CZ: We want to make sure that crafting is a large part of the game, that there is a robust crafting economy. We are iterating on the depth and where in the game play it will fold in and where you will need to do it and where you don’t need to do it, so not many details yet but it is underway right now and we will talk allot more about that in a few months.

I really am interested to see how crafting is handled in this game.  I am sure that there will be set types of recipies for whatever crafting types they make, but I hope there will some way to change them up a bit (like in EQ2 ther eis normal version and one made with a rare material)

CZ: We actually haven’t said anything about that. It’s a really cool idea to take peoples races and make sure they show up in the game, we’re definitely going to allow you to share your races between friends and make it easy for a whole fleet to end up being from the same planet, but we haven’t actually taken it that one step further and made sure we populate the world with stuff people have made.

I think there are pluses and minuses to doing that and we will see where it takes us, it’s a really cool idea though.

I see a big minus to the population part.  I don't mind so much the creating and sharing of player-made races (ala Spore) but to populate a planet one would need to get up a government system, is it technological or agriculture, etc.  Too much other things than just dropping aliens on a planet and saying "they live there".

CZ: Whatever resources a fleet generates, whether it be ships or items, will be under the control of that fleet.  I think guilds in MMOs need that autonomy,  I think fleets within Starfleet during wartime also need that autonomy and i think that the community wants that autonomy too, so fleets will have the ability to create items, set uniforms, set ranks, have calendars.   

We can’t give many details at the moment, but we want to make sure that there is alot of stuff in game to allow people to organise and OUTSIDE of the game too,

I do like the idea of allowing stuff inside and outside the game, and hope to see that in STO.  I'm just a bit concerned with the whole fleet resources stuff.

True, I'm taking much info from the main boards, but seeing the imbalance of Starfleet fleets vs. Klingon ones is great.  How is that going to affect the balance?  Will one side have more?

Of course many factors come into play as well ... if one server is in play then prolly not as much.  But then the number of people who want to be in a fleet, and if those people can actually work together to make something.

One of the cool things about MMOs is that your dev team doesn’t change, you keep developing the game and changing the game and your community is a part of figuring out what you need to do and what you want to do after launch.  Maybe once everyone starts playing the game, there is going to be something totally different that folks want instead.

Actually dev teams CAN and probably WILL change over time.  (EQ2 changes anyone?)  People find new jobs, get promoted/demoted/fired ... it's a changing world.  But I'm sure once people start playing the game, minds will change.

CZ: I think that you can look at it as purely numeric’s or as a math problem, but I take a completely different stance.

Star Trek is completely different things to different people. Some people are going to come in and want to rank up to Admiral and get the biggest ship they can, while other people are going to head out to the Klingon Front line and constantly PVP and try to turn the tide of that conflict and some people are going to want to get in their starship and go to explore a brand new planet, so I don’t think it’s a sense of mathematically making sure that someone who plays 5 hours a week is as good or as effective as someone who really plays but its more about making sure that we have content that is there for what you feel like doing at the time and that you feel good and are having a fun time and you feel effective while you are doing it.

I disagree a bit how Craig put this.  It is about mathematics in a sense.

I do want to play this game, but sometimes I will be limited because of RL.  And I'm sure there will be others who work 40+ hour weeks.  Those who do play 5 hours a week may not be effective as those who play more, especially if certain gear comes into play that you can only get through a long raiding session (sorry EQ2 there heh).  But I'll have to see how it goes.

We are playing the game as a team on a constant basis internally now and I have to walk around when we have these play tests and kick people out of the character creator because they are spending 20 or 30 minutes just tweaking their characters, so I’d have to say that I’m really excited about that system.

Oh I'm sure it's more like HOURS hehe.
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Seems like some interesting things to look forward to, and some to be "concerned" about, wondering how it will turn out.