Browser-Based Deep Space Nine MMO Coming In 2011 153
A publisher based in Germany has announced Star Trek: Infinite Space, a browser MMO based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The game will be free-to-play, and it's planned for sometime in 2011. "Gameforge also contracted Michael Okuda, who served as scenic art supervisor for every live-action Star Trek series except for the original program, as a consultant. His wife Denise Okuda, who was a video supervisor and scenic artist for several of the sci-fi series' films and shows, will serve as a consultant, too."
Browser based, which browsers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Will i be able to play this in chrome on linux, or will this be some windows only plugin for IE/FF job?
and yeah, DS9, not my choice... (despite the copious involvement of romulans in the later seasons)
Re:Look on the bright side... (Score:3, Interesting)
ST:O was a solid game. It had fun moments, and I found it to be quite entertaining. Mainly the space combat though, the ground combat was horrific mainly due to the dumb as shit AI.
Apart from the dumb AI it suffered mainly from lack of variety. Once you'd hit max level (which you would do after about a month of casual play) there was bugger all to do. I hear it's changed a bit now and there is actual end-game content, but I've not gone back to play it since then.
So yes, it is possible to be worse than Star Trek Online.
You could have been APB. (Note: I played that and had fun with it too, but it only had the basic game mechanics and sod all else, asking us to pay a fee for what is essentially counter strike with cars was what caused it's failure imo)
Re:OH lord (Score:5, Interesting)
go pick the worst star trek and make a game of it
yippy
Actually, at first I didn't like DS9 either. That was in '93. Lately I've gone back and watched the whole series and found that I really liked it, perhaps even as much as TNG or Voyager. DS9 really explores that whole personal side of ST well and exploits the "Its the 24th century and we're still having the same old problems" factor.
Re:Browser based, which browsers? (Score:4, Interesting)
yeah, of all these browser-based MMO's coming out I wonder what engine they're using.
It is an off-the-peg one like Unity, is it a converted-to-plugin like QuakeLive, or are they all building their own from scratch?
I develop browser-based e-Learning (don't snigger) and we've seriously been looking into Unity.
For once, I expect this to be a good StarTrek Game (Score:5, Interesting)
[Disclaimer: I work at Gameforge]
Ok, so hear me out.
1.) Approximately 70% of our company is comprised of Nerds and Geeks, most of which are your Type A RPG, Comic, Star Wars and Star Trek fan. I can go on babbling all day about *anything* that interests me and I'll never get a stupid look, since nearly everybody knows what I'm talking about all of the time. Be it obscure Monty Python references or anything computer and software related. Or, as the case might be, SciFi stuff.
And since a lot of us are Trekkies, nobody here wants to screw this up. Every inhouse title goes through thorough inhouse play-testing, so the Trekkies will be all over the Product Team like a pile of bricks if they screw around with the StarTrek universe. It's convenient for this sort of thing that we *all* are in the same complex, 300 meters appart at most. From Alex (our CEO) and the upper Board across development and marketing all the way to Community Management.
2.) We actually know how to do Browsergames. We've raked in quite a few prestigious rewards and gained a solid reputation with our inhouse titles like Ikariam, Europe 1400, Wildfire and OGame and judging from the numbers they are *very* successful - and for good reasons too. I've been playing OGame and Wild Guns and both are solid fun right up to flat out addictive. We do have some not-so-spectacular acquired & redone B titles to fluff up the Portfolio, but even most of those astonishingly fun to play, although I really couldn't say why (play a round of Tanoth [tanoth.us] to see what I mean :-) )
Bottom line: We have a hoard of Trekkies right here on our team and we know how to make a fun game. IMHO that's a good foundation for building a neat DSN MMO.
My 2 cents.
Re:Browser based, which browsers? (Score:4, Interesting)
The firm said it had two titles under development: a Facebook game developed by a German studio (presumably Star Trek: Infinite Space), and another release by a studio in California.
So those of us who are not sad enough^W^Won Facebook won't be able to play? Or what? I'm not signing up to the world's biggest self-incrimination website just to play a DS9 game.
Re:What will they grind? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Browser based, which browsers? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't play any subscription or 'free to play' RPGs (I have a bit in the past). Giving an edge to people who pay isn't inherently less fair than giving it to whoever spends the most time playing. I tend to stick to games which give little if any advantage to either (beyond the increased knowledge of greater play time).
Re:Browser based, which browsers? (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't always have to be that way. Game! [wittyrpg.com] is completely free for example, no buying your way to victory.
Re:What will they grind? (Score:2, Interesting)
Some MMOs have quite a lot of story, it's just that
(a) some players don't care about the story and focus on other things, even to the extent of clicking "skip" on important story developments.
(b) hugely long play times (it's not unusual to spend literally days playing these things) exhaust a lot of story material
Take Stratholme in World of Warcraft. There's a rich history to that place, you could spend a few hours of WoW finding out about it, visiting the scourge infested modern instance, rescuing a captive against the clock, defeating the misguided Scarlet Crusade and so on. Then later use the Caverns of Time to see how it became that way, meet an important historical figure and help set history on its correct path. You get to be part of a legendary story in WoW's history.
OR it's two 5-man instances, one too large and the other too boring to be worth running if not for the mount that sometimes drops. The setting is interesting the first time you visit, but not after you've spend several weeks doing it over and over again.
Re:wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
The DS9 universe is so far from the STNG universe that it is almost in another dimension.
War will do that. The Europe of the 1910s is so far from the Europe of the 1900s that it's almost on another planet.
Re:OH lord (Score:2, Interesting)
Sisko made for an extremely charismatic leader; I'd say as good as Picard or Kirk in his own way.
Bullshit. Sisko was the most annoying ST captain ever, even moreso than Janeway. He started out just fine and then turned into a religious icon and nutjob. He reminds me of John Sheridan from Babylon 5 -- the messiah complex made both of them unbearable, IMHO. There were also plot holes in his character big enough to drive a Galaxy Class Starship through, like Captain Sisko being in command of a fleet of 600+ ships during the most pivotal battle in Federation history. Apparently all the Admirals were too busy doing paperwork to make it to the front lines.
Don't get me wrong, DS9 had some great characters. Garak is my favorite ST character out of all the series. Miles O'Brian is the quintessential "everyman" character. Kira's struggles with her past and evolution over the years were compelling writing. Even Quark was good in his own way as an outside perspective on humanity and the Federation. But Sisko? Sorry, I just can't get past the messiah complex.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:3, Interesting)
The very beginning of DS9 was almost directly copied from JMS' early scripts that he had pitched to Paramount. There's some old Usenet posts from JMS where, shortly some DS9 trailers come out, he noticed that the "goo-man" (Odo) was ripped directly from one of his early drafts from back then.
DS9's story arcs went a different direction eventually, and is better for it.
Re:wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
I love both shows, for different reasons.
DS9 was the proof of concept that you could have Trek without Ye Olde Starship. (I'm actually not fond of the Defiant, since it seemed like a copout on that front). Babylon 5 was proof of concept that you could have an overarching plot in place and tell a story over multiple seasons. Babylon 5 was also proof of concept that CGI would work in television (DS9 looks nicer because they're still using models until later in the series). Yeah, it looks dated, but so does original Trek and no-one complains about that.
Re:OH lord (Score:2, Interesting)
/THIS!
The contrast of being "Starfleet" morally and trying to deal in a part of space where the closest others got to a Federation/Starfleet mind-set is talking about root beer, is part of what made the show great.
Its good to see how people have to deal with their ideals in a part of the galaxy that doesn't share them.