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Star Trek Online kicks off featured episode reruns
Star Trek Online is going to be in reruns on May 16th, and unlike television shows, this is a good thing. The featured episode reruns allow players to pick up special items that aren't obtainable in the game through any other means, including Breen and Reman bridge officers for Federation and Klingon captains and Lobi crystals for everyone. The event runs from May 16th until May 27th, with each featured episode series (Spectres, Cloaked Intentions, The 2800, and Cold Call) providing a special reward for characters that complete them. Players can also earn 15 Lobi crystals for completing at least one episode per day, making for a total of 180 available for free during the event. So if you haven't gotten the special rewards on a character, you want some crystals, or you just feel like going through some classic Star Trek Online missions, you'll want to jump in on the reruns.
Captain's Log: Gearing up for Star Trek Online's fourth anniversary
We're only a few days away from the release of Star Trek Online's fourth anniversary celebration, and a lot of information about upcoming events is rolling out. As the team prepares for the launch, several new blogs have popped up teasing players with information about upcoming content and changes including news that actor Tim Russ, who played Tuvok in Star Trek: Voyager, will reprise his role in Star Trek Online's Fourth Anniversary Featured Episode! It's only logical Last week's announcement that Tim Russ would be providing his voice for upcoming content certainly made a lot of Trekkies happy. Community Manager Brandon Felczer interviewed Russ for the game's video blog and asked a lot of great questions. It was also revealed during the interview that recordings of Russ' voice won't just be used in the upcoming Featured Episode (called A Step Between Stars); it will also be heard in "upcoming content" including "Season Nine and beyond."
Star Trek Online updates Klingon War episodes
As we heard yesterday, part of Star Trek Online's Season 8.5 will be devoted to revamping a dozen early episodes from the game in order to bring them up to par with later efforts. Cryptic Designer Jesse Heinig wrote a dev blog explaining what these changes will entail for the Federation's Klingon War story arc. "Rather than turn one or two more episodes into feature episodes, though, we've chosen to go through and make noticeable improvements on all of them," Heinig explained. "The stories remain the same and much of the gameplay is still there, but we've tweaked the missions to be faster, more dynamic, and more visually interesting." The revamped episodes will take advantage of better encounter pacing, removal of unneeded encounters, accomodation for player ships with cloaks, additional art and environments, cleaned-up dialogue, career-specific options and rewards, and fly-out messages from NPCs to enhance storytelling.
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online's Sphere of Influence, Season Eight, and reruns
Just ask the Massively writers and they'll agree that writing about a specific game is a lot like chasing the tide; information about a game comes and goes in waves. It's been no different with Star Trek Online, but now the tide is rolling in. A lot is happening in Star Trek Online: release dates have been announced, a new beta Mac platform is coming, the new featured episode is live, old featured episodes have a rerun promotion, and a lot more is on the way, so let's just jump in because the water's fine! New featured episode Let's start with the most recent featured episode introduced into the game. Called Sphere of Influence, the mission involves the player being invited back to New Romulus to witness the power-up of the Iconian gate that he helped discover. Upon arriving, the player is informed that Klingon Ambassador Worf is also there to act as a consultant. Worf has had prior dealings with Iconian gates, and sure enough, when the player is introduced to the Ambassador, he will hear actor Michael Dorn's voice.
Star Trek Online highlights its latest featured episode in a new trailer
Star Trek Online players have had to wait a little while for the next featured episode, but the wait is finally over. A new video is available to show off the start of the next episode, Sphere of Influence. It all starts on New Romulus as the Republic tries to activate a newly discovered Iconian gateway... a project that leads to a massive earthquake, trapping the players and others underground with no avenue of escape. Except, you know, the mysterious gateway that could lead almost anywhere. What follows next is less clear, but it involves players taking the controls of an ancient starship and joining up with both Klingons and the Federation to fight off some new opponents. It's the sort of exploration, danger, and adventure that you'd expect from a featured episode, in short. We have the video embedded for you past the cut.
Captain's Log: Solonae space zone in Star Trek Online
It's been another great week of new information about Star Trek Online's upcoming new Featured Episode and Season Eight. We've learned that the new FE, which is set to be released on Thursday, October 31st, will be called Sphere of Influence. The title isn't a much of a surprise as most of us have been expecting that the new FE will carry Star Trek Online's story from the Iconian gate on New Romulus to the new content featuring a Dyson Sphere in Season Eight. A new sponsorship system will be added to STO's reputation system, which should benefit those of us who like to play multiple alts. I've also had a chance to peruse the new Voth Command reputation faction on the Tribble test server and learn it contains some interesting new passive skills. Finally, a lot more content has been released onto Tribble, including the new Solonae space adventure zone. There's also some great news for those who don't subscribe to STO but still want to test the new content: Tribble has been opened up to all players, not just subscribers! If you don't want to know anything about the new content, be warned: This column will have a few spoilers!
Captain's Log: Star Trek Online's Dyson Sphere ground battle zone
Finally! We finally have some news to report involving Star Trek Online's upcoming new content! Some of the new Season Eight material is up on the Tribble test server, and the new Featured Episode will be released on October 31st! We still aren't exactly sure when Season Eight will be released, but it's now easier to see what's in store for us, including a new set of space missions and new ground missions that feature territory control. I've had a chance to jump onto Star Trek Online's Tribble server to try a few things out and to see these "dinosaurs with frikkin' lasers on their heads" for myself. So let's get to it.
