Jack Emmert Talks about Star Trek Online! (August 8, 2008)

[Kestrel]

Jack Emmert, chief creative officer of Cryptic Studios, was interviewed by the Associated Press about Cryptic's plans for Star Trek Online:

"You'll venture through space exploring new civilizations and life-forms," said Emmert. "You'll also beam down to planets and have adventures inside your ship. It's a galactic-wide game. There's going to be tons of space to investigate. We have a great system for exploration, which will allow for almost infinite possibilities."

Read more here! (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/74)

[The_Padre]

So can we name our new species that we create? What if other players want to make one as well for RP reasons, will there be a template of some sort?

[TheDart]

*drags in luggage from the other thread* RIGHT! Where were we?

Oh yeah.

STUPIDLY excited for the footage, guys. I'm especially thrilled to hear the emphasis you've put on exploration, and the freedom we'll have in creating our characters.

Party on, devs.

[IanD967]

as i said in another thread:

cons

-as the captain of a small Starfleet or Klingon Empire ship (this one being a possible con depending on what happens with it)
(
-There might be a ship called Enterprise flying around, but it's probably not the same ship anymore


pros

-Expect to see oldies like Vulcan and Bajor but also fan favorites like Andoria and Qo'noS

-They can customize their characters from pre-existing "Trek" species — from Klingons to Gorn — and can create entirely new alien races

players can increase in rank and gain larger vessels and more crew.

Because the game will be set a few generations following the last "Trek" film, players shouldn't expect to run into James T. Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard.

so hardened people should know that a release date might be closer than they think."


some really good stuff there, and now it seems that we will be in control of a ship (AKA like Eve) but also have NPC's to level up and such which could be dissapointing

[jiveturkey126]

The fact that we get to make our own races is amazing!

And that now also confirms Gorn are in the game.

So far this game isnt looking to bad, it doesnt look like the Trek Game we all wanted it to be just yet. I think with time and money the devs can make it that way though.

Very excited about being able to adventure in my won ship though!

Just hope I can have friends in the ship too!

-Jive

[KO_Gilligan]

Thanks Kestrel.
I might be running into you next Friday, I'm hoping you're bringing some CO Tees to trade for some fine ERDs

[Zizi]

Not gonna repost my commentary from the other thread, except for this snippet, which itself was a re-iteration:

Exploration, both in space and on planets. The Prime Directive getting bent and broken constantly. James T. Kirk Fight music(da-dun-da-DA DA DA). Skimming the Neutral Zone. Convincing the Klingons that I'm worthy of respect. Humanitarian aid missions. First contact. Evaluating planets for Federation membership. Space anomalies. Transporter and Holodeck accidents. Red Shirts standing alone and dying. Bajor, Vulcan, Andor, and so on. The Kobiyashi Maru. Wormholes. Science experiments gone awry. Sneaky warring planets managing to get me involved in conflicts. Q causing me trouble once in a blue moon. Honor duels as a Klingon. Honor duels WITH a klingon as a Starfleet officer. Goofing off in Ten Forward(not that all ship's lounges are Deck ten, bow section, but you get the point!). Archeological digs. Shooting other ships once in a while. A warp button marked "Engage". Akiras and Sovvies and Connies and Mirandas and Defiants and Steamrunners.

this is what the essence of Trek is to me. Not PC Crews, or SFC3-style flight, or anything else. As long as the gameplay allows for all these things, AND covers what makes an MMOG an MMOG, I'll be thrilled, so it's looking good for me.

...that said, i still want to be able to invite friends to beam over to my ship to hang out or have a party in the lounge, without having a mission-in-my-ship going on to do it. REMEMBER THE SOCIAL TOYS!

[KO_Gilligan]

Please don't let us be able to make a ***** Race, please!


The slang words for the filtered word is Dick, Cock etc.

Remember the TOS race that were single celled frisbees that would smack you on the back, and how could my plate of Spaghetti race not look a bit like a Tholian?

With news of the Gorn, I'm expecting they'll include some of my favorites, like the Horta
This makes me very pleased

[Zizi]

So far this game isnt looking to bad, it doesnt look like the Trek Game we all wanted it to be just yet. I think with time and money the devs can make it that way though.


I just want to note, if I may wax philosophical a moment, that sometimes, when we don't get the game we want, we find the game we never knew we really wanted.

[IanD967]

Remember the TOS race that were single celled frisbees that would smack you on the back, and how could my plate of Spaghetti race not look a bit like a Tholian?


oh god...please dont let the legs go over "3" in numbers :D Falin will have a field day if you can haha

[The_Padre]

I just thought of something, it was mentioned when this site launched that "player" generated content will be put into the game. What if when we create our new race we will also be able to place their homeworld and star system into the game at some point as well.

[KO_Gilligan]

I just want to note, if I may wax philosophical a moment, that sometimes, when we don't get the game we want, we find the game we never knew we really wanted.

Sometimes we think we know what would be fun for us, but we don't know what others think would also be fun for us... and they may be right.

[Zizi]

Sometimes we think we know what would be fun for us, but we don't know what others think would also be fun for us... and they may be right.

*nods solemnly*

[TheDart]

Sometimes we think we know what would be fun for us, but we don't know what others think would also be fun for us... and they may be right.

I remember this one time, this game had an Entertainer class, and my first thought was "LOL TAHT LOOKZ DUM".

Then I played it and it became one of my favorite classes in the game.

Instead of spending my days adventuring and shooting dragons in the desert, I spent them in the local cantina, chatting with my fellow dorks while still advancing my character and having a great time.

[KO_Gilligan]

I'm having this major Kumbayah moment with you all....

Thank You, Cryptic

:Group Hug:

[Thomas45]

Sounds like SWG before it was destroyed.

[TheDart]

Sounds like SWG before it was destroyed.

Get that Schwarzenbaby a cupie doll. :D

[lumpking69]

sounds good, cant wait for the video!

[IanD967]

i knew that soon as he meantioned the class name ad dragons in the same post :)

you know all this new stuff is a bit overwhelming heh new pictures and info :D

[KO_Gilligan]

Get that Schwarzenbaby a cupie doll. :D

and a copy of Call of Duty Jr. Arcade

[Zizi]

I remember this one time, this game had an Entertainer class, and my first thought was "LOL TAHT LOOKZ DUM".

Then I played it and it became one of my favorite classes in the game.

Instead of spending my days adventuring and shooting dragons in the desert, I spent them in the local cantina, chatting with my fellow dorks while still advancing my character and having a great time.

And this one time, at Band Camp....

I remember this game that had dedicated crafter gameplay and these entertainer things, and I thought that it must be terribly dull, and this dashing Smuggler girl with pistols and stuff would be way cool.

It WAS way cool, but as it turned out, I spent almost as much time as I did shooting things sitting around chatting with entertainers and crafters, and we both experienced more of the game vicariously through our interaction, and these moments became some of the best moments of gameplay for much of the community.

Later, I laid aside my pistols, because I could be a pilot. And i also became a ship-builder. And I dicovered that chasing down resources,a nd endlessly tinkering and fiddling in an attempt to produce the PERFECT STARSHIP was amazingly fun even though I spent days in my own house. Sis I mention I had my own house? People could visit while I was tinkering and we could chatter away as I worked on ships. And customers could come ask if I was taking orders, because they'd heard I made the best ships around, and they wanted something very, very specific. And it was a huge sense of accomplishment to do all this, even though i hadn't shot a single critter in over a month, and I had fun, even though i'd not touched a pistol.

...that game is dead now. T_T


There is, actually a point to this. Which is to say you just never now until you get a week, or even more, playing. People who want super-detail in the game with tons of non-combat may find they LOVE the simplified approach, and even the combat elements. People who despise the complexity and crafting and things may discover a whole new world of entertainment in that sort of game. Who can say, at this juncture?

[Cyjack]

This sounds completely great. Thanks Jack- Cryptic is making all the right moves in my book. This is a Star Trek game I really want to play.

"Create your own alien races"?...I still dont know what that means, but it sounds awesome.

I can be any race in the Star Trek galaxy, or one I create, and define my own abilities for...Vulcan martial artists, Fenrengi scientists...half races? -awesome

Command my own ship as I work up to bigger and better ships, with bigger an better crews? -awesome

Customize my ship and crew for adventures in space, on planets, and even inside my own ship?-awesome.


Crypic's Trademark Customization Focus+ Star Trek = awesome.


This game has shot up from nowhere, to be the absolute top on my anticipation list.

[jiveturkey126]

This sounds completely great. Thanks Jack- Cryptic is making all the right moves in my book. This is a Star Trek game I really want to play.

"Create your own alien races"?...I still dont know what that means, but it sounds awesome.

I can be any race in the Star Trek galaxy, or one I create, and define my own abilities for...Vulcan martial artists, Fenrengi scientists...half races? -awesome

Command my own ship as I work up to bigger and better ships, with bigger an better crews? -awesome

Customize my ship and crew for adventures in space, on planets, and even inside my own ship?-awesome.


Crypic's Trademark Customization Focus+ Star Trek = awesome.


This game has shot up from nowhere, to be the absolute top on my anticipation list.

Nice quick change there Cyjack, but dont think I didnt see what was there before :D

-Jive

[Gen00b]

Character customization for Star Trek Online is going to be awesome!

[KO_Gilligan]

Nice quick change there Cyjack, but dont think I didnt see what was there before :D

-Jive

Our minds were all being poisoned by speculation. I see some naysayers already, they don't realize Cryptic wants to make a game that let's them create their own experience. For those people who were making demands, this is the best news ever.

