It's dinosaurs on a spaceship!

I'll bring the cellular peptide cake! :laugh:

I voted Unity also.


hehehehehehe

Further info and pics of the Voth have been released in today's Dev Blog. Looks pretty cool though I think I'll be getting some dino crisis flashbacks periodically. :P


Designing the Voth

The Voth are an interesting group. They’re highly evolved, technologically advanced dinosaurs that left Earth millions of years ago to avoid impending doom (according to the “Distant Origin Theory” that some of the Voth believe in). We’ve been toying with the idea of using them as a villain group in Star Trek Online for quite a while now. We started doing initial Voth creature sketches back in 2010, but they were shelved when we decided to go in a different direction. The Sphere has finally given us the perfect venue to bring this group to life.

We knew immediately that in order to make this group a really interesting player experience it was going to need a lot of variety. We talked with the game design team and started to get a feel for what they wanted to see in the species. We kicked around a lot of ideas and had some debates about how to represent them. The Voth in "Distant Origin" (Star Trek: Voyager, Ep 3×23) are portrayed as highly evolved scientists, and we wondered whether or not they would even have a military. In the end, we decided that it would be in the game’s best interest to design the Voth in the Sphere as a technologically advanced group of soldiers. We talked about everything from mechs and dinosaurs to flying creatures and super soldiers. At one point our Lead Designer, CaptainGeko, said, “all I want is dinosaurs with frickin’ laser beams on their heads!” We all chuckled, and then he said, “I’m being serious; this is a game. Let’s have some fun!” So we did, and what we ended up with was almost too much diversity!

[attachment=1658]Voth1.jpg[/attachment]

This is probably the most complex group we’ve done on the art side. There’s the base Voth humanoid, and then we have a Voth in power armor, a class of mechs with jumpjets and a whole group of dinosaurs with frickin’ laser beams on their heads! For the Voth humanoid, we stuck pretty close to what we’d seen in the show, a dino humanoid that looks like it might have evolved from a Hadrosaur, with the largest similarity being the cranial crest. When it came to the mechs and armor however, we got to play with the designs. In general, because they are so advanced technologically, we went with a sleek futuristic look on all of their tech bits with smooth flowing lines and not a lot of right angles.

Because they’re antagonists and we wanted to make sure they looked like something that needed to be fought, we made sure to add a few toothy looking knife points into the costume designs. Mimicking the ship designs, we went with mostly blues and greens for the parts that glow, such as lights and tech panels. Then to keep them from feeling too generic sci-fi, we added some interesting ornamentation to their designs by incorporating a kind of wavy tiger stripe pattern that we gleaned from some of the outfits in the Voyager episode. Adding this one small design element really helped to bring a level of cohesion and uniqueness to their design and lets us know that these creatures take pride in their appearance and care about more than just function.

[attachment=1659]Voth2.jpg[/attachment]


[attachment=1660]Voth3.jpg[/attachment]

We’re still putting the finishing touches on the Voth, but what we have so far really is a visually interesting enemy group. Add to that all of the new and exciting gameplay scenarios and environments that players are going to encounter, and The Sphere is really shaping up to be an amazing update to this ever-expanding game.

We hope you enjoy it!

Jeremy Mattson
Art Lead
Star Trek Online

Boooo hope!

Unity! Unity! Unity!!

Heyy El, any idea when they would need content for the next issue? I'd like to do a write up of our existing Guild events or something!

Vote for Starbase Hope! :-)

I'll only be able to attend the closing ceremony because of class, but I'm looking forward to it.

By the sounds of it you all need to start feeling up younger men :P

Quote by Genex

Quote by BenOsbourn

Ok, so I'm starting to feel like the old-man in the fleet already! I'm 38 next month...

You're only as old as the man you feel

Well then I am 25 !

hehehe If I consider that way of thinking then I'm 31 :woohoo:

in that case I'm 33 :evil:

Quote by BenOsbourn

Ok, so I'm starting to feel like the old-man in the fleet already! I'm 38 next month...

You're only as old as the man you feel

Quote by BenOsbourn

Ok, so I'm starting to feel like the old-man in the fleet already! I'm 38 next month...

Hey fols, I'm Ben (clue is in the username I guess). Ben is actually my middle name... I have a long standing hate of my first name Peter so I go by Ben ;)

I've been playing STO for about 10months now and absolutely love it, hugely different to my first MMO which was Everquest. I played that for around 10years? on and off. I've also been a massive Trek fan since I was in my teens and saw the first episode of TNG after school. That day used to be the highlight of my week ;) I've been a member of another Fleet - Praetorian Guards pretty much since I first started playing, it was a new fleet and full of great people. However it has died a death over the summer and I've been looking at Stonewall with envy as I watch the chat go by. So to test the waters I've enlisted my Reman toon Zdzon and my others will no doubt be following in the near future...

Although off sick with work (stress, depression and recently diagnosed with bi-polar) atm I am a trained Medical Herbalist (4 years of my life I'll never get back but so glad I did it). If you want to know more info ask away... most people get it confused with Homeopathy which it isn't! Lastly I'm Manchester UK based, well Stockport which is technically Cheshire.

Anyway, hopefully see everyone in-game at some point in the future x

So if you're the old man of the fleet I am the Grandfather! Welcome Aboard! :) Nice to meet you and hope to fly with you in space sometime.

Ok, so I'm starting to feel like the old-man in the fleet already! I'm 38 next month...

Hey fols, I'm Ben (clue is in the username I guess). Ben is actually my middle name... I have a long standing hate of my first name Peter so I go by Ben ;)

I've been playing STO for about 10months now and absolutely love it, hugely different to my first MMO which was Everquest. I played that for around 10years? on and off. I've also been a massive Trek fan since I was in my teens and saw the first episode of TNG after school. That day used to be the highlight of my week ;) I've been a member of another Fleet - Praetorian Guards pretty much since I first started playing, it was a new fleet and full of great people. However it has died a death over the summer and I've been looking at Stonewall with envy as I watch the chat go by. So to test the waters I've enlisted my Reman toon Zdzon and my others will no doubt be following in the near future...

Although off sick with work (stress, depression and recently diagnosed with bi-polar) atm I am a trained Medical Herbalist (4 years of my life I'll never get back but so glad I did it). If you want to know more info ask away... most people get it confused with Homeopathy which it isn't! Lastly I'm Manchester UK based, well Stockport which is technically Cheshire.

Anyway, hopefully see everyone in-game at some point in the future x

I always name my fed toons ships, I don't bother too much with KDF ships, as long as it can fly, I go for "majestic" or "Regal" sounding names most of the time

Aki - Tholian Recluse (Default Name)
Kabuto - Jem'Hadar Bug
Excalibur - R-Defiant (Sounds Powerful)
Defender - Fleet Assault Cruiser Refit (Heals and tanks alot)
Patriot - Regent Class
Independance - Steamrunner (Toon can hold her own in a fight)
Avenger - R-Intrepid
Castiel - R-Intrepid
Gallifrey - Wells (I'm a Who nerd and its a time ship)

I havn't decided on a system to name ships yet. On Ozzy I have USS Trident - my recluse, this seemed appropriate. My Orb weaver is USS Pointy - It was going to be Mr Pointy from Buffy lol. And My Vesta is USS Event Horizon That's my dark and moody ship ;-)

It's time to vote on the name of the Stonewall Legion Starbase! Previously, I requested name suggestions and now we'll put the best of those options up to a vote!

I'd leave the poll open a week and will post the winner then!