Cryptic are back once again to answer some questions and keep our hopes of a slipup revealing more information alive! Well, we can hope :).

Ask Cryptic returns with answers on ship controls, melee weapons and Craig’s goat. Thanks very much to our development team for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer these!

How will melee weapons be used in the game, if Klingons have them will the Federation have access to the same weapons or their own?

Klingons will be more melee-oriented, but both factions will have access to hand-to-hand attacks using either martial arts or weapons. Our plan is to allow all of the melee weapons to be available to both factions, but it may be more difficult for a Federation character to obtain a bat’leth or a Klingon Empire character to acquire a lirpa.

Your skills will determine how effective you are with melee weapons – a Federation character may be able to pick up a bat’leth and use it, but without training he or she will be less effective than a Klingon who has studied the use of the weapon. And certain martial arts may be limited by faction or race – not everyone can perform a Vulcan nerve pinch.

How will ship controls work? Will it be a point-and-click style, like EVE, or will you have full control of your ship?

Players will definitely be given full control. A large portion of starship combat in Star Trek Online is tactical – maneuvering your ship into position so you protect your vital systems as you attack your opponent’s weakest side. You need to be “in control” of your ship in order for that to work well and be fun.

Further questions address the future presence of the Romulans and Dominion as player factions, the alien design mechanics, the liklihood of being able to play a Klingon within the Federation and whether Craig’s Goat will become a prominent new feature personality.

Read the answers to these pressing questions!

The answer on ship control is fairly intriguing since I wouldn’t have expected a leaning to more fuller simulation style controls and more of an Eve Online approach where you can automatically orbit ships you intend attacking. Of course orbiting in a real starship with a lot of mass that hard enough to accelerate let alone turn on the spot isn’t all that possible. I hope more detail emerges about the exact piloting style!

The steady drip feed of information continues in this interview with Craig Zinkievich!

New information emerges about Tricorders and the Prime Directive. We also learn a little more about the important role Time Travel will play and how Exploration will work in the game. Some other tidbits include the possibility of playing the Borg, the looting system during play and how Craig would solve the Kobayashi Maru.

There’s not a lot to read into, but the details discussed in relation to the looting system certainly seems to focus on PVE Rewards, Salvage, and New Technology and Resources. Still minimal details on the trading and resource elements. The other interesting notable is Craig stating that Cryptic have developed new technology to assist with the Exploration PVE content with one of their goals being to make software assisted generated content indistinguishable from developer placed content. I certainly hope that turns into a reality! Though obviously any generated content will eventually feel generic it’s nice to know the attention to detail and polishing of such a new system might alleviate some of the symptoms we’d usually see in similar efforts.

Welcome to the first “The PVP Debate” article where I take a look at what’s known about Star Trek’s Player vs Player (PVP) system and discuss it in light of similar MMO systems, particularly Warhammer Online (I’ll explain why later!). Expect this to be a regular series looking more in depth at various aspects of PVP in Star Trek Online (STO). Now obviously nobody has details on STO’s PVP except some broad outlines courtesy of Cryptic Studios, but these are enough to spark debate on the STO forums and I’ll take a look at this debate going forward in more detail.

To kick us off, what exactly is known about Star Trek Online PVP? Why would Warhammer Online be a useful contrast? We’ll start with the official STO FAQ with the relevant quotes below:

1. We plan for a faction vs. faction PvP ruleset, but there are also plans for a competitive PvE mechanic.
2. There will not be separate servers for PvP and PvE rulesets.
3. Open PvP will be restricted to designated sectors of space (far-off reaches of unclaimed territory).
4. Consensual PvP and competitive PvE will occur between the realm borders (the Neutral Zone), where players will be competing over territory and resources with the option to PvP.

If you want to read more public thoughts on PVP, visit the Official PvP Discussion Thread over on the STO Forum. For STO there is massive discussion of Ship based PVP, but the September 17 Ask Cryptic article also confirms the existence of ground based PVP, possibly in instanced scenario style areas (we can assume instances since this time it’s definitely area limited on a planet surface!). This article also won’t address “competitive PVE” - my main focus is ship based PvP.

The key information is that all PVP will be consensual and restricted to designated areas. This eliminates any concern about “ganking” where you can be targeted and destroyed without warning or consent. There appears to be two distinct varieties of ship based PVP: Open PVP and Neutral Zone PVP but details are sketchy as to what this means. I’ll assume, without evidence, that this means there might be both in-world PVP and Instanced PVP. Instancing in infinite 3D space may not carry the same meaning as with land based MMOs which may be borne out by the reference to “far-off reaches of unclaimed territory”. Eve Online uses large distances in place of the instancing other MMOs require.

I selected Warhammer Online (WAR) as a contrast because I believe it offers a rough approximation of how STO PVP could operate. WAR also offers a glimpse of how PVP in an MMO can go wrong, and we’ll examine those potential problems later as they may apply to STO. It may seem odd to contrast ships in space with Elves and Goblins but the underlying principles are still commonly applicable regardless of genre.

In WAR, PVP is consensual if you are not playing on a dedicated PVP Server. We can ignore PVP server rules in light of the STO FAQ which rules them out. PVP occurs within two specific areas.

