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Star Trek Online announces Junior Officer Appreciation Weekend
Star Trek Online junior officers, do you feel under-appreciated? Taken for granted? Well chin up, because Cryptic Studios wants to make it up to you with the upcoming Junior Officer Appreciation Weekend. The event will run from 1:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, December 15th until 1:00 p.m. EST Monday, December 19th. All players have to do is speak to their duty officer in their respective academies, and they'll receive "up to a 50% bonus to all duty officer assignment Commendation Experience Points for the weekend." They will also receive a free "special purple quality duty officer with a unique active roster power." For details on the entire event schedule, head on over to the STO official site, linked below.
Stephen D'Angelo promises 'one more surprise' for Star Trek Online in December
Star Trek Online's Stephen D'Angelo is one of the game's biggest cheerleaders, and it shows in his latest developer diary. "December has been an amazing month," he begins, citing the release of Season 5, new starships, and the Duty Officer system. He highlights the game's first holiday, Q's Winter Wonderland, and the minigames and activities in which the players can participate to get the most out of this whimsical event. Of course, it's not all fun and games when serious prizes, like a holographic bridge officer or a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, are on the line. D'Angelo also says that a Duty Officer mini-event is on the docket for the month, as will "one more fun surprise." He concludes his letter by sharing the news that the team is now focusing on February's Dominion Episodes and ground skills/UI improvements.
Star Trek Online's free-to-play starships prepare to leave spacedock
As Star Trek Online's free-to-play final frontier approaches, the Cryptic team is fast at work trying to strike the right balance between the standard-issue starships that come with the game and the C-Store options available for purchase. In a new dev blog, Executive Producer Stephen D'Angelo says that each rank of gameplay is being shuffled around to offer a regular and premium starship for each class. Because not every tier had enough for six starships, Cryptic is adding a number of spiffy C-Store versions for Federation players, including the new Exeter cruiser, the Sao Paulo escort, and the Bellerophon science vessel. The Klingon Defense Force is receiving a similar restructuring, with new ships like the Norgh Refit and Orion Dacoit Flight Deck Cruiser making their way into the store. D'Angelo admits that C-Store starships are slightly stronger and carry a special piece of gear that can be transferred from ship to ship as the player levels up. D'Angelo also stresses that any C-Store starships are purchased for an entire account, not a single character. Cryptic is also planning to re-instate the free starship token at Lt. Commander and Commander ranks for everyone.
Dan Stahl addresses Star Trek Online F2P concerns
While we're still awaiting official details on the recent announcement of Star Trek Online's free-to-play transition, Executive Producer Daniel Stahl leaped into the forums to help dispel some of the more troubling fears and to shed some light on what is happening. "There has been a method to all the madness, but first and foremost on my mind has been ensuring that Star Trek Online has a big future ahead of it," Stahl writes. "That has led to some tough decisions and deep analysis of what was critically wrong in STO. The next several months are going to be exciting for STO as you begin to see everything that we've been working on (finally)." The good news is that the F2P switch will not impact current subscribers (if anything, Stahl says they'll see more benefits), nor will it restrict content access. Cryptic may be lowering prices on some items in the C-Store, and Star Trek Online will be playable to the level cap without requiring money spent on it. Stahl also confirmed that more hardware is on the way for the game's foundation. At least from his perspective, Stahl sees STO's new owners as a boon to the game's future: "Perfect World has made it very clear that they want to invest in STO because they believe it has great POTENTIAL and they see an investment that can yield an even better game. That to me, is the golden path that this game deserves. It is Star Trek we are talking about!"
One Shots: Nostalgic
Let's face it -- one of the reasons so many enjoy Star Trek Online is due to having Star Trek on our televisions for many years. Whether you grew up with the original series, The Next Generation, DS9, or one of the other iterations, there's a wealth of story to build on that hearkens back to our favorite Trek moments. Today, we have a lovely nostalgic shot from regular Massively reader, Greeen, who writes in: One thing that unfortunately has not been mentioned too much in reviews so far since launch of Star Trek Online is the main storyline, which can be compared to perhaps LotROs epic storyline (difficulty aside). As part of this episode storyline in STO, one encounters the ancient portal from the "City on the Edge of Forever" (mission is called "City on the Edge of Never"), [where one] time travels and gets to meet the original USS Enterprise! Despite all its implications, this gave some awesome morale boost to my crew, on the USS Nostromo II, captained by Lt. Commander Xelander. We love MMOs: from the old to the new! But we rely on readers like you to tell us about their favorite adventures. So, why not take a moment to email a screenshot to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com this weekend along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit. %Gallery-85937%%Gallery-9798%
Video: A Star Trek Online history lesson
Cryptic has put out a new behind-the-scenes video for Star Trek Online, in which members of the development team lay down the fictional history behind the title. The game is set to take place after the final Next Generation film, Star Trek Nemesis. Unless you're pretty up on your Trek lore, that's really all you need to know. For the rest of us, the video goes into thick detail about the various conflicts that follow, leading up to a massive war between Klingons, Romulans, the Gorn and Nausicaans. Don't worry if you don't know your Dyson spheres from your Crystalline entities, as there are plenty of space battles and explosions in there, too.
The hidden art of Star Trek Online
There is much buzz in the MMOG universe this morning about the upcoming title Star Trek Online. Being absolute fanboys and fangirls of Star Trek ourselves (much like our friends at STO Zone who had the same idea) we wanted to show you a couple of nuggets of interesting art that we've extracted. These two images were taken from the backgrounds of the Cryptic Star Trek Online site that was unveiled last night. The top image shows an Andorian female in the foreground of what appears to be an away team. Some of the staff think that may be either a Bolian, Benzite or an Orion male to her left, but it's very hard to make out. (Not that many people remember the Orion males anyway.) Below that is a Klingon at the helm of what appears to be a Bird of Prey with a Human, Ferengi, Cardassian and Vulcan manning the controls, dressed in Federation uniform, or wearing Federation insignia. Speculation from some blog sites suggest that Cryptic is likely looking at a period of time post-DS9, tied to the Officer Exchange Program that started in the episode "A Matter of Honor" during the TNG series. It seems like an excellent spot in the continuity to place an MMO, we think.
