Star Trek: Online

[Captain_Amasov]

brianbeercan wrote:

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One of the cool things about the Star Trek universe is that it has Holodecks - the devs have been pretty silent about how they'll be used in game, but I could see player made mods being available in there! Well, I can dream anyway.

Well eventually you could use it to make stuff like this: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...eviews/load/73

City of Heroes has recently had open testing on their next update called Mission Architect.

[jefferiestubes8]

Zinc from Cryptic Dev Team posted:

You will be taken to interiors during instanced missions. You'll go to them in persistent ways as well - mostly social, but also in other cases that I'm going to be vague about right now on purpose : ) - There are starbases, satellites, ship interiors (yes, ships), buildings on the ground, caverns under the earth or deep in asteroids - all sorts of places you'll adventure within interiors.

There will be plenty of interiors in the game at launch - there are plenty in the game right now ...

SOURCE




And for what we are wishing for a sandbox of ships to explore...

Sadly, what we won't have at launch is the ability for you to customize your own ship, invite other players over and walkaround, seeing hundreds of NPC crew members and investigate every nook, cranny and Jefferies tube on it.

[Phlox's Tongue]

will the charge for this?

[wade8069]

I am just a TV fan , not a game fan. My wife will kill me if I play game.

[jefferiestubes8]

Star Trek Online begins in the year 2409, which is about 30 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis.

Christine "Kestrel" Thompson has posted a new blog over on MMORPG.com - In this blog she talks about the daunting task of writing thirty years of Star Trek History and how exactly she has chosen to approach the whole thing.
In addition, she also mentions a couple of tidbits that we havent heard about yet - Laas and the missing 98 changlings from the "100" - which could give us some idea about what to expect in some future updates.

What happened to the Klingons? How were the Cardassians recovering from the Dominion War? Where were Laas and the missing 98 changelings, and what did they want? What was the Federation doing when all of this was going on? What about the Gorn, or the Orions? And so on.

full blog post:
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Awenyddi...strel-Thompson

original source

[CaptainStoner]

wade8069 wrote:

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I am just a TV fan , not a game fan. My wife will kill me if I play game.

The links in your sig are to Chinese bootlegs.

[jefferiestubes8]

based on the post about Cryptic Dev Team details
regarding ship interiors in the game.
I just came across this.

The largest Starfleet starships like the Galaxy- and Sovereign-class were not designed for individuals to own, but to act as in-space "towns" called hubs. Such ships would have been commanded by a NPC crew, and their interiors rendered in high detail;

-memory alpha

The work you see here is one of 12 decks I was asked to help develop. Working from October through December, 2005, the Game Designer, Art Director, and I planned out the basic elements of those decks and I built them as simple 3D models, helping us all to visualize those spaces quickly. Then, choosing one of the decks,.. Medical & Sciences: Deck-7, I was asked to sketch each of the rooms, adding details that would be seen and used in the game. As of this writing, this is the only deck I've been asked to take through 'concept phase' completion.

Andrew Probert's Concepts and designs 21 images made in 2006 for PERPETUAL ENTERTAINMENT

Interior layout designs STAR TREK ONLINE GAME for Deck7 Medical and Sciences section.
http://www.probertdesigns.com/Folder..._PerpEnt..html


His Official Trek related job titles:
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, 1979
PRODUCTION ILLUSTRATOR

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, 1986-87
SENIOR CONSULTING ILLUSTRATOR

In January 2008, Perpetual Entertainment ceased production of the game and laid off the entire Star Trek Online development team.
Non-code assets of the development were transferred to Cryptic Studios, who have subsequently developed their own title under the same name, but with significantly different game mechanics.

SOURCE

These may be the actual interiors Cryptic Studios used.

[jefferiestubes8]

Cryptic Studios' Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich and included new combat footage and info. in an interview on MSNBC for Star Trek Online preview.
Length 3:18 video

I believe this new combat in-game footage is the first time we have seen space battles and phaser fire on ship interiors for this game as a video, with stereo sound.
In the video we also see the new The NX-91001 ship go into Warp leaving a blue trail behind. We also see the NCC-79719 new Oslo class ship flyby, NCC-95032 HAWAII (ARIZONA class), and another unclassed Federation ship. We also hear some of the new music underneath the voice.
At 3:02 there is a really nice wide shot of a Borg cube fast approach and full stop in front of what looks like a Enterprise-D and scans it with green light. Very similar to shots I've seen on Voyager.

FYI I found the NCC95032 here which should help you in classifying ships:
ESF Starship Directory

[jefferiestubes8]

Cryptic Studios January 2008 image of Starfleet Command in San Francisco
image 2




Star Trek Online [Perpetual Entertainment version] images from 2006 development. February 24, 2006 . They may or may not be part of what what Intellectual Property kept by Cryptic:
IMAGE 1
image 2
image 3

[jefferiestubes8]

A monthly fee is required to play.

Star Trek Online
$49.99
Pre-order Ships 1/26/2010

Gamestop's website source



a Dev said that GameStop's release date is not official

[CaptJimboJones]

Phlox's Tongue wrote:

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will the charge for this?

I don't think it's been disclosed yet. Presumably something similar to the WoW charge, perhaps $15/month? That's in addition to the game itself.

[jefferiestubes8]

CaptJimboJones wrote:

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I don't think it's been disclosed yet.

Will there be a monthly fee?
Yes. The fee will be competitive with other products of our genre.
Will the content grow during the lifetime of the game?
Yes, through updates and expansions

It was disclosed by startrek.com on 7.12.2005 and here.

