So getting back to the beta do I need to register for the beta if I'm a champions online lifetime subscriber or is that all done automatically? Or is the lifetime sub for a different part of the beta? I'm too lazy to find it, but I recall a dev posting on either the CO or STO forums saying that you didn't need to register for the STO beta if you had a CO lifetime/6 month subscription. It couldn't hurt, though. I got in a week ago with my CO lifetime account. They are being sent out in waves. No word on how long before everyone is in though.

Cool. Glad to hear people are getting in. On a scale of 1 to 10, how is it? (Obviously its still early in beta and I'm guessing that you're playing a fairly incomplete build of the game).

To be picky, that's asking people to break the NDA. That said, I give it between a -Q and a +Giraffe * * rated using the Calvinball rules of scoring.

With limited access (just like the CO beta) I've only been able to log in one time and played for about 1.5 hours. So even if I wanted to break NDA I don't have much to say other then I liked what I saw so far, which is pretty much just the tutorial and a little bit of the character creator (chose human rather then make a custom race). I really hope they open up the beta earlier then CO did. I'd love to test for them if I didn't have to alter my RL schedule just to be able to log in for an hour or two a week.

Cool. Glad to hear people are getting in. On a scale of 1 to 10, how is it? (Obviously its still early in beta and I'm guessing that you're playing a fairly incomplete build of the game). Reply hazy, ask again later. And yes, at least one somewhat decent sized wave of CO lifetimers was admitted to the STO beta. Which makes the innumerable "Cryptic scammed CO lifetimers by promising STO beta access" whine threads amusing, let me tell you.

Based on very limited experience so far, I like this game a lot more than I liked Champions. People in the Champions PA channel may have seen me around...

I played with the PA guild in Champions and I didn't care for it one bit. It felt like a lobotomized WoW. I'm hoping STO is a much different game experience. I'll be disappointed if its basically just ChO in space.

One thing I've been wondering about recently are what the other ships for the Klingon Defense Force gonna be. Obviously the Bird of Prey will be a big deal (I would imagine) but I'm not super familiar with other Klingon Vessels. I'm assuming Cryptic will probably need to borrow some bigger Klingon ships from the expanded universe in order to match the huge array of Federation Vessels. As of right now, their official "Ships of the Line" page only has 2 Klingon ships. The reason why I'm curious about it is because I'll probably end up playing Klingon. I tend to favor the underdog factions in MMOs, and I have a feeling that Federation will probably be about 70% of the player base. I imagine they'll borrow heavily from the kind of stuff used in the various Starfleet Command games.

(Initial) release date has been set at Feb. 2010: http://www.gamebunny.com/?p=5951 Bets on how many times/how far back it will be pushed out will be taken... now!

Found some news on how questing will be handled in the game thanks to a new Developer-Diary report over at some site called MMORPG.com. Episodes are the mission chains in Star Trek Online that feel even more like you're playing an episode of the show than normal. We looked at more than 700 Star Trek TV episodes and dissected them to determine how those writers told stories in Roddenberry's universe, then set about crafting our own for you to enjoy. We actually have content writers on staff who approach the mission chains as though they were standalone TV episodes. Rather than thinking strictly in game terms, they design the chains from an entertainment prospective. This means Episodes have themes, interesting dialog and dramatic moments designed specifically to look, feel and play like Star Trek. At launch, the game will feature three "seasons" of content; each season will feature 14 Episodes, as well as other handcrafted and procedurally-generated content, meaning you'll have your hands - and your Captain's Log - full for quite some time after launch. While the three seasons available at launch will have common themes, and many Episodes are related to one another, there are only a few Episodes with prerequisites to meet before you can play through them. Think of those Episodes as two-parters, whereas the majority can exist within their own right. They're complete stories that inform but don't lead directly to the others.

Wow that sounds totally awesome.

While it's good to have, it's kinda standard in my experience. Sounds like extended story arcs in CoH, or the 'book' quests in LotRO.

