“ There’s a little more action, but it’s still a strong character piece, because it’s based on The Tempest and the idea of a father whose daughter is being courted by, in the original play, sailors that are washed up on shore. You need to have that dynamic still in place to respect the original and the source material. So there’s a fair amount of talking, but there’s some really cool action pieces in it as well.”

“ We’ve actually decided to show more of the first ship when it first arrived 20 years earlier to sort of counterpoint what’s happening in the present story. If you’re a fan of the original, as I am, and have always been, I think it’s very faithful to that.”

So why am I concerned here,

• War of the Worlds

• The Day the Earth Stood Still
  

Were these good remakes of 2 other classic’s in the case of  War of the Worlds NO and The Day the Earth Stood Still YES, I actually liked that one Keanu Reeves surprised me and the story showed imagination but kept true to the original, but I really really what’d to see much more GORT on the rampage  War of the Worlds showed no imagination and I never did like Tom Cruise. What will Forbidden Planet be like, I’ll let you know

This Q&A is all about UI for Star Trek Online:

” A fundamental key to making a good MMOG is its User Interface. A poorly fashioned interface will make it hard to enjoy a game, no matter what its other assets, and a good UI will be almost transparent as users start up the game for the first time and begin taking control, almost without thinking about it. We spoke this week to Amy Skopik, UI Designer for Star Trek Online and Craig Zinkievich, Executive Producer to unveil some of the challenges and innovation of STO’s interface. ”

That sounds like a pretty good statement, nothing kills the mood faster than a poor UI. The best games I played started with my Avatar doing what it was supposed to without me thinking to hard about it and for me the best solution would be a PC using a 360 gamepad and there is encouraging news on that front:

In a Q&A with Strategy Informer Craig was asked:  ” You’ve mentioned before that you might like to take STO onto the Home Console – provided you do, it would be the most serious attempt since FFXI – what are your thoughts about this genre and consoles “

Craig Zinkievich:” We definitely would like to see Star Trek Online on the console. We think that games being on multiple platforms including MMO’s are the future of gaming”

Champions also made this claim and it still has not happened but the good news is that Champions seems to work quit well with the 360 gamepad on a PC according  articles I have reed. Forums seem to agree It’s as if the game was designed for a later release on the Xbox 360. Check out  Tobold’s MMORPG Blog he has an interesting article on it. Star Trek Online will use the same engine as Champions and if you go by Craig’s statement to strategy Informer then one has reason for hope. Just to put things in prospective no MMO of Star Trek’s scope has actually made it to the console since FFXI, and many have tried non have succeeded.  Square Enix has recently announced a release date for  FFXIII of March 9, 2010 and it will be PS3 exclusive, but it’s FFXIV the will be Sony’s MMO contender on the PS3 that I’m waiting to see. To Read the Full interview go to TenTonHammer.

The first thing that caught my eye was from the Question :

Drexel-: How will the use of our weapon systems and abilities be limited during combat?

In the answer Al  mentions 4 possible weapons slots

• Beam arrays
• Cannons
• Torpedos
• Mines

This is the first mention of Mines which is good but there is nothing about Drones or Drone Racks and these are very effective in keeping an enemy at a distance if you’re trying to make an escape or trying to drain their weapons power I’m keeping my fingers crossed it comes up later like when I mentioned Shuttles and Boarding Parties and the nest day what does Ship Tactics Part II show use, that very subject. Cool Down Rates along with Limited Power will insure you have to think about what you’re doing and not just blast away like some crazed Khan

I like Al’s Answer the Fanboy’s question :

FanBoy: What will happen when you “die”?

In the answer Al shows some humor to a very serious question that every gamer, especially in MMO’s needs to know. What is the penalty for death? there  is a five balance between being a good death and a throw your arms up in the air and walk away death. If it is to high then the player will get frustrated and lose interest in the game if  it’s to light then this encourages reckless play and other players get pissed off, Games these days have gotten a lot more forgiving on the death penalty, partly because we do so much of it and mainly because only the hardcore players would put up with the great loss of time invested with a high penalty.  That is a sure way to lose your subscriber base

Al’s answer to Grandpotato’s question is not exactly an answer

GrandPotato, eddie: Will there be boarding parties? If so, can you capture vessels, or does that just disable them or something?