[Gost]

So this will be Pirates of the Burning Sea in space?

LIked that game...but wasn't crazy about the whole pirate genre and wooden sailing ships.

[boz75]

Ok, to be honest...... it sounds pretty great to me so far :)

The create your own race is unexpected though, not exactly sure what to make of that but I can't think of anything real negative on it. It could be quite a cool addition - will have to wait and see.

Anyway, good information to receive - interest and hope stats gone up! Now bring on the footage! :cool:

[boothby]

Everything that people will see on Sunday is going to be taken right from 'Star Trek Online' as it stands today, so hardened people should know that a release date might be closer than they think."

interesting

[Zephyr40k]

as i said in another thread:

now it seems that we will be in control of a ship (AKA like Eve) but also have NPC's to level up and such which could be dissapointing

Actually, I see this as one of the most interesting new gameplay elements. It always seemed odd for me in EVE to be flying around in this huge battleship with just one person controlling everything. The idea of having to hire, train, and manage a crew reminds me of the old "Starflight" game, which was one of my favorite old-school PC games.

I'm really looking forward to developing my NPC crew.

[zombie_man]

"We had a friendly relationship with them," Emmert said. "As it became apparent they weren't going to continue to function, they decided to sell off the license. We swooped in and grabbed it. We took no assets. There was nothing to be had, to be honest. We're building everything from the ground up."

Ohhh, SNAP!

[TheDart]

The real surprise for me was, "There was nothing to be had." Wait a second. PE worked on this for over 3 years and you're saying they had nothing?

While I've been trying not to discuss PE on these boards out of respect for our current devs and PE's former employees...

...yeah. Perpetual's handling of STO always struck me as a "how can you ruin a Star Wars game, SOE?"-level blunder, if not an even more impressive one. :(

It IS great to see that Cryptic recognizes how burned the ST community felt, though, and are insisting on showing us nothing but in-game footage on Sunday to try and make up for the wait and prove that they're worthy of the license. STO's longtime fans have to learn to trust again.

[Zizi]

The real surprise for me was, "There was nothing to be had." Wait a second. PE worked on this for over 3 years and you're saying they had nothing?


I'm not trying to bash on PE here, but from what I understood of that debacle-- from reading industry news and the like-- that would be basically the gist of it. How much of what I read was true? I don't know. But what I actually saw and heard PE post of the previous incarnation of STO doesn't exactly encourage disbelief of those rumors, either.

Whatever, it's past, and Cryptic's got it now, and progress is tangible.

[Zephyr40k]

Oh gosh, please make sure the beta team thoroughly hammers the Anti-Second-Life Filter. I hope Cryptic knows what they're doing with this make-your-own race thing.

I suspect the "make your own race" thing will be limited to choosing your avatar's skin color and forehead-crest shape.

[Jallarzie]

I like what I'm seeing so far. I know some will be disappointed that everyone is a captain but multiplayer crews were not a priority for me. I do hope we have a lot of control on our NPC crew though.

Other than that, I'm mostly excited about the custom races and the attention they're giving to exploration. If done well, the latter in particular is exactly what could make this Star Trek and not just a second Eve or "PotBS in Space".

[miqrogroove]

While I've been trying not to discuss PE on these boards out of respect for our current devs and PE's former employees...

...yeah.

This is sort of a vindication/horrible epiphany for me. I was screaming "vaporware" in the stonet forums after the 3rd anniversary, but I was only trying to stir up debate. I'm not that much of a pessimist. Actually, I assumed the only way Cryptic could turn out a playable demo so quickly was if they had picked up the engine and primitives from PE.

[KO_Gilligan]

Sounds like Cryptic is giving their Cryptic AR and Engine a big nod in the area of production. I hope the graphics look good because this things coming down the pipe !!! If they make this one and CO quickly and successfully, using Cryptic's technology, just think of the potential Cryptic has of dominating the creation of MMO games into the future.

[JFendley]

The create a race idea is... interesting to say the least. I am not sure if that is going to be a good thing or not.

Further, I am not sure if I like how advanced in time it is going to be... Generations after the last movie. I was hoping to get to see some of the famailar ships. I can't imagine a Miranda class ship still be in service. And I would figure even the Soverign class (which is brand new) would be very dated at this point in time not to mention the Galaxy and Defiant classes as well as Akira classes and every other class we know and love.

I'm not trying to be negative. I am sure the game can still be great.

[Zizi]

This is sort of a vindication/horrible epiphany for me. I was screaming "vaporware" in the stonet forums after the 3rd anniversary, but I was only trying to stir up debate. I'm not that much of a pessimist. Actually, I assumed the only way Cryptic could turn out a playable demo so quickly was if they had picked up the engine and primitives from PE.

Well. Cryptic has an existing Engine-- the Cryptic Engine-- that had been in development for quite some time. Which, the About page mentions is being used for STO. So they had the engine already, yes. But not from PE.

PE went under... I forget how long ago. End of last year, I think. We knew at the time that they picked up a bunch of PE employees, because they told us so on the now-defunct Cryptic Forums. In hindsight, we now know that they also picked up the license around then, too.

Building assets for an engine that already exists doesn't necessarily have to wait around for the game design to be finalized-- there are a whole raft of basic things that you know you'll need for Trek, some of which you don't even have to wait on a finalized art direction for-- an Akira is an Akira, for example.

So give a crack team like Cryptic 6-9 months to build art assets for an in-house engine they've already been developing to use in all their games.... it's not that far-fetched to think we're actually very far along the development cycle already, even starting from scratch. Arguably, you could say that STO's develpment started whenever Cryptic first started working on the new engine, which could have been years ago, potentially.

[Cyjack]

I suspect the "make your own race" thing will be limited to choosing your avatar's skin color and forehead-crest shape.

So you've never played a Cryptic game before, then?

[Zizi]

The create a race idea is... interesting to say the least. I am not sure if that is going to be a good thing or not.

Further, I am not sure if I like how advanced in time it is going to be... Generations after the last movie. I was hoping to get to see some of the famailar ships. I can't imagine a Miranda class ship still be in service. And I would figure even the Soverign class (which is brand new) would be very dated at this point in time not to mention the Galaxy and Defiant classes as well as Akira classes and every other class we know and love.

I'm not trying to be negative. I am sure the game can still be great.

I'd point out that in the post-TNG timeframe(DS9 in particular), there were still ships in service from Kirk's time. The Saratoga, yes, but the Lakota(an Excelsior-class refit) went toe-to-toe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ob4c1ov4SU) with the Defiant(and did so remarkably well, considering the Defiant is a state of the art ship specifically designed as a Warship). So I don't think we'll necessarily NOT see Defiants and Akiras and Galaxies and especially Sovvies. And going older... well, I'm all for updated designs. In fact, I once toyed with a 'Miranda-II" concept which was an attempt on my part to come up with a Soveriegn-styled Miranda.

Point being, there's plenty of room in the canon to support older ships still being in service(there was a Constitution-refit among the Wolf-359 wreckage and multiple Miranda-variants in that battle, after all!), so 'm not too worried about this one. I'm not really expecting to fly my old favorite the Miranda, mind, but then again I've got other games for that, and newer favorites still seem not only feasible, but likely.

[Wallabees]

All sounds great to me, still really chuffed that this game is back on target!

[curtst]

All very good news! Can't wait for the 10th!

Thanks Kestrel and Mr. Emmert, we really needed this. Unfortunately I don't think any particular threads will die anytime soon though.

[Arrakiv]

This is some great information, I have to say. Very interesting stuff.

I'm very interested in seeing how this 'create a race' thing pans out. I love character customization and player generated content - and this is very much something I've wanted to see in a game for a while.

[JFendley]

I'd point out that in the post-TNG timeframe(DS9 in particular), there were still ships in service from Kirk's time. The Saratoga, yes, but the Lakota(an Excelsior-class refit) went toe-to-toe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ob4c1ov4SU) with the Defiant(and did so remarkably well, considering the Defiant is a state of the art ship specifically designed as a Warship). So I don't think we'll necessarily NOT see Defiants and Akiras and Galaxies and especially Sovvies. And going older... well, I'm all for updated designs. In fact, I once toyed with a 'Miranda-II" concept which was an attempt on my part to come up with a Soveriegn-styled Miranda.

Point being, there's plenty of room in the canon to support older ships still being in service(there was a Constitution-refit among the Wolf-359 wreckage and multiple Miranda-variants in that battle, after all!), so 'm not too worried about this one. I'm not really expecting to fly my old favorite the Miranda, mind, but then again I've got other games for that, and newer favorites still seem not only feasible, but likely.

Point taken. You can always refit a ship with new technology and use the old body style.

[arakkis]

Everything that Jack said is fantastic news. This game is exactly what I wanted and I think this may be the game that fans have been waiting for.

[RedShirt]

I know TMP era ships are fan favourites and as much as I like their style I think 20 years after nemesis they will be a fair bit past their sellby date. After all there's only so much you can do to an old ship to keep it serviceable before it no longer becomes worth it. There will come a point where it will be far more efficient to build a new ship from scratch than try to modify an existing ship.

Creating Alien races I think will be a double edged sword. It would be a good thing for some RP'ers and what not, but then there's he large chance everybody will want to be unique and want to be their own race. And even though Humans make up most of the starfleet crews there's a chance they may be in the minority with creatable races.

