Star Trek Online lives, and it’s coming to us in at least three years time, if not sooner. That information is according to Jack Emmert, Cryptic Studios’ chief creative officer, who delivered a thorough Q&A session with fans after his presentation at the annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas.

The fans at the show asked a huge assortment of questions – everything from the age restrictions of the game to whether there will be PvP – and Emmert fired away at all the questions, resulting in an incredibly informative display. If you haven’t seen the top eight gameplay details or the official gameplay trailer, make sure you go check them out!

1. Jack are you as arrogant as everyone says you are online?

Jack Emmert: Yes. *laughs*

2. Are you going to stay true to the feel of Star Trek and give players the feeling of really being in the Star Trek universe of just put a Star Trek skin on it?

Jack: Obviously we’re going to stay very true to the Star Trek universe. It is very important that we don’t just make this a typical MMORPG and wrap this into the IP. We’d probably sell units that way, but that’s why we’re including things like exploration as a major part of the gameplay. We’re pretty obsessed about it.

In fact, my whole team has assignments. Every single member of my team has to watch an entire series. I’ve already watched the series, so I’m reading the books. If you have any suggestions for books, feel free to grab me.

3. Since Star Trek Online is set in the Star Trek future, will it be difficult to develop all the new story, environments, and devices in addition to creating the actual game?

Jack: We’re actually hiring a Star Trek writer now to help us with this, but to be honest I’ve done a ton of research to help us come up with storylines that reflect the background of Star Trek but also moves it into the future. CBS has been great with us on this.

4. Will the game be tedious to play on a computer that doesn’t have top of the line hardware, like laptops and older desktops?

Jack: I can tell you that one of the lessons we learned at Cryptic was that World of Warcraft was an amazing game, and one of the amazing features of it was that it could run on just about anything. To make a game accessible to as many people as possible is an explicit goal that we have. The engine that we’re using for Champions Online is set to go live next April, and we’re using the same technology for Star Trek Online. So if Star Trek releases after that, you can rest assured that if it ran on a lot of computers for Champions it will run on a lot of stuff for Star Trek.

5. How effective will holograms be in the game?

Jack: I view them as possible members of your bridge crew. Rather than choosing a race – like Andorian – you could choose a hologram to be your science officer. So yes, they can be playable with some limitations.

6. Can you explore inside your ship, and will there be a holodeck?

Jack: We plan for every ship to have decks, have a layout, have the medical facilities, engine room, holodeck… we want to have all of those things in each of your ships, and we’d like to allow players to customize them to some degree.

7. How will you be handling player death?

Jack: We’ll probably be doing perma-death and we’ll be charging your credit card extra. [Editor’s Note: He was obviously kidding.] *laughs*

We haven’t really gotten to that aspect yet. It will probably be something fairly minimal, if only because the days of outrageous death penalties are long past us, and I think we’ve evolved to the point of “Hey, can I just have fun?” That’s our mindset going in.

8. How do you get assignments and/or missions?

Jack: The computer – your central command – will issue you tours of duty. These will be a series of missions – some very specific, some not – and that will be your assignment. We don’t plan on doing a “level-based” MMORPG.

9. Are you going to use motion capture or hand-drawn animation?

Jack: Hand-drawn. We’re not going to be using motion capture. Our animators, we feel, are among the best in the business.

10. What are you doing to make sure the game remains fun and competitive without it being a grindfest? And what is the ETA on the game?

Jack: I can’t really say when. I can tell you that it’s going to be less than four years. It’ll be less than three years.

How to make it fun: We believe that an MMORPG has to be inherently fun. We did this for City of Heroes and we’re doing the same thing with Champions.

All of us play. We play at work. We play at home. If the game isn’t entertaining to us, we’re not going to release it. It’s that simple. People aren’t going to stand in line forever. People will stay online if the game is just fun. That’s the best promise I can give you.

11. Will there be dynamic events? Or is it all going to be pre-scripted?

Jack: Yes there will be dynamic events. In fact, we were just talking about the Borg coming and invading certain sectors and then having to come through and clean the Borg back out.

Events are definitely something that we want to do, definitely events where players actions are taking a part of the whole situation.

12. Will you have PvP?

Jack: Yes – definitely. We’ve got Klingons and we’ve got Starfleet, so it’s a ready made combustible element.

13. Will players be able to team up to do missions and assignments?

Jack: Yes. Everything is fully cooperative. You can team up with other people and some things you will need to team up with others and form a “task force” – a temporary team up – or you can join with your guild mates, your “fleet.”

