STO Klingons require unlocking - Cryptic

By Robert Purchese Published 9 October, 2009

Joined by Romulans, Cardassians later.

Cryptic Studios has told Eurogamer that the playable Klingon faction in Star Trek Online will be locked initially, but once open, offer a very different style of advancement to the Federation.

"The Klingon gameplay will unlock, but not deep in the game - it will take several hours to unlock the ability to create a Klingon player," Craig Zinkievich, executive producer on STO, told us.

He explained that playing Klingon will be "drastically different" to playing Federation, and lack "the full-on story-driven" questing. This may sound similar to Monster Play in Lord of the Rings Online - which opens at level 10 and offers a 'bad' faction for 'good' avatars to war with - but the Klingons will offer more.

"We'll be offering full-on character advancement: you will create a Klingon player, you will have his ship, he will level up," he said.

"The content that they will be experiencing is a lot more focused on PvP - fighting the Federation, fighting House versus House within the Klingon empire. So it is a full-on character with advancement, with items, with bridge officers as well. So it's a lot more than the Monster Play."

The two sides - Klingon and Federation - will work together at times, too - resolving larger issues or battles. Plus, the Federation will have its own 'good' Klingons: "you can't really make a Star Trek game these days without allowing people to live out their Worf fantasy," admitted Zinkievich. But on the whole, he added, they are a "strong, bad arc" throughout the Star Trek Online experience.

They won't be alone for long, however, as Cryptic has earmarked "plenty" of factions earmarked for future inclusion.

"As we developed the game we made a list of all the races, all the different factions people want to play: the Romulan Star Empire, the Cardassians will come back - there's a huge number who want to play as them, but not within the Star Fleet, not within the Federation," said Zinkievich. "So, plenty of different factions that can be and will be added after launch."

That launch will be early next year, following an open beta several weeks beforehand.

Head over to our full interview with Cryptic's Craig Zinkievich to find out a lot more about Star Trek Online.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (8) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Eraysor #1 2 years ago

    I'm hoping the reason why Champions Online wasn't very good was because they devoted most of their resources to this.

  • DFawkes #2 2 years ago

    I'm not sure that sounds like a great idea, especially since it might mean people are reluctant to give up the Federation character they've started working on to change over, meaning the PvP could end up a bit unbalanced. Possibly not though, the prospect of getting to change if you're not enjoying being Captain Peacefull Negotiation could be nice for some, and there will be the Klingon fans that'll start with the intention of switching.

    I'm still looking forward to STO though, I wanted to be a Federation character anyway.

  • actionfitz #3 2 years ago

    aye, after the character creator I was realy fussed on much that Champions has to offer.
    :/

  • Moz #4 2 years ago

    Seems a bit dumb to me, I guess they're wanting to encurrage people to use the alien creator, as most the people who want to be federation will probably be the people who want to play humans. So you force the alien player to start with Federation so they create a mix of races.

    Still abit shit for casual players who tend to stick to the one character

  • r4z0rbl4d3 #5 2 years ago

    I'll leave my impressions when I've tested the system, don't know what to think of it til I see it. If it sucks, we will let them know in beta.

  • sharky_ob #6 2 years ago

    earmarked earmarked

  • Alkeno #7 2 years ago

    Gimme Klingons. I want to become General Chang, I want cloaked birds of prey, I want to utter Shakesperian sentences while screwing some Federation foes. Romulans would be a nice addition too.

    Don't care so much for other races... but still someone, maybe the top players, could be given the chance to become The Borg once in a while and go amok across the gallaxy, forcing everybody in the area to join forces and try to stop them. That would be interesting.

  • levitate #8 2 years ago

    I'm curious to know if they're adding all the different quadrants and how big they are going to be. I see STO as a cross between EvE and any other MMO that has come the last 5 years and as such it would have an awesome potential. I'm also aware they can botch things up very easily by making one wrong move.