A very good interview indeed, answered a few more questions.
Thanks for posting this Kestrel.
Also in the interview when they talk about design time he said "normally MMO takes 2 years because of creating pipeline infastructure and enginge. with ST:O we have an engine already built, all we have to do is tweak it for star trek purpose and add content, like champions online next April ready to go, Boom, Star trek online add content and boom you're done"
I know it's not exactly not word for word but from what i could remember.
It does give me some hope that ST:O will be out much sooner than excpected, and also the possibilty
for ti coming onto XBOX 360, which i know quite a few people on here are not to keen on.
Great interview and thanks again.
Hope more information, images will keep on coming over the months.
Cheers.
From what I've heard so far, the game is meeting my expectations for sure. Ok it's still early days, it's hard not to take such an interest in a mmo of Star Trek though lol.
Great stuff. I loved hearing that the Klingons and Federation will have internal PvP,
Jack said "maybe". Whilst I think it's unlikey there won't be any internal PvP, (if not at launch, then within the first year) I don't want see people get angry because they didn't get something they mistakenly thought they would.
I wonder if the existing Federation species will be selectable within a list (so that you don't have to make them from scratch), and the create a species will be seperate.
even if this is offtopic, he mentioned in Las Vegas that every day they would release star trek history so that we can catch up with the timeline until the release, has anyone found out were this shall be??
even if this is offtopic, he mentioned in Las Vegas that every day they would release star trek history so that we can catch up with the timeline until the release, has anyone found out were this shall be??
I think in one of the threads they said they were working on it and we should start seeing it soon.
MMORPG.com's Keith Cross caught up with Jack Emmert, chief creative officer of Cryptic Studios, at GenCon 2008 to talk about Star Trek Online, customization, combat, consoles and more!
Since players will be able to customize themselves in "humanoid" form, I wonder if I can modify one to look like a Monkey?! There pretty close to humanoid!
very insightful stuff. i like how at the end Emmert stated that Cryptic wants to do something more than just a straight forward MMO and bring star trek to life, not just another MMO with the Star Trek skin on it. i'm very impressed by that...i lets just hope they stay true too it. thanks for posting it =]
A: Yup, you can create your own race. We're giving tools so that people, your skin your eyebrows your antennae your hair, everything, we're doing everything we did with Champions, but we are adding to it to make sure that we can allow players to really bring to life any sorta race they can imagine. Maybe its something mentioned in ST but never shown, maybe its something they've added in their own fan fiction, whatever it is.
Q: Humanoids only or can I have tentacles?
A: Uh,I think yeah just humanoid is where we'll start, we'll eventually go to other places, but uh I think, uh pretty much we're going to be aiming at just humanoids for launch. Luckily thats mostly ST, very few non humanoid races. I wonder why?
Q: Can you customize your ship?
A: So uh, in terms of customizing, you can customize your ship exteriors, the geometry, you can add colors, decals, uh even come up with the name of your ship, the serial number, but also the interiors, we will allow players to do some level customization, now admittedly we are going to have this within some limits. Federation ships for instances have a certain kit, in other words, a certain look, a certain feel, but within those limits we'll have the ability for players to tweak them. It'd be great if we could alow people to customize the decks and their layouts and where the rooms are, but im not sure whether that will be in the release or not.
Q: Which Factions are in at launch?
A: Starfleet and Klingon. So two factions, full PVE content and those two factions will compete indirectly for resources and directly in PvP.
Q: Will PvP be Starfleet vs. Klingon only?
A: Yeah Starfleet vs. Klingons. Uh, maybe we'll do some sort of wargames where you can fight agaisnt people within your faction, that's certainly within the Canon. Uh, I can think of a Next Gen episode, in fact where Picard and Riker face off. That's something we might do.
Q: And Klingons?
A: Yeah, War games would be part of their lifestyle I'd imagine, so there might be some sort of dueling within faction but the primary focus of pvp will between Starfleet and the Klingons.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about how Cryptic acquired the rights to make the Star Trek MMO?
A: Well Perpetual faced some hard choices and they were in a position where they knew they couldn't complete the game and they came to us when it was their decision not to move forward or find funding in other ways and we purchased the license from them and the rest is history. We had pretty friendly cordial relationship with them and so that led to us always being in communication, so when the opportunity came up we took it. I mean ST is such a great IP that it makes perfect sense for an MMO.
