Where no MMOG has gone before

By Linda "Brasse" Carlson

All right, all right, I give… the title to this piece is too obvious. Keep in mind that I have been waiting almost a decade for an MMO developer to take on the much maligned Star Trek franchise.

Let's face it, there have been a lot of Star Trek games made, and the vast majority of them have been lackluster, at best.

On March 6, I had the opportunity to visit Perpetual Entertainment's development studio in downtown San Francisco. They are just a few blocks from the Game Developer's Conference site, and really hard to spot from the street. I was actually there to try out a playable demo of Perpetual's Gods and Heroes game, but that is another, and longer story.

Star Trek. A secret passion of many gamers, and the one most likely to be denied in casual conversation. Yet we all know the characters, the races, the worlds, the conflicts. We've seen the movies. We've seen the games come and go. We've watched several iterations of the Star Trek universe on television.

After an hour of talking with some of the folks at Perpetual, and seeing the path they have started down, I can only say…. About time!

At the very end of the evening, I saw just two people in the previously overcrowded room where a looped demo reel was running… I slipped inside to take advantage of this opportunity, and found that the gents inside were Daron Stinnett, Executive Producer for Perpetual, and an intense young man whose name I did not catch. I am sure that I will learn the name soon though, for he is the fellow who has done amazing things with the Star Trek music. It is clearly reminiscent of the older themes that we are familiar with, but without the sense of ponderous, almost funereal seriousness. This is music you can listen to while you play, happily. It underlines the general impression I acquired of the treatment for the whole Star Trek Online package. This is not your old school, hard-line Star Trek. Perpetual is working on reinventing the universe, while keeping all the best bits.

Daron explained that things had changed with the franchise holders. With Gene Roddenberry, the creative genius behind Star Trek, now gone from this world, the license itself has bounced around between several involved parties including Paramount Pictures, before finally settling with CBS. Perpetual was able to negotiate a license free of some of the most stifling restrictions that have been an issue in the past.

Freedom meant some startling and exciting creative departures in terms of character design. Initial drawings displayed around the Perpetual office showed a strong attention to the essence of what differentiates the races, while exploring a more fantasy-style design. We are not talking WoW-type over the top, but they do employ some tasteful exaggeration of features. You can dispense with the thought of same-old, same-old boring human redshirt or cookie-cutter Ferengi. The races therefore have more differentiation than they do in any of the preceding titles in any media. They looked great.

As Josh, one of the character artists kept repeating, it has not been decided which races will be playable. The designs for the various Star Trek races could apply equally to playable or NPC characters. Being a die-hard Klingon fan, I am keeping all my fingers crossed that my chosen race makes it into character creation.

Perpetual is only just getting started on this exciting project (they still have work to do on Gods and Heroes before it can be released; again… another story!), but the early terrain builds looked fantastic. Clearly a lot of attention is being paid to detail and quality, even in these very early builds. Sketches for buildings that I saw were truly amazing, and full of recognizable flair of the various civilizations.

Put me on the list. I am hooked on Star Trek, again. I am going to go brush up on my Klingon now, just in case!