IGN Vault Voon chat with Craig Zinkievich

I will clean up the audio and put it up next week so you can listen to it yourself. If you can't wait that long, you can also download it here.

Some of the answers were interesting, here's a list of a few I summarised:

• There will be auction houses in game where we can sell/buy items, skills and ship parts. Payment system is still being worked out.
  
• We will have web widgets we can incorporate in our fleet pages and personal web sites, keep your eyes peeled on Champions Online for more details.
  
• Ground combat will have aspects of combat from games like Tabula Rasa, Mass Effect and WoW. It will not be like fps combat but more fast paced then WoW. It will be 3rd person, you will have to manage resources on the ground and positional aspect will be important. More move, run and gun.
  
• For RP there will be much customisation available for your character back story, the looks of you and your bridge crew, your bridge crew history and development.
  
• Fleet mechanics are still being worked out now, like how shared items and resources will work.
  
• Death will involve some damage, certain systems could work less efficient, but nothing too serious so you could basically get started pretty much straight away.
  
• Fleet ships will have the option for trim, material colours, decals and fleet emblem. If these options are made to stand out, fleet ships could be instantly recognisable as belonging to a certain fleet.
  
• The map will be a 2D galaxy with limited 3D movement. Thanks to transwarp conduits exploration content is right around the corner. At launch it will be limited to the edge of the quadrant. Travelling from system to system (sector space) you will have an overview in 2D where you can see the systems and other players flying around. Dropping out of warp into a system could entail a small loading screen, once in the system you would get a more 3D view with limited up-down movement.
  
• Career path will have limited impact on content availability, so all content should be playable no matter what path you choose.
  
• (Q from our own Morgan4L, had to put it in )Real money transactions is something Atari is looking into, no news on that as yet.
  
• Star Trek Online will be accessible to fans of the IP as well as people who know nothing about Star Trek. Fans will pick up on certain things, but it will be just as much fun for non-fans.
  
• There will be no interaction with the computer but it will happen by things that the player does directly or via the bridge crew.
  
• On a question about privateers, Craig answered at launch there would only be Starfleet and Klingon Defense Force, leaving that door open for the future.
  
• Starter ship will be a Miranda class type configuration.
  
• Fleet starbases probably won't be in at launch, but they are still working on that.
  
• Starbase and ship interiors and boarding or being boarded will only be in instanced missions or episodes.

If there's anything important I missed, please add it in your comment

Thank you for the update, Coco. The things that I'm reading are confiriming what many people have been speculating for a while now. I'm very pleased - they seem to be suceeding at bottling lightning. Attempting to merge major separate game aspects; planetside/space combat and trading/exploring. Wow...