canned it.
STO though will be a massive, massive undertaking and will be held up against WoW and Star Wars Galaxies (which was supposedly quite good at first then was ruined) but does benefit from more ‘lore’ than the rest of them put together, and the lore really does help shape the thing.
Much as I don’t want to give up on WoW, I’m quite looking forward to running around Deck C yelling “P0WNZ3RD U C4d3T!!!!!1111one”.
Mark III Auto Modulating Phaser Rifle FTW!!! I’m sure.
I would not want to be PE’s shoes now. They have a LOT of expectations with STO. And so far have not proven they can making anything but a WoW-clone, and they will get eaten alive if STO is a WoW-clone.
Seriously. Like Trekkies having real-life raids at Perpetual HQ.
I still play the 25th anniversary using dosbox, can’t beat insulting people with bill shatners voice!
STO is doomed. It is vaporware that will never happen. Perpetual was and is the wrong developer for this title. They have had the license for STO for three years and have little to show for their marginal efforts.
It’s a joke, that game was due 6 months ago and has been in the pipeworks 2 years before that…..it will be lucky to get released because they are trying to make the best and changes in computers keep changing the game…in essence the goalposts keeps shifting (JUST RELEASE IT)
It’d be one of the few MMORPG’s I’d ever bother buying. I hope it ends up being an awesome game.
-TGP-