[Wv65fyNyesWmTy8c]

Was a good article. I played the atari 2600 startrek we had data coordinates to move to, so if we have multi-custom you make it races as I read in this article does that mean this will be a more Texted based game such as that old atari 2600 startrek or Zork text based turn responses?

[Admiral.of.Starfleet]

This is great news, I knew Cryptic was closer to releasing STO then most people believed.:)

[ManaByte]

I want to create a half-Klingon half-Gorn race that can one-shot anything in hand to hand combat.

[cageddog]

So can we name our new species that we create?
Oh yeah i'm sureyou will be able to name your own species. they'll probably have it just like picking nanes as they go you cant use that name.

[imaximus]

Not to crazy about the "No Jean-Luc Picard" and "Not the same enterprise" or the "Many generations after the last movie" But I can certainly understand why they did it that way, and it doesnt bother me much. Everything Else sounds cool so far tho!!! I too just really hope you can have friends aboard your ship, and maybe even help in ship vs ship combat, i.e. participate on the bridge.

[Captain-Picard]

I heard a rumor from somewhere that STO will be releasing next year but I don't believe it but it's just a rumor that doesn't mean anything. This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise I order all personal to recommend Star Trek Online to their friends. This news article answers almost all of my questions.

[Dext]

WOW I WAS RIGHT not Surprising

[clarkkent93]

Emmert said "Star Trek Online" would definitely be available for Windows PC and perhaps Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

What about the Mac?

The comment about the console games should make people happy......it states "perhaps"....not a definite. If they do......don't make it an either/or, just make it.

[Sir_Cedric]

Well that answers the question of races, play the default ones, or make up your own. So does it mean you can make borg or machine types too, without calling them Borg? :D

I love the fact they have in game ootage to show us, just means we might get this game out next year like I thought. As long as CS does a great job, I have no issues with that.

[Masen]

It's not exactly how I had hoped, but I'm still digging the exploration emphasis. Can't wait for the game footage and a possible release date?



Anyone have an idea when that might be? I'm hoping before next May, but have a feeling they may want to coincide with the release of Star Trek XI...

[Powernexus]

I didn't like the idea that it is set so far in to the future, and we won't be meeting any of the characters from the shows, but then again, Trek has always had episodes in every series where some kind of time rift allows them to interact with people from the past, so I am not giving up hope that we will have missions that involve saving Kirk, or something akin.

[curtst]

What about the Mac?

The comment about the console games should make people happy......it states "perhaps"....not a definite. If they do......don't make it an either/or, just make it.

I gotta agree. While I am not a Mac person, don't leave them out Cryptic!

If anything clarkkent93, if your mac has an intel processor you can always dual boot windows on there and still play STO.

[miqrogroove]

Trek has always had episodes in every series where some kind of time rift allows them to interact with people from the past.

That's absolutely right. They can't call it a Trek game unless it has temporal anomalies, miniaturized communicators, and transporter accidents!

[naynayz]

I am very pleased to see that CS is going in this direction. I will definately be preordering this game as soon as I can. I am overjoyed that they said it will be released sooner than later. Keep up the great work Dev team! I have not played on the cryptic engine but I love what I see so far.

[jla1987]

I am very pleased to see that CS is going in this direction. I will definately be preordering this game as soon as I can. I am overjoyed that they said it will be released sooner than later. Keep up the great work Dev team! I have not played on the cryptic engine but I love what I see so far.

I will be pre=ordering it ASAP as well. Just being able to create new races and such...amazing! Didn't expect it! :D

Plus, I will definitely be playing as a Gorn, if the concept remains through to release.

[Capt._D]

Some solid information… this is great. And it comes at a time when we were all looking for new topics to discuss but felt we were doing a lot of speculating. Great timing on Cryptic’s part and great news.

My anticipation increases exponentially with time!

[Starblazer]

I am actually glad that it will be set a few generations after Nemesis.

After I heard the captains horrible voice overs from Star Trek Legacy I don't know if I want to hear them in STO lol.


This is what Trek needs, a new feel. Now we can start our own adventures in a time that is unexplored by the tv series. New technologies, new races, ships etc. I cant wait to see what the end result will look like. I don't care how advanced some of the Starships are in the new generation, I will be flying around in my refit Akira class :cool:

Maybe this will be set so far into the future that the Tribbles have evolved into an extreme threat that rivals that of the borg haha

[Shatterhand]

I'm stoked about the custom races idea; though, in reality, they're not really new races, they're more like cross-breeding. But, mincing words aside, sounds great.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that everyone's going to start as captains. Doesn't that seem a little...strange? So, what's the idea here? Starfleet suddenly has a glut of freshly promoted captains, and decides to issue them all starships? I can see why they'd want to approach it this way, but doesn't the fact that everyone's the rank of captain mess up the idea of a proper crew structure? Since when is a starship manned by all captains? Now, if everyone had started out as Lieutenants, then I could see it...there would be opportunities to raise in rank, and there'd be a stronger sense of crew structure.

Or, are they trying to suggest that we'll be captains of a ship full of NPC's that will serve under us? Where's the fun in that? I really think this needs to be extrapolated on. I hope the footage we see on Sunday will shed a little more light on this.

Despite the "everyone's a captain" thing, I'm still pretty excited about what I'm reading so far.

[jla1987]

I am actually glad that it will be set a few generations after Nemesis.

After I heard the captains horrible voice overs from Star Trek Legacy I don't know if I want to hear them in STO lol.


This is what Trek needs, a new feel. Now we can start our own adventures in a time that is unexplored by the tv series. New technologies, new races, ships etc. I cant wait to see what the end result will look like. I don't care how advanced some of the Starships are in the new generation, I will be flying around in my refit Akira class :cool:

Maybe this will be set so far into the future that the Tribbles have evolved into an extreme threat that rivals that of the borg haha

I was talking with my father (who's a big Trekkie) and he always thinks setting anything beyond the series is a mistake. I disagree with him, and 100% agree with your post. :)

[Commander_Daedelus]

im thinking the character creation will be more like half vulcan/half human hybrids rather than a whole new species?

[Captain_Intrepid]

Very cool that we aren't limited to a few species at start:cool:

I wonder if we can make androids, though.

So far, so good with having small ships and being able to earn bigger ones.

Would like to know if there can be player crewmates, or if there'd be a small fleet each time a group of players team up.

[Captain_Intrepid]

I was talking with my father (who's a big Trekkie) and he always thinks setting anything beyond the series is a mistake. I disagree with him, and 100% agree with your post. :)

There were complaints that they are rebooting/'reimagining' Star Trek when Kirk and company were young, let alone Star Trek: Enterprise. Rodenberry wanted to keep on moving, and so are we :)

[Zephyr40k]

So you've never played a Cryptic game before, then?

Naah, just a couple of little games called City of Heroes and City of Villains. :p

What I mean is, the "create your own race" thing will be cosmetic. You make your fellow have blue skin, with antennae, white hair, and pink eyes... voila! A new race. Maybe a text box next to the name where you can type in a name for your race, too. But no real in-game impact.

People have been hypothesizing all sorts of crazy things about precisely what "design your own race" means. For example:


'A system similar to Spore where once you create a "new race," that race gets populated out into the wider universe in the form of NPCs.
As part of designing your "own race," you get to design your race's homeworld, placing continents, cities, starbases ,et cetera
As part of designing your "own race," you can design race-specific spaceships.


I don't see any of this happening in STO. Just because I design a race of furry pink aliens called "Lostovians," doesnt mean I will see any other Lostovians anywhere else in the game.

[Highcommander]

Naah, just a couple of little games called City of Heroes and City of Villains. :p

What I mean is, the "create your own race" thing will be cosmetic. You make your fellow have blue skin, with antennae, white hair, and pink eyes... voila! A new race. Maybe a text box next to the name where you can type in a name for your race, too. But no real in-game impact.

People have been hypothesizing all sorts of crazy things about precisely what "design your own race" means. For example:


'A system similar to Spore where once you create a "new race," that race gets populated out into the wider universe in the form of NPCs.
As part of designing your "own race," you get to design your race's homeworld, placing continents, cities, starbases ,et cetera
As part of designing your "own race," you can design race-specific spaceships.


I don't see any of this happening in STO. Just because I design a race of furry pink aliens called "Lostovians," doesnt mean I will see any other Lostovians anywhere else in the game.

Although we likely wont be able to make ships or look very different then other humanoids, it is possible to se others of our race in the game. There are many ways to generate NPC's and one could tie into the character creation process.

[Ensign.Ricky]

Good read and I can't wait to see the footage on the 10th now. I was a little worried about the choices of species initially but it sounds like it will be pretty diverse. I was hoping to have various ranks instead of instantly becoming a captain though. One of the best parts of the Star Trek lore has always been the chain of command.

[Cyjack]

Naah, just a couple of little games called City of Heroes and City of Villains. :p

What I mean is, the "create your own race" thing will be cosmetic. You make your fellow have blue skin, with antennae, white hair, and pink eyes... voila! A new race. Maybe a text box next to the name where you can type in a name for your race, too. But no real in-game impact.

People have been hypothesizing all sorts of crazy things about precisely what "design your own race" means. For example:


'A system similar to Spore where once you create a "new race," that race gets populated out into the wider universe in the form of NPCs.
As part of designing your "own race," you get to design your race's homeworld, placing continents, cities, starbases ,et cetera
As part of designing your "own race," you can design race-specific spaceships.


I don't see any of this happening in STO. Just because I design a race of furry pink aliens called "Lostovians," doesnt mean I will see any other Lostovians anywhere else in the game.



