Star Trek Online Preview

Thanks to a new preview on MMORPG.com, we now know how the bridge of our ship and its officers will function while we're adventuring through space in Star Trek Online.
The crew members have become an integral part of every aspect of the game. In space, they provide access to special abilities that could make the difference between victory and defeat. On land, their phasers are there with you in every scenario.

The team has gone to great lengths to make them apparent to the players from day one. They won't have full blown personalities like side-kicks in single-player RPGs like Dragon Age, but they won't be anonymous peons either.

(Captains never hail and never scan anything,) Zinkievich pointed out. When you use the replicator, it's your engineer who gives you feedback and whose face you see beside the console. The premise is that no matter what action you pick on board a ship, you're likely asking someone to do it and they show you that. These little touches didn't seem like much at first, but over a couple hours of playing the game organically (from character creation through the tutorial and first few missions) I got to know the people with me in some strange way.