Star Trek Online Suddenly Re-appears
Well, it turns out the rumors were true about Cryptic Studios taking over Star Trek Online. It seems they just relaunched the site with new screenshots and info about the game. Gone is the game where people crew ships together in a sort of 'guild', now everyone is either Human or Klingon, and captains their own ship, crewed by NPCs.
From the site:
Adventure in the Final Frontier: Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations in an expanding vast universe. Make contact with alien races, discover resources and uncover mysteries that will change the future of the Star Trek universe.You Are the Captain: Command your own starship as a Federation Captain or a Klingon Warrior. Outfit it with the systems that you need to make your mark in the galaxy. Customize your ship as you see fit. Recruit, train and mold your crew into an elite force for exploration and combat.
Surface, Shipboard and Deep Space Adventures: Command your vessel in thrilling space battles, or beam down to planets with your away team for face-to-face confrontations. Missions will take you and your friends into space, planetside and even inside starships!
The developers are creating the game for PC and console, but we don't know which. Can they succeed in turning this currently lackluster franchise into an MMO? We'll find out more when the Las Vegas Star Trek convention occurs in August, where they will apparently show the first footage of the game.
Sgt. Sausagepants
Posted to on 30 July 2008
· Comments (6)
Other stuff like this: cryptic studios, MMO, Star Trek
Glad its being kept alive. Now let's just hope its good...
"Gone is the game where people crew ships together in a sort of 'guild', now everyone is either Human or Klingon, and captains their own ship, crewed by NPCs."
Bad move, if you ask me. The idea of putting together a crew of my friends was one of the biggest draws in this game.
Plus, you've basically lost out on everyone who didn't watch the show wanting to be Kirk/Picard/Sisko/Janeway. I always found the non-captains to be some of the more interesting characters.
I kind of feel the same way. But maybe they'll allow you to replace the NPCs with friends at times. Who knows.
wtf. this makes me sad. and if they want to go this route, why only human or klingon? no species 8472? :P
We're not exactly sure if it will only be NPC crews just yet, there's not enough info out yet. It says "Recruit, train and mold your crew" which some people believe might mean that you can have actual people on your ship with you. Klingon and Federation are the only two confirmed, but there is some art work portraying Romulans.
I think Paramount realized the original game would never make it to market with the amount of work left to do so they're basically strapping the assets together with simpler game mechanics to try and turn a quick buck.
The original game's scope was too large and only hardcore trekkies/trekkers would be interested in playing it for any duration. Those hardcore people also wouldn't be satisfied by the deviations from Star Trek and the sand box planet environments. Paramount just said, "They're not worth this effort, and they're going to buy it anyways because it says 'Star Trek' on it." They're probably right, it worked briefly for Star Wars: Galaxies.
Neither Perpetual's aborted effort, or Cryptic's bare minimum effort will have any impact on people who aren't already Star Trek fans. There isn't a current Star Trek show on TV, and the upcomming movie will be so wildly different from the MMO that any new fans simply won't be able to get in to the game. Unlike WarCraft, Age of Conan, or Warhammer Online. Even though those started as IP elsewhere everything you need to know is baked right in the game. Star Trek is so bloated with it's own cannon that anyone unfamiliar with the series has no safe way to approach it.
The best Star Trek games are the ones with a focused player experience. The worst ones are the ones where you can wander around and get frustrated that the door you want to open won't open, and the cool characters you want to talk to are oblivious to your presence. That's all an MMO is.