SFF Chronicles News
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11th November 2011 06:21 PM
Darren Allan
We already knew Star Trek Online, like many massively multiplayer online games of late, was going free-to-play.
But now we know the exact date on which the event will occur. Stardate January 17th of next year, to be precise. Which is a Tuesday.
And the new build of the game will be coming across from the Tribble to Holodeck server at some point in the first week of December.
Cryptic said: “Testing with the new game changes has been going really well on the Tribble server. The development team has been pleased with the results and feedback, and we think we only have a few more weeks of iteration and testing before the game changes will be ready for the mainstream players.”
The dev team also noted that the Gold member stipend benefit will begin at the start of December. This gives every subscriber to the game 400 free Cryptic Points per month as a reward for staying a loyal paying customer, and not transferring over to free-to-play.
The stipend is given on the renewal date of your account, and the stipend points can only be spent within Star Trek Online.
Aside from this stipend, paying Gold members get a number of benefits.
These include an extra character slot, additional bridge officer slots and a more expansive inventory, plus foundry creator access, veteran rewards and other miscellaneous goodies.
However, all the core content in terms of events, missions, player versus player combat, feature episodes, access to the Klingons and so forth will be available to free (silver) players.
Cryptic hopes to make up the lost income from players transferring over to the free model with micro-transactions for virtual goods, with a (hopefully) big increase in the player base meaning potentially greater sales from this source.
Freebie players will also be able to purchase some of the perks gold members get here, such as the extra bridge officer slots.
Darren Allan
We already knew Star Trek Online, like many massively multiplayer online games of late, was going free-to-play.
But now we know the exact date on which the event will occur. Stardate January 17th of next year, to be precise. Which is a Tuesday.
And the new build of the game will be coming across from the Tribble to Holodeck server at some point in the first week of December.
Cryptic said: “Testing with the new game changes has been going really well on the Tribble server. The development team has been pleased with the results and feedback, and we think we only have a few more weeks of iteration and testing before the game changes will be ready for the mainstream players.”
The dev team also noted that the Gold member stipend benefit will begin at the start of December. This gives every subscriber to the game 400 free Cryptic Points per month as a reward for staying a loyal paying customer, and not transferring over to free-to-play.
The stipend is given on the renewal date of your account, and the stipend points can only be spent within Star Trek Online.
Aside from this stipend, paying Gold members get a number of benefits.
These include an extra character slot, additional bridge officer slots and a more expansive inventory, plus foundry creator access, veteran rewards and other miscellaneous goodies.
However, all the core content in terms of events, missions, player versus player combat, feature episodes, access to the Klingons and so forth will be available to free (silver) players.
Cryptic hopes to make up the lost income from players transferring over to the free model with micro-transactions for virtual goods, with a (hopefully) big increase in the player base meaning potentially greater sales from this source.
Freebie players will also be able to purchase some of the perks gold members get here, such as the extra bridge officer slots.