Friday, November 30, 2007

She *CAN* Do It Captain

There was a reason I wasn't reporting the whole STO affair that's going around the interwebs right now. That reason was the "news" reporting the demise of Perpetual was speculative at best, and there was no real official word from the company.

Turns out we all got panicked for no reason, at least for now.

Massively has the story, and here's a snippet:
Star Trek Online's Executive Producer Daron Stinett addressed panicked fans, saying that not all is as it seems. We have the lowdown here for you. The heart of the matter: it appears that STO has not been canceled or nerfed after all --at least not to the degree that we feared. That said, here's the full story so far.

With regards to the SEC report, Stinett said: "That report relates to a transaction that took place a while back. And while I can't get into details right now, I want to assure the community that the entire Star Trek team is still here working hard and eagerly anticipating our chance to finally share our big plans." So, it looks like WarCry's Razor may have been close to the truth.

Stinett also said that the team is "in the process of finding a formal publisher, which involves conversations with a variety of parties." Additionally, he said that the rumors of a paradigm shift in the business model are greatly exaggerated, and that the game is not locked into anything in that area until Perpetual works it out with a publisher (once it finds one).

Stinett is considering business models other than the tradition $15/mo approach, though. "I personally think MMOs need to be a better deal," he said. "We are discussing this issue internally. Unfortunately the discussion leaked and the characterization is incorrect."
Okay, it's more than a snippet, but just in case you want it all head here.

It looks like the dreams of a Star Trek Online that doesn't completely suck are still alive, but I still wouldn't hold my breath until we know more.

6 comments:

Cameron Sorden said...

I'm not convinced that Star Trek Online will be good either way. It's such a complicated license. Make it combat heavy, people will whine. Make it diplomacy based, people will whine.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a lot of backpeddeling and "You never know"s to me. It's a classic case of damage control where they claim they're "leaving their options open".

Bildo said...

See, I don't think so Keen. When Massively first put up their story (this is where I read it), it seemed more like a report of what happened to them back when GnH was cancelled than them being liquidated as a company and STO going down the drain.

It was like reading a repeat of what happened a couple months back, which is why I didn't say anything here. Lord knows it was tossed around enough through our little blogosphere anyway.

Still, you're right about something that I may be reading implied in your comment: we still don't know where it'll end up. Just that it's still coming and PE is still around right now.

KevinC said...

Appreciate the update Bildo. That's why I never posted on this recent STO stuff either - it all seemed very second hand and unconfirmed to me, although I'm certainly interested in how it turns out.

As much as I love Star Trek:TNG, I just can't get past my own doubts about this game every seeing the light of day - or being very good if it does.

Anonymous said...

Interesting, but I'm still not buying it. From the stuff I found and posted while sleuthing, Razor's speculation makes little sense. Neither Gravity nor Perpetual would be playing games with the kind of information disclosed to investors through Gravity's SEC filing.

I agree that the one thing we do know is that we don't have anything like the complete story.

Anonymous said...

I'll add to the speculation that in order for the notice Gravity received to be true and correct and for Stinett's comments also to be true and correct, a some kind of deal for STO must have been done just prior to the events surrounding the notice.

Note he doesn't say anything about PE, just the game and its team...