Are the episode quests what they were talking about back when they talked about dynamic quest encounters/generation about half a year ago? Because what they mentioned with that made it seem like you could warp out to say, Gamma Proxyon Omega, and suddenly get a randomly generated distress signal about the Klingon's going apeshit on a Federation border colony, or something similar to that. If what was mentioned above is what they were talking about then, that really is what alot of other MMO's do already. It basically sounds like just a quest chain with more emphasis on story then an MMO like WoW. Granted, that could be good or bad, depending on how they do it. If it's more of the proposed SW:ToR method, then it could be mildly entertaining. If it's just "Go here. Kill this. Scan this with a tricorder. Make witty comment about too much air being in a balloon. Get reward." with no real deviation in terms of how you can influence the quest, that's really, really not any different from every other MMO out there. In fact, that's just your PR department playing up quest chains. Which are as old as EQ.

Story quests are the opposite of randomly generated quests.

Awesome. That just makes me wish I could get into beta even more now.

Too bad we wont have the ability to record our "Captain's Log" and save them in game. Haha.

Too bad we wont have the ability to record our "Captain's Log" and save them in game. Haha. I shit you not- my friend and I were spinning ideas on Tuesday about how you could build a mechanic into a game for that. I suggested it could be a "daily quest" (sorry) or something. You get your mic on then the game could give you a script or you could just wing it. Once you record a log entry, you could turn it in for some kind of incentive, and it could be saved locally. I mean, making log entries is a big part of being a starship commander right? Man, this game makes me all nerdy.

Too bad we wont have the ability to record our "Captain's Log" and save them in game. Haha. I shit you not- my friend and I were spinning ideas on Tuesday about how you could build a mechanic into a game for that. I suggested it could be a "daily quest" (sorry) or something. You get your mic on then the game could give you a script or you could just wing it. Once you record a log entry, you could turn it in for some kind of incentive, and it could be saved locally. I mean, making log entries is a big part of being a starship commander right? Man, this game makes me all nerdy. " Captains Log, Stardate..Today. Yo man i totally fuxed up sum klongin ships today lol it roxed, i herd borg were nearbi so me an a cardassean totally went to fux up its blockshit, WE PWNT IT "

The problem is, in a game, the Captains log wouldn't really serve any functional purpose if it was user generated. If the devs wanted to put the Captain's logs in the hands of the player, they would need to do something silly with it. Like Captains Log Mad-Libs. Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler Captains Log, Stardate {date}. We were stranded on a {location}, surrounded by {species} when all of a sudden a giant {animal} came {verb ending in "ing"} in and picked up one of the crew by {his or her} {body part} and {verb ending in "ed"} for {number} hours. After that {adjective} display, nobody felt like {verb ending in "ing"} anymore. We will return to the {location} as soon as the {adjective} Officer fixes the {noun}.

What would be cool. Was if you started your captains log, then if you failed your mission, or got destroyed, someone could sift through the wreckage and listen to it. "Captains Log, been attacked by Kling....mom! not now! I DONT WANNA, ahem, attacked by klingons at alpha centauri" oh the hilarity.

Much like anything in life. Fun or Cool things will inevitably be destroyed by stupid people. Give them a neat element such as "Captains' Logs" that can be listened to by right-clicking on a ship would be full of people saying "penis" over and over again or the like. While they laugh.

Much like anything in life. Fun or Cool things will inevitably be destroyed by stupid people. Give them a neat element such as "Captains' Logs" that can be listened to by right-clicking on a ship would be full of people saying "penis" over and over again or the like. While they laugh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEZxk...eature=related

Man, I can't wait for the PA fleet to get rolling. February can't come fast enough. Finally, FINALLY... to be excited about a mmo again. We should start thinking about fleet names.

February?

February? (Initial) release date has been set at Feb. 2010: http://www.gamebunny.com/?p=5951 Bets on how many times/how far back it will be pushed out will be taken... now!