Star Trek Online

[Midnite]

Star Trek Online Closed Beta Signups: Taking Applications

[Midnite]

Starship combat

[Midnite]

PAX 09: Craig Zinkievich Interview HD

[thalaw2]

The setting

It makes my mouth water!

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

It looks like they did indeed put a lot of thought into the setting and sounds like somebody behind this is a real Star Trek fan.  This is encouraging.

I did apply for the beta but have doubts about making it.  I don't play MMOs and am not likely to begin paying for one and said so on the application, but then again, they might be interested in seeing what someone like me thinks after trying it out to see if they can attract non MMO fan Trekies.  We'll see.

[BWPS]

Ugh. The racism was barely even subtle in this one. I'm sick of all this anti-Klingon propaganda that gets shoved down our throats.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

The klingons are warlike and they hate the Romulans, so of course they'd attack during a Romulan Civil War.  It's not anti-Klingonism, its Klingons acting like Klingons.

Sheesh, some people take things too seriously.

[thalaw2]

I never cared much for the races in Star Trek....they all seem too one-dimensional to me.  But, I like the stories and I'm a huge Sci-Fi fan.

[BlueBard]

Star Trek Online Closed Beta Signups: Taking Applications

You'd think a commercial site associated with a software company would know better than to skip a commercial-grade SSL certificate in this day and age, but...

This Connection is Untrusted

You have asked Firefox to connect securely to www.startrekonline.com, but we can't confirm that your connection is secure.

Normally, when you try to connect securely, sites will present trusted identification to prove that you are
going to the right place. However, this site's identity can't be verified.

Guess I don't get to sign up for the beta.  Not going to transmit personal information in the clear.

[Camma]

I never cared much for the races in Star Trek....they all seem too one-dimensional to me.  But, I like the stories and I'm a huge Sci-Fi fan.

One interesting point on the official website: You can customize your character's look in a variety of ways such that they claim you can "create your own race".  I assume this means that you are in the Federation side of things tho, since i can't imagine the Klingons allowing other races in their empire.

All and all, i would say this game shows a lot of promise.  Enough of the usual MMO elements, but with some new mechanics and of course the classic ST setting.  In terms of a comparison of reported gameplay, ship/character types, and settings, STO appears to have SW:The Old Republic beat, IMO.  Now let me qualify by saying that in a normal setting, I would choose SW over ST any day, and both games are still in development so it is unfair to compare potential gameplay aspects.  But if STO lives up to its potential i would choose it over SW:The Old Republic.

[thalaw2]

The STO makes more sense to me...it's in the future.  with Old Republic i get the feeling that the SW universe has been static for thousands of years in terms of tech.  What's the real difference between A New Hope tech and tech from KOTR?

[Lord Elcorion]

that's a good question, and not easily answered. a couple of possibilities include;

1. SW tech has reached an apsolute pinnicle of development. there just isn't anything more advanced and no amount of reserch will yield greater tech than what is present. unlikely.

2. SW tech is stalled, scientific researchers have theories and plans for greater tech, but are unable to overcome certain obstacles for whatever reason OR technological research is no longer a priority, civilization is content with the level of tech they have and aren't concerned with getting better. seems more likely than option 1, but given the span of time, it indicates a society that has fallen victim to universal crippleing apathy. how the galaxy could function in such a state is incomprehensible.

3. further technological development is restricted in some way, either by new advances being quickly lost due to the constant state of conflict that the republic always seems to be in, or by way of deliberate suppresion. ((the jedi wish to maintain their position of power by preventing technology from eclipseing the power of the Force, perhaps?))

[Trelau]

The only known advance in SW development is:
_bigger ships (the star destroyer are a good example, in the old republic you're not suppose to find that big a ship)
_faster ship: for light-speed travel i mean. hyperdrive are ranked with a number who says how close they are to the actual speed of light (natural speed limit in the universe). so the fastest was the falcon with 0.7 (i dont know 0.7 what) and a classic ship would be between 0.9 and 1.2. in the old republic the fastest was 1.1 if i remember correctly.

As for technological restrictment, yes. The empire refused any intelligence other than human. So, in a galaxy full of alien, refusing the help and the technology of anything non-human was kind of a handicap. And non-human mean also droid. Research in artificial intelligence was frozen: droid are here to serve, not to think.
So the empire probably set the technoly back a few hundred years i guess. Same probably goes for the sith war.

I guess you could say that before the empire, the senate and the economical concurence prevented all the planet to share their technology too.

But i would love to see an old style lightsaber (with the battery in a backpack...that would be awesome) in the old republic

[BlueBard]

Not sure I understand those hyperdrive rankings...

If we say that the speed of light is 1.0, I would think that 0.7 would be 70% of the speed of light and 1.1 would be 110% of the speed of light.

We could look at it in a more relativistic way using the speed of the drive as the basis.  Then 0.7 would mean that the speed of light is 30% slower than the drive and 1.1 would mean that the speed of light is 10% faster than the drive.  That seems really convoluted to me, though.

[thalaw2]

If what BB says is close to the truth (according to SW), then ships in SW are far far slower than ST.   It would take forever to get from one planet to another in different solar systems.

[Talavar]

My understanding is that Star Wars ships go at a decent percentage of the speed of light through the shortcut dimension of hyperspace.  But science has never been important to Star Wars - it's pure window dressing.  Star Trek isn't exactly hard SF, but Star Wars makes it look like Alistair Reynolds.

