Daron Stinnett, the Producer of Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online took a few minutes out of his Austing Game Developers Conference schedule to speak with MMORPG.com about the progress of the game.

While we were at the Austin Game Developers Convention, Keith Cross and I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Daron Stinnett, the Producer of Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online. Now, we haven't heard a lot out of these guys lately, and with good cause. STO is still in the early phases of development and talking about too much, too soon, can be a dangerous thing for an MMO. They don't want to be in a position where they have promised too much and delivered too little.

"When we're ready to talk about it," Daron said with enthusiasm, "the world will know about Star Trek Online."

Stinnett told us that Star Trek is loved by millions and millions of people worldwide and if anyone looked at the franchise, it is immediately apparent as to why the game would make a good MMO. Throughout the interview, he was always clear that they aren't planning to rest on the laurels of the Star Trek franchise. They hope to make a game that will appeal to MMORPG players as well as fans of the franchise.

"We're not building a Trekkers game, we're making a world class MMO."

Read the whole report here.

While it is nice to hear something about STO development after a long silence (the Dev Logs have been interesting, but don't give much info at all), there really wasn't much in there to chew on. I guess we will have to wait until Perpetual releases Gods & Heroes to start hearing some more solid facts.

omg this is just amazing :) :)

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"They hope to make a game that will appeal to MMORPG players as well as fans of the franchise.

"We're not building a Trekkers game, we're making a world class MMO."

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When the loooong awaited STO finally comes out and turns out to be a shockingly conventional grinder with Trek skinning, remember the above remark.

 We haven't even seen the game and you already cutting it up

Guess you don't like WoW either.

[quote]

Before we went any further into the interview, I wanted to ask Daron to try and clear up some of the mystery surrounding the question of starship interiors. The game, he assured us, will launch with very rich ship interiors.

There will be, he said, "No shortage of starship interiors."[/quote]

The question was never would it have interiors. The question has always been, Will player ships (shuttles ETC.. They don’t all have to be galaxy class) have interiors, and can you bring your friends ON them for missions, and still walk around inside ETC (Think SWG:JTL Multi-passenger ships).

If there is, great, fantastic. If not, we don’t need another EvE (A fine game, but we don’t need another). They have already said, all player ships will be controlled from 3ed person view, and that you can bring friends, but they will also share that third person view and HUD.

Originally posted by Blaxjax

 We haven't even seen the game and you already cutting it up

 

Guess you don't like WoW either.

If you have been following the game, you would understand the frustration being exhibited by online gammers and Trek fans.

The game has been in the early stages of concept development (pens, pencils, paper and markers) since I believe, July of 2004. Several months back PE scrapped their earlier work on play style philosophy (players interacting with LCARS panels on-board ships) and art direction (from photorealism to  more stylized).

My personal opinion is that its currently vaporware. There are no in-game screen-shots, 3D avatar models, 3D object models or environments.

Right now STO is nothing but talk and not much of that, and when you consider some negative comments are already leaking out about the other PE game Gods & Heroes, I have serious doubts that PE can turn STO into a "World Class MMO".

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We haven't even seen the game and you already cutting it up

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The people who have been waiting for a Trek game all this time haven't been holding their breath because in their judgment the market needed another "world class MMO" regardless of content. It seems to get one of those every eight months anyway. We've been waiting because we want Trek. In part because we think that the more it's Trek, the better an MMO it is by definition. So when a designer says "It's not just a Trek game, it's a world class MMO" that's somewhat nervous making.

I'd love to be wrong! If for any reason I'm not - remember Stinnett's quote.

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Guess you don't like WoW either.

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Big lover of star trek and of course the game will be a must for me!

I'm really looking forward to this game and i'm by no means a huge star trek fan.

I just wish they'd kept quiet until they had something more solid to show us... I mean, we're still looking at 2009 or 2010 before they'll be looking to release it and the wait is going to be agony for anyone who is either dying for a new space themed mmorpg to sink their teeth into or to the Star Trek fans who want to immerse themselves in the closest thing they're gonna get to the real thing.

Why couldn't they have waited until late 2008 and said, "oh btw, we made STO and would like some people to beta it".

In all honesty, I wouldnt be surprised if Perpetual were looking at a simultaneous Star Trek movie release / game release - so as to capitalise upon the media and hype surrounding the movie to carry the game on some free publicity!

Why have we heard so little?

Why is development still at a early planning stage?

Just watch and wait.  You will see that Paramount is trying to flex creative control in some way.  They have a new movie on the way and, if a hit, will want this game to reflect it.  IP's can be a troublesome product for a MMO company.  If you look at the spotty products for the Star Trek franchise in gaming you will see my point.  I would love for this game to set new standards and be the best example of how to do an IP MMO.  I just don't trust Paramount.

Heh, and you think Lucas Arts is a bitch...

"We're not building a Trekkers game, we're making a world class MMO."

That one sentence explains everything.

I would like to tack that on as one of those famous last words quotes...

Originally posted by Dracus

"We're not building a Trekkers game, we're making a world class MMO."

That one sentence explains everything.

I would like to tack that on as one of those famous last words quotes...

Further to that, Stinnett hopes that players will be happy because they are treating the license seriously and with respect.

"We're taking the world of Star Trek," he said, "and adapting it to make a killer MMO."

With five different ST series and countless films, some great and some awful I'd like to add, if a design team focused on jumping through hoops for Trekkers, they'd be pulled in a million different directions. IMHO, this is the first established sci-fi license that offers a political/social world with any potential MMO depth and I'll be perfectly happy with a "world class MMO that treats the license seriously and with respect" even if it doesn't pander to fans 100%.

