Star-Trek-MMO posts

Last year, Paragon Studios released its Mission Architect tools, allowing players of the super hero MMO City of Heroes to make and share their own missions and storylines in the game. Now yet another major MMO developer, Cryptic Studios, is prepping to release similar tools for its title Star Trek Online.

Cryptic has already launched a forum for discussing the release of the tools, called The Foundry, on the Star Trek Online message boards. The FAQ page in the forums has more info on the tools which will let any player of the game create missions for the title. The Foundry won't allow players to import their own models and art into the game; you will have to work with Cryptic's content for the game. The tools will be released in beta form sometime in early November.

[Via Massively]

The development team at Cryptic Studios has added lots of new content and features to its MMO title Star Trek Online since its release back in February. Now the dev team is launching a new "welcome back" weekend for those former subscribers to the game who have since left the game.

The free weekend is in fact live right now and will continue until Monday, August 9 at 1 pm Eastern time. Former subscribers who still have their retail key will be able to download and patch the game up to the full version. As we have reported on earlier last month the game just got a big "Season Two" content update with lots of new story-based missions, additions and mini-games.

Turbine has had a big success with turning its MMO Dungeons and Dragons Online from a subscription-based exclusive game into a free-to-play title with optional micro-transaction and subscription support. The developer plans to do the same with Lord of the Rings Online later this year. Now a post on the official Star Trek Online forums hints that developer Cryptic Studios could do the same for its recent sci-fi MMO.

Responding to a fan's inquiry, the game's executive producer Daniel Stahl stated, "I could easily see STO going into a hybrid model similar to what Lotro is doing. In that model, subscriptions stay as is - but you allow people to play for free but heavily limit what they can do ..." He believes that model will allow new players to demo the game at no cost and then they can either pay for extra stuff via microtransactions or go with the more traditional subscription model. While Stahl doesn't flat out state that Star Trek Online will go that route the fact that he brings it up as a possiblity means that Cryptic might at least be considering such a move.

[Via Massively]

It's been a few weeks since the launch of Cryptic Studios' long awaited MMO Star Trek Online. The reviews for the game have been on the mixed side but the fan base, at least for the launch, has been pretty solid. Now Cryptic is giving its players a taste of things to come in their new State of the Game message.

In summary, the team has been busy making gameplay and hardware adjustments and additions, including "a metric ton of hardware and man hours at getting the server capacity up." The game will soon add the first new missions to the game that will center around the Borg. The game's first major update will add new Klingon ships, new PvP and Fleet Action missions and more. And in the next 6 to 12 months Cryptic plans to add more exploration missions and perhaps throw in a new playable faction (fingers crossed for Ferengi).

A while back it was revealed that the just launched MMO Star Trek Online would be getting a tie-in novel from Pocket Books. Now more info on that tie-in novel, The Needs of the Many, has been posted on the web site of Pocket Book's parent company Simon and Schuster.

The novel itself seems to center on a conflict between the Federation and Species 8472 (first introduced in the Star Trek Voyager TV series). Interestingly it looks like the novel will be co-written by a fictional character, Jake Sisko. He's the grown up son of Star Trek Deep Space Nine's lead character Captain Ben Sisko. The novel, who lists frequent Trek novelist Michael A Martin as the "other" co-writer, is due for release in late March.