In ST you start out as a captain, but without the rank of captain. As everone knows, if you are in command of the ship, you're the captain. Be it a row boat or an aircraft carrier.

The borg are in the game as an AI enemy. Romulans will be in the first patch from what we have read.

At this point there are still a lot of unknowns about the game. Though the trailer is actual in game footage and it looks good even in the unfinished state that its in.

Oh man, memories. In the picture for this article, you see the guy standing by the stone wall with those plants (I think they were glowing, was that right?) and you had to get into the cave.... I could never pass that part in the game when I was a kid (even though it was towards the beginning). I could never figure out what to do.

If somebody is going to do a really good, TV series based Science Fiction RTS/MMO game, they need to really take a hard look at something based on either Babylon 5, or on Andromeda. Both series are fairly open ended, in that there are multiple races, with diverging philosophies and different goals. Andromeda is almost completely open ended, with hundreds, if not thousands, of different races and planets, and the end god, defeating the Abyss being acheivable in multiple ways. Ship to ship combat is part and parcel of the series, which would work well in an RTS/MMO in sci-fi scenario.

Babylon 5 has a few major races (Humans, Narn, Centauri, Vorlons, Mimbari, and Shadows (along with their close allies, whose name escapes me now), along with dozens of minor races. Again, lots of plot possibilities, with again, massive space battles inhereint to the series. While essentially based on the same space station concept of Deep Space 9, the series allowed most of its characters to trave and participate in fleet movements and battles.

Deep Space 9 is fairly closed ended, being centered on the station itself, not really allowing for much travel or large scale space battles. The number of races is pretty limited, with the only major races being the the Founders/Dominion, Klingons, Humans/Starfleet, and Cardassians. Even Bajorian were relatively minor, and most of the battles were smaller, land based hamd to hand combat types, not really sci-fi type.

Kostas

Again, as a person who's just not into sci-fi, I think you did hit the nail on the head Rob in that they'll really need to open up the playable races to keep people interested for more than 18+ months. This, of course, creates more balancing issues with every new race you add but that IS the bread and butter of MMO's, especially if they're going to base it heavily on grouping.

Another thing I think they really need to pay attention to is the largest age group that are going to be playing this as I just don't see the majority being younger than 25, perhaps even 30, because of the age of the series itself. This, IMHO, presents a whole other bag of issues in itself. If this game is WoW'd (ie. nerfed for teens) I think that could basically ruin it over the long run but who knows. Exploration is good, but there's got to be a bit of trepidation and danger to go along with it. In MMO's there's much to be said of the risk vs. reward factor IMHO.

They've got a lot to think over. Just because it's Star Trek is going to give them an initial leg-up as far as early adopters but that can only take you so far...just look at Star Wars Galaxies. MMO's are, and have to be, an incredibly complex beast...especially if it's expected to last. There's a reason there are more bombs in the MMO genre than there are true successes.

I know legacy isn't the best game, but I like it for the simple fact that I can just play quick battles and blow up ships. It's the kind of game I can have fun with and not spend all day playing it. I personally enjoy a quick game. I think it looks pretty good myself.