Only five days ago, our hopes for a Starfleet commission were revived when Jack Emmert announced that Cryptic Studios has taken over development of Star Trek Online. But how will Cryptic implement their trademark character customization when both Starfleet officers and Klingons have regulation uniforms? How will the exploration mechanic work? Why was the idea of group control of a single trip abandoned for the game's initial launch? How much of the trailer was true gameplay footage? What purposes will the holodeck serve? While Cryptic is still addressing many of these questions internally, Mr. Emmert gave us some candid answers in this latest Q&A from GenCon Indy '08.

"[Jack Emmert on grouped control of a single starship] I think it would be a challenge to design a game where being a science officer, an engineer, the security officer, the navigation officer... to make that so fun that it would occupy your entire time. I think that would be a real challenge. I think that it would be possible, but it would be like developing 5 games almost in parallel because you would need to develop enough gameplay for somebody as a security officer to enjoy it as much as a captain. I'd think that a lot of people would want to be captains to begin with, so it's easiest to start there and maybe we'll expand downwards into other things. I wouldn't rule that out."

Check out this latest Ten Ton Hammer exclusive STO Q&A right here!