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Customization doesn't end with the cosmetic in STO.

For the most part, character customization in MMOs is a one-shot deal that happens up front, allowing players to tweak a few options and hopefully create a character with a moderate amount of individuality. Unfortunately this tends to get washed away once you obtain your first few pieces of armor. Worse still is effectively erasing the effort involved in getting facial details just right the moment you don that shiny new helm handed out as a quest reward in your first five levels. Brandishing that really cool sword or bow that can only be obtained deep within a dungeon may allow players to briefly enjoy standing apart from the crowd, but it’s only a matter of time before the things are a dime a dozen and you’re back to square one in terms of any unique visual elements to your character.

There’s certainly been a wealth of recent information detailing the ins and outs of race creation in Star Trek Online, which has the potential to shatter the confines of more traditional character creation tools featured in many current MMOs. This should come as no surprise, as cosmetic customization is one of the hallmarks of developer Cryptic Studios’ previous titles, City of Heroes and City of Villains. When you take into account some of the intriguing options available to players in upcoming Champions Online, which allow players to go so far as to alter the color of power effects and even such small details as what part of a character’s body those powers emanate from, the implications of what that could mean for customization in STO have certainly piqued my interest.

Although ship customization had been touched upon in a recent Ask Cryptic, I’ve been itching to dig beneath the surface and discover just how deep the customization rabbit hole truly goes in Star Trek Online. In our exclusive GDC ’09 Star Trek Online interview with executive producer Craig Zinkievich, while I may have initially intended to learn a bit more about ship customization options, I walked away more eager to dive into the game than ever thanks in large part to the potential impact of ships and bridge officers on overall character advancement. As more details were revealed about the symbiotic relationship between ship, captain and crew, it’s hard to avoid blurting out “OK, now that’s cool!” as I contemplate the potential for depth and immersion in STO.

Designing an MMO with meaningful character advancement throughout the leveling experience has been one of the biggest challenges developers face. In many cases the concept of casual gameplay is synonymous with a title light on mid-level details meant to simply steer a critical mass of players towards ‘endgame’ content. While this approach has obviously proven successful in the past, there are many of us currently drifting through MMO space in hopes of touching down in a game that offers an intriguing, immersive experience straight out of the gates.

While I’d initially envisioned that bridge officers in STO would function in ways similar to the NPC heroes in the Guild Wars series, it sounds as though that base concept was analyzed, expanded upon and ultimately given a massive overhaul to the point where advancing your bridge officers will no doubt become its own wholly unique mini-game. Not only will bridge officers play a pivotal role in ship combat, either earning or learning new skills to improve your ships overall effectiveness, but they’ll advance and level up with your character, creating a type of bond with NPCs never really seen before in an MMO.

Craig Zinkievich: You’ll pick up different members as you play, or you’ll run across unique alien races that have unique, cool skills that you can’t get any other way. And whether or not you take one of those guys and recruit him into Starfleet or whether you ask him to train one of your bridge officers in those skills is really up to you. I mean, you don’t want to start off with Spock and then have to cut Spock loose just because you found some phat loot. So you’ll be able to train up your bridge officers. Some people don’t care, but personally I do – the attachment to the bridge officers is a big part of the game.

This relationship makes perfect sense within the Star Trek universe, as captain and crew create a cohesive unit in all previous iterations of the televised franchise, as does the concept of discovering interesting new races during your travels, and then either recruiting one of them into Starfleet as a member of your crew, or obtaining new skills for your officers to use based on those interactions.
 

Advancement in STO extends beyond the player to encompass thier ship and crew as well.

As new details begin to emerge about STO such as the above information pertaining to bridge officers, it’s certainly apparent that Cryptic is intent on creating an MMO that not only offers a lot of depth, but one that stays true to the Star Trek IP in the process. While I generally try to avoid getting overly hyped about a new title until I’ve spent some quality time scampering around it’s virtual confines, in the case of STO it’s become more a matter of how could I not be hyped about the project?

If you haven’t done so already, I thoroughly encourage you to read through the full GDC '09 STO interview. Do you think the bridge officers will add a new layer of depth to character advancement? Are you looking forward to slowly building up a unique and powerful ship that’s an excellent reflection of your career choices? Disappointed that you can’t build the Oscar Mayer Weiner Bus for that awesome new alien race you’re itching to create? Let us know in our forums, or you can always feel free to send a virtual carrier pigeon to my inbox.

Until next time dear readers, this is Captain Sardu, signing off!