Star Trek Online: Q&A with Cryptic

The Star Trek universe has always been able to boast of an incredibly expansive franchise; you name it, chances are you can get it complete with the starfleet insignia. One area it has lacked in for a while is gaming - with either poor quality games or incredibly old ones on retro machines - but Star Trek Online has aimed to changed that.

The Star Trek MMO was developed by Cryptic Studios, the team behind the popular City of Heroes and Champions Online and it hopes to break the trend of rubbish Star Trek games with a Massively Multiplayer take on the universe.

When given a chance to sit down with the developer we naturally had a few questions about translating such a famous universe to the online space. Here's what they had to say!

RPG Site: Would it be fair to say that with STO you're hoping to attract an audience of RPG and MMORPG players who are not necessarily previous fans of Star Trek? If so how do you think the game will do this?
Cryptic: We’re definitely looking to expand the game’s reach to gamers who aren’t familiar with the Star Trek universe. We really think STO reaches out to gamers on a very basic level. Chances are, if you’re into sci-fi at all, you’re into Star Trek, since so much of modern science fiction has been influenced by Star Trek. That makes the introduction to people new to Star Trek pretty friendly.

That, and we’ve got a great game to share with people. Our goal from the very beginning has been to create a fun game inside the Star Trek universe. Every decision we’ve made has been prefaced with two questions: 1) Does this make sense for Star Trek, and 2) Is this fun? We think by focusing on these two questions, we’re able to reach out to both fans of Star Trek and fans of fun games.

RPG Site: And of course, there are already a large number of very excited, loyal long term fans keeping the STO community bustling. Are there any aspects specifically included in the game for their sake?
Cryptic: There are many locations and characters that Star Trek fans will see that will get them pretty excited.  We have little things that we do that only a Star Trek fan may pick up on, whether it’s a certain location, or a reference to something done in one of the later TV shows.  We want you to feel like you’re immersed in the Star Trek universe.

RPG Site: What other features of STO set it apart from the rest of the MMO genre?
Cryptic:  I think our episodic content and the ability to be both in space and on the ground separate it from other MMOs. The episodic content is very story-driven and tries to emulate the feel of the TV series.  With regards to space and ground combat, I haven’t seen too many games out there that give you both, and we’re the first to launch with both features.

RPG Site: Can we expect to see some familiar faces, big or small, from the Star Trek universe in Star Trek Online?
Cryptic: You will see familiar faces.  Most of the big ones, however, have either retired or have passed away by this time. Bear in mind, the game is set in 2409, which is quite a bit of time after the events of TNG and DS9.

RPG Site: The tech of Star Trek's future is very expansive. Other than the ships, which we have seen a lot of, what other types of iconic technology will the player get to play around with?
Cryptic: We do a lot to generate a Star Trek feel in the way technology works in the game. We implement a lot of the techno speak that people fondly remember from the shows and movies, so everything sounds like it’s coming out of a Starfleet engineer’s mouth.

And then, of course, are your Star Trek standards. We’ve got phasers and uniforms and com badges and bat’leths aplenty. We never want the game to feel like a generic sci-fi world, so we really loaded up on the Star Trek staples.

RPG Site: Space must be a difficult medium in which to create an MMO; how have you solved the dilemma of accurately portraying the vastness and freedom of space while trying to prevent the game from becoming too system-intensive? Were there any compromises involved?
Cryptic: Space definitely was a design challenge. To keep things fun but still convey a sense of scale, we designed our ships to handle like tall ships or submarines, meaning they could move in three dimensions, but at a pace more akin to a big destroyer than to a fighter jet.  This allowed us to focus more on feel and tactical pacing than to design an entire Newtonian model and bog the user down with too much information.

RPG Site: The staple of a good MMO is often the ability to join/play in a party with friends. How will this be handled in STO?
Cryptic: We want to make it very easy for friends to play together; it’s one of the reasons we run the game on a single shard. Right now, you can team up with people across the world and go on missions together, complete with mission sharing. When you enter an instance, you’re able to see how many friends and group members are in each instance and choose to join from there, too.

RPG Site: It is understood that there will be two playable, opposing factions at launch – the Federation and the Klingons. How will PvP be handled in STO? Will this be available both in space and on the surface of planets?
Cryptic: PvP is scenario-based and available both in space and on the ground. We’ve got a few different options for PvPers, including Area Control, which is an advanced king of the hill-style game, and Arena, which pits two teams against each other. Klingons are specifically a PvP-oriented faction, so we’re committing long-term to PvP in STO.

RPG Site: Ground combat has been reported to make up a large portion of STO. Will this be similar to the style of FPS shooting or be more RPG influenced – and will I be able to set my phaser to stun?
Cryptic: It’s in a third-person RPG style and you can most definitely set your phaser to stun.  We give you control of not only yourself but your crew, as well.  While ground combat is very action-oriented, we built in a lot of tactical options for you, as well. For instance, you can pause the game briefly to order your Bridge Officers into positions to better flank an enemy.

We also have an expose and exploit system, which allows you to use certain attacks in conjunction to set up more devastating special moves and really put the hurt on your enemies.

RPG Site: We've heard a lot about STO's 'Episodic Content' – quests which are designed to feel like you're playing a part in a Stark Trek episode. How much of this can we expect to see at launch?
Cryptic: We’ve currently got over 40 Episode Missions on offer, with more coming down the chute. Without engaging content that tells an evocative story, it’s not really Star Trek. The whole point is for you to feel like you’re a star of your own series, which means we’ll keep providing you with new and interesting feats to achieve.

RPG Site: The closed beta has now run its course. Did it go the way you had planned? But most importantly, how has asking a community of often very dedicated ST fans to test and criticise STO helped to improve it in ways you had never thought of?
Cryptic: The beta went great.  We had a lot more people play than we expected.  It was exciting hearing the feedback in the beta because as designers you’re around the game all the time so you know what things are supposed to feel like, where certain things are supposed to be.  So it was good hearing their feedback and being like ok we need to adjust things here, or tweak things there.

But where the true feedback comes is after the game is out.  We can see what the community wants in the game.  What they want us to add more of or do different.  We look forward to adding in as many of their requests as we can.

RPG Site: Congratulations on leading in several online polls for most anticipated MMORPG of 2010, beating massive competitors such as Final Fantasy XIV to the top spot. Why do you think STO is so greatly anticipated?
Cryptic: I think there are a lot of Star Trek fans out there that have been looking forward to a MMORPG they could call their own.  I also think that there are a bunch of gamers out there looking for something different in the genre, and we definitely hit on both points.

RPG Site: Is there anything else our readers at RPGSite might like to know about STO?
Cryptic: I can speak for everyone on the team when I say it was an honor and a privilege working on Star Trek Online and adding something new to the Star Trek franchise.