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Browser-Based Deep Space Nine MMO Coming In 2011
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."
wrong series...
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.
Rather than tell stories like a real RPG, MMORPGs keep people playing by grinding. In the DS9 universe, what could they grind?
A situation with replicators in every cafeteria is going to make grinding pretty difficult.
Quest - "Go to the replicator and fetch me ten cups of racktageno."
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
[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 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.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
DS9 was failing and then along came babylon 5... DS9 copied that genius of a show and invented the incredibly derivative 'arc' of the dominion war (whatever). The DS9 universe is so far from the STNG universe that it is almost in another dimension.
DS9 was Space Station, Wormhole, Cardassians, Gamma Quadrant, Dominion, Jem'Hadar, USS Defiant.
Wrong! Deep Space Nine was about a balding commander coming to terms with his lack of facial hair. By sheer willpower alone the hair on his head moved around his mouth and formed a formidable beard and mustache that would make the most hairy of Klingons envious. It was about the epic struggle of this commander against all those who defied his magnificent facial hair. The Bajoran religious caste feared that his manly beard would stand between them and their prophets. The Cardassians formed an alliance with the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion vouching they would bring order in the universe by building a giant space razor that would make faces as smooth as a babies bottom. There were even envious Ferengi running a bar to discover the secrets of the beard so they could sell them for a profit (Rule of Acquisition #485: Every beard has it's price). At some point in time even the Romulans got involved, with some ambassador yelling at him "It's a FAKE!". But then Garrack made sure his ship exploded and the Romulans finally understood the power of facial hair.
It was a magnificent 7 season tale of hairiness, manliness and the struggle of a man against the universe.
Well, it was nearly ten years ago since I saw the series, so the details are a bit vague. But man, BEST STAR TREK SHOW EVER!
It doesn't always have to be that way. Game! is completely free for example, no buying your way to victory.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
[Disclaimer: I work for Gameforge]
Gameforge games are all flash based
Wrong. You're talking nonsense.
I've always stopped playing for the same reason, too much advantage for the paying gamers (I can't stand it even as a paying customer myself).
Which is up to you. A fact is that 80% of our players don't pay anything at all and they seem to enjoy themselves just fine. As for the pay-advantages: Yes there are some. But most of them are of the meta-advantage type, like additional slots in building-queues, better overviews and such which means you don't have to check your status as often as without them.
Most of our paying customers get by very fine with 1-3 dollars worth of pay-features per month. For hours and hours of fun in return - a fair deal if you ask me.
As for those publishers taking 300$ from someone to put him at the top of the highscore list - that is shortsighted and stupid and pisses off your userbase beyond repair - which is why we don't do it. OGame has been running for approx. 7 years and still is a successful Browsergame for that very reason.
Maybe you've been mixing up our games with others?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca