Exploration "integral" to Star Trek Online

In a fan Q&A, Cryptic's allayed fears that you won't be able to fly off into outer space for 5,000 years looking for pretty planets in Star Trek Online - exploration's going to be central to the game, apparently.

"Exploration will never take a backseat in Star Trek Online," said executive producer Craig "Zinc" Zinkievich. @Heck – in all the series, Starfleet is always sending captains off to chart new systems or classify nebulas.

"So we don't view exploration as a 'break' from other gameplay – it's integral. Expect to be encouraged to boldly go! And as an incentive to explore space, discovering new civilizations is one of the major ways to open up new resources and equipment and make new alien recruits available to you, your fleet and your faction."

Loads more through there. To be fair, we're very excited about STO. May well become our MMO of choice.