Open PVP occurs in designated areas usually located between two Realm hubs (one Order, the other Destruction). Within this area all players which enter are flagged for Realm vs Realm (RVR) PVP. Each Open RVR area contains at least one Battlefield Objective which can be captured by each Realm to increase their level of control over the surrounding Zone. This is pretty basic capture the flag style gaming. Each side tries to capture as many flags as possible, death is usually cheap since you respawn at a nearby Warcamp, and there is no enforced balance between sides. Essentially, Open RVR is won though one of two factors - having an organised Party, or having a numerical supremacy.

This, I believe, will be roughly analogous to STO’s Neutral Zone PVP. Players will enter the Zone without any limit as to numbers (though a limit on Ranks may be dictated to get rid of griefing and ganking against lower Rank players) to capture control points (flags) which dictate who controls the surrounding area. Note - this is by no means certain, merely an educated guess! I do however expect there to be attractive incentives to do Neutral Zone PVP - perhaps control over a part of the Zone will confer benefits like resource bonuses, XP boosts, or other rewards on ALL members of the winning Faction in that specific area. It may also enable access to rarer more valuable resources.

The second part of WAR PVP are instanced Scenarios. These are deliberately balanced confrontations in a much smaller instanced space between similarly numbered teams. Objectives vary from capture the flag to MMO specific objectives you won’t necessarily see in an FPS game. Given they are evenly balanced, they eliminate numerical factors entirely leaving tactics and organisation the key winning factors.

These might be roughly similar to those STO “far-off reaches of unclaimed territory” referred to by the FAQ. Where access is actually determined by receiving a set of random coordinates in 3D Space to Warp to for the PVP. Again, I’m guessing - but it seems reasonable.

If anyone has other ideas, please do feel free to add a comment with more ideas!

Now, assuming some of this mind blowing guesswork is valid it demonstrates that simply because STO will look like no MMO that has gone before, it doesn’t mean we should ignore other MMOs which can be used as analytical guessing tools for what is to come. It also means that if you really want to study STO and see what problems are likely, it is a valid approach to pick a close analogy and I believe in this case, for the purposes of PVP, the closest match is Warhammer Online.

Now don’t assume Warhammer Online is the only comparator - Eve Online has an obvious input given it revolves around a similar genre with ship based beam weapons and missiles. But when it comes to Open Consensual PVP in a more accessible MMO, I think Warhammer Online bears closer examination.

Join me next time when I take a look at the mistakes Mythic Entertainment made in finalising Warhammer Online’s PVP system - mistakes which could have equally devastating results on STO if repeated by Cryptic. I don’t believe they will - but it’s an interesting topic to write about regardless and keep in mind for the future.

Some people accuse Star Trek of being an overrated Sci-Fi phenomena. Some people call it cheesy. Personally I think its a trend setter. It’s the series that has set the stage for Sci-Fi television and offered a glimpse of a Universe where Humanity despite all its currently naked imperfection has obtained something many of us hold dear - a society that celebrates individuality, freedom and idealism. It is the series that mixed drama, moral dilemnas, action and…how can we forget…star ship combat into a long running legacy that has crossed multiple generation gaps and maintained it’s momentum.

I remember first hearing about the Star Trek MMO and almost instantly dismissing it. I’ve seen MMOs come and go with varying degrees of success. In a time when World Of Warcraft rules the MMO roost, nobody has been able to mount a viable assault on its predominance just yet. Warhammer Online shows promise but it’s far too early to tell and this blog will reference Warhammer Online a lot for a variety of reasons. Some have outright ignored WOW (here’s looking at you, CCP!) since the very nature of WOW doesn’t threaten their specific market niche.

In that environment, it was hard to see Star Trek making the cut. Pretty soon we all got wind of the news that Star Trek Online was floundering before it even launched. Seemed like my own prophecy was a dismal certainty but at the time I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to care much.

However, unlike some naysayers I’ve always had faith Star Trek would outlast every other Science Fiction TV creation by miles. Back when Enterprise was cancelled we all were bombarded with the “ending of an era” doom and gloom media coverage as we entered the first year without a diet of Star Trek TV since The Next Generation. Now we have a new movie to look forward to - never saw that one coming did they? A little faith goes far!

Which brings me back to when I heard Cryptic had acquired the rights to Star Trek Online. Few people should doubt the impact of such an announcement. One day we go from a steady downfall as Perpetual announce a development freeze on another MMO, to making STO more “casual”, to its eventual cancellation and Perpetual’s fall - and then we finally heard in July that Cryptic Studios had acquired the license and were continuing development.

Having Cryptic at the helm caught everyone off guard. Perpetual had dirtied the waters and shot themselves in the foot with their antics. Cryptic were an established force with successful MMOs under their belt, and it took them an incredibly short time to release a gameplay trailer showing off STO at that time. Spot the difference? Someone was organised to handle MMO development - and Cryptic have impressed me a great deal with their organisation.

I now believe in STO - the signs are all clear that this MMO is steaming along rapidly and the stream of information from Cryptic from the start has painted a picture of a Star Trek MMO which retains the spirit of Star Trek and balances it with the needs of a successful MMO. The community around this project already exists on the official forums and we see the usual MMO style websites beginning to establish themselves well in advance.

Faith in an MMO is hard to come these days. Remember the hype surrounding Age Of Conan - Hyborian Adventures? But I think Cryptic’s vision of Star Trek while it may unsettle some real hardcore fans (especially given this early state of play) is on track to deliver a Star Trek MMO that will be impressive. And let’s not forget - PVP in space? Mmmm…