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Author Topic: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3  (Read 2610 times)

Offline Zach

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A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« on: 06 July 2008 12:05 PM »
For over a week now, Hailing Frequency has been releasing a series of previously unreleased images and screenshots from Perpetual Entertainments failed attempt at Star Trek Online. (See Here: http://www.hailingfrequency.co.uk/boards/index.php?topic=786.0 and Here: http://www.hailingfrequency.co.uk/boards/index.php?topic=800.0)

Many people around the world now look at the now bust Perpetual Entertainment with a certain amount of contempt - after all, they left us hanging for three years on possibly the thinnest thread ever known to exist, however, if you take a look at the failed project in another light, from another perspective and perhaps it can be considered a learning experience.

Star Trek is possibly the most established franchise in the world - with ten released movies and six series, Star Trek becomes a challenge for even the most experienced game developer and of course, Perpetual was a fairly new development studio and for all of their talent, they were really just learning as they went along.

However, for the new developer of Star Trek Online, the failed attempt by Perpetual is a valuable thing - because they can see what worked, what didn’t work and learn from Perpetuals three years of dealing with the community, what the fans want and do not want.

The new developer does have three other major advantages over Perpetual Entertainment - One is the fact that they do already have several released MMORPGs that have not only been highly successful, but also revolutionary in that they did things that they did things that haven’t been done before.

Secondly, they have an established game engine that is amazingly powerful and highly adaptable and thirdly - They have money! Whereas Perpetual Entertainment had to secure investors and publishers and god knows what else, the new developer has the resources to develop and publish the entire project in house.

But enough of looking to the future - lets take a look into the past for a moment with another three images from Perpetual Entertainments Star Trek Online.

Again - We do apologize for the quality of these images. We debated for a long time internally whether to release them or not due to their quality; however they do serve to give us some insight in what we could have expected from Perpetual and what we can look forward to from our beloved new developer.

The First Image demonstrates another aspect of the game that Perpetual Entertainment was toying with - The possibility of Sub-Terrainian settlements and cities. Why stick to the planets surface, when you can go underground and create something potentially even more spectacular:


Our second and third images come to you from the realms of deep space. We have not been able to identify the ship in these images due to the bad quality, however perhaps someone in the community can shed some light on them.

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Offline Sarevok

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #1 on: 06 July 2008 01:01 PM »
Hmmm, are those photographs taken of a screen?
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Offline Zach

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #2 on: 06 July 2008 01:06 PM »
Indeed they are! I was wondering when someone would catch on to that
* Zach Nicodemous smirks
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Offline amb

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #3 on: 06 July 2008 01:15 PM »
Hey everyone,

seems a Romulan had a look into the studios those days :P
I have to admit the first image content has a fresh look. Not too bad (despite of the image quality, of course).

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Offline knightofhyrule730

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #4 on: 06 July 2008 01:16 PM »
The ships are either that funky looking one they keep showing us. or a Galaxy class.

they look good. wish i could have at least played some beta before they went under :(
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Offline Fraek

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #5 on: 06 July 2008 01:25 PM »
Sub-terranean settlements are, in a sense, ideal out of a game-design perspective, as the planet's crust would provide natural limits to the zone, so that you don't end up with unnatural, invisible walls (indeed, invisible walls more or less killed Kashyyyk for many SWG players).

That ship looks like an Excalibur-class one to me:  It has a Galaxy-class-like saucer section, with the main deflector dish quite far back and the warp nacelles at about the same height as aforementioned deflector dish and far out to the sides.

Thanks, by the way; these images are great!  I'd love to see what that artwork looks like in a clean, high-resolution state, and I really prefer these space environments to the one we had previously seen.  The second one still looks a bit too cartoony for me (lots of large, celestial objects all close enough to be seen in detail; I hope that won't be commonplace), but the backdrop sure does look interesting; it looks to me like they might really have been on to something great when it comes to lighting in dense, nebular environments (that, or I'm being fooled by the strange exposure that comes from taking photographs of monitors ;)).  The first one, though, looks simply marvellous; one of my favorite things to do in games like EVE Online is to fly around a planet to create a sunrise, and it looks like this could have been quite satisfying in P2's Star Trek Online, too.


Here's to hoping we get a Star Trek Online - Collector's Edition with an artbook filled with Perpetual art and screenshots!
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Offline IanD967

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #6 on: 06 July 2008 05:45 PM »
i am actually loving that 2nd pcture of thestarship and the sun's glare, if that was a full image as our first in-space shot alot of people might of been alot more happy :)
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Offline Admiral of Starfleet

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #7 on: 06 July 2008 08:40 PM »
cool pics.
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Offline Hathaway

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #8 on: 06 July 2008 09:28 PM »
For all the negativity over Perpetual's version of STO, I do like some of what I'm seeing in these latest images. I was certainly no fan of the cartoon-like direction they ended up heading in though, and I do hope Cryptic stray away from this aspect. From a conceptual point of view I agree with Fraek that an underground environment would be ideal for an MMO... always did like Perpetuals early concept stuff.
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Offline Aryu Limitless

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Re: A Look Back at Perpetuals STO - Part 3
« Reply #9 on: 06 July 2008 09:30 PM »
Being a long-time RPG player and have played FASA's StarTrek RPG (back when they had the rights), I loved the kinds of things we did and the battles against the Kingons we relished in!  (One of the guys we played with had a ramming maneuver named after his captain-- crippled his ship, but took out a Kingon Warbird!  Awesome!)

I was, and still am, looking forward to this ONLINE version of one of my favorite SF series.  Too bad Perpetual managed to proverbially "drop the ball" on this one!  It was shaping up to be something incredible.

I truly wish we had this game already in a Beta-Test stage for those of us who truly want to taste, touch and smell the plasma burns from an overloaded power conduit exploding through a computer console somewhere on E-deck, by a cargo bay!...  I dream of such things and meeting the members of StarTrek I grew up watching, and RPing under (Capt. J.L. Picard was an inspirational mentor and leader.  Capt. Jonathan Archer was instrumental in bringing other races into the fray, and believing in his crew-- even when they didn't; reminds me of Kirk during the original series.)

I so want to be able to play this, like RIGHT NOW!!!!!!  But, alas, I have to wait like everyone else...
Just hope the "New Guys" use Perpertual's art and art resources for the game, then it'll feel like Perpetual NEVER LEFT!...  (...as long as it isn't like that campy/cartoony looks we had later from Perpetual!...)
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