Yes, that is how the visual customization will work, but in spectacular, industry leading fashion like all Cryptic games (much much more than simply picking skin color).

Beyond that, presumably you pick the abiliites and game impact characteristics that you feel are appropriate for your character like you would any other.

Im not sure how the character creation can have any more impact than that.

It sounds like you're saying you expect a race selection to impose a pre defined set of bonuses or penalties on you, which would be less customization and freedom, not more.


It wont be anything like Spore. Spore's creation system is its own unique thing all in itself thats been in development for 4 years. Yes, it will be mostly humanoid mesh customization.

As far as the other stuff, we have no idea at this point. I suspect it wont be anythign quite that involved, but theres nothing keeping large groups of players, like guilds, from designing characters along the same racial theme, with the same Backstory (as there will undoubtedly be space to add flavor text in your bio.

[Polt]

Wow wee wow wow wow...

I am more excited about this game now more than ever...

Closer to release date then everyone thinks huh??? Well can you make it come out sooner than I want it to? Which was two years ago???

heh heh heh

[Trekkie]

This article makes me anticipate the game even more than before, which I would have thought would be impossible! I am so excited for the gameplay footage and, of course, Star Trek Online itself!

[TRehes]

they havent answered the truely importen question.

Will we be able to be tribbles?!

[hellistina]

yeah, the ability to create an entirely new alien race's kinda 'dangerous' if cryptic doesn't handle it properly. :D

[trek4life]

I cant wait for the 10th!!! The species customization sounds awsome as done the range of species they're including (klingon to gorn). I hope they have unique ships for each of the inculded races, that would make for a VERY large ship selection which would make ship vs ship combat ALOT more fun!!! :D

[Squirrel]

I think that even this amount of information can bring big disappointments but also things to look forward to.

Im not so sure on the "Make a new alien Race" idea. Lets assume that everyone makes their own Race. You are gonna have too many stupid ones. I like the idea of having people as known races, not create your own.

Not being able to see James T. Kirk or Jean Luc Picard. Yes its a disappointment but i think that it makes sense. Especially if you see both of them on it lol. I do think there should be a special mission where some sort of time warp happens like in the DS9 Episode. They go onto the Enterprise and all.

Starting off on your own Ship. Dont like the idea. Everyone gets a ship at the beginning and you progress from there. One thing i liked originally was going through the academy as like a starting area. A bit like Northshire Abbey for Humans on WoW, but on a larger scale.

There's going to be tons of space to investigate. We have a great system for exploration, which will allow for almost infinite possibilities.

Excellent is all i can say to that. Emphasis on the Exploration.

Only one other Criticism. I dont doubt their ability to create a game quickly, but they say they had to work from the ground upwards. Basically start from scratch. Now to my way of thinking, does that mean this game has been rushed? To my knowledge, decent games take anywhere from 2 and a half to 5 years to make. Not 1 Year and certainly not under it.

Well lets hope for the best, and we will see if theres more to look forward to when the vids come out.

[Ben]

All-NPC crew = all my RPing ideas in the toilet. RP-ing captain is boring anyway. An all-NPC crew with you able to customize your captain character would be great if this was a single-player RPG -- but it's not.

[Fvillha]

I suspect they'll be some racial mesh templates (so all Romulans look like Romulans, k humans too), on top of creating your own new race (will be interesting to see how this effects home world generating, or just be limited to a set number of starting stations/academies). Will be interesting to see what options for races there will be, beyond two legged humanoids, maybe you can play a moving sack of potatoes :-p. Would be nice to have a ship like USS Titan that tried to accommodate various races that need different environments to live in.
I'd be surprised if you can create a water borne race with a starship full of water. Besides we can't make Falin to happy. :D

[On_Demand]

Only one other Criticism. I dont doubt their ability to create a game quickly, but they say they had to work from the ground upwards. Basically start from scratch. Now to my way of thinking, does that mean this game has been rushed? To my knowledge, decent games take anywhere from 2 and a half to 5 years to make. Not 1 Year and certainly not under it.

Well lets hope for the best, and we will see if theres more to look forward to when the vids come out.

Cryptic built their own proprietary game engine called "Game Tech". It's the engine they are building Champions Online on and, I assume, all of their games currently in development will run on it. Instead of spending time literally building the game from scratch, they can simply drop art assets into the GT engine.

It should give them a jump start as far as development time is concerned.

[Warp_Speed]

Ohhhh man, this article, plus what we will see on the 10th, man o man, this sounds better and better everyday. WOOT!!!

[Powerhelm]

We swooped in and grabbed it. We took no assets. There was nothing to be had, to be honest. We're building everything from the ground up.

So, in less than six months you mapped out a game, developed concept art and set the game's visual style and created a playable demo reel to be unveiled in a couple days? Really? At that pace then STO should be out by late Dec-08...

By the way, the backdrop on the front page blurb "EARTHDATE 2008.07.28
Live Webcast from Vegas coming soon!" Is concept art that PE was showing off a year ago...Jack literally said PE had no assets to be had yet we've seen screens and concept art from them for months prior to their collapse and the above example I pointed out is concept art from them...If I'm mistaken please explain to me. Even if I'm totally blind and that isn't the same concept art I was seeing on sites months and months ago before Cryptic bought the rights then it's at least the same costume designs PE already had...

Cryptic built their own proprietary game engine called "Game Tech". It's the engine they are building Champions Online on and, I assume, all of their games currently in development will run on it. Instead of spending time literally building the game from scratch, they can simply drop art assets into the GT engine.

This is also known as the Perpetual Engine before Cryptic bought it lock stock an barrel. How do you think they were on "friendly" terms already with PE when they collapsed? A while back PE hinted to licensing their engine to a major game studio, that was Cryptic and it was for Champions. I wouldn't be surprised if licensing their engine from a company developing a competing product was one of the reasons Marvel Online fell through...

[The_Padre]

So, in less than six months you mapped out a game, developed concept art and set the game's visual style and created a playable demo reel to be unveiled in a couple days? Really? At that pace then STO should be out by late Dec-08...

By the way, the backdrop on the front page blurb "EARTHDATE 2008.07.28
Live Webcast from Vegas coming soon!" Is concept art that PE was showing off a year ago...Jack literally said PE had no assets to be had yet we've seen screens and concept art from them for months prior to their collapse and the above example I pointed out is concept art from them...If I'm mistaken please explain to me. Even if I'm totally blind and that isn't the same concept art I was seeing on sites months and months ago before Cryptic bought the rights then it's at least the same costume designs PE already had...



This is also known as the Perpetual Engine before Cryptic bought it lock stock an barrel. How do you think they were on "friendly" terms already with PE when they collapsed? A while back PE hinted to licensing their engine to a major game studio, that was Cryptic and it was for Champions. I wouldn't be surprised if licensing their engine from a company developing a competing product was one of the reasons Marvel Online fell through...

Except for the bit where Bendis blames Microsoft:

"Well, you're talking to one of the executive producers of the ill-fated Marvel MMO that went away. I have my laptop here, and on it I have the "X-Mansion" level fully completed that only I and five other people have access to play. It's gorgeous and fantastic and no one will ever see it. So I feel bad, because I think that MMO was a phenomenal idea that was extremely well executed and it went away because some guy at Microsoft who we'll never know pulled the plug on it before it even got underway."

Source: http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/07/07/interview-brian-bendis-on-secret-invasion-tv-and-marvels-mmo/

Also the Game Tech engine was made based off the shortcomings they learned from their first engine that they were using for for CoX, which has existed longer than PE's own engine which they licensed out to BioWare: http://kotaku.com/gaming/what.s-in-the-box%3F!/bioware-taps-perpetual-mmo-engine-280217.php

[Jenkl]

Making our own races? I dont know about that...

[wallyh010]

now I have a reason to get a new computer! I've been waiting for a game like this.

[Angelphoenix12]

I love the part with the npcs, but i do wonder if we can level them up. Ie Dynasty Warriors bodyguards. If we can that would be extreamily great. :)

[Markavenger]

Just because you captain your own ship does not make you a captain, putting an ensign in a small shuttle does not make him a Captain but it does make him the captain of the ship. people are confusing Rank with position.

[KO_Gilligan]

Just because you captain your own ship does not make you a captain, putting an ensign in a small shuttle does not make him a Captain but it does make him the captain of the ship. people are confusing Rank with position.


players will begin "Star Trek Online" as the captain of a small Starfleet or Klingon Empire ship.

That makes Insta poop out of your ensign in a shuttle theory right there.

[AaronH]

That makes Insta poop out of your ensign in a shuttle theory right there.

Unless they consider a shuttle a small ship.

Edit: I think a shuttle would be considered a boat though, wouldn't it? Of course, they probably can't use that terminology, I can't even imagine the kind of threads that would pop up if they said "Players will start the game with a small boat and work their way up from there!"

[The_Padre]

Unless they consider a shuttle a small ship.

Edit: I think a shuttle would be considered a boat though, wouldn't it? Of course, they probably can't use that terminology, I can't even imagine the kind of threads that would pop up if they said "Players will start the game with a small boat and work their way up from there!"

Runabouts are considered Starfleet ships, hence their own registration numbers. So ships that size would fall into that category easily.

[Hawkins]

If everyone gets their own ship, does that mean battles are going to be massive? I mean think of it, a battle in a faction vs. fection war could span an entire star system. Now that would be intense. Especially if there as graphically intense as the pitcher above * points to header* :D

[JSM3050]

Awesome read! Thanks for news, Cryptic! I wish other companies were as forthcoming with progress updates as you have been so far.

