World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

That's no shaman, that's James T. Kirk!.

That said, I realize each of those experiences is uniquely my own, but will no doubt shape any expectations I might have for Star Trek Online. While I might make it my personal mission to find a way to infest enemy ships with hundreds (or thousands … even millions!) of tribbles, another player might decide to master more traditional methods of space combat. Still others will spend countless hours meticulously attempting to recreate a favorite race seen only in one obscure scene from Voyager. The cool thing about the Star Trek IP and Cryptic’s approach to the MMO is that each of those things is entirely possible. OK, maybe you won’t be able to infest ships with tribbles, but that won’t stop me from trying!

Another key element of Star Trek has always been exploration, which is how Kirk and the Enterprise crew ended up getting into all of those wacky adventures to begin with. Just before opening up questions to the audience during Thursday’s Vooncast, I was given the opportunity to ask Mr. Zinkievich a couple of questions pertaining to exploration, or more specifically whether there would be any kind of achievements linked to pure exploration, and if they might unlock anything either faction-wide or simply for your individual character. The responses given were excellent of course, so rather than attempt to paraphrase them, here’s a short snippet from the forthcoming transcript of the event:

“Even for people that just want to go out and explore, there has to be a, not a checklist, but some sort of achievement to it. Accolades, medals that kind of count what you’ve explored, seen, what you’ve discovered and track what you’ve brought back to the Federation. So there’s definitely going to be all sorts of medals and accolades that you can achieve by exploration.

We think right now the majority of the medals and accolades that you get through exploration will be personal. The things that you open up will either be personal, or you’ll be able to share them with your friends, like the location of this really cool planet that you found.

The majority of the faction-wide rewards that you’ll be able to open up will really be located within the indirect PvP content that we have planned.”

In STO you'll get to share the locations of planets you discover with your friends.

Captain’s Log – Stardate 2230.9

The developers at Cryptic Studios fully realize that it would be impossible to create a Star Trek Online that’s all things to all people. What they can do, however, is create the most enjoyable MMO experience they know how within the Star Trek universe. They didn’t simply sit down one day and try to force the IP onto a predefined MMO template, but rather looked at Star Trek as a whole and began building a game around the strengths of the IP.

As Dalmarus recently discussed, the ability to create your own races within the game is an incredibly exciting, unique element that Cryptic is bringing to the table. The studio’s approach to episodic content will no doubt be another big hit with fans, as gameplay will somewhat mirror the flow of an episode from the numerous series. These are just two examples of why STO will make for an excellent sci-fi MMO, but there are plenty of others waiting to be discovered!

Be sure to share your thoughts on Star Trek Online right here in our forums, or if you prefer, you can send a virtual carrier pigeon directly to my inbox! Until next time, dear readers, live long and prosper!