We've just posted a new blog at MMORPG.com. This time Kestrel - Christine Thompson, talks about writing for the Star Trek Online experience.Â* Go check out what she has to say!

Link to the news article.

Cool stuff thanks.

This is very cool, and I think your general philosophy is right on.

Christine, out of curiosity - although you indicated your degree is in medieval literature, did you (or anyone on your team) study political science or international affairs at any point, or is it perhaps a subject of personal interest?

13 years as a journalist made me a bit of a political junkie, and I've always had an interest in history.

Much of my time in newspapers was spent as an editor focused on national and international news. You pick up a lot when you're trying to put current events in context with what's happened previously.

Yeah, that would explain it. My degree is in political science.

You should know that your work, in terms of the politics and statecraft of the story, is absolutely top-notch. It's as good as anything I've read, and the depth and structure of your writing makes the powers which you describe utterly real. For me, it's the highlight of the project so far.

I'm not the biggest fan of scripted missions, I have to say, but I'll be playing them in STO and Christine sounds like someone who knows what she's doing. I'm impressed.

Would it be possible to have race-customized dialogue built?

A lot more coding and endless IF statements, to be sure, but it would sure make the game have more atmosphere!

Other games have done this on a smaller scale, Star Fleet Command for example has custom sounds, text, for each race during battle on the bridge. It would be great to see some of that flow into the scripted missions as well.

Ehhh.... I'm a little put off about being able to make my crew exactly the way I want it. Where's the fun in that?

I'm all for being able to customize their stats and looks, but it's kind of being implied that the way in which their tone and behavior will be vague such that my imagination has to fill in the gaps as to how I imagine they act.

Setting species specific parameters for behavior was kind of the route I thought would be taken for "official" races (not player created races), such that you'll get vulcans like T'Pol that has a somewhat vague condescending tone in her assessments, or Spock who is comes off as a bit sarcastic at times ("why, thank you doctor.") However, you wouldn't get a "sassy" vulcan, but may get a "sassy" human.

That overt "sass," beyond the player's control, sounds more exciting than restrained writing that allows for players to make their characters EXACTLY how they imagined. I think it kind of robs the player of being able to "shop" around a bit with your crew. Got an annoying, Bridge crew officer that is always ridiculing every decision you make? well you can try your luck with someone else and replacing said member, or perhaps it may even grow on you.

Good read, i get the feeling that many "missions" ingame will be treated as episodes which gives a nice touch to things!

Breach, think about how much work it would be to write dialogue for each mission for very possible personality type, or race for that matter including ones that haven't been invented yet, one might find on a bridge crew in each possible combination. Light some incense. Meditate with me. Ommmmmmm.

Enlightenment.

She's stuck with writing one size fits all dialogue for situations when it comes to crew. It'll be up to us to reimagine it a bit as our NPCs might actually say it in their own way.

What I really want to know more about, now, are Duty Missions. Will they cause our crew to interact with us in the same way (if with less, of course, mission specific detail)? How do they differ from Episodic missions aside from the element of randomization?