Choose My Adventure: Star Trek Online III - The search for the Foundry
Captain's log, Stardate 86234.1. The USS Xiang Yu is reporting back to Starfleet Headquarters for a debriefing following a mission containing a cascading temporal anomaly linked to the ship's warp signature. My first officer has been asked to give a report on the observable effects of the phenomenon and what might be done in the future to prevent a similar incident from reoccurring. During what should have been a fairly simple search and rescue assignment, the Xiang Yu was trapped in a repeated cycle of destruction and temporal displacement. Upon closer examination, my chief engineer identified a concentration of chroniton signatures that corresponded with the impact points of torpedoes during an earlier engagement with the Orion Syndicate. Her theory is that these weapons were somehow responsible for this phenomenon. My first officer, meanwhile, is convinced that interpersonal relationships are in some way connected to this incident. I am occasionally unclear why Admiral Celeste encourages her in this fashion.
Captain's Log: Catching up on Star Trek Online
Leave it to my coworker here at Massively to find a way to suggest a new focus in my Captain's Log columns. Since many of us will be waiting impatiently for the next teaser for March Beneath the Raptor's Wings due out on March 21st, I had been a little worried that news on the Star Trek Online front would be a little thin. Therefore, I was very happy for a suggestion that came about after a tweet from Beau Hindman generated responses suggesting that I take on this subject. So for the next couple of weeks I will be writing about some of the major changes Star Trek Online has undergone in the past two years in the hopes it can help out folks like Beau who are returning to the game after a long absence.
Star Trek Online puts its featured episodes into reruns
Reruns are a staple of the Star Trek series, especially as it's been several years since the last television series ended. But reruns are a bit more exciting in Star Trek Online because they mean players have a chance to get the special rewards from featured episodes all over again. For the month of May, the game is putting all of its previous episodes into a rerun rotation, giving everyone who missed them the first time a chance to get the special bonuses. May 3rd through the 9th will feature the Spectres series, followed by Cloaked Intentions from May 10th through the 16th, The 2800 from the 17th to the 23rd, and Cold War from the 24th until May 30th. All of the special rewards are still unique, so if you already have one, you can't get it again. But if you weren't playing the game at the time or just missed the chance, this month offers a chance to go back and catch up. [Thanks to The_Grand_Nagus for the tip!]
Captain's Log: Does 'The 2800: Second Wave' live up to expectations?
This column will be going over the new episode in detail, so if you haven't played it yet and are averse to spoilers, stop right here. After a long year's wait and hot on the heels of another controversial release of in-game revenue-generating lock boxes, Star Trek Online finally saw the debut of playable story-based content. The first of five scheduled episodes in the series titled The 2800: Second Wave was launched on Saturday morning while crowds gathered in the Beta Ursae sector and waited with bated breath. When the mission opened, the server was filled almost immediately, and by the time I was able to log in, there was already a queue that exceeded 1300 players. Luckily, I have a lifetime sub, so my entrance was prioritized, and I immediately logged into my Vice Admiral tactical character and had her hail Starfleet Command. She was told that she was selected to attend a conference being held at Deep Space Nine (DS9) and that representatives from the Klingon Empire, Defera, Cardassia and the UFP would be attempting to come to an accord in order to face the growing Borg threat. But what happened when she got there had nothing to do with the Borg...
Captain's Log: Incoming message... from the future
Captain's Log, Stardate 64787.3... Hello, computer (and players)! Captain Brandon Felczer of the USS Radiance Vesta-class battleship reporting in. While en route to the Gamma Orionis sector block to investigate readings of potential Borg energy signatures, we encountered an unexplained anomaly unlike any we have ever encountered; the computer system could not provide any data to us. As we attempted to break away from its gravitational pull, we lost all control and systems -- the crew lost consciousness. Once we awoke several hours later, we discovered that we had been pulled into its void and somehow propelled 365 Earth days into the future. While the Prime Directive has required us to stay out of affairs not in our timeline, we managed to record several pieces of data about developments that will happen in the future. There have been some gigantic leaps forward, and I can honestly say I cannot wait for a year from now. After I am finished recording this log, I will send it on subspace frequencies back to Starfleet Command. If you are reading this now, you have received my log one way or another. You must be now asking yourself, "What did we see?" Ensign, warp 10! Let's report on our findings of what we will see in Star Trek Online soon™...
Cryptic releases new Star Trek Online Featured Episode
Ready for Star Trek Online's newest Featured Episode series? Well, ready or not, Cryptic is here to give us the skinny on Series 3: Cloaked Intentions. If you're wondering how STO's episodes work, it breaks down like this: Feature Episodes are tied together to form a single story arc. New episodes under each Feature banner take a bow on Saturdays at 11:00 a.m. PST and are freely available to all STO players regardless of level. The new Cloaked Intentions arc involves a series of missions focused on the Romulan Empire; the overarching goal of participating players is the prevention of a bloody civil war. The intrigue kicks off today with Episode 1: The Vault, followed by episodes 2 - 5 every Saturday through March 5th. You can learn more at the official STO website, and don't forget to warp past the cut for the Cloaked Intentions trailer.
Newest Ask Cryptic focuses on Star Trek Online's weekly episodes
The Breen might be backstabbing frozen monsters, but they've been a part of something wonderful in Star Trek Online. Not in the sense that they've stopped being backstabbing frozen monsters, but in the sense that you'd be hard-pressed to find a player unhappy with the new featured episodes. And with the ongoing plan to add a new episode every week, there's going to be a lot more content to enjoy in short order. The most recent Ask Cryptic feature, unsurprisingly, has focused on this new aspect of the game, with Dan Stahl fielding player questions on the weekly feature. Perhaps most interesting for players will be the fact that Stahl talks about using the prototype version of user-generated content tools to develop some of the patrol missions seen in-game, reminding players that the option to make your own episodes is coming with time. There's also re-affirmation of the episodes becoming permanent features of the game and scaling to all levels, allowing players to take off the rails of the previous leveling structure and chart their own course. View the full article for a deeper look inside the newest part of Star Trek Online, and really, don't turn your back on a Breen.
