What's up with Star Trek Online?

MMORPG.com has a piece talking with Daron Stinnett, producer for the preproduction-phase MMOG Star Trek Online. They discuss the decision to only include the Federation in the game's launch, the gameplay both on starships and planetside, and the many ideas still being nailed down for the title. From the article: "The uniforms are a good example of an area where we've needed to evolve the look of Star Trek to support the game. Star Trek uniforms from the shows tend to be very subtle in their variation, which of course works when you're filming close enough to make the actors themselves the stars of the show. But for an MMO, It's well understood that giving players the ability to customize their look as their character evolves is an important part of any MMO as is the ability to recognize player rank and specialty from a distance. So we have created new uniforms that are still very recognizable as Star Trek, but with recognition and customization features that will work well in our game world."

They're...

[thesandtiger]

... called "UNIforms" for a reason. One form.

I agree, in a game they need to be a little more dynamic, look different etc. It'll be interesting to see how this gets pulled off.

and down the crapper.

[Hakubi_Washu]

Meticulously sticking to details on the lighting of the carpet, but the uniforms need to be redesigned, yeah. The ones in their gallery just look wrong (example http://startrek.perpetual.com/images/gallery/conce pts/large/1.gif [perpetual.com]), like they have hard plastic pieces attached on shoulders and chest and added some giant boots. Looks stupid and certainly not different enough from a distance to justify it, sorry, they fail.

suggestions:

[cgenman]

Allow all characters to participate in space combat in a meaningful way. If you have a minor ship, you may have to hide behind a major ship to keep from getting squished, but you should still be somewhat useful. Likewise, a swarm of 10 or 20 low-level ships should still be able to take down a high-level ship. Play the packs of rabble rousers against the single monolythic guardians.

No single overarching "level." If players have engineering experience, they have engineering experience. If they make money and can afford a larger ship, their status in ship size is better. But no player should be "level 19" or "Level 105" or level anything overall.

Put showmanship into your missions. Don't hire entry-level game designers to setup missions: hire entry-level film students.

Shake up the world. The satisfying climax of Star Wars is the transformation of the galaxy. The interesting parts of Bound are the ones where the rug is pulled out from underneath you. When the player doesn't expect it, transport him to an alternate universe. Or temporarily dissolve the fedaration council, allowing him to get attacked with impunity. Or do any one of a number of things to alter the course of history. Maybe it is for everyone, like AC, or maybe it is just for them... like Guild Wars.