Star Trek Online at Ten Ton Hammer

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.  

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?

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.