legacy-of-romulus
Latest
Captain's Log: A year of Star Trek Online: Legacy of Romulus
The first expansion to Star Trek Online was the expansion everyone expected and yet one that no one really expected. Romulans were the obvious choice, the big gap in the game's factional lineup, the third major power that had been floating around in the darkness like some vast, predatory bird since the original series. But the idea of seeing a new faction after the Klingons had languished for so long seemed like a pipe dream. When it actually happened, I know I was sort of left just staring and disbelieving. Of course, now we've had the Romulan Republic as a playable sort-of-faction for a year now, and that prompts all sorts of reactions. In many ways, this expansion is better than we could have hoped for, and in other ways it feels as if it kind of falls short. I come here not to praise or to bury Legacy of Romulus but to look at it a year out from launch and perhaps see what lessons could be gleaned for the expansion we're due to receive late this year.
Star Trek Online celebrates New Romulus Weekend
Star Trek Online is pulling out all the stops for the first anniversary of its Legacy of Romulus expansion with a special weekend event. New Romulus Weekend will be handing out quadruple Romulan Mark rewards for New Romulus missions from May 22nd through the 27th. Cryptic is also putting both Legacy of Romulus editions on sale during this time, offering the starter pack for 2,000 ZEN and the legacy pack for 12,500 ZEN. Even after the weekend event is over, Romulan Mark rewards will remain doubled from here on out as a tribute to the expansion and the players' involvement in it.
Star Trek Online celebrates its fourth anniversary with a look back at the previous year
This year, Star Trek Online turns four years old. So how do you celebrate four years of operation on a single game? Well, in this case, you start with a look back over the past year. The newest trailer from the team at Cryptic Studios, embedded just past the break, shows off the highlights of 2013 in Star Trek Online for players who've been away from the game or those who would just like a quick refresher. So what happened? Lots of stuff. The game launched its first full expansion with Legacy of Romulus, players took on the Voth and met up with Worf again, and a whole lot of seasonal fun was had with jetpacks and animated snowmen. But you don't need us to tell you about all of that, do you? The trailer's ready to show you all of that and offer a few glimpses into the future. Why not take a look?
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online's year in review
We've reached the end of 2013 and once again it's time to take a look back at the past year in Star Trek Online to see what has been successful and what missed the mark. I have to say that this year has been the most active that the game has seen since its launch almost four years ago. There's a lot to cover, so I'll just get right to it. A new mission, a new ship, and a familiar voice The game's third anniversary saw a new featured episode accompany the usual Q-instigated frivolity. The mission called Temporal Ambassador included the familiar voice of actress Denise Crosby, whose character, Tasha Yar from Star Trek: The Next Generation, was brought back along with the long-awaited Ambassador Class ship. The ship became the mission reward, continuing Star Trek Online's tradition of providing players with a new vessel during the game's anniversary event. While many of us had hoped that Crosby might be heard again as her other character, the Romulan Tal Shiar Operative Sela, I don't think many of us were truly expecting what was to come.
Captain's Log: An interview with Star Trek Online's artists
This week I will be (yes I know, finally) finishing up with my series of interviews with the developers of Star Trek Online. I traveled to Cryptic Studios last July and had the opportunity to meet with several of the people responsible for the game, especially the new expansion, The Legacy of Romulus. In this column I'll be outlining my conversation with three Star Trek Online artists: Environment Artist Nick (Tumerboy) Duguid, User Interface Artist Thomas (TheCrypticCat) Marrone, and Ship Artist Ian (JamJamz) Richards. So join us past the jump to see what it took to bring the look of Legacy of Romulus to life.
Captain's Log: Around round of Star Trek Online potpourri
Over the course of the last few weeks, Captain's Log has chronicled a series of interviews with various members of the Star Trek Online development team. Today, I think it's time to take a break and bring everyone up to date and outline some of the interesting things that happened in Star Trek Online in the past month. STO Lead Designer Al Rivera issued a special dev blog outlining the new changes to security for fleets, and Executive Producer Daniel Stahl also posted about the integration of material from Star Trek: Voyager into the game, so join me past the break as I cover what has happened in STO since we got back from Las Vegas!
