Star Trek Online at Ten Ton Hammer

Ten Ton Hammer: The game takes place in 2409, approximately 30 after Nemesis. Can you tell us a little bit about what's happened since then?

Christine: You're running into a very different world than it was at the end of Deep Space 9 where it looked like a lot of the problems in the Alpha and Beta quadrants had been solved. By 2409, the Khitomer Accords have been dissolved; the Klingons and Federation are at war again. Romulus has been destroyed which you saw in the new movie. The Romulans are trying to rebuild and figure out where their place in the galaxy is. The Borg, who have not been seen in a long time, are starting to reassert themselves. Some lesser known enemies that people just weren't expecting are popping back up. So it's all kind of combining for a time of turmoil for the alpha and beta quadrants where instead of everything working out, everything is starting to fall apart again.

Ten Ton Hammer: Is the war going to be the main focus of the game in contrast to Starfleet seeking out new life? Is there going to be any sort of non-combat type of story that the players can explore?

Christine: There are non-combat stories for players to explore. The Klingon war is one of the major themes of the game and it affects and touches a lot of different things, but it's not the only story of the game.

Ten Ton Hammer: So exploration is still going to be a large part of it?

Christine: Oh Absolutely. Very much so. I mean, you can't have a Star Trek game without exploration.

Ten Ton Hammer: Players can create their own custom race. Obviously, you're not going to be able to create a home planet for all of those variations, so how do these new custom races fit into the story?

Christine: One of the things I wanted to do was look at how Starfleet brings its officers in. In DS9, if they're not from a Federation planet, they have to have a recommendation from a Starfleet captain. Starfleet's going to be looking at expanding those rules in the 30 years between Nemesis and 2409 just to be more inclusive of who can be in Starfleet.

We've also never gotten a full list of the planets that are Federation members. We've gotten some of the top ones, but we haven't seen a comprehensive list so there's always the possibility that some of these custom races may be from Federation planets that just haven't appeared on a show.

Ten Ton Hammer: Can you tell us a little bit about the transwarp conduits?

Christine: It's Borg technology that's been adapted by Starfleet. It was brought back by Voyager and Starfleet has adapted it and are using it to connect to different parts of the galaxy.

Craig: In the game, we're using transwarp conduits as a method to get from things like a newbie zone to a really high level zone. They're for the higher level players so they don't have to actually do that travel time. So the transwarp conduits are made to be like teleportation in the game.

Ten Ton Hammer: Any hints as to what famous characters players may encounter? 

Christine: Since it takes place 30 years after Nemesis, a lot of the people from the shows have moved on, gone on to other jobs, things like that. They just aren't active players anymore. We are going to try to have some references to people you know. We're going to have some children and grandchildren of people you know. One I'll throw out there that you definitely will meet is Miral Paris [Editor’s Note: Miral is the daughter of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres from the Voyager series].

Ten Ton Hammer: How does the development team prepare for such a massive amount of history and lore? Has the entire staff sat down and watched all the movies and episodes from the various series?

Christine: We are continually watching new episodes. We have times where the entire team will sit down and watch a particular episode. Those of us that are more into the history and the lore and putting that together watch more. I watch at least an hour of Star Trek every night, just going through series over and over again.

I've also been reading the books since last September, so I try to get a book in a week because we want to at least acknowledge the novels even if we don't follow the plotline of every one exactly.

It's just an amazing amount of research. We have a lot of people on the team that are hardcore Trekkies and can tell you everything from the history of the Borg to the exact height of the railing in the hallways of the Enterprise-D so we pull that knowledge base together whenever we have a question.

Craig: Even for some of the staff on the team who weren't big Star Trek fans before they came into the project, we ended up doing weekly lunch and eats. We brought lunch in and ate while we watched an episode. We did that for quite some time. We kind of stopped recently just to get people to try and work as much as possible. But when we first started out, we bought a bunch of copies of all the DVDs and media and let people check that out and bring it home. So there was lots of stuff to bring people up to speed that didn't already have a huge amount of knowledge.

Ten Ton Hammer: Back to the conflict... are we going to find that NPCs are taking more of an aggressive stance, putting players on the defensive?

Christine: Some of the NPCs are taking a fairly aggressive stance. Starfleet, of course, would like to find a peaceful solution to their problems. There are some people on the Klingon side that are pushing for a more aggressive stance. The players are the stars of the show so I don't want to be like you're just basically Admiral So-and-So's errand boy. The episodes are designed so it's like an episode of the show and the players are the stars.

Ten Ton Hammer: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat today. Before we go is there anything else about the history or lore you'd like our readers to know about?

Christine: There are multiple plotlines that run throughout the game. There are things that happen fairly early on that have consequences during the game. There's something that happens in the tutorial that has consequences in the end game, so we're trying to make coherent stories. We're also trying to add more of the lore in dialogue where you can actually sit down and talk with various characters and they're going to give you even more of the back-story than you would have gotten during a mission for example.

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Quest and story lines that last throughout a player's career has been something that players have been wanting in games for some time now. There have been some mild attempts, but it will be fun to see just how far Cryptic takes it. Join us next week for another Q&A with Cryptic Studios when we ask questions posed by Ten Ton Hammer's Premium members.