[Corgano]

Actually, I see this as one of the most interesting new gameplay elements. It always seemed odd for me in EVE to be flying around in this huge battleship with just one person controlling everything. The idea of having to hire, train, and manage a crew reminds me of the old "Starflight" game, which was one of my favorite old-school PC games.

I'm really looking forward to developing my NPC crew.

Me too! It very much reminds me of good old "Starflight" which still is a fav of mine even after all of these years! And the create your own race thing reminds me of MOO (Master of Orion) and those type games except with more detail I'm guessing. Could be very cool. I am excited about this game, and I don't play any MMOs right now.

[Grig]

If anyone played the PC version of Starfleet Academy with Sulu as your instructor. Then you have idea what this game going to be set up like.. Rather then stuck in Acadamy flight holodeck your actually given the advantage to take your crew out and explore the Universe.

In that type of game you were all cadets you moved up the same way as indicated in the artical .. you start off with weakest ship in the federation not many proton and phaser abilites .. off ya go do mission to give the big wigs a thrill in your progress. You followed the prim directive of the Federation you moved up a ship and rank. Failed cause you killed too many red shirts and lost a medic well you didnt move up so fast :D
So as stated before you can be captain of your own ship but with in the federation and klingon empire and what ever else race you join to fly for you will not achieve rank but be a cadet to start off Yipee.. move up the ranking system until you achive the highest rank achieveable. which each mission away mission learning ablities your crew picks up along the way will determine your out come.

Throw the red shirts in front of you like pawns and run like a chicken federation!! LONG LIVE Klingon Empire

[Arcturus]

Yes, let's kill the boredom inherent with having one person/ship with annihilating other cultures in huge space wars! Who's Gene Roddenberry? The Prime what?

[jfolds1]

here is hoping we can make Trill's... like, hot.. Dax like trill...


gotta love those spots

[PatternBuffer]

So, in less than six months you mapped out a game, developed concept art and set the game's visual style and created a playable demo reel to be unveiled in a couple days? Really? At that pace then STO should be out by late Dec-08...

By the way, the backdrop on the front page blurb "EARTHDATE 2008.07.28
Live Webcast from Vegas coming soon!" Is concept art that PE was showing off a year ago...Jack literally said PE had no assets to be had yet we've seen screens and concept art from them for months prior to their collapse and the above example I pointed out is concept art from them...If I'm mistaken please explain to me. Even if I'm totally blind and that isn't the same concept art I was seeing on sites months and months ago before Cryptic bought the rights then it's at least the same costume designs PE already had...

Yup... I Art Directed those images (the space battle scene above the forums, the Klingon bridge scene, the landing party scene with strange Alien ship) that Massive Black produced for Perpetual when I was working on the project. Also Art Directed Hyoung Nam's great conceptual work on all the uniform designs to that point as well.

I can't imagine they threw away any of the concept art, that being said... I can't be sure (other than the ones I pointed out) that they used it verbatim either. Did any of the work that the Perpetual team lead / influence or inform their work to-date... I can't imagine it couldn't have.

In my mind I would assume that he is saying that there were no 3D assets that were useful. Granted, I'm not with Cryptic and I haven't heard anything from ex-Perp employees who may be there now to know for sure what's going on.

Certainly I hope that some of the work that the talented art team at Perpetual did sees the light of day in some form in the final project... they deserve that much at least for the **** they went through. Either way... I just really want to see this game succeed.

REALLY excited about the game-play footage.

[Crazyfist]

Looks good except for a MAJOR FLAW.

Everyone gets to start as captain.
BIG SUXOR.

[Hoebee]

Ok so jean - luc is't there annmore wonder what happend to him !

But what happend to Admiral C.Janeway where is she !
and Riker where is he c'mon could they not have programed it a little in the game ???
I gues not hahaha .

C'mon it will not be that bad but would be nice to be with an ledgend once and a while.
He What happend to Q where is the Q ???

Just let us see when this big engine wil start what's out there space will never booring .
I will see , explore , fly , and do the best to keep peace in the universe like Picard and Janeway, Sisko and all other Captain's always did .

I will see you out there in space ! ENGAGE

[juggernautxx]

From what I read in the article it sounds great. I would also like to point out that just because you are the "Captain" doesn't mean you have attained the rank of 'Captain'.
If you remember the TNG episode "Redemption", Data was put in command of the USS Sutherland. And even though he was only a LT. CMDR,the crew of the Sutherland called him Captain because he was in command.
Now with that in mind I would like to see the type of ship you command to be befitting of you're rank. Ie. No ensigns in command of say a Galaxy class,but they could command a runabout. Heres my layout of how rank would effect ship choice.
1. Ensign=Runabout or Delta Flyer sized ship
2. Lieutenant Junior Grade=Frigate class (ie. Saber and B'rel)
3. Lieutenant=Destroyer(ie Defiant)
4. LT. Commander=Light Cruiser(ie. Miranda and K'vort)
5. Commander=Heavy Cruiser(ie. Constitution and K'tinga)
6. Captain=Dreadnaught(ie Sovereign and Negh'var)
7. Admiral= any experimental or prototype craft(ie. Promtheus)
Also why upgrade if you have a ship you like,if you have a higher rank your ships stats go up with you,cause it not the size of the ship that wins the battle,it the tactics of its captain. If a Galaxy class and a B'rel Bird of Prey enter a Mutara Class Nebula the odds favor the little ship that offers a smaller target. While the larger Galaxy class will be much easier to target in the Nebula.(Would be like shooting at the broadside of a barn). Thats my 2 cents. Can't wait for the video Sunday. Thanks Cryptic;)

[shapeless79]

From what I read in the article it sounds great. I would also like to point out that just because you are the "Captain" doesn't mean you have attained the rank of 'Captain'.
If you remember the TNG episode "Redemption", Data was put in command of the USS Sutherland. And even though he was only a LT. CMDR,the crew of the Sutherland called him Captain because he was in command.
Now with that in mind I would like to see the type of ship you command to be befitting of you're rank. Ie. No ensigns in command of say a Galaxy class,but they could command a runabout. Heres my layout of how rank would effect ship choice.
1. Ensign=Runabout or Delta Flyer sized ship
2. Lieutenant Junior Grade=Frigate class (ie. Saber and B'rel)
3. Lieutenant=Destroyer(ie Defiant)
4. LT. Commander=Light Cruiser(ie. Miranda and K'vort)
5. Commander=Heavy Cruiser(ie. Constitution and K'tinga)
6. Captain=Dreadnaught(ie Sovereign and Negh'var)
7. Admiral= any experimental or prototype craft(ie. Promtheus)
Also why upgrade if you have a ship you like,if you have a higher rank your ships stats go up with you,cause it not the size of the ship that wins the battle,it the tactics of its captain. If a Galaxy class and a B'rel Bird of Prey enter a Mutara Class Nebula the odds favor the little ship that offers a smaller target. While the larger Galaxy class will be much easier to target in the Nebula.(Would be like shooting at the broadside of a barn). Thats my 2 cents. Can't wait for the video Sunday. Thanks Cryptic;)

/signed & agreed...

Exactly the way I think it should be as well...

[Jazzman]

So this will be Pirates of the Burning Sea in space?

LIked that game...but wasn't crazy about the whole pirate genre and wooden sailing ships.

Exactly what i said it will be a several times in this and in my german ST.Info forum :)
As much as i like the idea of a crew of real players avatars and a ship that i can walk thru whenever i want, i always knew that it would be technically impossible to make and it wouzld not be fun for the majority of the crew to sit somewhere in a tiny room inside the ship apart from the others just staring at an LCARS Screen touching buttons when needed.
This "Pirates of the Burning Space Nebula" apparoach, i knew, was the only logical and appealing way to make a Star Trek MMO"RPG"!

So thanks to the Cryptic Crew! You did a good job designing that game and work a little harder so i can finally have my majestic, perfectly modified Heavy Cruiser prowling thru the endless Space..... :D

[dctlk86]

Players will also be able to battle against other vessels in laser-blasting, missile-firing deep space scuffles reminiscent of "The Wrath of Khan" and the Dominion War in "Deep Space Nine." Because the game will be set a few generations following the last "Trek" film, players shouldn't expect to run into James T. Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard.


Time travel is something that has been something used in Star Trek alot. Since this is further generations ahead, I'm wondering if there will be missions or something like that, where when you go through a certian part of space, you happen to go back in time and see some of these more promenent figures that we have all grown up seeing.

[Keyser]

I agree that commanding your own ship doesn't necessarily mean that you have the rank of captain. After all, they talked of advancing in rank and getting better ships to command.

Although it wouldn't make any difference if you started with captain and got to advance in rank, other than the fact that it's counter-intuitive, it would just be one thing they could just as easily do by making everyone start as Ensign (in a roundabout for example). And I think that's what they are doing, simply because the mechanics are the same and there wouldn't be so much resistance in the community as there obviously is to the "everyone is captain" idea.

Creating your own race is something that I have mixed feelings about. Star Trek is so canonized that I don't know how that wouldn't totally ruin immersion (yes, the dreaded word ^^) for some people. I expect there will be a race creation similar to Master of Orion, where you can choose different advantageous and detrimental attributes in a point-based system. A freestyle race creation would be a recipe for desaster in my opinion.

The one thing that made me immensely excited was always the possibility to be in someone else's ship and fill the position of an officer. Maybe the navigation officer or the Chief Engineer. I hope that is still planned. NPC crews are necessary, simply because you can't always expect to have 3 other people online to be on your bridge. However, working as a crew is something that I don't think an Star Trek MMO should be without.