[Trelau]

Not sure I understand those hyperdrive rankings...

If we say that the speed of light is 1.0, I would think that 0.7 would be 70% of the speed of light and 1.1 would be 110% of the speed of light.

yeah, i know it's confusing, but actually, the lower the better. the 0.7 = 70% of light speed was my fist guess too, until i read the rest of the book saying that the falcon 0.7 was faster than a destroyer with 1.1. it's confusing, but i guess 0.0 is light speed, and the further you go, the slower you are.

i should ask wookiepedia. i'll be back

edit: there we have it, i was wrong on the exact number (falcon is 0.5 and boba fett's slave 1 was 0.7) but it's basically what i said. nobody what it exactly means, but the lower number is the fastest:

The superluminal speed of a hyperdrive was rated on a decreasing scale; the faster the hyperdrive, the lower the rating. These ratings were generally referred to as "Classes" and provided a quick, although often inconsistent or inaccurate, idea of a ship's hyperdrive speed. It was based on an asymptotic scale with Class 0.0 being infinite speed. In 30 BBY, Class 3 drives were experimental, and by the end of the Clone Wars most military starships were using Class 3 or Class 2. During the Galactic Civil War, military capital ships and starfighters were generally equipped with Class 1 or Class 2, industrial freighters and haulers with Class 3 or Class 4, and civilian starships with Class 5 or above.

Some starships, such as the Millennium Falcon, underwent after-market modifications to achieve ratings of Class 0.5, and Dash Rendar's Outrider also had a hyperdrive Class 0.75, which was also achieved by modifications, although tampering with the generally stable technology of a hyperdrive was considered a dangerous activity. Boba Fett's Slave I had a class 0.7 hyperdrive. Hyperdrives built by those outside the sphere of the Galactic Republic, Galactic Empire and New Republic, such as the Hapan Froond-class hyperdrive, were not classed in the standard system, as controlled comparisons were difficult to attain. Some Zonama Sekotan ships were able to achieve a Class 0.4 by combining high class hyperdives with organic technology,[1] as did the Bes'uliik starfighter via fusion of Verpine and Mandalorian technology.

Additionally, some spacecraft, like the Theta-class shuttle, had backup hyperdrives of Class 15.

re-edit: aaaaaaah. it's a multiplier for the base travel time

In the two roleplaying games based on Star Wars, Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game by West End Games and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game by Wizards of the Coast, the hyperdrive class acts as a multiplier for the base travel time. Thus, a Class 2 takes twice the listed time to travel a given route, while the Millennium Falcon's Class 0.5 takes only half the listed time.

now it makes sense

[thalaw2]

My understanding is that Star Wars ships go at a decent percentage of the speed of light through the shortcut dimension of hyperspace.  But science has never been important to Star Wars - it's pure window dressing.  Star Trek isn't exactly hard SF, but Star Wars makes it look like Alistair Reynolds.

That's the best interpretation of it IMO.  Trying to classify a SW ship hyperdrive is useless.  It's all about the action.

[Midnite]

New Star Trek Online video shows tactical combat, UI

[Ares_God_of_War]

Well I preordered. I am sort of dissapointed in all the extras you have to preorder for. I hate preorder exclusives

[BlueBard]

Not gonna pre-order... not even going to think about getting until a bunch of people I know play it and say it doesn't suck...

[Tawodi Osdi]

I think I will wait for a demo version.  I run Linux and there is no guarantee I can even get to run.  At least I couldn't get the Champions Online demo to run.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Combat looks similar to the Starfleet battles computer games, which is a good thing.

EDIT:

Okay, that I don't like.

Just learned that the Klingons are PVP only.  No, or very few, missions, away team stuff, or anything.  That seems to me like a half done job.  Apparently there's already a backlash against this and the developers have said they could add more stuff for them later, but I still don't like it.  I don't play MMO's but this one has been tempting me, but PVP only Klingon side makes me reconsider.

[BlueBard]

I could kind of see reserving Klingons for PVP, if it made sense to do so.  In certain periods of the Klingon Empire it would make perfect sense.  If this were a game about the Klingons.  Which it isn't.

It probably would have been better to keep Klingons as an NPC race and then roll it out for players in a later expansion/release when it was ready.

[Zapow]

I guess I need to remind folks that Star Trek Online is still in its closed beta phase and posting anything but officially released information and videos is a massive violation of their NDA and opens FR up to legal issues.

More posts of this nature will be deleted immediately with posters being subject to disciplinary action.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

It probably would have been better to keep Klingons as an NPC race and then roll it out for players in a later expansion/release when it was ready.

They actually aren't a race, but a side, as the Klingon empire now includes the Romulans, Gorn, and a few other Trek baddies.  But yeah, a later expansion would have made more sense.

[Ares_God_of_War]

when did the klingons conquer the romulan empire?

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

In the game's post Nemesis/Spock goes back in time timeline.

[Ares_God_of_War]

ahhh, where did you see this? I wish they would put out more of those road to the future timeline things. Last I left off some chick was on her way to possibly being emperess and it sounded like Sela was going to partner with the Hirogen. So will you be able to have Romulan bridge officers along with the Gorn, Orion and Nausican?

[Ares_God_of_War]

Open Beta has started and I am downloading the client now. I will tell you what I think after playing it a bit.