Cryptic Meet & Greet

[JeanNYGUARD]

Today... we just released the latest videos we took of Cryptic's Meet & Greet event held at New York Comic Con. We posted 4 very interesting videos that answer many fan questions about Star Trek Online. We hope you enjoy.

Star Trek Games Coverage of Cryptic Meet & Greet - http://startrek-games.com/star-trek-online-cryptic-meet-greet-nyc-comic-con-2009/

[RogueEnterprise]

Any hope of getting a transcript for these vids... that way we can strip them down for any and all necessary information? =)

[DakotaBlue]

Any hope of getting a transcript for these vids... that way we can strip them down for any and all necessary information? =)

I agree... the audio isn't the best in a few places. Its a bit hard to hear the conversation at times...

But what I did hear has me excited!! :D

[Mysticone622]

transcript would be nice, because its hard to even understand what was being talked about...All I got was the guy asking if one day they might do a bridge commander style Bridge View in space and the dev sayings its 3rd person (first vid) you cant make out anything else.... speakers up/headset there is to much background noice to go with how low they are talking

[Varrangian]

Good stuff thanks for that...

I felt a little bad for the guy from Champions :p

Anyways interesting to note given the recent heated debate that Craig made ship interiors sound like they will be released shortly after launch, so not something that is a far off project.

[TheFeelOfCotton]

The one remark that stood out to me was in reference to the release date, "It'll come out sooner than you think". Which granted they are keeping this totally under wraps, but when they finally release the Beta we'll have a better time frame for when the game's actual release is.

I also liked how the last question was asked about the Z-axis and combat pertaining to it. As everyone knows in Wrath of Khan they utilized this tactic and I think it will make the combat in STO much more interesting.

[Alekks]

Some interesting information in there. Thanks for posting!

[JDiesel17]

I saw my arm! 2:05 in the last video. lol. I was late getting there so I missed most of those earlier questions. Great info!

[IanD967]

I saw my arm! 2:05 in the last video. lol.

hahaha XD

thats just like saying "Hey! theres the mother of my friend's daughters sister who is my best friends friend" :p

gotta watch these when i can get to place to view them :( since this computer has a crummy firewall

[HyorD]

Glad to have you there, Jean!
By the way, can you give us some word on when we'll be seeing your interview with Craig Zinkievich (the one with "A lot of juicy details")? There are no words to describe how we're longing for it... ...although some boards have a :drool: emoticon that sums it up rather nicely ;)

[SelorKiith]

Please please give us a transcript... ^^" really hard to understand sometimes and my speakers got squeeking ;)

[Leonidus]

Thanks Jean some real nice info in thier, ship interiors seem to be somthing they really want to put in soon by the sound of it and the release date is sooner than we think eh? trust cryptic to live up to their name. :p

[IanD967]

gah...i really need a transcript :( that damned buzzing sound is making it unwatchable :(

[HyorD]

Transcript (F# are people in the audience, CZ is Craig Zinkievich, BR is Bill Roper and A is Nicole "Awen" Hamlett (I think); it's not always word-for-word because it was so hard to hear, and I cut out some (albeit not all) of the joking around parts and some Champions Online stuff):

F1: Y'know one of the things that I like about it is as far as when you're out in space ... you can really zoom all the way out out; I mean you can really take in the scope of the whole battle. I mean the game itself is gorgeous! Do you plan on being able to make the space battle more "Bridge Commander"-like, where you can see the Bridge the entire time with the Bridge crew and so forth, and can you also then go outside and pan back, and like let's say you're commanding a fleet or something; can you take in the whole battlefield and make decisions?

CZ: The primary viewpoint for space combat is third-person outside view. When you look at many of the games previously, the space battles look like dogfights; that's not what Star Trek is! Star Trek is paced, strategic... Space combat is balancing the power between your sub-systems, it's balancing shields... ...and so I think that it works a lot better and it just feels right to do it from a strategic, third-person view where you can take in the lay of the battle, y'know take care of the enemies on this side while you're defending yourself on your port side.

F1: So will you be able to pan back pretty far? You won't be locked into a certain, specific... Like in Legacy you kind of got trapped and I didn't enjoy it. The "Star Trek: Legacy" game where you were just outside your ship; you were kind of trapped at that spot.

CZ: Yeah, you were pretty close in "Legacy". I find that we let the player figure out where they wanna be. Some people on the team will play it all the time, like to be close; I like to pull back... No, not so far back that everything is just an icon!

F1: Will you feel the difference as opposed to if you're flying a small, Frigate-type ship as opposed to flying a Sovereign-class Enterprise as far as the speed and the...

CZ: Oh yeah! Turning rates, the speed that you have, putting your energy into your impulse engines versus not; all of the stuff.

F2: [Champions Online questions]

F3: ...that were released for Star Trek Online... ...the static images I feel are [something], great background detail [something]. ...but at least with the Federation ships, they look like they're lacking in detail. Is that because they're not really complete or is it how they're gonna look?

CZ: No, the ships that we have in there are the way that we expect the ships to look. Uh, I'm sure that... I'll be honest with you, if you've been following you can tell the difference between the environment shots that we released recently and the ones that we released four months ago, so as time goes on, I mean we do tweak, we do listen to feedback, we do make stuff better or different... ...but the art that is in there, we do expect to be final art, but y'know things could change.

F3: Uhm, now, I can't really remember... What kind of limits will we have with starship and starbase interiors? Like on your starship; can you go around the whole ship?

