Star Trek Online Exclusive Impressions: Ship Battles, Exploration, and Away Teams
We get an exclusive look at the upcoming massively multiplayer Star Trek game from the creator of City of Heroes.
Massively multiplayer games: the final frontier, where your make-believe characters go on adventures in a persistent online world, beating rats over the head with a rusty dagger in the hopes of one day gaining an experience level, which will one day make them strong enough to fight larger rats. Or, maybe not anymore. Developer Cryptic Studios is working on a new online game that will go in a completely different direction, a game based on the Star Trek universe where you'll not only touch down onto different planets on foot to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations, but will also be captain of your own starship and explore the reaches of space, engaging in starship dogfights with hostile aliens and space pirates. And since we have the exclusive first look at the game, you could say we've boldly gone where no one has gone before. (Sorry, we couldn't resist.)
Star Trek Online is currently in development at California-based Cryptic Studios, a team of developers who are working in tandem with CBS, the current license holder of the Star Trek franchise. The game will apparently be set in the year 2409, some 30 years after the events in the motion picture Star Trek Nemesis--which means that most characters with normal human life spans probably won't be sticking around. However, you can expect to see plenty of authentic Star Trek content in the game, since the development studio is working closely with the license holder. Yes, the United Federation of Planets (better known simply as "the Federation") will be in the game. Yes, the Klingons will be in the game. Yes, you will visit planets by beaming down to them and will carry a phaser on your belt. And yes, you will travel the galaxy at warp speed and fire photon torpedoes at enemy ships.
The stage in Star Trek Online is set for intergalactic war since the Khitomer Accords--an uneasy peace agreement between the Federation and the Klingons--have been broken. As a result, you can play as either a Federation character or a cadet in the Klingon Defense Force, working your way up through the military ranks of either side. Playing as the Klingons will definitely be a different experience than playing as the Federation, though the exact details of the Klingon experience have not yet been revealed. And according to the game's overarching story, even though the war between the two factions has begun in earnest, a "dark, ancient threat" has returned to the Alpha Quadrant (the home sector of the Federation), and players from both factions will find themselves at odds with this mysterious new adversary. (Who could it possibly be, we wonder?)
Apparently, there will be a bit more to creating a new character than just choosing starting clothes and how big your character's eyebrows will be. All-new characters will be able to choose from an array of low-ranking starter ships to command and will choose a bridge officer and crew. Your bridge officer will be a computer-controlled character--not unlike a "pet" in other massively multiplayer games--and will, like your character, gain experience levels and new items over the course of your career.
When you decide to beam down, it will always be in an away team of five characters--yourself and any combination of up to four computer-controlled crew members and/or up to four other player characters. Depending on the mission, you may wish to vary your away-team composition to include officers with different specialties, such as field medicine, tactical operations, or engineering (though there's no word yet on whether computer-controlled crew members will all wear red shirts).
And for your own character, and your crew, the game will offer what executive producer Craig Zinkievich refers to as "total customization" for each character, including each one's appearance and away-team equipment. This isn't surprising coming from a studio that made a name for itself with the powerful character customization tools of City of Heroes. Among other options, you'll be able to create characters from such races as humans, Vulcans (the race of Mr. Spock's father), Bajorans (the race to which Major Kira Nerys from the Deep Space Nine TV show belonged), Klingons, and Gorn (a race of tall, lizardlike humanoids--William Shatner's Captain Kirk character grappled with one in the original Star Trek episode "Arena"). To make allowances for the fact that the universe is indeed enormous and that other, undiscovered life-forms exist somewhere out there, the game will also feature an "alien race creator" tool that will let you create your own alien species to which your character can belong.
Zinkievich suggests that at present, the game is planned to offer an "even split" between away-team exploration and interstellar starship exploration--the latter includes the game's tactical, real-time starship combat system. We actually had a chance to witness an early version of the starship combat in motion, which the executive producer likened to battle between tall ships during the Age of Sail. Just like how sea captains of that era chose different types of cannon shot to damage an enemy vessel's hull or sails, you can use different weapon types in Star Trek Online, such as a continuous and withering stream of phaser fire to eat away at energy shields, or a salvo of photon torpedoes to tear up your foe's exposed hull.
In practice, Star Trek Online's combat engine currently does seem to keep that kind of naval pace, with elements of the traditional 2D movement of a massively multiplayer game (using the W, A, S, and D keys to move) and even traces of the Super Melee mode of the classic Star Control II. Cryptic is apparently attempting to build in a strategic preparation aspect to ship combat. That is, the best way to come out ahead in battle is to prepare beforehand, ideally with some advance recon on your enemies, including what kinds of weapons they have access to. Your preparation will include choosing the proper crew, equipping the appropriate weapons, and installing the proper shields.
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