Related Sections: MMOs
How starships work in Star Trek Online
The Star Trek Online official site has been doing a great job laying out how the gameplay will differ from other MMOs. For instance, their recent updates explain how ships will work.
Ships in Star Trek Online are as much a part of your avatar as your captain or Bridge Officers. They're highly customizable, both cosmetically and functionally. Visiting a ship "tailor" will allow you to change the color of your ship, the nacelles, the neck and/or nacelle pylons, its saucer, its name, its registry number and so on. And since ships have paperdolls and Bridge Officer stations, the decisions you make in how you outfit the ship's weaponry, impulse engines, shields, deflector dish and mods guarantee your gameplay experience will be unique to other players, but at the same time still feel like Star Trek.
There's further info available about crews and bridge officers.
A cynical MMO player might see parallels to things in other games. For instance, he might think of crew as a counterpart to stamina or mana. He might think of bridge officers as a counterpart to gear or equipment. But even then, a cynical MMO player has to admit that not even Eve Online takes this sort of approach to commanding a starship. And if there's one thing a cynical MMO player would be interested in, it's seeing a game try something different. I'll bet dollars to donuts a cynical MMO player will be waiting in the login queue to see how this turns out when it's released early next year.
By nilus at 3:05 PM ON 10/09/09
So can you and a group of friends command one ship? Or is everyone stuck with there own ship
By Matt Coughlan at 3:44 PM ON 10/09/09
/nerdgasm
By trinity343 at 5:53 PM ON 10/09/09
this might be the one MMO i could find my self fully interested in....but then i guess i could say the same for the Stargate MMO whenever it decides to come out
By Captain America at 10:15 PM ON 10/09/09
Everyone gets their own ship. Let's face facts, here. Having a bunch of people on one ship would suck.
"Alright, guys, we ready to go?"
"Nope. Bill's working overtime and can't play, tonight."
"Crap, he's our helmsman. Now what do we do?"
"Well, we could assign Tim to that."
"If we do that, we'll be short a tactical officer. What do we do if the IKS 7331 PWNZU tries to gank us, again? Damn it, nevermind. Let's try this again, tomorrow".
*everyone logs off*
Or even better. The situation where the Captain player wants to go to Bajor, the Helmsman player wants to go to Betazed, the Tactical Officer player wants to go to Cardassia Prime, etc.
Thanks, but no thanks. Player crewed ships is a horrible idea. There are aspects of MMO's where you have to team, yes, but this would require you to team JUST TO PLAY THE GAME! And the crew would all have to play together at the same time, and all have to go wherever the captain wants to go, even if they all want to go somewhere else. Nevermind the mind-numbing drudgery of just playing as a helmsman. "Ok, I'm setting course to Omicron Theta and going AFK for 20 minutes while I eat dinner, since you won't need me for a while".
By Ethylene Oxide at 10:42 AM ON 10/12/09
I bet the #1 cause of player death in the game will be exploding consoles. It'll be the equivalent of getting podded in EVE.
Ethylene Oxide:
I bet the #1 cause of player death in the game will be exploding consoles. It'll be the equivalent of getting podd...More »