We know there will be Boarding Parties but will they be able to take control of an opponents ship before he can Self Destruct. My answer would be NO.  How would you feel it someone boarded your ship and took it from you after you’ve spent 10′s maybe 100′s of hours building it up.  I would not be pleased and probably quit right there and if I did not quit I sure wouldn’t get into any fights unless I knew for sure 100% I was going to win. That being said PvE would be different…..?

There also a good question on Science ships and how they affect other ships. you can read the full Q$A at Massively and stay tuned for the third round of Q%A sometime in the near future I’m not even sure what the subject will be maybe Ground Combat if you have any ideas let them know

“ The good news is it’s not too late to get your hands on a Chocobo – Xbox LIVE users still interested can visit the Xbox.com page and register prior to the code distribution in late December. “

Yoichi Wada

Yoichi Wada says trade must prepare for switch to digital distribution and server-based games and I have to largely agree with him in an Interview he gave to MCV. Digital distribution is going to happen it makes sence from every business standpoint. Console’s will still be here but we may not recognize them as such. They will probably resemble a modem with a very large internal hard drive and by large I mean at least1 hundred Terra-bit (HD video takes up a lot of space) which by then will be a solid state flash drive costing no more than current console drives with a reliability that can only be found in solid state,  there will be no need for a fan or at least a very small one. These hard drives will store all of our music, video, pictures and of course games all downloaded from who ever you want to buy them from and you will be watching everything on your 100 inch LCD  HD  TV. If this is starting to sound familiar to you it’s because we have been living with  it’s crude ancestor for 4 years now. Sony started the ball rolling with the PS2  and Microsoft got the message, the PC was not going to be that futuristic media center they had envisioned for everybody, they had no choice but to  respond.  Yes I can hear the Hardcore gamers already, “no Xbox 360+ could ever replace a PC for gaming” and you would be right if things stayed the way they are now. There is a service out there right now that is in beta  called  OnLive which promises HD-level games over a broadband connection. Will this actually be the answer, who knows. but the idea is to have servers do all the heavy lifting and get the hardware out of your house. Yes I heard you again latency is the problem and I didn’t say it was here now. The Wii has shown that at least half the gaming market is the casual gamer who doesn’t demand high performance or graphics anyway. Microsoft’s introduction of Avatars, Netflix and the whole NXE experience along with their recent addition of Twitter/Facebook have shown the industry as a whole is turning to a more Social media network based modal were even the traditional controller is in question. Project Netal anyone.  Hardcore gamers will always be here it’s the nature of the beast to want to be the last man standing in any competition all  in photo realism, just look at Call of Duty: MW2. Any company that ignores that segment does so at their own risk, unless your Nintendo and have decided that it is not your market anymore.

Wada warned that “all the distributors and sales firms will suffer a big negative impact” from a new era in which interactive entertainment switches from software run on hardware in the home to server-based offerings, game streaming and digital distribution.

He claimed that format-holders including Sony and Microsoft are already prepared for the shift – and that third-parties must follow suit. Source:  MCV

” This report contains comparative data om MMO players across six surveyed countries. It comprises approximately 60 pages and 70 graphs. The product also includes a full table set comparing MMO players in all six countries across all questions of the survey allowing unlimited cross-analysis and detail. “ Source: Gamesindustry

MMOs constitute 14 percent of all time spent playing video games in the U.S., according to the survey results. Console games, by comparison, claimed 34 percent of game playing time in the States. The average age of those players my surprise you, but there is a good reason for that. To read the full article go to  WorldsInMotion

” The effects changed from series to series and from movie to movie, and of course you have the J.J. Abrams version, which is different than all of them. If there is one thing we learned from Abrams it is if you make it cool enough, the fans will like it. “  said Cavallaro  ” The first step in visualizing an effect is to meet with the design team to see exactly what something does, when it’s used and how much damage it inflicts. From there we scour old episodes and movies to find all the reference for that particular effect. Sometimes we have several versions and sometimes it just doesn’t exist. In the case of different versions from different time periods, we try to find the most iconic one to build off of and give it a modern look. For new effects, we work closely with the Art Lead and Concept Team to make sure that what we are creating looks and feels like it is Star Trek IP. It’s kinda cool to think that a future Star Trek movie or TV show might use something we created as canon “

Judging from what I have seen so far Michael and his team have done a Great job the game looks better than I was anticipating  when Star Trek Online was first announced. To read the full article go to Michael Cavallaro’s dev blog hosted on IGN.