[doam]

Woohoo! I just might actually play this game, now. Awesome. Can't wait!

[Caiman]

We took no assets. There was nothing to be had, to be honest
Wouldn't mind some calrifcation on this, since it's obviously not entirely accurate? (Given every piece of art shown so far for instance is what was created by PE's concept teams, including the space station in the screenshots?)

[walkingshark]

So can we name our new species that we create? What if other players want to make one as well for RP reasons, will there be a template of some sort?

Well, considering all star trek aliens (with a very few exceptions) are basically humans with various different bumps and spots on their head/hands, I imagine there will be a ton of variations and if two happen to be very similar (romulans/vulcans) then its no big deal, you just explain it away with "oh the race was split when one faction took off to found their own dealio" just like they do in the show.

[walkingshark]

Looks good except for a MAJOR FLAW.

Everyone gets to start as captain.
BIG SUXOR.

I will never understand why people are more concerned with preventing other people from playing how those other people want to play than with playing how they want to play. "Boo hoo everyone is ______." That kind of attitude was adopted for SWG, where instead of making the game a majority of people wanted to play (Jedi Online, basically) they made something to appeal to the minority of crying fanboys.

When people think of playing Star Wars, many of them WANT to be a Jedi. Cause Jedi are cool.

When people think of playing Star Trek, many of them WANT to have control of their own ship. Cause being the one who controls the photon torpedoes is cool.

The ideal way to deal with this is the way Ars Magica, that old RPG that none of you ever played, dealed with it. The game was set up so that mage PCs were rediculously powerful, because the whole point of the game was "the art of magic." They also had support for other types of characters, like sword swingers and bow shooters and sneaky *******s, but with the full understanding that if you're a sword swinger you can maybe hack a few people apart, but if you're a mage you can cast a spell and kill ane entire city with the black plauge.

Anyway, based on the information we've seen so far and the record of Cryptic, I suspect that what we'll see is a situation where you have your captain character, and under the command of your captain you can accumulate various crew members, and when you're playing you can play as either your captain on your own ship, or as one of your crew members on someone else's ship, or whatever.

So if you just want to be an engineering monkey, you let your captain languish on his shuttlecraft that is docked on your friend's Sovereign class ship, and play your engineer as a supplement to his crew. Or maybe not, I mean thats just some crap I pulled out of the seventh planet, ya know? We'll see tommorow.

[njdss4]

I knew Cryptic would come through for us when it came to character customization. They showed us how much they care about that when CoH/CoV came out, and now we'll really be able to create unique characters in STO! Great job, guys!

My only concern is that it everyone has to be a captain right away. I hope that only means "commanding a ship" and not the rank of Captain. Let us have something to work toward. Don't make it too easy! Also, I hope that it means you start off commanding a small ship, as in a shuttle or survey vessel.

[chrisdanger]

Im excited because of two things said in the AP piece:

A) it will take place a few generations after ST: Nemesis, which is the way the ST universe should be. Im ready to explore the 25th century and see what it has to offer.

B) You command your own ship and can crew it. My only addition to this: Lets give folks an opportunity to either go from a bridge or external view. That way, you can play it what ever way you choose.

[TruthSeer]

Hopefully the created races will be put into a database kinda like spore.

[Thorgar]

they said you gain ranks and get larger ships and improve your crew, so id guess that you do not start with the Rank of Captain.

As to those who want live crews, i hope they set that up for you, ill be laughing at you as your stuck on station or planetside waiting for your engineer or captain to show up online so you can actualy DO anything. Meanwhile ill be cruising around and exploring to my hearts content. I have played a Star Trek MUCK and we were all part of a crew for a ship. their where 9 ships in play and over 80% of the time we did not have the whole bridge crew or even engineering online. It made playing a Crew impossible, now on an MMORPG where you can just fudge not having the captain or the navigator, just think about that.

its just not really feasible to run a crewed starship -especially- to cannon specs with online players. Unlike the characters we do not actually work for Starfleet and cant actually get rent paid by being on ship 24/7. On a similar note id love to see NPC crews that you can level with your ship and take with you. Id also like to see you being able to have passengers on board as that could be a blast.

I am really stoked about the race creator, ive seen the city of heroes creator, and read what they are doing to the creator for Champions online. If they add in that we can create whole worlds to be set into the game (even if they design it and we just set tech levels and such) to be explored that would rock! I would love to see people play a race i made, and be able to select a Race created by a friend.

[sheridan1981]

players will begin "Star Trek Online" as the captain of a small Starfleet or Klingon Empire ship. They can customize their characters from pre-existing "Trek" species — from Klingons to Gorn


so does this mean there will be Gorn in command of a Klingon Empire Ship?

[zaxxon23]

I will never understand why people are more concerned with preventing other people from playing how those other people want to play than with playing how they want to play. "Boo hoo everyone is ______." That kind of attitude was adopted for SWG, where instead of making the game a majority of people wanted to play (Jedi Online, basically) they made something to appeal to the minority of crying fanboys.

Actually, SWG was far ahead of its time, and introduced the Star Wars galaxy as it should be, not with a whole bunch of lightsaber-wielding jedis, but as a large universe of people going about their daily adventure with the Jedi exactly where they should be...an extreme minority. SWG made two major mistakes as far as it relates to the MMO genre. First, they only made a sandbox. A sandbox is fun and very important to long term gameplay, but a sandbox by itself will not drive a game. Second, they made the jedi an alpha class that was relatively easy to get. There were some downsides to being a jedi, particularly the fact that everyone and their dog wanted to hunt you down (as it should be), but the downsides did not equal out the alpha class status.

Regardless, jedi online would have been completely boring as an mmo, and if you have any experience playing mmos you know this to be just as true as I do. There is only so much you can do with robes and lightsabers, so the fundamental aspects of differing classes and differing skills melding together in some sort of balance is thrown out the window for some gigantic lightsaber free for all. Sure, it would be cool, but it would not have much in the way of long term mmo gameplay.

Make no mistake about it, Star Trek online MUST be a sandbox mmo to provide the truly long-term gameplay necessary to provide a quality mmo experience. It must be more complex then ship battles in space, allowing multiple avenues of gameplay to experience. Players must be able to develop ship components, planetary housing, space stations, clothing, food and drink, and a myriad of other professions that my limited imagination can't even think of at the moment. These professions and their interactions with the galaxy require a sandbox functionality, otherwise STO will be nothing more then space battles. Although space battles are cool just like jedi battle are cool, they only serve to satisfy a short term method of gameplay, and do not serve the long-term environment necessary for a mmo. It would be wow in space, and although wow is a good game and always attracts new customers, RETENTION is not wow's strong suit. I know a lot of people who have played wow, and nearly every single one of them has moved on in under less then two years. This is why wow has such a huge marketing campaign for new players. The boring linear gameplay without a sandbox simply cannot retain customers.

I actually agree with you in regards to the player crew that you were originally disagreeing with. The concept sounds neat in theory, but most people have realized that it would not be fun in the short or long term. After all, who wants to sit there staring at science readouts of sensors or the warp core all day? Some would, but that would be an extreme minority. So we're in agreement on that. But you took it way to far when you start to bash the sandbox. Like I said, the sandbox cannot exist on its own, as SWG has proven. But linear gameplay can't stand on its own either, as WoW has shown. There must be a mixture of the two constructs to prevent burnout in either area of the game. I invite you to try and think outside the box a bit to see the benefits of a sandbox, even if those benefits don't necessarily interest you. As you yourself said, why are you so concerned about preventing people from playing the way they want to play?

If it makes you feel better, though, a "jedi online" mmo is in the making by bioware. We'll get to see first hand just how well WoW in space does. Who knows, maybe I'll be wrong and it'll be a smash hit that actually has the capability to retain customers beyond two years.

[CinC-UFPForces-Cardassia]

First, big kudos to the communications/public relations team at Cryptic. Getting an AP writeup like this isn't all that easily, unless - sometimes especially if - you're running for something. Great press for tomorrow's event, and a great reintroduction for the game. Now it's up to the on-site production and Internet teams to ensure STO.com doesn't crash!

There's some good material, and some confusing material, in the interview. I've not read the discussion to date, so this will constitute only my first impressions of the material. It's quite interesting to see that Cryptic has decided to make the Gorn a playable race - it's nice to see that the developers have chosen to continue Perpetual's effort to make races from the Original Series relevant, and also that they've made them front and center in a way that Perpetual didn't. The Gorn, then, are apparently a Federation race - which hints at big storyline changes that one hopes to have cleared up in the coming weeks.

I'm also greatly encouraged to see that Cryptic has decided to keep the game's era set firmly in the future. That's the smart choice, and allows for the appropriate creative license that Cryptic should want and that's appropriate for the game. I'm a bit surprised by the suggestion that particular legacy characters may have less relevance to the game, and wonder if that - assuming it's an aesthetic rather than financial decision - doesn't also apply to older types of starships such as the EXCELSIOR.

I, personally, would err on the side of not assuming that the interview 'confirms' the notion that all players are "Captains". As has been pointed out, there is a difference between command of a ship and the rank of Captain, which I agree in full should be an objective that one has to spend a little time achieving, if only for balance purposes. To my mind, there's nothing inappropriate about players being able to utilize shuttles and runabouts the first time they play, and I could even be sold on smaller starships (excluding the DEFIANT class). Though I err on the side of not assuming the interview 'confirms' anything, I hope that the decision has not and will not be made to allow command of the larger starships to be an easy accomplishment.