CZ: So, we're in the... [jokes that I think pertain to Pimpmobiles] So as for the interior of your ship as a social area, we really wanna, I mean there's so much that we can do; we do wanna make it so that you have your own, private space; your own Bridge, your Ready Room that you can customize, that you can invite other people over... Whether or not that's gonna be at launch, or in an update shortly thereafter, we're looking into that right now; there's a looot of awesome, cool ideas that we want in the game... ...but the idea is, I mean I wanna have your TOS Bridge, and The Next Generation... ...it's all about customization!

F3: This is the last question... Have you guys decided yet on how you're gonna structure your servers; are you gonna have one massive server or are you gonna have, like probably several servers?

CZ: I would love to have one massive server, but then again I would love... I mean, our technology can handle a HUGE number of people on one single server. So, I think one server is the way to go...

[Talk about free stuff; Awen and somebody else, I think... ...and Paul is DEAD!]

F1: [release date] Is it even in the realm of this year?

CZ: It'll be sooner than you think.

F4: Concerning graphics, the idea of it actually going cross-platform; does that mean that, let's say XBOX 360 players are kind of stuck in what the graphics are there? Clearly, would that be the case or are you guys trying to factor that in that people that play PC will clearly have an advantage over graphics gamers?

BR: Well, obviously you want to make it look as good and function as well as yo can on the system it's on, right, so, it's maybe more an issue for Star Trek than Champs, I mean we have a stylized look that I think goes over well on the console.

CZ: It's interesting, before I came to Cryptic Studios like six years ago, I was a graphics programmer... The consoles have awesome fillrate, like reallyreally good fillrate; the problem with consoles is the memory footprint, it's just teeny-tiny-teeny-tiny, but ... we're in space! There's a lot of polys that we can push, there's a lot of fillrate that we can do, there's a lot of really cool things that we can do on consoles to make it look like those screenshots that are coming out, because it's not memory-bound; it's fill-bound. So, the console looks awesome.

F5: I'm a console guy, but I'm also a huge superhero guy, and if what I've seen from yesterday and today at the booth is close to what's gonna come up on my HD-screen... GOOD!

A: I think that in the same bend... ...ship name!

CZ: USS Captain Spiffy!

Off-screen: USS Fabulous!

F6: I gotta say: USS Lotus.
*people approve*

Off-screen: Moonshine! The USS Bootlegger! The Swervinator!
Actually it's pronounced FAB-u-leeeeeeeeth!

CZ: I think we have to disqualify press! Let's go with Fabulous!

[Talk about merchandise and t-shirts... ...the Klingon one is teh awesome.]

F7: As far as Star Trek, when it comes to mission structure... In the movies and in the series, part of the missions are on the ground, part of the missions are in space, sometimes part of the missions are in both at the same time. Is that something that you guys are developing.

CZ: Definitely, the story, episodic content that is in the game... Both at the same time, probably not because we want you to be there to watch it and experience it, but y'know there's a space battle, you beam down and rescue people, go to a space station, beam back up, space battle, all within a short period of time; it's ground-space-ground-space.

F7: Another question... How are you dealing with like Starfleet Command and the Klingon High Command; are they gonna be NPC entities that players are gonna interact with; are we gonna get orders from them?

CZ: Yep.

F7: Or are there gonna be players involved in that at all?

CZ: Uhm, I'm sure that player will be involved in that from a role-playing standpoint, but the majority of those, NPCs.

F8: How's the leveling gonna work, and acquring new ships?

CZ: Aha! You see Tracy, back there? She's P.R.! She'll take me out back and beat me with a stick if I go into detail!

BR: In a bad way.

CZ: Yeah, in a bad way... Uhm, you will earn points... You choose your career, uhm, shortly after you make your character, y'know whether you're going Tactical or Engineering or Science, and how you level up is really up to you, where you put that skill...

[Champions stuff; they're trying having everybody on the same server, they're trying it in beta now. Also: Roman mythology, infinite time and Brian]

F9: One thing that's always been in Star Trek, except for one time, it's mostly fighting on a flat plane, and they're always face-to-face, face-to-side, except for that one... [hand gesture that I think is for the Riker Maneuver]

A: That's not true; I can tell you from the last... ...like, in the game...?

CZ: No-no-no, he's talking about the...

A: Oh, okay!

F9: When you're having ships firing at each other, it's easy to do it in 3D space, and I'm sure you have, but how do you keep it looking like Star Trek when it's so different from what we're used to seeing?

CZ: Uhm, it's surprising, we're actually trying to keep combat kind of level; we don't want it to be a dog fight, we don't want you to get up and then get stuck, there's no barrel rolls... I wanna say, it's not 2D, it's 3D, 3D comes into play; you'll go behind asteroids, you'll be cruising in three dimensions, but we've done some really cool stuff to try to keep it to level, both for franchise reasons but also for ease of play.

F9: But, counter-wise to that... There are the Runabouts and the small fighter craft that came in in Deep Space 9, which would be more agile... Are those more free to play around in?

CZ: Those are a little bit more free, a little bit more faster, but you will spend the majority of your time in Frigates, Light Cruisers and *BRH* going up to the big guys.

[Somebody gets a free Cryptic bag]

[Commander_Daedelus]

Thanks for that H'yorD

[HyorD]

Happy to be of service, Commander.

[SelorKiith]

Ahhhh Thank you very much!