In the next two years we will see both of these franchises reborn in the MMO genre. Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic will immerse players in their respective space faring genre of science fiction and fantasy. How will they do? Which MMO will crush the other in ratings and subscribers? Or, will both suffer the same fate as the 6-year old Star Wars Galaxies?

Let’s start with making some comparisons. The gameplay, first and foremost, is where the answer to longevity will rest. How do these games play? Here’s a brief description of what is known about the two games, or at least what I could find. If anyone has more information, feel free to leave a comment or toss an email and I’ll append it to the article.

Star Trek Online has been stated to be roughly 60% Space gameplay and 40% ground. This will be one of the few games to allow a player to fly through space and engage in 3^rd person action gameplay. Ship controls have been described as tactical; space combat is about thinking and out-witting your opponents, similar to battles we see the Enterprise engage in. Ground combat is more action packed, like Champions Online or Mass Effect (though, there isn’t any “cover” mechanic that we’ve been told about).

Gameplay isn’t completely about combat, either. Plenty of Star Trek Online is about exploration, discovery, diplomacy, and investigation. There’s also crew management; the player doesn’t just control his or her Captain. They also manage a bridge crew of unique characters and a nameless crew of redshirts that man stations across the ship. Ships can be visually and mechanically modified to suit a variety of needs and 3 career paths outline the specializations of player Captains. Finally, the game isn’t based off of leveling, but skills ( like Ultima Online) and rank obtained with the Federation or Klingon Empire.

In direct comparison, Star Wars: The Old Republic has no space flight (yet). While battles and adventures can take place on ships, there is no player control or influence on the ship movement. The gameplay is more compared to that of Mass Effect, Champions Online, or even World of Warcraft. There is no auto-attack, however, as many MMO veterans might be familiar with. Each class has specific abilities that can be used on separate cool downs (WoW-esque) to complete the player objective. The player objective is a big part in SW: The Old Republic.

The game consists of two factions; The Empire (Sith) and the Republic (Jedi). Each has 5 unique classes based off of a common and popular Star Wars character. Bounty Hunters, Smugglers, Jedi Knights, Sith Warriors, and Troopers have been announced, so far. Each has their own opening storyline that eventually draws them into the main story arc.

Bioware’s focus has been to create an intense and immersive storyline that players can get involved in. This will be one of the first MMOs to have decision making. Dialogue choices are more like single player RPGs, causing different reactions and opening up different aspects of the story (or closing them off, if you’re not careful). To add to the immersion, the entire game contains voice acting. There are no dialogue exchanges that won’t have vocals, says Bioware. Scenes will be extra cinematic, making the players really feel like the center of attention.

The environments are just as different as the gameplay for each game. Cryptic has worked hard to make Star Trek Online feel like Star Trek. To achieve this, there are no “mobs”. A mob is basically your generic random enemy you find running around Elwynn forest or Millennium City. You know those boars or random gangsters? There you go. Rather, space is exactly what you expect it to be; unless you’re engaged in a fleet battle or orbiting a heavily populated planet, it’s empty and beautiful. Random encounters are present, however, but it has been said most require more than one player. A Borg Invasion, a derelict space ship, or a Klingon task force all are among these random encounters. Some involve combat, some require beaming into an instance, and some require neither. Some will hunt you and some will flee from you.

SW: The Old Republic is more traditional. Running around the planet surfaces or building interiors will unveil a host of random, respawning enemies to gun down with your blasters. Even the intense story arcs and instances are filled with expendable troopers and criminals. The action style of the gameplay, however, fits this model. Being able to use cover as a Smuggler or ‘force push’ a squad of troopers is part of the Star Wars Experience.

Graphically, the games are on equal footing. Both have really nailed the franchises down to the smallest detail. Your ship name displays on the saucer of the Prometheus class vessel and the stylized realism of SW: The Old Republic looks like the Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network. While for some Star Wars fans this might be a bad thing, I’m sure it’ll grow on them, just as cell-shaded Toon Link did for Zelda fans.

The final bit I’d like to mention is voice acting. Voice acting is a key part in gaming in this era. Some people won’t even touch a game that doesn’t have voice acting. Is there laziness in reading? I don’t know, but I do know that SW: The Old Republic will boast a fully voice acted experience. Every bit of dialogue, from “Hello” to “Destroy that battleship before I choke you like Vader” is done with high quality voice acting.

