Star Trek Online. A much anticipated MMO for many I am sure. I am certainly looking forward to it.
Information on the game has been somewhat sparse so far. In fact, available information about Star Trek Online took a bit of a dive when Perpetual Entertainment switched the official site to a shiny new format, something I took note of a while back.
Yesterday Darren at The Common Sense Gamer posted about this question and answer session with Daron Stinnett of Perpetual about Star Trek Online. I am not sure I have much to add beyond Darren’s comments, but I cannot leave it alone either.
From the questions and answers, the big quote is, of course,
Can we use the Galaxy- and Sovereign class starship as a player?
[darons] Ships of that size and prominence will be used as large flying cities under NPC control.
Oh, Perpetual, you are killing me.
For those of you who do not score quite so high on the Trek Trivia scale, Galaxy and Sovereign class ships are most famously represented in the form of the USS Enterprise, with Galaxy being the class used in “The Next Generation” while the Sovereign class was the Enterprise of the TNG cast Star Trek movies.
You know, the ship we have all seen, know, and love.
Nine months ago I wrote up my thoughts on Star Trek Online, and they included one very simple and obvious declaration.
Everybody wants to be Kirk!
Well, you cannot be Kirk if you cannot even aspire to Kirk’s ship.
Okay, this isn’t going to be EVE Online. There is a whole IP ecosystem within which this game must live, an IP ecosystem that is guarded like… well… not as strongly as Star Wars given some of the crap that has shipped under the Star Trek banner… but somebody is minding the store I am sure, and I guess they do not want 100,000 Galaxy class cruisers roaming around.
I guess we will have to shoot for smaller goals, though not much smaller I hope, given this follow up question.
Which will be the largest ship the player can steer?
[darons] A slightly smaller than the Galaxy class at launch.
I cannot have a command cruiser, but maybe they will let me have a standard cruiser some day. I can sort of be Kirk, though I will still suffer from some ship envy.
And while I guess I will have to live with bigger ships being under NPC control (for now), using a capital ship as a mere flying city seems like an odd choice of game mechanics as well. Isn’t that the role of a starbase? Or will the Enterprise and her sisters be demoted to stationary habitats for quest dispensing Star Fleet officers?
Of course, with this as part of the vision driving the game,
Enemies both familiar and exotic must be dealt with as the Star Trek universe teeters on the brink of all-out war.
I am going to want the biggest ship I can get my hands on. Maybe Perpetual will relent. The release is a long time off. It could happen.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Enemies both familiar and exotic must be dealt with
Which, if you’re aspiring to be Kirk, means sleeping with them if they’re of the appropriate sex and covered in blue body paint…
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Or green… we must not discount the exotic green ones.
So, if you’re thinking what I am thinking, Perpetual should go up the street to Linden Labs to talk about avatar animation?
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Kirk? Picard!
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When SWG first came out, there was a great write up some where that said (iirc), “In this game, you aren’t Han or Luke, you’re the guy who said, ‘Your Tahn Tahn will freeze before morning!’. ” I guess in STO everyone is the Red Ensign.
Wlad
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I was waiting for the Picard faction to show up…
And it is almost too bad that it isn’t based on The Original Series, as it would be quite amusing (for me) to be the guy in the red shirt beaming down to the planet.
There I am in the red shirt.
(Image linked from the ever amusing http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/star_trek_insp.html )
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So, if you’re thinking what I am thinking, Perpetual should go up the street to Linden Labs to talk about avatar animation?
Weeelll, I don’t remember any episode with a planet of flying phalli, but I’m not the biggest of Trek fans so I’m sure that episode probably exists.
And I’m sure Ensign Ricky dies in that one too… ooof, what a way to go.
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You are right… flying phalli are probably not canon. You have to get into Trek fan fic to find that sort of thing.
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100% Mountain out of a Molehill. Are you saying you’re going to hate the huge variety of other kinds of ships they offer, including ships nearly as large and impressive as the Galaxy class ships? And who’s to say they won’t introduce another class of ship that’s even closer to Galaxy class?
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Hey, the information we have on the game is barely even of mole hill quality.
Will I not play the game because of this? There is very little that could possibly keep me from playing this game. I am a gimme for Perpetual.
I certainly did not express hate for anything, that was your word.
Do I boggle at the idea of them not only thwarting my Kirk-ish ambitions, but also turning the Enterprise into Ironforge in space? Quite clearly.
I also come from a perspective of both TOS and the games that went with it, especially Star Fleet Battles, where the Constellation class of ships were command cruisers and only about 2/3’s of the way up the ship “food chain.” They were ships you sent out to explore, something you do not do with your precious capital ships.
The situation is less well defined (for me, anyway) in the TNG time frame and perhaps somebody can point me at something which shows that Galaxy and/or Sovereign class ships are at the top of the heap in that era. I could have sworn there were dreadnoughts in that era as well.
And this is all part of the risk/reward of taking on a game with a popular IP license: You get a lot of people who bring a lot of baggage to the table and feel strongly about even minor details.
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