Originally posted by JYCowboy

Why have we heard so little?

Why is development still at a early planning stage?

Just watch and wait.  You will see that Paramount is trying to flex creative control in some way.  They have a new movie on the way and, if a hit, will want this game to reflect it.  IP's can be a troublesome product for a MMO company.  If you look at the spotty products for the Star Trek franchise in gaming you will see my point.  I would love for this game to set new standards and be the best example of how to do an IP MMO.  I just don't trust Paramount.

Heh, and you think Lucas Arts is a bitch...

Not to split hairs, but as far as I remember, Paramount was recently purchased whole by CBS, including everything Trek-related.  There has been some restructuring, I am sure, but the new CBS/Paramount is a new entity.  Although I do share some of your skepticism, I won't pre-judge how, or even if, they will influence the development of the game.  As for the Trek IP in games of the past... Well, yeah - they need a good one finally.

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Originally posted by Lucifrank

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Originally posted by Dracus

"We're not building a Trekkers game, we're making a world class MMO."
That one sentence explains everything.
I would like to tack that on as one of those famous last words quotes...

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Yes, but the next line in the article was:
Further to that, Stinnett hopes that players will be happy because they are treating the license seriously and with respect.
"We're taking the world of Star Trek," he said, "and adapting it to make a killer MMO."
With five different ST series and countless films, some great and some awful I'd like to add, if a design team focused on jumping through hoops for Trekkers, they'd be pulled in a million different directions. IMHO, this is the first established sci-fi license that offers a political/social world with any potential MMO depth and I'll be perfectly happy with a "world class MMO that treats the license seriously and with respect" even if it doesn't pander to fans 100%.

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ummmmmm....NO!!! they are not showing proper respect for Star Trek...they are changing it into something they want it to be. If they were to make an acutal Star Trek game, they would go with their original idea by having starships ran by a full crew of players....respect my @$$....its going to be garbage just like how SWG ended up to be.

Originally posted by Lucifrank

 

Yes, but the next line in the article was:

 

Further to that, Blackman hopes that players will be happy because they are treating the license seriously and with respect.

"We're taking the world of Star Wars," he said, "and adapting it to make a killer MMO."

With six films, some great and some awful I'd like to add, if a design team focused on jumping through hoops for Star Wars Fans, they'd be pulled in a million different directions. IMHO, this is the first established sci-fi license that offers a political/social world with any potential MMO depth and I'll be perfectly happy with a "world class MMO that treats the license seriously and with respect" even if it doesn't pander to fans 100%.

Some past examples:

With any license, you trade having the disadvantage of restrictions on what you can do, with the advantages of having a rich, deep history from which to pull content. Our team has been extremely happy working on Star Wars, as LucasArts has provided a tremendous amount of resource material for us to work with. Our LucasArts producer, Haden Blackman, has been involved in the game since it began. He’s been helping with the design, participating in the community, reviewing our concept art, and providing suggestions on our direction.

- John Donham

I think everyone on the team is both inspired and intimidated by the level of interest and the high expectations for Star Wars Galaxies. We know that we can't please everyone and that the game can't be all things to all people, but the level of interest does motivate us to work as hard as we can to refine and polish our core feature set.

- Haden Blackman

Now the interesting point, is that Star Wars Galaxies was designed (initially) more for the Star Wars gamers and not the world-wide mass market as has been done with Worlds of Warcraft.  The New Game Enhancements is a reflection of making SWG for the mass-market.  I see Star Trek Online following the same path.

 

Now the interesting point, is that Star Wars Galaxies was designed (initially) more for the Star Wars gamers and not the world-wide mass market as has been done with Worlds of Warcraft.  The New Game Enhancements is a reflection of making SWG for the mass-market.  I see Star Trek Online following the same path.

 

I think its safe to say however that if SWG had been made with NGE in place from the start it would have had no where near the abuse which has been thrown at it. Its the fact that it changed from being something, into something completely different a year or two post release that rubbed all the players the wrong way.

Originally posted by andyjd

 

 

Now the interesting point, is that Star Wars Galaxies was designed (initially) more for the Star Wars gamers and not the world-wide mass market as has been done with Worlds of Warcraft.  The New Game Enhancements is a reflection of making SWG for the mass-market.  I see Star Trek Online following the same path.

 

 

I think its safe to say however that if SWG had been made with NGE in place from the start it would have had no where near the abuse which has been thrown at it. Its the fact that it changed from being something, into something completely different a year or two post release that rubbed all the players the wrong way.

Very good point. It was the shift from sandbox to Blizzard-esque linear game that got the panties of crotchety SWG players in a bunch. If it had been the way it is now from day one, we'd be spared a lot of whining on forums like this. For future reference, I think if anyone expects an MMORPG attached to a mainstream cash cow of an IP (be it Lucas, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, etc) to shoot for anything but being mainstream, it's time for a reality check.

Originally posted by Lucifrank

 

Originally posted by Dracus

"We're not building a Trekkers game, we're making a world class MMO."

That one sentence explains everything.

I would like to tack that on as one of those famous last words quotes...

Yes, but the next line in the article was:

 

Further to that, Stinnett hopes that players will be happy because they are treating the license seriously and with respect.

"We're taking the world of Star Trek," he said, "and adapting it to make a killer MMO."

How 'bout,  "we're taking mmo and adapting it to make a killer Star Trek game"

Thats what people actualy want, and expect out of this game.