It seems that information about Star Trek Online is coming on an almost daily basis recently, not only online but in published media too.
We were lucky enough to get our hands on a copy of the article that was published in the "May" edition of the PC Gamer UK Magazine and it certainly gives us some interesting information and insight into the game.
While we have taken the safe road and chosen not to show "scans" of the article and its images, we have transcribed the written part of the article which is posted below.
For a long time now I've been afraid that Star Trek online will either be fastidiously true to the fiction but no fun to play, or worse, a passable reskin of World of Warcraft that has little to do with the series.
But now I’ve seen it being played in front of me, I’m happy. “We're trying to figure out what makes a good Star Trek game,” executive producer Craig Zinkevich stresses, “and then figure out how we make that into a MMO.”
That was exactly the impression I got watching the team pilot their federation starships through the gorgeous stretches of space, carrying out missions for Starfleet Command battling Orion cruisers. It didn't look like an MMO. It looked like fun.
Every player is a captain, whether they play Federation or Klingon. Its 30 years after the last film and peace between the two has broken down. You choose an officer type- tactical, science or engineering – then customise the hell out of your race, your face, your all-purpose starter ship and your key bridge officers.
Bridge officers help with both space battles and away missions, when you beam down to planets or aboard other starships. A good medical officer is going to be useful on rescue missions and a good engineer on deck can grant you a new way to unleash more photon torpedoes in space combat. It's this that I got the see firsthand, and my geek gland became engorged.
Your basic weapons on most ships are simple: forward phaser banks, rear phaser banks and photon torpedoes. But you're also in charge of the power levels of all your ship's systems: full power to engines on approach, divert to shields when phasers start flying, then to auxiliary to turn away faster and regenerate.
This is heaven. These are all sliders you can adjust smoothly at any point in combat, and as well as the three board categories mentioned, you also control the precise distribution of shield power between forward, rear, starboard and port.
It means combat is all about position and facing: broadside an enemy to get him in the sweet spot where both forward and rear phaser banks can target him. Once his forward shields are down, he'll try to turn away from you before you torpedo his exposed hull. You can divert power to engines to circle him and keep pounding his weak spot, but that leaves your own shields weaker.
It gets even more involved in group combat. Faced with a horde of Orion vessels that included a particularly tough Battleship, one of the developers charged in ahead, pumped all power to his shields, then attacked it, By luring it from the fray, he left his teammates free to rip through the lesser vessels quickly, then come and save him.
Your time in Star Trek Online is split between 'Exploration' and 'Episodic' mission. Exploration is all about going boldly where no one has gone before: millions and millions of stars with procedurally generated planets, asteroids, anomalies, missions and threats. There's even a special algorithm for when you travel to a system no one has ever been to before. It takes into account which types of planet and mission you and your friends have already encountered, and will generate a system that will be new to you.
Generated missions will involve responding to distress calls, being asked by Starfleet Command to investigate nearby a planet, and scanning for anomalies. If we're brutally honest, the series were often formulaic enough that it's probably not hard to produce convincing Star Trek adventures with an equation.
The appeal of exploration is mostly that Star Trek Online is gorgeous. The Screenshots here show how sumptuous and diverse the planets look, and I saw how stunning space is first-hand. It's strewn with weirdly glowing debris, majestic nebulae and hanging stations. You don't realise how huge some of this stuff is until you fly in close, when it becomes clear you can steer your ship though one pore of a gigantic chunk of rock.
The story episodes mostly take place around the hubs of the five major empires, including Klingon, Romulan and Borg, and your missions will be hand-crafted and varied. Craig points out that no episode of the series stayed in one-place, and they've designed the game's missions similarly.
“You do not start in a vast terrain and kill rats for fifteen hours to open up the next area” says Craig, conjuring painful memories of The Barrens in Wow. “You’re constantly going from environment to environment; fro ship to ground, back to ship, from ship to interiors.”
I pressed him for an example of a mission that wasn't just 'kill ten rats'. “Showing up and saving a stranded freighter from Gorn attack, beaming onto that freighter, trying to replace their warp core, having that fail, then trying to get all these guys out as the Gorn beam aboard the ship, then beaming back to your own ship for the big battle.”
OK, that actually does sound kind of awesome.
Closing note: Captures the Star Trek experience and it's a welcome break from the usual MMO template.
