http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/gaming/online/article/6632.html
I'm not really a hard core ST fan but I find this development very interesting. This MMORPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG) effort intends to provide groups of players the capabilities to command starships. That capability would be something very different in MMORPG technoculture that hadn't been done before to the best of my knowledge. Anybody know of any MMORPGs that allowed multiple players to command ships? Another very interesting aspect is that it will be a laboratory for groups of people simulating FTL technologies simultaneously. Having done a stint in the USN previously, I wonder what a player's experience in this game will actually be. Will players be standing rotating watches at their assigned workstations on the starship? Only fans of the ST universe have the cohesive belief structure and discipline to pull this off in VR. I imagine the various ST fleet commands around the country will organize themselves to pilot starships first. In other words, will dealing with boredom be part of the immersive gaming experience? To expand on that point; since there are other players in the game on the same starship, you can't compress time (unless all players on the same starship would agree, possibly), however you can enter FTL warp speeds to make space travel less time-consuming. But, as many SF authors have pointed out, most of the time spent on space travel is spent on acceleration and deceleration. And then there's that dagnab recurring "decaying orbit" problem... :) Lastly, how cool would it be to play a Klingon? tlhIngan maH! John __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