I am confused about the statement made by Mr. Emmert regarding the game's acquisition of assets from Perpetual. While it's certainly true that there might have been no "code" or engine to import, a review of this website should make it clear that some "assets" were "to be had."

I'd look forward to hearing confirmation in the coming press reports on the game that Cryptic will be featuring ships crewed by multiple human players. Finally, I think we can count this as confirmation that the game will feature player starship interiors in a functional way, and I hope that Cryptic is aware of the fact that - from a technical and player relations standpoint - this could be one of the most crucial elements of the game.

[Thorgar]

he was probably referring to game engine or computer assets for the game. As cryptic has its own engine anything that could have been there wouldnt really help, and from what ive read i doubt they had anything.

[Patient]

Quite excited.
Will be nice to get a glimpse of what is to come.

I was happy to read about where STO stands in terms of the timeline.

[Finnigan]

Big deal, there is art on this website that is left over from the Perpetual debacle. Reading the quote from Jack Emmert takes away any doubt that Cryptic will not be using anything from Perpetual in the actual game. So, Perpetual's "Three Year Misson" is now documented as providing wallpaper backdrops for a community website for STO. HA HA!

A community website that was active the moment Crypitc announced they were doing the game. Something Perpetual NEVER did, having instead relied on an overly-moderated fan site that regularly censored postings and read member's private messages when they disagreed with the party line.

Having Jack confirm that there is nothing from Perpetual being used in the game is a good thing, methinks.

[Gnacko]

Agreed. I also followed the development from the beginning and it never felt well how they treated the subject. There was too much talking and interviews and too few real facts, screens, videos and all that stuff.
It really feels better now. Everything looks more professional and real. ;)

[Grig]

since you are in control of a ship .. of a federation and klingon .. i be looking at ships that have small crew to begin with like the birds of prey that first aired crew of 12 or think the federation ship was the miranda class

[Zeraphine]

"You're going to see the actual game working and functioning," said Emmert. "This isn't renders. This isn't concept art. Everything that people will see on Sunday is going to be taken right from 'Star Trek Online' as it stands today, so hardened people should know that a release date might be closer than they think."

Its a joke? You cannot make a game and it is close to a release date for about (3-4 months?)

Yes, STO is like Pirates of the Burning Sea in Space! Flying Lab Software have the same system as COH with User Content, and STO has it too.

[NightWatcher]

I will buy this game and I will play this game..... That said I want to be an independant player mabye a trader or border runner?

[Gnacko]

since you are in control of a ship .. of a federation and klingon .. i be looking at ships that have small crew to begin with like the birds of prey that first aired crew of 12 or think the federation ship was the miranda class

i think miranda class is already too big. while it only needs a small crew, its already in cruiser class. in star trek II a miranda can handle the enterprise, so i think although its old it would be too big and powerful for the first available ship in the game.

[Trendkilla]

I dont like the idea of race creation. Its gona be like a millon look-alike races with no sustainable background story. And I dont like the idea of starting out as a captain, it should be something to work for, or away from as alot would do imo. And dont make it a dull second job, but a exiting journey that everyone has somewhat of a chance to enjoy, alone or with others. Please make it fun for single players with limited time. If so i would be he first mmo of its kind...

[PatternBuffer]

Big deal, there is art on this website that is left over from the Perpetual debacle. Reading the quote from Jack Emmert takes away any doubt that Cryptic will not be using anything from Perpetual in the actual game. So, Perpetual's "Three Year Misson" is now documented as providing wallpaper backdrops for a community website for STO. HA HA!

Sad isn't it... on so many levels. Yeesh...

A community website that was active the moment Crypitc announced they were doing the game. Something Perpetual NEVER did, having instead relied on an overly-moderated fan site that regularly censored postings and read member's private messages when they disagreed with the party line.

Having Jack confirm that there is nothing from Perpetual being used in the game is a good thing, methinks.

I think a divide had to be created by Cryptic be it practical or not to allow the fan base to see them as being separate from Perpetual. Perpetuals rep in all of this is lower than low and Cryptic didn't need to be dragged down by it.

Kudos to them for the approach they've taken and the efforts they've made to date. The franchise really deserved better...

Great stuff...

Only one more sleep!

[walkingshark]

Actually, SWG was far ahead of its time, and introduced the Star Wars galaxy as it should be, not with a whole bunch of lightsaber-wielding jedis, but as a large universe of people going about their daily adventure with the Jedi exactly where they should be...an extreme minority.


This is actually something I always found puzzling. If you have a few thousand, or even ten+ thousand Jedi on your server, thats a good number of Jedi when you spread them out over an entire galaxy. Thats what always bugged me... a Galaxy is a HUGE place. LIterally talking quadrillions of sentients in the kind of old-populated civilization that the SW universe presents. If every single player on a server is a Jedi, thats still just a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the total population, so it actually makes perfect sense. Every PC is a Jedi and the numbers barely work, in fact in all honesty you probably can't have enough simultaneous logins to represent how many Jedi would be active in a galaxy at any given moment.

And of course, SWG had other problems, some of which you touched on, some of which involved overpromising and underdelivering on the part of the developers (a path it seems the folks at Mythic are trodding now with the deja vu feature yank in preperation for WAR's launch).

I guess what it comes down to is, if you make a SW game, you should damn well not only expect people to want to play Jedi, but you should be ready to provide them with a fun gameplay experience that involves running around in a robe swinging a lightsaber.

In the same vein, if you make a ST game, you damn well need to be ready to cater to the huge bunch of people who are going to want to be Captain Picard, Captain Kirk, or whatever. Having your own Captain, with your own ship and a stable of specialized characters that you can develop at will seems to the logical way to do it with Star Trek while staying within the ST universe, but we'll see what Cryptic surprises us with. The one thing I'm confident in is that they'll deliver us something fun, though we'll see how well they learned their lessons from the mistakes made with the patches and administration in City of Heroes (and the lack of end-game raid content... the weekly Hamidon slideshow was never fun...)


Make no mistake about it, Star Trek online MUST be a sandbox mmo to provide the truly long-term gameplay necessary to provide a quality mmo experience. It must be more complex then ship battles in space, allowing multiple avenues of gameplay to experience. Players must be able to develop ship components, planetary housing, space stations, clothing, food and drink, and a myriad of other professions that my limited imagination can't even think of at the moment. These professions and their interactions with the galaxy require a sandbox functionality, otherwise STO will be nothing more then space battles.


This I agree with, though you can take it to far and end up playing Excel online... er, I guess its called Eve for short? :)

I long for a game where crafting is skill based and involves some sort of puzzle mini game and enough depth to allow people to create unique items that they can market and sell based on their skill and artistic merit, not in a second life way but more in a creative gameplay way.

[walkingshark]

i think miranda class is already too big. while it only needs a small crew, its already in cruiser class. in star trek II a miranda can handle the enterprise, so i think although its old it would be too big and powerful for the first available ship in the game.

Yeah think more along the type 4 shuttle or the runabout.

[walkingshark]

I dont like the idea of race creation. Its gona be like a millon look-alike races with no sustainable background story. And I dont like the idea of starting out as a captain, it should be something to work for, or away from as alot would do imo. And dont make it a dull second job, but a exiting journey that everyone has somewhat of a chance to enjoy, alone or with others. Please make it fun for single players with limited time. If so i would be he first mmo of its kind...

WOW is soloable, and fun the first two times through.

As far as a million look-alike rces with no sustainable background story.... dude, did you ever actually WATCH Star Trek? I don't think slight variations on forehead bumps and spots is really going to be hard for them to pull off, and it'll be right inside the Star Trek canon.

[Crowley76]

It sounds to me like they may have gotten this right. Sure, there's always going to be room to improve but Cryptic listens to the gamers more than any other online gaming company. I can't wait for this game to come out and am soooo looking forward to the footage tomorrow!

We live in desperate times. We are the desperate measures.

[christopherhi5]

do youhave to buy a disk of download the game

[Djin]

Sounds interesting... and it's also nice to hear there's going to be more factions and races... but create you own race... Hmm..

We'll just have to see what happens tomorrow in the in-game footage.

[jfolds1]

I feel really good on how cryptic is treating sto so far

It's a modern miracle these forums and the whole site didnt crash under the opening day strain, which seriously hasnt let up yet

[jla1987]

It sounds to me like they may have gotten this right. Sure, there's always going to be room to improve but Cryptic listens to the gamers more than any other online gaming company. I can't wait for this game to come out and am soooo looking forward to the footage tomorrow!

We live in desperate times. We are the desperate measures.

Agreed. I have a better feeling about this game than any other MMO I've followed. There's no way they can mess this up as bad as Funcom's Age of Conan was :D

[Powerhelm]

God willing they have enough sense to make a large variety of ships and customizational options for those ships and block off "GOD" ships like the Galaxy, Sovereign, etc as PE had planned. I agree with them then and now, those ships are just too powerful to let just anyone have. They should be as rare as Jedi in SWG before it started sucking.

And for the LAST TIME: We DO NOT start out as "Captain" rank. We start out as the senior officer aboard our own ship, ranking cadet or whatever. We don't start off as Captain ranks.

[R2X]

My take on it (IMHO)::cool:

players will begin "Star Trek Online" as the captain of a small Starfleet or Klingon Empire ship
Captain is a turn used to mean the commander or owner of a ship, so players my start as an Ensigne or Sogh(Lieutanant), with a shall ship and then advance in rank from there. Or state at captain or Lt.Commander and go up to Commodore then Rear Admiral, etc.

