as far as The Game goes..
a MMORPG is basically just a fantasy-world-simulator anyways.
the more details you have represented in-game, the better it wll be.
so its probably a good thing to have Okuda on board for something like this.
he is, afterall, the anal-retentive-accountant-of-ALL-things-Trek (hehe).
if anyone can make the 'fantasty' more "Realistic" ,  it would be him.

as long as he doesn't go "too" far..
and take all the "fun" out of the fantasy..
like he did with the TV shows for the last 20 years (heh)

an hey wtf..
since this has become a thread about trek in general (hijack!)
I might as well throw this in and see what you guys think about it.
this is almost completely off topic, as far as okuda is concerned.but whatever

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I was talking to my brother in law on thursday about Star Trek/Star wars.
he's primarily a star wars fan, who saw Star Wars first and then never quite sucessfully got into Trek.
I was already Trek fan before Star Wars came along, so naturally I'm into both.

anyways: he says one of the things thats different is: Star Trek is stuck in a 1960's view on the world..
and they just can't help themselves.

the races still live in "1960's style" segregation.
when you go to the klingon planet, everyone's a kilngon (but you).  
when you go to the romulan planet, everyone's a romulan (but you).  
when you go to the cardassian planet.. etc..

in most situation, the stories always deal with just one race at a time.  and the overall impression is,   the races don't mix very much.

(its like.. the various planets exist as countries on a world map circa.1936;  in each one there are social pressures or iron curtains (or something) to prevent the cultures from mixing.  the overall impression is : the politics of the galaxy kinda resembles the countries of Europe ~WWII)

the overall view of "Roddenberry's Universe" kinda resembles the world-view of his own generation.
it kinda resembles Roddenberrys' own "vision" (so to speak)

and to ths day..
Star Trek STILL shows people of various colors and races (or species) working side-by-side AS IF its some kind of freaking anomaly.  
(which it WAS in 1966, but its NOT anymore)

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Lucas on the other hand tries to show all kinds of different races hanging out and coexisting together as a society. the cantina scene in 1977 tried to capture it (not very well); the coruscant nightclub did it better, and so did the opera-scene in epIII.  the cultures mix freely (?because?) SW reflects a more modern world-view than Star Trek (?)

Star Trek seems to be stuck in the 1960's whether it can help it or not; (?because?) the work of guys like Okuda have kept building on itself and the "universe" that this work defines is kinda like a "snapshot" of Roddenberry's Vision
(which reflects his own times; not ours)

*shrug*


-= discuss =-

I'd say that's pretty accurate Cobalt.  To be fair though, much of the world is still segregated in such a way.  You go to any third or even many second world countries and you'll find that the vast majority of people are from the native ethnic group.  It's only in the US, Canada, most of Europe, and a rather small percentage of Asia that people from various cultural backgrounds mix as freely as they do in Star Wars.  But Earth is moving along, slowly breaking down those barriers.  I think Trek represents a relatively young galaxy, from a cultural perpective.  Most of the spacefaring races we've met have a roughly equivalent level of technology, which tells me that they all aquired it around the same time.  Much of this has to do with transportation.  It wasn't until the advent of cheap mass transit that culture groups began mixing here on Earth, so why shouldn't it be the same in the Trek universe?  Once we begin seeing more passenger ships fill the Trek universe, then I think it would only be fair to expect the cultures to mix more.  Right now though, (going with the TNG era) it's very much like the early colonial period where any kind of mass transport was controlled by the military/government and used for specific purposes.  This is in contrast to the Star Wars universe because, according to all the lore/writing provided, faster than light travel (the defining achievement of a spacefaring race, and this is in the movie era) has been available for something like 25,000 years.  This accounts for such a vast cultural exchange.*

By the way, if you're looking for Trek to blend cultures to a larger degree, I recommend checking out the Titan line of novels.  Only first is out now, but it looks to be setting up a lot of cross-culture plot lines.

*This is all assuming that the Trek and Wars universes are growing in similar patterns to the way Earth has so far.  Interesting how we can have a rather serious discussion about cultures within a fictional universe.  You know you're a (insert sci-fi here) geek when....

Books?  Did someone say books?  I just got the firts book in the Vanguard series.  I haven't bought/read a trek book in years.  I figure I've read over 50, maybe 60 or 70.  Ok, maybe just 50 or 60.  Anyway, I'm going on a trip in a few weeks (work-related...to ST. PETE BEACH, FL!!! heehee...) and I wanted a PAPERBACK to read.  I've got 4 or 5 hardcovers from the Science Fiction Book Club, but I'm trying to keep my luggage light.  So I went to the bookstaore and checked things over.  I really wasn't looking for a ST novel, but the time period of this one intrigued me.  Right after "Where No Man Has Gone Before".  I didn't realize it was a new series until I got it home.  No biggie to me.  I'm just loooking for a time-filler.  I suppose it's only starting off with a TOS crossover...

I saw the Titan book.  I'm still protesting Data's death so I'm shying away from anything that reinforces it...

Fatal Error - I'm so sorry that the thread's been hijacked like this.  Please forgive!  I, too, hope the game's good!

No biggie, Jeff!  Though this thread took a detour more quickly than normal, most of the threads these days get hijacked in one direction or another.  Is the Vanguard series a TOS line?  I've never been able to read those, with the exception of the Section 31 book.  Those were really good.

Back to the original topic for a moment: hereis an example of Okuda's work so far.  I don't believe he's designed the uniforms, but the LCARS panel he did for sure.  I just hope we don't have to hit every one of those buttons all the time!  Those uniforms...I'm not sure how I feel about them.  I like that Security finally has something more than a phaser to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crew (looks functional too, which is good), but that may be the security officer in me talking   .  Conn/Command looks about normal, but I don't think that the other departments need anything other than color to set them apart (aside from Security).  Maybe these are special uniforms designed for specific uses?  Like the Hazard suit from EF.

The guy on the con, his boots remind me of penny loafers heheh

I thought DS9 did a pretty good job of mixing it up without making it look forced.  You look around the background in any scenes set in Quarks and you'll find a whole host of species interacting with each other.

I finished Harbinger (first book in the Vanguard series) some time ago.  It's a great book--now one of my top ten ST books.

The uniforms change in the book.  Kirk thinks to himself "someone in starfleet must like me" when he first sees the mini-skirts.  

heeheehee...!

I just started it last night.  Only got through the first couple chapters, the first dealing with Matt Decker in 2263, then we fast-foward to 2265.

I'm not an incredibly fast reader...partly because the only time I get to read is at bedtime and I tend to start loosing consciousness a few pages in...

My A#1 ST book is...heck I forgot the name.  (How's that for a lasting impression???    )  It's the Q book that John DeLancie cowrote.  It was awesome.