14 DAY TRIAL // Death in video games is a very abstract concept, and each genre punishes players in different ways for carelessly throwing away their lives. Single-player games tended to force the re-load screen upon them, but, without such a feature in online titles, death and defeat needed to adapt, developing actual punishments for death. First-person shooters tend to count the times one died and make them public on the server's scoreboard for all to see their lack of survival instinct. MMORPGs, however, usually take a more direct approach to the penalty, most of the times by inflicting different degrees of handicaps, be they to one's stats, skills or equipped items.
Cryptic's Star Trek Online, however, chose to do none. As such, the game's community feels like there is a lot of immersion lost because of this, as players are very negligent with the well being of their characters and ships. And the main reason why Cryptic didn't implement any kind of drawbacks to death is because it feels like having the game squander your time is not something that should happen.
Speaking to IncGamers, the Executive Producer of Star Trek Online, Craig Zinkievich, said that, “I get that people want to feel a sense of risk when they’re fighting in battles, but if the only emotion you feel when you’re playing a game is fear that you’re going to lose some time due to an arbitrary gameplay mechanic, we’re probably not doing something right.” However, this doesn't mean that the title will necessarily let us run rampant through “the final frontier,” making us climb on top of our own corpses and derelict starships in order to advance.
Zinkievich also added that, “We are looking into finding a meaningful way to give players a deeper sense of loss when something bad happens. But we want it to feel right, rather than just like an arbitrary penalty.” A complete lack of consequences for our action does indeed lead to chaos, but it takes a great crisis to give birth to a hero. Maybe the extra attention they're giving to the future will lead them to creating a brand-new, and brilliant “deathplay” mechanic.