By
Chris “Spare” Higgins, Guest Columnist



Looking at the Star Trek lore as a basis for a game I pose this
question to the readers:  “Can a utopian society
actually work in an MMOG?”  Most of the current MMOG
games on the market today focus on getting gear, money, skills, and
leveling up to advance in the game.  This however would not be
the case for all races in the Star Trek universe because money often
plays no factor in the advancement of a Starfleet personnel officer.
 

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How will the economy of the Ferengi merge with that of Starfleet?

In the Star Trek universe, there is no real economy on Earth. This fact
is well documented in the lore, and humans (at least in Gene
Rodenberry’s mind) evolved beyond the need for personal
possessions and money.  Most dealings within Starfleet simply
would not require any physical currency.  



However, other races in the known universe still use their own
currencies.  Latinum is the standard form of currency in the
Ferengi Alliance, while the Klingons use Darseks as their primary means
of exchange. Needless to say, economy will be a pretty big hurdle for
the Cryptic developers to jump over, especially if they’re
going to have multiple races and factions in the game.  



On top of this dilemma, almost all the materials used on a star ship
were replicated.  What kind of crafting system are they going
to come up with in the game?  Will it be as simple as finding
the program to insert in the replicator, or will it be more complex
than that?  Would you have to get resources to place into the
replicator to synthesize or would it just have what it needs?

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Will Starfleet players need to fight as much as Klingon warriors?

Gear is another big thing that I have been thinking about
lately.  As a member of Starfleet, you would never have to
worry about getting a uniform or a phaser.  This would all be
provided for anyone on a Starfleet vessel when the need
arose.  Also while there were “hand held
phasers” and “rifle phasers”, they were
all uniform and everyone had the same one.  This was also
inferred when Starfleet dealt with the Vulcans, Klingons, and Romulans
as well.  Replicators were standard in starships and while
most were used for food you could make just about anything in a
replicator.  This leaves little room for looting improved
phasers because most phasers merely had two settings: kill and stun.
 



Almost all the factions in Star Trek had their own special way of doing
things.  Starfleet used their intelligence to win the day,
while Klingons relied on glorious battle.  Will the main focus
of Starfleet missions be solving problems using information, or will it
be just blasting your opponents?  This combat system will be
critical for Star Trek fans because while Starfleet officers will want
to solve problems rather than fight, Klingons will want to beam over
and kill things with their bat'leth.



It is going to be interesting to see how Cryptic translates all of
these fundamental Star Trek issues into the game. I imagine there will
be some problems that the developers will overcome, but with a bit of
creativity they can probably be achieved.