Captain's Log: Interview with Star Trek Online's Christine Thompson, part two
Loyal Massively readers will know that just after the launch of Star Trek Online's first expansion, the Legacy of Romulus, I visited Cryptic Studios and met with several members of the Star Trek Online development team. This week I'm picking up where I left off in my conversation with Star Trek Online's lead writer, Christine "CrypticKestrel" Thompson. Join me past the jump to see what more she had to say about the challenges of writing within accepted canon as well as creating a more personal tale for STO players.
Captain's Log: Interview with Star Trek Online's Christine Thompson, part one
The past couple of weeks, I took a bit of time to head to Las Vegas to moderate and cover the Star Trek Online panels at the official Star Trek Convention, but I'm happy to say I'm back in the saddle and picking up where I left off with my series of interviews with the people responsible for making Star Trek Online and conducted when I visited Cryptic Studios in late June. This week I begin my summaries of my interview with STO's lead writer, Christine Thompson. Many of you may know her as Cryptic Kestrel. Read on to see what she had to say about writing for the Romulan Republic!
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online Las Vegas recap
It's been a couple of weeks since my last entry, and to be honest, I'm still recovering. The Official Star Trek Convention was an absolute blast. Thousands of Trek fans descended upon the Rio Suites and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, for four solid days to celebrate all things Star Trek. One of those things, of course, was Star Trek Online. Contrary to its showing in 2012, Star Trek Online was the focus of not just one but two complete formal panels this year. The first featured two of the STO devs in a discussion with actress Denise Crosby, who voiced the characters of Empress Sela as well as Lt. Tasha Yar. The second panel was co-hosted by Massively and Trek Radio and featured a panel of STO devs who talked about the game and gave us some great sneak-peeks at Season Eight works in progress!%Gallery-196194%
Captain's Log: Interview with Star Trek Online's Daniel Stahl, part two
I recently had the opportunity to travel to Northern California and stop by and spend some time with the Star Trek Online team at Cryptic Studios. This week I continue my series of interviews with the team with part two of my conversation with Star Trek Online Executive Producer Daniel Stahl. Take a leap past the break and read more about what Stahl had to say about the new trait system, what a new level cap raise might entail, and his own involvement with writing new story content for the Klingon faction!
Star Trek Online ships veteran rewards to Romulans
Star Trek Online's veteran reward program is expanding to compensate for the influx of Romulans into the mix. Starting today, Cryptic Studios has added several new Romulan-themed rewards for players who have subscribed for a good amount of time. The rewards start at 200 days and go up to 1,000 days. At the lower end are snappy uniforms and a zippy little small craft, while the senior veterans are looking at an exclusive material option to change the skin of their ship. At the top of the reward tier is the powerful Daeinos-class heavy warbird. This ship comes with the option to switch between regenerative and tactical modes, offering a flexible approach to battles. The Romulan veteran rewards will roll out on July 25th, and lifetime subscribers will receive all of them regardless of the date on which they purchased the pass.
Jukebox Heroes: Expansion themes
Main themes seem to be a strong favorite among video game music fans (and even the casual set), but I've talked about them a few times already. So instead of puttering around with main MMO themes, why not give expansions some of the credit? Not every expansion gets its own theme tune, of course, but plenty do. We've covered a few of them in this column so far, including Riders of Rohan and EVE Online: Apocrypha. What we haven't done is spend an entire week looking at these upstart themes and see how they compare to the originals. So strap on your headphones and prepare for symphonic excellence. Here are six great MMO expansion themes that deserve a few minutes of your time!
Captain's Log: Interview with Star Trek Online's Al Rivera, part one
Late last month, I had the opportunity to drop into the offices of Cryptic Studios to talk with the Star Trek Online team members. While they were still recovering from the intense work required to bring the Legacy of Romulus expansion to bear, they were all still very busy working on new material being produced for the game. New ships, UI changes, fleet holdings, and events were all being worked on. I even got the opportunity to play a bit of the summer event before it went live in the game. However, I was really there to talk to the developers themselves, and I interviewed several different people. This week I begin my series of interviews with the team of Star Trek Online with a synopsis of my discussion with Lead Designer Al "CaptainGeko" Rivera.