Q: How much of an influence will Perpetual's vision for STO influence Cryptic's game?
A: I'll be honest, I really didn't read any of their documents. I talked with their team briefly, for about an hour but that was months and months and months ago. Everything we've done, if there happen to be resemblances, great, cause Perpetual guys were really cool, they were really into it, they uh, I'm sure great minds will think alike, but we didn't consciously lift anything.
Q: Cryptic acquired the rights less than a year ago. How is it that production has moved along so quickly?
A: Well see there is a big difference between cryptic and other MMO companies,that we're starting with an engine. So the minute we got the license we can start working on in game assets. We're not spending a year or two years building an engine or porting, licensing and engine and then trying to port it to do what we want it to do. And I think that's usually the reason that an MMO company takes so long to make something. It's not necessarily the game or the content, you have to do that plus the infrastructure, the pipeline, the tools, to enable people to do that stuff. We already have it with Champions Right? We're shipping next spring, boom. All right ST,Whoom! We just use the engine make some tweaks to make it appropriate for ST, done.
Q: Does the inclusion of starships pose additional challenges?
A: Well yeah, but we already have flight, its not like we weren't already used to players working in 3D. Now that isn't to say that there aren't things that we need to do for ships, but at least we had a good starting point.
Q: Can you tell us about the combat system?
A: I think that ship combat is going to be very tactical, its going to be more like, well kinda tall ship combat and not really dogfightering. But I think the ground combat, at least as we have it now, is much more fast paced then a typical mmo. Its not a console like action like champions, but you've phasers, you have energy weapons, disruptors, shields and so I think that right now the pace we are looking for is far more rapid.
Q: Will you be developing STO for the XBox?
A: There's nothing preventing it, except for business.
Q: Is that a factor in the Game's design?
A: Yeah, we're always thinking about going to console because we have the technology to do it and very very few companies have that and so it would be silly for us not to consider it, but I don't really consider it a limitation because we didn't have to dumb down Champions even a little bit for the console.
Q: Will combat look more like combat in a traditional MMO or will it look more like an action RPG?
A: There are a lot of really good games that did some things that uh, Mass Effect, Tabula Rasa, HellGate, that have introduced some kinda cool mechanics that maybe we're going to look at for inspiration to make some not quite so straight forward because we want to bring ST to life, I don't want to just create an MMO that happens to have a ST skin on it and thats something that I really want to avoid.
He talks abaut players naming there ships, that makes me think, what are lemitations of names to ships? can my starship be called the USS Borg Collective or will that be an unvallid name like USS **** you.
Note even if Borg Collective will not be unvallid i´m ofcause going for somthing alot more starfleet and I realy hope that making a ship name that insults other players will not be posible. I don´t whant to meet a starfleet ship whith the name USS fat ****
He talks abaut players naming there ships, that makes me think, what are lemitations of names to ships? can my starship be called the USS Borg Collective or will that be an unvallid name like USS **** you.
Note even if Borg Collective will not be unvallid i´m ofcause going for somthing alot more starfleet and I realy hope that making a ship name that insults other players will not be posible. I don´t whant to meet a starfleet ship whith the name USS fat ****
yes that whud be standart like other mmo games, and they proberly not are going to make un proberly names invallid for starfleet ships. However I realy hope I´ll never see a ship called USS Borg Collective or USS BorgQueen. To me that feals wrong for starfleet ships to get names like that. Then I like names like USS haven way better
Sounds like a promising game indeed, I would like to highlight that he mentioned about PvP being 'Tactical'.
I would like to see the same system eve online uses for ship to ship combat. It would, in my eyes, make intense battles and not so much of a arcade version i.e Freelancer. This what I believe will make or break Star Trek Online because it has to appeal to the masses and not just die hard StarTrek fans.
I'm actually really curious about the ship combat. I wonder what exactly he means by tactical
I would imagine that it's not a system where simply turning the ship and continuing to fire would work to any great degree. With a number of systems and subsystems to not only manage, but target as well, multi-tasking would be required.
