I guess most of you know Cryptic is the studio behind City of Heroes/Villains and the new Champions Online superhero games. These MMOs excel in customization options, and Star Trek Online will continue this trend. During the behind closed doors demo at Gamescom, we were shown a character generator that allowed an almost limitless creativity. It even allows the player to create his or her own alien race. This feature worried me at first. Not that I am a stickler for canon or anything, but it struck me as weird to have many people play a creature which is the only specimen of that race. It turns out, this does not have to be the case. I asked if it was possible to share designs with other players, and the answer was yes. This shines a whole new light on this feature. It makes it possible to start a guild (‘fleet’ in STO) made up of a new unique race, designed by the players.

Come fly with me
When the guys from Cryptic wanted to show how ships can be just as unique, a small glitch caused some hilarity. Rather than the expected ship model, a rather confused looking human materialized in outer space. A few button presses later, the correct model was flying on the big screen. Ships can be fitted with all kinds of parts, creating a unique and personal look. Ships cannot be every shape you want, though. Every class has its base configuration which will always be recognizable. There will be no mistaking a Galaxy class starship from, for example, a Constellation class. These craft can of course be taken into combat. Starship battles will be tactical and allow for huge epic fights. Imagine, for example, fleets of 25 ships working together to fight a Borg cube.

Up, up and away
The core of an MMO is of course team play, and STO has its own way of dealing with parties. Every standard away-team will be composed of five characters. If there aren’t enough players to fill out all spaces, NPCs will step in. Every player will have access to NPC officers, who are ‘pets’ with different strenghts and skills. As you move up through the ranks, you can have more and better officers in your ship, and therefore in your party.

To boldly go…
Damn, I was doing so well. But how else could I describe the exploration system? Cryptic designed what they call the ‘Genesis system’, which procedurally generates planets. The game designers use Genesis as the basis for in-game missions. But it will also be used to allow players to actually explore strange new worlds. By going into certain sectors, players can find stars and planets that have never been seen before. Not only that, it is possible to share coordinates with others, to show off your discoveries. I am very curious about how this will play out in the actual game, and if these player discovered planets feel like part of the universe, or ‘tacked on’. The idea is great in theory, anyway.

Star Trek Online certainly seems to have the correct ideas about what makes Star Trek great. It gives players a tall ship and a star to steer it by. It looks very well and the art style is dead on. I do hope the game will have many more sandbox-like elements, like the exploration system. For me, Star Trek was not about grinding for an epic phaser, but about the freedom to fly to the stars. So far, Cryptic seems to give us just that.