Exhibit A: A scifi franchise on life-support, weighted down by mediocre box office receipts, overwrought lore and technobabble, lackluster series and the recent rise of leaner, meaner scifi universes.
Exhibit B: J.J. Abrams and Paramount’s $140 million gamble to resurrect Star Trek with a reboot/sequel/prequel film that stars new actors stepping into established roles (my review at Mutant Reviewers).
Exhibit C: Cryptic Studios’ purchase and development of Star Trek Online, taking players into the far, post-Star Trek Nemesis future of Trek as they promise ship customization, combat, away teams, exploration and thousands of alien races.
The three combined has started to form what could possibly be called the comeback franchise of the decade. Star Trek was good as dead in 2005, irrelevant to both pop culture and even many of the faithful Trekkies that had followed it for over a half century. And yet, with last weekend’s incredible box office (and reviews) of the new hit Star Trek film, Trek is suddenly the hot ticket that everyone wants a piece of.
Just as the new movie generates crossover appeal between die hard fans and mainstream audiences, Cryptic is out to do much the same — to create a game that not only draws in the faithful, but also the newbie, the agnostic, even the antagonist. I haven’t been following STO as much as other games, even though it does interest me to a degree — I guess I don’t want to get my hopes up for what could be a mighty presence in scifi MMOs for years to come, or it could be another Star Trek Voyager. But after this past weekend, I saw an overnight resurgeance of a franchise I thought Cryptic was silly to promote, and now… now they have the wind at their backs.
LOTRO and STO have a lot in common — an established IP that has both a movie franchise and a built-in base of fans. Both have to worry about alienating/appealing to both fans and non-fans alike. And both feature a cast of characters that potential players want to emulate (if not the characters, then their adventures). Even if they both couldn’t directly pull from the feature films, they certainly could benefit from them — especially, in Star Trek’s case, if it releases within the next year or so.
Of course, STO isn’t a reboot in the way that the new movie is, and has to carry an overabundance of backstory and an established universe. It’s still very much a sequel to series and movies that started to lose popular interest back in 1996. And no matter what kind of brave face Cryptic puts on, Starfleet players are going to outnumber Klingon ones by a factor of 15 to 1. So even a hot new flick in the IP isn’t a cure-all, just a shot in the arm that Cryptic could certainly use to push their product out there a bit more (and if they’re wise, they’ll be using this summer to talk up STO like nobody’s business, or else waste this opportunity).
Bio Break 
I still fear Cryptic and their STO.
Ive no idea how much of what Perpetual were trying has made the jump to Cryptic and well… as a long time CoH Bubble Defender, I plain don’t like Jack Emmert (that and he has weird hair).
I plan to try it, I’m a lifelong Trekkie, they take away my card if I don’t but at the same time… I remain to be convinced they can pull it all off and still make it feel like Trek.
Personal pimpage follows. When I reviewed the movie in April, I like to think I hit a good point on the head. Before STXI, Star Trek was something we all did but no longer got excited for. STXI has me excited again about the franchise, the future and the stories to come.
STO however has me biting the nails and wondering what will go pear shaped.
I’m pretty excited about STO (and was even before the film!), everything I have heard about it so far piques my interest. You get to be the captain of a fraggin’ spaceship with an NPC crew of your own who you can train and outfit yourself!
I’m terrribly sad that they decided to release CO first 🙂
Forgot to add: You’re right about everyone wanting to play starfleet though. Why else would you want to play a star trek MMO?
Spiiinks, Klingon or Romulan is supposedly the underdog then, which makes them automatically super cool. 🙂
Just type “Vor’cha”, “Bird of Prey” and “Romulan Warbird” (Deridex-class IIRC) in Google image search.
Not sure if I would rather prefer the sly Romulans or the warlike Klingons.
STO you can play as Klingons. Boy was there ever a fight back in the day on the http://www.StarTrek.com boards when Perpetual was going to make it Federation only.
STO has real potential.
The notion that I can captain a starship and have an NPC crew that I can train and outfit is very compelling, especially when you put it in the light of your recent commentary on solo MMORPGing.
I can see the appeal of captaining something larger than just your own toon (the ship and crew) with the social cohesion and connection of fleets and fleet ops. Give me a mix of options for me and my “crew” (NPCS or otherwise). It could satisfy a number of my “solo MMORPGer” tendencies while having a chance to participate in something larger. That something larger is also compelling when the politics is complex than just the binary order vs destruction, alliance vs horde.
I’m also hopeful that Cryptic will steal religiously from the best elements of EveOnline (and possibly Pirates of the Burning Sea) and learn from their weaknesses/mistakes.
Let’s just hope they learn the lessons of that past couple of years.
IMHO, the tie-in lesson that Cryptic needs to pay careful attention to isn’t LOTRO, but Star Wars Galaxies.
Cryptic’s going to have to seriously break the MMO mold with STO. I’m not sure what the new mold should look like, but if it’s Quests In Space it’s going to be in trouble. Penny Arcade hit the nail on the head: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/13/
The lesson from Galaxies, IMHO, is this: When you leverage an IP, your game had better FEEL like what you’re basing it on. Galaxies, despite the diehards that love it, simply wasn’t a Star Wars game.
The thing that worries me about STO is that I’m not sure Cryptic knows what makes a good Trek game. Their early marketing was all about character customization. Maybe that’s leveraging their experience, but I wasn’t inspired. Character customization should be a minimal issue in Trek.
We’ll see what happens, but I’m not convinced of Cryptic’s ability to step away from superheroes.
If as a Kilingon, can blast Federation fools in a bird of prey, they got my 15 bucks a month. Kap’lah!
If you are keeping up at the STO site there is no mold breaking just another MMO this one has a look of Star Trek. Just the look so far
As for Klingons being the underdogs their that in the forums also as well as with Cryptic
Cryptic is just making another MMO riding on future bucks from the Star Trek IP. My 14.95 will stay with SWG and await TOR which will be mold breaking by any standard compared to CoH in space, not thanks.