There may also be a measure of risk to reputation if, as a starfleet captain, you were to completely destroy a vessel after removing it's offensive capability. Hmm...
"we want to bring star trek to life, I dont want to just create an mmo that just happens to have a star trek skin on it thats somehing that I really want to avoid"
however previously he said...
"we already have an engine, we just slap star trek on it and boom there ya go" or something (not a direct quote).
So To me it sounds like they are tweaking Champions engine to work with star trek, however it will not be as "Technical" as the perpetual game was looking to me.
I just dont want this to be another ST game that fails And I am trying to stay positive...
Comments
greetings from Finland!
Damn - games too far away to get too excited yet...
Thanks for posting this Kestrel.
Also in the interview when they talk about design time he said "normally MMO takes 2 years because of creating pipeline infastructure and enginge. with ST:O we have an engine already built, all we have to do is tweak it for star trek purpose and add content, like champions online next April ready to go, Boom, Star trek online add content and boom you're done"
I know it's not exactly not word for word but from what i could remember.
It does give me some hope that ST:O will be out much sooner than excpected, and also the possibilty
for ti coming onto XBOX 360, which i know quite a few people on here are not to keen on.
Great interview and thanks again.
Hope more information, images will keep on coming over the months.
Cheers.
I am finally at rest on the Wargames part of PvP, it only makes since to have that as an option within your own faction.
Plus I have big hopes this game will go live by late next year, after what I heard in the interview. At least no later than early 2010.
Just kep them comming.
From what I've heard so far, the game is meeting my expectations for sure. Ok it's still early days, it's hard not to take such an interest in a mmo of Star Trek though lol.
Jack said "maybe". Whilst I think it's unlikey there won't be any internal PvP, (if not at launch, then within the first year) I don't want see people get angry because they didn't get something they mistakenly thought they would.
even if this is offtopic, he mentioned in Las Vegas that every day they would release star trek history so that we can catch up with the timeline until the release, has anyone found out were this shall be??
I think in one of the threads they said they were working on it and we should start seeing it soon.
Thanks for the post, cant wait to read up....
One problem Tholians can't speak English so how will they command a Federation starship?
Since players will be able to customize themselves in "humanoid" form, I wonder if I can modify one to look like a Monkey?! There pretty close to humanoid!
Q: What can you tell us about player made races?
A: Yup, you can create your own race. We're giving tools so that people, your skin your eyebrows your antennae your hair, everything, we're doing everything we did with Champions, but we are adding to it to make sure that we can allow players to really bring to life any sorta race they can imagine. Maybe its something mentioned in ST but never shown, maybe its something they've added in their own fan fiction, whatever it is.
Q: Humanoids only or can I have tentacles?
A: Uh,I think yeah just humanoid is where we'll start, we'll eventually go to other places, but uh I think, uh pretty much we're going to be aiming at just humanoids for launch. Luckily thats mostly ST, very few non humanoid races. I wonder why?
Q: Can you customize your ship?
A: So uh, in terms of customizing, you can customize your ship exteriors, the geometry, you can add colors, decals, uh even come up with the name of your ship, the serial number, but also the interiors, we will allow players to do some level customization, now admittedly we are going to have this within some limits. Federation ships for instances have a certain kit, in other words, a certain look, a certain feel, but within those limits we'll have the ability for players to tweak them. It'd be great if we could alow people to customize the decks and their layouts and where the rooms are, but im not sure whether that will be in the release or not.
Q: Which Factions are in at launch?
A: Starfleet and Klingon. So two factions, full PVE content and those two factions will compete indirectly for resources and directly in PvP.
Q: Will PvP be Starfleet vs. Klingon only?
A: Yeah Starfleet vs. Klingons. Uh, maybe we'll do some sort of wargames where you can fight agaisnt people within your faction, that's certainly within the Canon. Uh, I can think of a Next Gen episode, in fact where Picard and Riker face off. That's something we might do.
Q: And Klingons?
A: Yeah, War games would be part of their lifestyle I'd imagine, so there might be some sort of dueling within faction but the primary focus of pvp will between Starfleet and the Klingons.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about how Cryptic acquired the rights to make the Star Trek MMO?
