Star Trek Online's new Season was just announced. We've sat down with Cryptic's Steve Ricossa, Executive Producer for Star Trek Online, to learn more about what we can expect in Season 11: New Dawn.





We are coming to the end of a five-year war with the Iconians, and with that Captains must

look towards the future for their next assignments. We wanted to know what is going to keep Captains in the chair. We had the chance to sit down and talk with Cryptic’s Executive Producer for Star Trek Online, Steve Ricossa, who some know as

about Season 11 New Dawn, which is set to carry players through 2016.

“There won’t be a new exploration system for Season 11” Ricossa said, but New Dawn

will still see a return to exploration for captains. Among other things, Captains will be given the ability to explore new planets, and make first contact with new species. “There is no big bad enemy,” Ricossa said, “but now time travel is out of the bottle, and everyone has access to it, which will cause some problems.” We will also see Chase Masterson reprise her role as Mirror Leeta, who is part of the Terran Empire, “Who just finished their war with the Iconians. We’re not going to say how their war went.” Ricossa said.

Every Star Trek series and film has had a great enemy, Voyager had the Borg, Enterprise

has the Xindi. Star trek Online has the Iconians, which Ricossa said the team had created and built off of light mentions and references from the TV series to “tie all of the hints together… ” Ricossa said that “[the Iconians] affected entire quadrants.” Ricossa went on to say that we will see the finale for the Iconian war soon, and it will “force players to make a tough decision and tough choices.” That being said will the new canon enemy Cryptic plans to introduce in Season 11 top the Iconians? Unfortunately we won't know until they reveal themselves as Ricossa wouldn’t give us any information outside of the fact that they, like the Elachi, can be seen in the Enterprise series.

Currently there are six missions that will center around the Badlands and Deep Space 9, set

to be added to the story arc for Season 11 - two for the new season and four for the Cardassian Episode revamp. More missions will undoubtedly be added as the season development progresses, both pre- & post-launch. Ricossa also confirmed that there will be new ships coming in Season 11.

Season 11 will also include the addition of the Admiralty system. “It’s supposed to make you feel more like an Admiral with ships under your command.” Ricossa said, going on to explain how the Admiralty system will work. “It will be similar to the Duty Officer system,” Ricossa said, “There are moment to moment choices, which are supposed to make for more meaningful choices with larger rewards.” These rewards will be determined by short and long term goals; the short term goals may only take a few hours, while the long term goals will take significantly longer. According to Ricossa, “because it’s a starship and not an officer, the rewards will be great.”

There are also a host of other things Players have asked for, or wanted. While we had Mr. Ricossa we were able to ask him a few of their questions. Such as why haven’t we seen Kate Mulgrew reprise her role as Admiral Janeway? Ricossa said that the studio would love to work with Mulgrew, however they want her missions and interactions to have meaning, as well as to create a strong storyline for Janeway like they did with the crew of Voyager that joined the STO family in Delta Rising.



Player polls have been taken, asking what other races they’d like to play. Ricossa said that the three most popular races were the Borg, Cardassian, and the Dominion. Ricossa said that there is a possibility that other races could be added to Star Trek Online in the future at some point.





I also wanted to know more about the exploration system. While Ricossa stated there won’t be a new exploration system added in Season 11, there is always a chance we see one in the future. “There have been whiteboard discussions about it,” Ricossa said. “In general there were a lot of bugs and issues. It was poor quality,” Ricossa said referencing the original exploration system that was part of the launch of Star Trek Online. “We’ve been working on refreshing and improving the launch content, like we did with the mission arcs.”





Throughout the years Star Trek Online has stayed true to Star Trek Canon, at least to a point. “Our goal is to tie off loose ends or the logical conclusions to stories from the series.” Ricossa said when asked about why Cryptic has tried to stay close to Canon lore, instead of just running wild with their own ideas, “We do have some creative freedoms… We feel like that’s why people are here.”

One thing that is always on the mind of any game developer and in turn, at least a portion of, a gaming community is the state of the game. “It’s the strongest it’s ever been. We’ve maintained its base.” Ricossa also stated that the player base has grown since the change to free to play and has continued to grow.

DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FOR THE DEVELOPERS, OR ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE TO SEE IN SEASON 11: NEW DAWN?



TELL US IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

