star-trek-online posts

Those familiar with the City of Heroes mission creator have most likely heard of Star Trek Online's Foundry tool set. Created to allow users to make their own missions and episodes, it's a fairly significant addition to what was once a struggling MMO. This trailer outlines a lot of the developer purpose behind the tool set, the specific things players can do with them, and where the developers want to go with the feature. It's a good behind the scenes trailer for those that are interested in that sort of thing.

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While it's been in beta testing for the past several months, developer Cryptic Studios has finally and officially launched the Foundry mission editor for its sci-fi MMO Star Trek Online. This mission editor makes the game one of the few MMO titles that will allow players to create their own missions and have them be played by others.

While players won't be able to do things like import new character and ship models into the game they will be able to use Star Trek Online's current content to create new missions in space as well as planet-based storylines. So now anyone can create that Star Trek fan fiction storyline you have been keeping under your bed.

Jack Emmert, perhaps the most well known of the faces behind Cryptic Studios, is now the game developer's new CEO. It's parent company Atari announced today that Emmert would take over the position of CEO following the departure of John Needham who is leaving "to pursue other opportunities within the games industry." Emmert was previously Cryptic's Chief Operating Officer

Emmert co-founded Cryptic and helped to design its first game, the MMO City of Heroes which was later purchased by its publisher NCsoft. Atari purchased Cryptic in 2008 and launched two more MMOs for the publisher; Champions Online in 2009 and Star Trek Online in 2010. Cryptic is currently working on the non-MMO fantasy RPG Neverwinter as well as at least one unannounced game for Atari.

[Via email press release]

Even though Champions Online is moving to the free-to-play business model on Tuesday, the super hero MMO will still give players the option of paying for a monthly subscription that will give them access to more content. There's also the lifetime subscription option that will still be available.

Starting on Tuesday, players who pick that particular option in both Champions Online and developer Cryptic Studios' other current MMO Star Trek Online will get a 20 percent discount on their respective lifetime subscriptions prices. Both are normally $299 each but the sale will reduce that price to $239.99. The sale ends on February 5.

As promised earlier this fall, Cryptic Studios has now released a major update, Season 3, for its sci-fi MMO Star Trek Online. The big new edition in this update is the launch of the beta version of Foundry, the game's mission creator. Players will now be able to create their own Star Trek adventures and share then with all of the other game's players.

Other additions in Season Three include being able to go back and replay earlier missions (and gain some new rewards in some cases), the ability to install Borg-based tech on your in-game ships, a revamp of the game's Sector Space and more.

The Direct2Drive PC game download site is holding a new daily sales event this week. For the next five days it will drastically cut the price of one Atari-published game per day. The first game under this event is Star Trek Online which for the next day will be sold for just $9.95, a 50 percent savings.

The other games that will be participating in the sales are:

Tuesday - The original Test Drive Unlimited game for 50 percent off
Wednesday - The recent downloadable game Haunted House for 75 percent off
Thursday - The fantasy strategy game King's Bounty: The Legend for 75 percent off
Friday - The shooter The Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena for 75 percent off.

Cryptic Studios may be preparing to turn Champions Online into a free-to-play MMO but at the moment the super hero game is in the middle of a holiday sales event. Cryptic has announced that everything in the game's online in-game item store is on sale for 20 percent off its normal price. That includes costumes, character heads, enhancements, collectible action figures and more.

Cryptic's other MMO, Star Trek Online, is having the exact same sale for its in-game items, although this event does exclude the newly released in-game costumes and ship based on the Star Trek: Enterprise TV show along with several new Klingon ships. The sales for both game ends at 1 pm Eastern time on Monday.

Star Trek Online has kept trekking on for most of the last year. Today developer Cryptic Studios and publisher Atari announced plans for "Season Three" the next free content update for the MMO that's due out in December. The big new addition is the previously announced Foundry tool set that will let players create their own missions.

Players will also be able to go back and replay any previous mission in the game and some will have some new rewards. there will some new Borg-based special items that can be put onto your ships and the game's Sector Space has got a new look. You can get a more detailed look at the upcoming additions at the game's official message board.

Atari is the latest publicly traded game publisher to announce its latest financial results for the first half of its fiscal year. For the six month period that ended on September 30 the company brought in 29.6 million euros in revenue. That's compared to revenues of 68.5 million euros for the same period a year ago. Atari states these numbers are in line with its expectation as the publisher did not release as many games in the past quarter. The company recorded a net lost of 9.2 million euros for the time period which is an improvement of a loss of 27 million euros for the same period a year ago.

Atari stated it is modifying its guidance for the second half of its fiscal year, saying it now expects its current operating income to come in at break even or slightly negative. It also posted an updated game release schedule which includes a number of downloadable and online titles and the free-to-play relaunch of Champions Online.