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STO Update - Jul 22, 2005, 8:30 am
Though we're still early in development, I have to say that we're starting to make some exciting progress. One of the keys to that progress has been the addition of Ian Pieragostini, our Client Lead. Ian comes to us from EA where he headed up the XBOX 360 graphics team on Godfather, and before that Microsoft working on Combat Flight Sim among other titles. Ian's graphics background and experience with large scale development methodologies are a perfect match for STO. He's getting our tech effort up and running so we can start trying out some of our ideas on screen. Moreover, Ian is a big Star Trek fan and a dedicated MMO player. I really can't imagine a better addition to the team.
We're also making solid progress on the design front. Glen (STO Lead Designer) has put much of the design into focus - at least most of the major pieces. We've been running the key design points through our internal review process and the feedback has been largely positive. Two of the most difficult and important design tent-poles remain though: combat and player ships. We've been doing a lot of thinking on both of these topics, but I can't say that we've gotten either to a stable place yet. The debate boils down to how much action to put into away mission combat vs. more traditional turn/rules based models. And on the ship front: how and when we give players access to ships, including the issue of supporting both solo and group oriented players. Though I think we're close to solving the ship issue and I'm hoping that we can start sharing some of our ideas with the community soon.
One of the methods we're using to validate our ideas is early consumer testing. We have prepared four high-concepts and a number of detailed questions that we'll run by 600 potential customers. The group will consist entirely of PC gamers with Internet access. About 200 of the pool will be moderate to hard core MMO players, and another 200 will be moderate to hard core Star Trek fans. We want to see how various concepts fly with those different audiences. Obviously we're looking for one concept that has the most appeal to all three of those groups. We're also using the test to determine the potential for Star Trek beyond the core Star Trek gaming community. The key breakout success with STO will be in our ability to attract latent fans and new players to the MMO genre.
The other big design focus at the moment is determining our scope. We've put a lot of thought into the kinds of places players will visit/explore, but until very recently, we didn't have a good sense of just how large our world is going to be. It's safe to say at this point that our explorable terrain will be vast. Which of course, everyone will expect. While on one hand the expectations are high, the nature of Star Trek also works in our favor. Instead of creating a single large land mass, we can distribute our playable space across the galaxy on hundreds of planets - adding to the sense of scale. Another advantage is that we can easily add new planets at any time to accommodate new play areas. We don't have to worry about how a new playable area integrates into a single land mass. Add to this the notion of explorable space, and I think we're starting to get our heads wrapped around a rational plan to satisfy the scale and quality expectation.
PS: Anyone going to the Star Trek Convention in August? We'll be kicking around the show.
- Daron Stinnett (Executive Producer)