They can customize their characters from pre-existing "Trek" species — from Klingons to Gorn — and can create entirely new alien races
Now anyone can be a half-(races here) just like Spock.
Does this mean I can make a Reman?

progress through the game, players can increase in rank and gain larger vessels and more crew
Does this crew act like pets in other MMOs?
Does leading a crew mean you can only have a Command career? As in you can't be a medical or science, etc career?
Will there be no classes, save for maybe crew members?
Is it just me or does this sound like Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_%26_Heroes:_Rome_Rising), to anyone else, being that you lead a crew and not just one player character at a time? This is not a bad thing IMO I like this idea a lot!

[hinaito]

I read it and was immediately excited. When they said the playable factions were the Federation and the Klingon Empire, I was fearful that the only playable races would be Vulcan, Human, Klingon, and a few other Federation races. I do wonder.... can you be a human and be with the Klingon Empire? Just wondering... I already really like the way this game is going. I can not wait for it to come out. I also like the idea of making my own race. That is going to be awesome. That is a very creative idea, and I'm glad they thought of it. Live Long and Prosper Cryptic Studios

[jsutich]

I just wanted to stop in and clarify something. The article contained a bit of a mis-quote. Jack had actually given an example of what was available in the way of really well done concept art and some extremely complex 3D ship models. However, since Cryptic is using our own engine and tech for Star Trek Online, those models would not have been able to be used.

[juggernautxx]

I believe that crews will work like equipment in other games. I believe the bigger the ship the more slots you will have for crew. ie. Say on a Saber(Frigate size) you could only equip 1 Tactical officer,but on say a Sovereign(Dreadnaught size) you could equp say 4-6 Tactical officers,each with varying skill sets(ie. Imroved Phaser Accuarcy or Improved Torpedo Yield or an Understanding of Alien Weapon Design). This would also make larger ships more like the ones in the shows,where you have a much more varied crew with specialists in varying areas of Medical,Tactical,and Science.
I also belive that depending on mission performance that you will have the chance to recruit better crew members as you're prestige in Starfleet grows.(ala SFC 1 and SFC 2).
I also belive that with this setup that planetside missions will have a much more tactical feel,maybe like a hybrid RTS/RPG game. Where you can switch to different crewmen on the fly and issues orders and also actually take control of an officer during a mission.
I also hope they they don't rely sole on combat missions,hoping we have scientific,exploration, and diplomatic missions as well as combat,and distress signals.
Thats just my thoughts folks. Can't wait for the video later today.:)

[Bizcuits]

God please restrict the new of any new species. last thing we need is every single kid playing the game naming their lifeforms (fitacent) or (Iheartcmen) etc :(

[miqrogroove]

I just wanted to stop in and clarify something. The article contained a bit of a mis-quote. Jack had actually given an example of what was available in the way of really well done concept art and some extremely complex 3D ship models. However, since Cryptic is using our own engine and tech for Star Trek Online, those models would not have been able to be used.

I like clarifications just as well as news :) Thank you Razor.

[chrisdanger]

I said it about cryptic then when I Beta'd CoH some years ago and i'll say it now: This company listens to their consumer base. I have a feeling we'll be in store for a decent treat this afternoon and get a more concrete time line from Jack as well. They did a bang up on COH/COV, which was an original IP, before handing it over to NCSoft and they'll do the same, if not better on an 40+ year franchise.

[Malsonic]

They said a release date may be sooner than we think. How soon is sooner than we think?:confused:

To me, I would take that to mean within the next month. BUT, to a studio that usually means about 6 months. :mad:

Maybe we can hope for a Christmas release. :cool:

[Felderburg]

I'm worried about the amount of diplomacy that will be present in the game. Everything that's been said and that we've seen so far is great, but there's no mention of diplomacy; it's all combat and exploration. Now, both of those are part of Star Trek, and integral to the game, but if I don't have the option to hail an unknown starship and talk them into a ceasefire, or begin negotiating a treaty with a new race, or help two opposing planets work out a trade agreement, I will be very disappointed.

[The_Padre]

I'm worried about the amount of diplomacy that will be present in the game. Everything that's been said and that we've seen so far is great, but there's no mention of diplomacy; it's all combat and exploration. Now, both of those are part of Star Trek, and integral to the game, but if I don't have the option to hail an unknown starship and talk them into a ceasefire, or begin negotiating a treaty with a new race, or help two opposing planets work out a trade agreement, I will be very disappointed.

Diplomacy was mentioned during the webcast, Jack even said that a lot of TNG had diplomatic missions during its run. It is a system they will be addressing.

[cammy511]

what will the system requirements be if any one knows here are my specs amd athlon 64 x2 dual core 2.40 gigahertz 2 gb of ram and 253 gb of hard disk space and nvidia gdforce 8600 512 mb video card

[Ltfngr]

They said a release date may be sooner than we think. How soon is sooner than we think?:confused:

To me, I would take that to mean within the next month. BUT, to a studio that usually means about 6 months. :mad:

Maybe we can hope for a Christmas release. :cool:

Well, all I can say is the t-shirts that were being handed out at the Star Trek convention have a date on them of 'Coming Fall 2009', so we'll see...

Champions Online will be out first, being slated for April 2009.

[Ltfngr]

Diplomacy was mentioned during the webcast, Jack even said that a lot of TNG had diplomatic missions during its run. It is a system they will be addressing.

I am sure there will be missions that will require some sort of negotiations, probably in the style of the way Age of Conan does it, and like computer games have for a long time. A set of 4 lines to choose at certain points that may steer the mission in a different direction. The latest game I've seen employ this is Mass Effect.

[ArkonPhoenix]

I for one am very excited to see what comes of this great IP, and hope they learn from past mistakes of other MMO's with high profile IPs.

[Esquire]

I for one am very excited to see what comes of this great IP, and hope they learn from past mistakes of other MMO's with high profile IPs.

Arkon! Good to see you here and I /agree.

[ArkonPhoenix]

Arkon! Good to see you here and I /agree.

Ditto man! Let’s hope they can make this game right, as I am a little unsure right now since the IP changed hands prior to going open beta. Just found out this site was back up and had to check out the new details.

[Wraiven]

I tell you, from a 4 year vet of CoH/CoV, Jack has never been my (or many other peoples) favorite Developer. But after listening to him speak about STO in the 45 minute video, I believe him to be sincere in every way. I honestly think he is the best man for the job, and am glad he is apart of the Development team.

Good to see ya again, Jack! :D

[Quarks_bar]

There might be a ship called Enterprise flying around, but it's probably not the same ship anymore," said Emmert. "Most of the characters will have either retired or passed on, but you'll definitely be going to all the places you know and love from 'Star Trek.' Expect to see oldies like Vulcan and Bajor but also fan favorites like Andoria and Qo'noS."


What about Time issues like going back in time it's happend on the show alternit time lines it could provied instances where we meet older chars.

[Ereiid]

I tell you, from a 4 year vet of CoH/CoV, Jack has never been my (or many other peoples) favorite Developer. But after listening to him speak about STO in the 45 minute video, I believe him to be sincere in every way. I honestly think he is the best man for the job, and am glad he is apart of the Development team.

The CoX community has definitely had its highs-and-lows with Jack's vision and leadership. Generally, I'm a fan of his work -- but I know so many players that grew disenfranchised with that game. With CoV, I was definitely getting the impression that he had been learning some tough lessons about game development:

1) Promising too much, too early

2) Not underestimating the drive of the playerbase to break the game

3) Overengineering social dynamics

I'll happily take him over Koster or Garriott.

[OneLeatherneck]

oops copied wrong quote

[OneLeatherneck]

I Well, all I can say is the t-shirts that were being handed out at the Star Trek convention have a date on them of 'Coming Fall 2009', so we'll see....

I think that the date on the T's is for the new movie...hopefully we get the game before that :D

[starshipcaptain]

i would love it if u could become borg that would be cool

[Romulus1]

Booyah! It all sounds good to me. :)

[Jacius_Ceed]

That's cool can't wait for more.

[StealthTrooper]

I don't know if anyone else has said this before, but wouldn't it pose a porblem for cononizing this game if there thousands of non-canon races going around?:(

[CasiusOntius]

I don't know if anyone else has said this before, but wouldn't it pose a porblem for cononizing this game if there thousands of non-canon races going around?:(

But define a "Non-Canon Race"...think about all the new races that were introduced in so many episodes of every Star Trek TV show. Not to be offensive or anything, just pointing that out.

[Omega1]

But define a "Non-Canon Race"...think about all the new races that were introduced in so many episodes of every Star Trek TV show. Not to be offensive or anything, just pointing that out.


good point

[Zoransis]

Jack Emmert, chief creative officer of Cryptic Studios, was interviewed by the Associated Press about Cryptic's plans for Star Trek Online:

"You'll venture through space exploring new civilizations and life-forms," said Emmert. "You'll also beam down to planets and have adventures inside your ship. It's a galactic-wide game. There's going to be tons of space to investigate. We have a great system for exploration, which will allow for almost infinite possibilities."

Read more here! (http://www.startrekonline.com/node/74)The AP has stopped hosting the article linked from your node 74.

[seventodark]

I saw it on youtube it was really good

[SenshiBat]

To forget the past is to doom all your futures... Read remember improve..

[Kerwinius]

Apparently the AP article isn't being hosted on space.com anymore... however based on reading this thread I believe the article at this link may be the correct article...
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/2008-08-08-3679517134_x.htm