Star Trek Online has been quite about their voice acting until recently. In an article, it was stated that there is definitely a good amount of it in the game, but more of it is there to enhance the experience of the gameplay. Missions and long dialogues are likely still meant to be read. Their focus has been on the Bridge Officers. If your shields go down during combat, your Engineering officer will go “We’ve lost shield, cap’n!” and your science officer will announce, “Perhaps we can try a tachyon burst direct at their warp core, Captain”. We’ll see how this pans out. It could turn out really good or really annoying. Let’s hope they add a “Bridge Officer Frequency” slider in the audio options!

Well, there it is. These two games are about as different as the franchises themselves. One seeks to redefine the space simulation MMO while maintaining its franchise’s roots, while the other follows a traditional system with a revolutionary amount of story involvement from the players. Which will prevail?

I, personally, will be going for Star Trek Online. I have been dying for good space simulation MMO type game for years and Eve just wasn’t my style. Star Wars: The Old Republic has too much WoW-ism for me. Whenever I play a game with “WoW-ism”, I end playing WoW a month later. Star Trek Online and its nontraditional MMO gameplay will be a nice change of pace. What do you think? Who’s going to play what, and why? Comment!

Live long and prosper/May the force be with you.

*Spoiler Alert* The film by JJ Abrams will be discussed as if the reader has already seen it!

There is a point during J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek when the film crosses a certain threshold, a threshold that was anticipated partly by my skepticism that Abrams and his team of producer/writers (Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman) could pull off a decent and credible Star Trek plot. This was after all a complete rebuild of one of the best space adventure franchises of all time. I knew going into the film, Abrams and his cronies would feel compelled to think about demographics, and bottom lines. How could they write and present the film to a wider, trendier, ultimately more profitable audience, without totally compromising the important principles of a good Star Trek story? After all, the latest Star Trek television show “Enterprise” had disappointed even the most desperate of Star Trek connoisseurs. I understand it was only a matter of time. It was either this or no Star Trek at all. A dilemma, which (in my opinion), has not been settled, despite the movies popularity.

This threshold is crossed in the depths of an ice cave.

In this scene, Kirk is saved by a hooded man as he runs from a giant ice arthropod and nearly falls to his death. The hooded man turns out to be a much older Spock (played my Leonard Nimoy himself), who just so happens to be in the same 200 yard radius as Kirk, and how he was sent by Nero, (an evil, revenge bent Romulan played by Eric Bana) against his own will to watch the destruction of Vulcan in the sky.  This whole situation is highly ridiculous, but that doesn’t even really bother me personally. It’s a movie. Coincidences are not coincidences – they happen.

What’s truly ridiculous is the story that Spock tells Kirk by way of mind meld (that is: a poor man’s cinema version of a mind meld – consisting of narrative by Spock’s conscience, and a montage of tantalizing special effects and reaction shots). The threshold is here. Spock’s entire story begins with the dramatic words, “One hundred and twenty nine years from now, a star will explode, and threaten to destroy the galaxy.”

What Spock doesn’t say, is that the star is actually the Romulan sun, and that the real reason they’re in trouble is because Spock made a promise he couldn’t keep, and therefore pissed off some miner named Nero, who then went on a killing spree, and destroyed a handful of planets. I am unsure at what point the galaxy is ever in any danger from this.

At one scene, Old Spock tells his younger self that he told Jim the old Spock and new Spock couldn’t meet in person or there would be a space-time paradox, which was a lie so Jim would have to do things himself. So should we presume that the whole scene in the ice cave is just an overdramatized story given by Spock to a simpler minded James T? Does Abram’s and his producer writers think of the audience as a simpler minded James T, and they themselves are the Vulcan’s who will show us a oversimplified dumb down version of a story in order to appeal to our sensibilities?

Words like super nova, galaxies, and terms like threaten to destroy, coupled with epic special effects, giant explosions, 3d sound effects – all for the purpose of dazzling the senses, but with little substance at the heart of it: that’s not Star Trek. That might be Transformers, or Terminator Salvation, but it’s not Star Trek J.J.!

Star trek is the realm of awe inspiring science based fiction, about the human condition, and people of all races and species cooperating and setting out into the unknown galaxy.

I admit, I enjoyed the spectacle, and I even saw it twice. With that, I expect the next film to have more real science mixed in with the fiction, and more human elements – more heart and soul. Please.