One Shots: March beneath the raptor's wings
Man, it's downright shadowy underneath the raptor's wings! Reader Draxos is kicking off our player screenshot exhibition this week with an interestingly lit picture from Star Trek Online's new expansion. "This picture is of my new Romulan character inside a Romulan space station that was having a few ... issues," Draxos wrote in. "When the lights suddenly go out in a space station, you become thankful for the brightness outside the window because then at least there is some chance of seeing what may now be lurking within the darkness. Although you could say that my Reman crew members are the true ones to be fearful of in the dark." Couldn't you use the Borg's head as a flashlight? That's what I would do. Join us for more shadowy flights into dangerous worlds of characters who do not exist in today's One Shots!
Captain's Log: June's Ask Cryptic hints at more changes for STO
It's been more than two weeks since Star Trek Online saw the implementation of the Legacy of Romulus, its first expansion. The game has seen its fair share of queues and server crashes, as well as frequent maintenance closures to address the stability problems. In the game's most recent Ask Cryptic column, Star Trek Online's Executive Producer, Daniel Stahl, addressed some of those issues, answered numerous player questions about the current state of the game, and also gave hints of what we might see in the months to come. Join me past the jump as I attempt to prognosticate on what his answers actually mean.
Stahl fields Star Trek questions, addresses downtime in latest Ask Cryptic
Star Trek Online executive producer Daniel Stahl is back to answer your questions in the latest edition of Ask Cryptic. In addition to fielding a few community queries, Stahl provides an update on what appears to have been a hectic week following the launch of the game's Legacy of Romulus expansion. While Stahl admits that there have been some rough spots when it comes to emergency downtime and queues, he says that the hubbub is ultimately a sign of STO's growth and subsequent higher profile. We did buy new hardware. We did upgrade the network. We did plan for all the new people, but sometimes bad things just happen for no good reason. We've had to replace some new hardware, rewire some networks, upgrade some firewalls, and pretty much anything else that you could think of from an infrastructure standpoint. We're sorry and we're working around the clock to whack the moles as they pop up. But in general, we've had more people in and playing the game than any previous update in STO. We're seeing record numbers of captains creating new Romulan characters. It's pretty awesome.
The Think Tank: The best MMO of 2013... so far
At the end of each year, we like to put our heads together and figure out the year's best MMOs in several categories. Often times, the games released earlier in the year aren't as fresh in our memories, so we might not be as excited about them by the time December rolls around. But in this week's The Think Tank, I wanted to make sure to play off of that mid-year enthusiasm and have the team members pick their favorites as they stand at this halfway point. So what did the team pick for best MMO or expansion released from January to May 2013? Read on past the cut to find out.
Captain's Log: STO's Legacy of Romulus launches
Last week Star Trek Online's much anticipated expansion, the Legacy of Romulus, went live after months of veritable hype. The launch was not without its problems, and some of those problems are still being ironed out. In spite of all the server issues, I finally got to jump into the game and begin my first Romulan character and take my Vice Admiral character to the new adventure zone on Nimbus III to take a look around. Take a leap past the jump to see what's new in the Star Trek Online universe.
Star Trek Online Legacy of Romulus launch-day roundup
With today's launch of Star Trek Online's first expansion, Legacy of Romulus, players can boldly go where no one has gone before. (Not to mention it gives us a reason to use that iconic phrase!) From new species and ships to more Klingon content, this next chapter in the STO saga expands the universe for players to explore. Want to captain a new ship as a Romulan or a Reman? Can do. How about adventure in a new zone? Yup. Or maybe just revel in the bounty of new rewards? Go for it. If, however, you're stuck in spacedock and unable to head out yet, you can check out the changes awaiting you in the guides, videos, news briefs, and galleries below.
It's a ship in a box in Star Trek Online
Just because you're playing a Romulan in Star Trek Online's first expansion doesn't mean every other Romulan is your friend. Empress Sela's Tal Shiar are a huge threat not just to the nascent Romulan Republic but to all sentient life throughout the galaxy, epitomized with their insectoid ships that fuse Romulan, Borg, and Elachi technology together. Needless to say, these ships are never good to see on the horizon. Unless you happen to open one in a lockbox, anyhow. Yes, the newest lockbox in the game will give players a chance to earn the strange ships of the Tal Shiar, giving all captains a chance to fly some of the strangest ships yet seen in the game. The ships perform similarly to Romulan crafts with their built-in cloaks, but they exchange some of the active Romulan cloaking power for tactical weapons like Shrapnel Torpedoes. For more details on what awaits in the upcoming lockboxes, take a look at the full rundown of potential prizes.
