At Destination Star Trek in Dortmund, last month, I was given the chance to meet, and interview Mike Fatum about the upcoming expansion for Star Trek Online, Victory is Life. We covered a wide range of areas, giving a great insight into what is to come.

Bridger: Hey there, thanks for chatting with us today.

Mike: It’s my pleasure, thanks for having me!

Bridger: Victory is Life is the fourth expansion for Star Trek Online, we had Legacy of Romulus, Delta Rising and Agents of Yesterday. What is going to make Victory is Life different and special?

Mike: Victory is Life is different in a lot of new, exciting ways. The first and most important is that it is a DS9 expansion. We’ve got twelve actors from the DS9 series, making it the closest thing we'll ever get to a reunion in the real world, which is very exciting. We are introducing a brand new way to start a character, where you can play a Jem'Hadar. You’ll start at Level 60 you start with progress in reputations, R&D, all the systems are already in place for you. You play the game as if you had already leveled a character from Level 1 to Level 60.



We are adding a whole new quadrant to the Galaxy, and with it we’re adding a whole new way to play Battlezones. The Gamma Quadrant is going to be one big Battlezone, fighting against the Hur`q, and accomplishing missions help people on your entire shard. There’s a new queue, and we’re raising the level cap to 65.

Bridger: I also noticed when I was testing on Tribble, that certain characters have been replaced with DS9 actors for example Eraun was replaced with Weyon, is this going to happen with other characters as well?

Mike: There are a couple of missions we have gone through and have replaced some characters. We wanted you to encounter the Star Trek actors you want to play with way earlier in the game rather than later at Level 60. There are other fun surprises coming up.

Bridger: There is the Gamma Vanguard Pack that includes the Vanguard Jem'Hadar that perform and look slightly different to the normal Jem'Hadar, will it be possible the make a Vanguard Jem'Hadar look like a regular Jem'Hadar from the show?

Mike: Vanguard Jem’Hadar will have access to the costume options for regular Jem’Hadar, so yes, absolutely.

Bridger: Jem'Hadar start straight at Level 60. Is this something that will be extended to other characters?

Mike: It is something we’ve talked about before, but not something we’re implementing with Victory is Life.

Bridger: Do you have to have a character at a certain Level to be able to create a Level 60 Jem'Hadar?

Mike: Nope! You can start a Jem’Hadar even if you’re a brand new player, although there will be a warning that displays, asking you to do a tutorial for another faction first.

Bridger: When I play queues like ISA for example I notice very often the big gab in player performance, and with VIL the NPC's are going to become tougher and when you have people struggling with a Sphere at Level 60 might the game become again too difficult like it happened back than with Delta Rising.

Mike: We are aware that there is a gap in player ability between causal players and players who go on STO Builds, to build the super duper ships. We balance content for that, making sure that players at all levels can have a fun time. Victory is Life is definitely going to be accessible and playable for players of all skill levels. There are some missions we updated, such as Korfez some time ago and now all the DPS players are saying that it is impossible now. It’s not, but it’s designed for high level players. If you’re struggling with the Advanced content, then play on Normal or Advanced you still get the rewards and the resources are out there to help you improve.

Bridger: One of the new playable species are the Cardassians and I have to say I was a bit shocked to see them added to the FED and KDF. They had such an amazing background in the show with amazing story telling that they should have gotten their own expansion in the style of Legacy of Romulus so are we going to see something special for them?

Mike: There is a system in the game so NPC's will react differently to you depending what species you belong to, for example if you play a Liberated Borg, one of the Deferis immediately distrust you, stuff like that. There will be moments like that for the Cardassians, but for now, they’re going to be a playable race for the Federation and Klingon Factions.

Bridger: Geko talked about revamping the queue system to make it more similar to the Neverwinter system will this be part of Victory is Life?

Mike: There won’t be any major updates to the queue system for Victory is Life. We’re in the early planning stages of some updates to that system, but that’s really all I can say for now.

Bridger: We also have queues that are very popular like ISA and CCA but still only have an advanced version. Would it not be worth giving those queues an Elite version?

Mike: Like everything, it’s a question of resources. There’s not a magic switch to flip to create an Elite version of a queue, it takes developer time to put that into place. Time that could be spent on making Victory is Life. If there’s a lot of demand, we may look into it.

Bridger: Back when I started to play the game eight years ago, we had the original Borg STF's that one mission, an hour to complete and we did not had the power creep, so tactics were important but today you can finish an ISA in under three minutes, so the challenge factor is missing.

Mike: This sounds like a personal experience, based on what sounds like a very optimized, high end ship build. Like I mentioned before, we don’t cater all of our content to our top one percent of players, because we have players of all skill levels who want to enjoy our game.

Bridger: Thanks for taking the time with me to talk about Victory is Life, I can't wait to play it and wait to see what the next Tribble patch brings.

Mike: Thanks for chatting with me.

After the interview, I sent an email with some follow up questions to Mike, and here are his answers.

Bridger: Will Jem’Hadar ships have an actual starship mastery, or is their top tier unlock simply getting the ship for your whole account?

Mike: Jem’Hadar ships actually have a six level mastery, as opposed to the usual five. The fifth level will be a starship trait, and the sixth is unlocking the ship for your account.

Bridger: With the 4th Faction now in place, are we going to see a change in how ship packs are going to work? Right now every new ships pack includes a Federation, Klingon and Romulan version of the same ship(s). So will those pack include in the future a Jem'Hadar version of that ship and will existing ship packs be modified. If yes, what will that mean for the people who have already purchased those packs?

Mike: Existing packs won’t be modified, but moving forward we’re going to try and produce more Jem’Hadar and Dominion ships for each major release, just like we’ve done with the Romulans.