A: Well Perpetual faced some hard choices and they were in a position where they knew they couldn't complete the game and they came to us when it was their decision not to move forward or find funding in other ways and we purchased the license from them and the rest is history. We had pretty friendly cordial relationship with them and so that led to us always being in communication, so when the opportunity came up we took it. I mean ST is such a great IP that it makes perfect sense for an MMO.
Q: How much of an influence will Perpetual's vision for STO influence Cryptic's game?
A: I'll be honest, I really didn't read any of their documents. I talked with their team briefly, for about an hour but that was months and months and months ago. Everything we've done, if there happen to be resemblances, great, cause Perpetual guys were really cool, they were really into it, they uh, I'm sure great minds will think alike, but we didn't consciously lift anything.
Q: Cryptic acquired the rights less than a year ago. How is it that production has moved along so quickly?
A: Well see there is a big difference between cryptic and other MMO companies,that we're starting with an engine. So the minute we got the license we can start working on in game assets. We're not spending a year or two years building an engine or porting, licensing and engine and then trying to port it to do what we want it to do. And I think that's usually the reason that an MMO company takes so long to make something. It's not necessarily the game or the content, you have to do that plus the infrastructure, the pipeline, the tools, to enable people to do that stuff. We already have it with Champions Right? We're shipping next spring, boom. All right ST,Whoom! We just use the engine make some tweaks to make it appropriate for ST, done.
Q: Does the inclusion of starships pose additional challenges?
A: Well yeah, but we already have flight, its not like we weren't already used to players working in 3D. Now that isn't to say that there aren't things that we need to do for ships, but at least we had a good starting point.
Q: Can you tell us about the combat system?
A: I think that ship combat is going to be very tactical, its going to be more like, well kinda tall ship combat and not really dogfightering. But I think the ground combat, at least as we have it now, is much more fast paced then a typical mmo. Its not a console like action like champions, but you've phasers, you have energy weapons, disruptors, shields and so I think that right now the pace we are looking for is far more rapid.
Q: Will you be developing STO for the XBox?
A: There's nothing preventing it, except for business.
Q: Is that a factor in the Game's design?
A: Yeah, we're always thinking about going to console because we have the technology to do it and very very few companies have that and so it would be silly for us not to consider it, but I don't really consider it a limitation because we didn't have to dumb down Champions even a little bit for the console.
Q: Will combat look more like combat in a traditional MMO or will it look more like an action RPG?
A: There are a lot of really good games that did some things that uh, Mass Effect, Tabula Rasa, HellGate, that have introduced some kinda cool mechanics that maybe we're going to look at for inspiration to make some not quite so straight forward because we want to bring ST to life, I don't want to just create an MMO that happens to have a ST skin on it and thats something that I really want to avoid.
He talks abaut players naming there ships, that makes me think, what are lemitations of names to ships? can my starship be called the USS Borg Collective or will that be an unvallid name like USS **** you.
Note even if Borg Collective will not be unvallid i´m ofcause going for somthing alot more starfleet and I realy hope that making a ship name that insults other players will not be posible. I don´t whant to meet a starfleet ship whith the name USS fat ****
post edit because of misspealling
I'll be expecting asci TRIBBLE and genitals...
however, since im evil i did enjoy seeing his reaction when he got the question about how cryptic got the licence after pep.
I would like to see the same system eve online uses for ship to ship combat. It would, in my eyes, make intense battles and not so much of a arcade version i.e Freelancer. This what I believe will make or break Star Trek Online because it has to appeal to the masses and not just die hard StarTrek fans.
Just a thought
I would imagine that it's not a system where simply turning the ship and continuing to fire would work to any great degree. With a number of systems and subsystems to not only manage, but target as well, multi-tasking would be required.
There may also be a measure of risk to reputation if, as a starfleet captain, you were to completely destroy a vessel after removing it's offensive capability. Hmm...
"we want to bring star trek to life, I dont want to just create an mmo that just happens to have a star trek skin on it thats somehing that I really want to avoid"
however previously he said...
"we already have an engine, we just slap star trek on it and boom there ya go" or something (not a direct quote).
So To me it sounds like they are tweaking Champions engine to work with star trek, however it will not be as "Technical" as the perpetual game was looking to me.
I just dont want this to be another ST game that fails