Finally, after more than a year of rumors it is official…. Star trek Online will follow in the footsteps ‘Champions Online’ and “Lord of the Rings Online’ by becoming free to play. This means that players won’t be charged a monthly rate nor will they have to pay for the game in the shops, it is thought that just like many other F2P online games there will be microtransactions with which players can purchase upgrades and such. No such scheme has of yet been announced but they are becoming pretty standard.
Though the original producer of STO is Cryptic Studios the rights to the game were earlier this year bought by Perfect World, perhaps the buy out signalled a change of direction.
STO certainly isn’t a bad game, like most MMO it couldn’t live up to expectations which were high during its short development time. With scores from anywhere between 6.5 and 7.5 it was a mediocre player mostly relying on the Star trek label. However, over time the game has been tweaked and altered and with a constent stream of new content is has become a player in the MMO market. Things like the shuddy ground combat are even now being addressed and so the game keeps on changing to woe new players. The question that remains is how good the Star trek experience is in this game, nobody seems to have a clear answer and so it is up to you to find out…….
Another Free to play Star trek MMO is also in the works, the browser based Star Trek Infinite Space may not have the graphical caliber of STO but it does rely on a well known story arc (the dominion war) that could help to keep players away from STO.