A fee in a way tells you that this is a serious game, and only the serious play it. That is not to say that the fee takes away from the fun of the game

SOURCE: STO forum post

Pay to Play monthly = looking at Cryptic past games, free updates, no restrictions, able to keep the game running with chances to expand on ideas. Down side may not get your money worth of game time.

another STO forum post

[jefferiestubes8]

3 new Star Trek Online Screens Explore Strange New Worlds
http://kotaku.com/photogallery/sto424/1008041054
http://kotaku.com/photogallery/sto424/1008041049
http://kotaku.com/photogallery/sto424/1008041044

[jefferiestubes8]

45 Screenshots from August 10th 2008 [some we've seen before, some most have not]

http://www.sto-zone.net/cryptic/scre...-aug10-08.html
http://www.sto-zone.net/cryptic/scre...ug10-08-2.html
http://www.sto-zone.net/cryptic/scre...ug10-08-3.html
http://www.sto-zone.net/cryptic/scre...ug10-08-4.html
http://www.sto-zone.net/cryptic/scre...ug10-08-5.html


9 Screenshots from July 2008
http://www.sto-zone.net/cryptic/screenshots-july08.html

[jefferiestubes8]

I found some stuff from the initial development of Star Trek: Online from Perpetual before Cryptic took over even though they kept the Intellectual Property.

7 images of Concept Artwork from Cryptic Studios
http://www.sto-zone.net/cryptic/conceptart.html


2 images from a planet surface structure? Looks like a temple
http://www.sto-zone.net/pe/images/3dd2.jpg
http://www.sto-zone.net/pe/images/3dd3.jpg


This will help you understand what ship interiors MAY be in the initial game launch.
Continuing from my post earlier this week about Andrew Probert doing designs in 2006:
CREATING A GALAXY CLASS STARSHIP

experienced Star Trek designer: Andrew Probert, the guy who designed the Enterprise D, Next Gen's original Starship. But you're certainly not familiar with the intimate details of HOW he is contributing - and that's what I'd like to discuss.


The Rooms - Our first brainstormed list spelled out all of the possible things that players would need or want to do in a hub. These actions included healing, visiting their quarters, buying/selling/trading, getting missions, engaging in hobbies, resupplying, chatting, and lots more. In order to establish the areas that supported all of these actions, we did the following:

1) We first looked at canon to find established (and hopefully well-known) areas of the Galaxy-class. Clear matches like Sick Bay, the Bridge, and Ten-Forward called out to be included.
2) We searched through both sets of Enterprise-D blueprints (Sternbach's and Whitefire's) to see if there were other, previously designed rooms that fit the bills - even if these rooms weren't canon (defined by if we've actually seen or heard reference to the area in a show or movie). We sure found more labs than we ever expected!
3) Failing both of these, we created our own areas, but made sure they made sense in relation to other known associated rooms.

The next list identified canon or blueprint-established rooms that looked cool or fun to explore, but weren't quite as crucial. This process gave us known spaces like Jefferies' tubes, and less-familiar but intriguing areas like the Aquatic Lab.

The end result was a bag full of vital, interesting, or just plain cool building blocks.


We identified a number of vital decks to serve as the core of our gameplay area, including those that serviced the three departments (science/medical, engineering, and security), as well as the bridge, crew quarters, recreation, and the main shuttle bay. And while our decks are still identified by number, they're also distinguished by other factors: color, lighting, architecture, signage, and even art hanging on the walls and planters on the floor. While everything still feels true to the show, you'll never mistake the science deck for security. Andrew's design talents were and continue to be invaluable in this effort.

So where are these decks located in the ship? We looked to the blueprints again, and while we did some consolidating, in most cases we found logical anchor rooms: iconic areas from which the remaining rooms could flow. We also took into account aesthetics and the opportunity to connect some decks with multi-level landmarks.

Andrew [Probert] was great in this process; he's got most of the ship design living in his head, and was immediately able to tell us if there were potential layout problems.

Andrew, Ken Henderson (our art director), and I hashed through these issues and iterated a number of deck plans. I was mostly concerned with game-design and flow issues. Andrew helped nail down the look and location of both old and new spaces, and grounded them in TNG-era design. Ken paid attention to the details as well as technical construction concerns.

The Concept Art - Once a deck's layout was nailed down, we moved on to drawing up concept art for the individual rooms. In some cases, reference was pulled straight out of TNG episodes; in others, we described to Andrew what the room needed to accomplish, and he delivered excellent line sketches in the same style, pictures that look as though they could have come out of the 'Art of Star Trek' book. While every one of these spaces might change as the design evolves and we discover more about how our game plays, this was a great first step.

The final product, our Galaxy class Starship hub, pays off on expectations, but also allows for some incredible new experiences - all in a ship that feels like an off-stage Enterprise-D. I'm thinking that our ship is potentially pretty close to what the original Trek designers would have created given the task of building a functioning city-ship and given an unlimited budget.


I want to make it clear that this material is concept art. We've yet to actually build these spaces in our engine, and there are issues like modularity, reuse, complexity, and detail level that we've yet to address. We're really excited to have this early view of what we might build, but like any material we release this early, these plans could easily change.


Christine Brownell and Mike Stemmle (the Lead World and Story Designers) [Mike Stemmle is the Story Lead on Star Trek Online] have done an amazing job organizing even the smallest facets of Trek canon into a galaxy that, if the extensive Wiki pages detailing STO's design are any indication, will be above awesome to explore
an early build of Star Trek Online, during what we call a "Build Verification Test".

--Glen
Glen Dahlgren here, Design Director on STO,

Feb 6, 2006 - CREATING A GALAXY CLASS STARSHIP by Glen Dahlgren (Lead Designer)
http://www.sto-zone.net/pe/devlog-de...ssstarship.htm
http://www.sto-zone.net/pe/devlog-de...sstarship2.htm