Daniel Stahl, Star Trek Online's New Head Honcho

By Author: Chris Coker
Total Articles: 18
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It's happened before, and it'll probably happen again. A short while ago, Star Trek Online Executive Producer Zinc pulled a rare genuine surprise on gamers which shocked the community, and rocked it to its core. Sadly, this had little to do with the gameplay or content itself. In a letter to the community, Zinc announced he was stepping down from his post, citing a desire to spend more time with his family, while assuring folks that he enjoyed his time at Cryptic and with STO specifically, and handing the reigns over to Producer Daniel Stahl.

So do we expect STO to die a slow death now? Hardly, this sort of thing has happened before, and it's not too uncommon really. The last high profile example would probably be the September 2008 resignation of Gaute Godager, Producer and Game Director on Age of Conan as that project endured a tumultuous launch period.

The circumstances however are somewhat different. While many felt that Godager was shamed into resignation, having launched a product that was ill-received (at least initially) and riddled with bugs and lacking content, by and large the community is extremely ...
... fond of Craig Zinkievich, and happy with the progress Star Trek Online has made since launching in February.

As such, while AoC's regime change was greeted with enthusiasm and no small amount of relief, it's understandable that STO's new management is greeted with a certain amount of trepidation, folks are just not sure what to expect, and what it will mean for the long term health of the game.

It's true that there have been some recent personnel changes such as the departure of popular content designer and forum poster, Gozer and various other community personnel, but Stahl insists that STO has had very little turnover compared to other projects he's worked on. He goes as far as to say he thinks Zinkievich probably already misses STO and wishes he was back at work, according to Stahl, Zinc didn't leave because he didn't think STO didn't have a future, but rather because he's been working on it almost non-stop for over two and a half years and he's just tired, an explanation which ties in perfectly with Zinc's infamous What you leave behind community message.

Despite what fans feel, Stahl thinks that the current doom and gloom attitude towards the changes is unwarranted, he admits that Zinc leaving is sad, but believes that it's an opportunity for new growth, and building on the solid platform his predecessor has put in place.

But how can we be sure that Star Trek Online isn't about to go belly up, that all our hard earned STO credits, pretty cruisers and galaxy class ships aren't about to disappear into the ether?

Stahl is a huge fan - You don't have to look hard to find a curious picture of Stahl, dressed as Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise yelling into the camera. What's encouraging is that this picture existed even before he began work on Star Trek Online, and for Trekkies, having a Trekkie in charge of STO is an absolute priority, in this sense at least he's worth his weight in gold, erm, STO credits.

In his earliest interviews with the community, Stahl has talked about the fact that he's often had discussions with Zinc about fan-driven content, and gave the example of a V'ger-based content pack, ideas that were often rebuffed. He seemed to indicate that while such content would be difficult to get around to, now that he's in charge, he'll be taking a good look at how feasible it is. Will people enjoy this? Will it keep folk's interest? If it takes off, STO will definitely keep making them.

Excitingly, Stahl has also promised a greater emphasis on deep story arcs, possibly five episodes long, and has said that these episodes would be delivered each week. This would be a major undertaking of course, and community reaction would need to be looked at, but this is the sort of thing that folks who play STO regularly would give their right arm (or at least a hefty chunk of STO credits) for.

He's promised to be more communicative than Craig.

First off, it's not like Stahl's a new face on the block. Long time Cryptic fans will know he's been with the company for a while, and folks who've been following STO will also know he's been active in the community with Engineering Reports and forum activity since the early days of the project.

Stahl has promised that players will likely see some changes in his approach to the community, and has intimated that he's likely to be making himself more available on the forums and listening intently to fan feedback, even if it's not always implemented instantly, which brings us to...

The fact that Stahl appears pragmatic.

As awesome and dedicated as Zinc was (and he was nothing if not dedicated), you have to admit that he had a habit of promising the world, and not always delivering. Or at least, promising the world, and not taking a step back to look at the big picture.

It's heartening then, to hear that Stahl will be looking at pushing back the introduction of playable races, and will instead have the development team focus their efforts on fleshing out content for the two factions currently in the game, especially the Klingon faction.

While everyone would love to see the Romulans make an appearance, it's no secret that the Klingon's have been given the short end of the stick since STO launched, and while recent efforts to bolster Klingon gameplay are much appreciated, there is still much work to be done, if pushing back new factions means we get better fleshed out Klingons, then it's worth it.

We can only hope that Stahl continues to bring this fan-centric, but pragmatic approach to other aspects of STO's ongoing development. After all, what's worth doing at all, is worth doing well.

Chris Coker is a freelance writer and avid gamer. He has written on all aspects of the MMO industry, focusing on his latest favorite, Star Trek Online. Check out some of his posts where he dishes out everything from ship interiors to energy credits to good old-fashioned grinding.