14. Will players that use strategy and tactics win out over a 15-year old who has simply spent 80 hours a week upgrading their character?

Jack: Clearly I can’t compete with a 15-year old either. Developers classically developer video games that they want to play. I’m in my late thirties – almost 40 – and I’ve got two kids. I can’t play for hours on end. I want to be able to get in, play a game, and enjoy it. I don’t want it to be work. I don’t want to feel like I have to get on there. I don’t want to feel like a 15-year old punk can get on there and own me any time they want. We’re going to be making the game with that in mind.

15. Most classic MMOGs have a class-based system. How are you going to differentiate that in your game, since we’re all going to be captains? Will there be a class-based system for captains that want to lean more towards medical or scientific pursuits?

Jack: It’s already in the IP. As you know, Janeway is a scientist. Picard is a diplomat / archeaologist. So we already know that command is something that’s ancillary to your career path. Remember, Troy had to go through the holodeck training to get on the command path.

We’re approaching it like that, you as a captain have a specialty that’s either science or engineering or security or navigation. Those will be possibilities for you to specialize in, in addition to the fact that you’re in command.

Whether we’ll use traditional MMO tactics, not exactly. Certainly not for starship combat and probably not for ground combat either.

16. Will there be one huge server or many small servers?

Jack: We really haven’t decided that yet. To be honest, I think I’d prefer one large server so everyone could play together. Our technology can do that. However, it’s just a matter of what platforms we’re on and what agreements we have. It really depends on what’s best for the game.

Certainly we have the technology for one big server, so you wouldn’t have to worry about your friends being somewhere else or having to transfer characters. We’d like to avoid that.

17. You’ve talked about exploration and combat, but what about diplomacy? Is that going to be a big part of the game?

Jack: I actually had another question about that yesterday, and it’s a good one. That’s something we have talked about, to make fun and make interesting. Diplomacy is a vital part of [Star Trek]. How many diplomatic missions were there in Next Gen? There were a ton. How many times did Sisko have a party for visiting diplomats? I can’t really reveal any details about that, but that is certainly something we discuss.

18. Do you think MMO gamers will get into Star Trek through this game?

Jack: Yeah, I think that’s a good way to do it. There are people that like the MMO medium, and they’ll just play MMOs. If he likes MMOs, he’ll learn a lot about Star Trek from playing this game.

19. How old do you have to be to play Star Trek Online? [Editor’s Note: This question was asked by an adorable little girl that must have been 4-5 years old. She was a cutey.]

Jack: Obviously, I think you should play with your parents’ permission. If you don’t have their permission, you should take their credit cards while they’re asleep. *laughs*

Here’s what I believe, and this is what we used in City of Heroes. We like to make games for children of all ages. I would like to make a game that I could play with my kids. I have two kids, one who’s 2 ½ and the other is a year old. With your parent’s permission, you could certainly sit down and play with them. Any time you play an online game, parents should carefully supervise your children.

20. Will Star Trek Online run on Linux?

Jack: Not in its first release. Same thing with Macs.

21. What will the player run fleets be like? Will they be like the player corporations in EVE Online? And how will you handle griefing?

Jack: EVE Online is a much different game than what Star Trek Online is going to be. Obviously this is set in the Star Trek universe, and while economy is an important part of the game, so is exploration and combat. I don’t think we’re trying to make our fleets identical to EVE Online corporations, but certainly the level of cooperation and organization in EVE is something that’s super cool.

For those of you that play EVE Online, it is very PvP-centric and that’s not exactly what we’re going for. We’re looking at a galactic economy where people are competing for resources but not necessarily outright fighting for them.

22. To what extent are you keeping track of the Star Trek books published by Pocket Books? There has been a bit of fiction published in the post- Nemesis timeline. Can you comment on how much you’re looking at that?

Jack: Basically I bought all the books that are post-Nemesis and I’m reading through them. Luckily they aren’t coming out at a pace that I can’t keep up with. Essentially it’s me and another person that are covering the novels, and other people are covering the series and the movies to make sure we really mine them, so essentially that’s what I’m doing. If you have any suggestions for books feel free to post them on the forums or PM me. I’d love to see any suggestions of books that are particularly relevant.

23. How are you going to have the space-based section of the game interact with the ground-based section? Will players be able to board someone else’s ship and take it from them?

Jack: Yeah, definitely. We’re planning on allowing you to go on other people’s ships, but not necessarily make that a part of the gameplay element.