BREAKING NEWS: STO to be Free-to-Play by year end

Quote by Exobyte

I'll say this, given my mmo hopping experience: lifers are great for up-front development but ultimately hurt the game in the long run. as a lifer cryptic is actively giving ME $5 each month for no investment from me in return (aside from logging in). I would speculate that there is code in the account management engine to make sure lifer accounts have logged in within that month to get the stipend, because I'm not swimming in free money from my CO account (which is sadly collecting dust).

Another side to this is that Paragon Studios (development team for city of heroes/villains, going rogue) have announced they will not ever do a lifetime sub based on anecdotal accounts from other studios all saying it was a bad idea, and at the loss of $5 per active lifer per month offset now only by the people paying for gold I easily see how that math could tank an already risky asset for a publisher. I'm happy to get my $5 (possibly $10 if I can work the mechanism for CO too) per month to play with.

From what I've learned, Lifetime accounts can be a great thing for a MMO. Many times, lifetime players provide a stable player base that can be counted on for a long time into the future and help develop the social aspect of MMO games. Take for instance, this fleet. It's been lead largely by players who are Lifetime members. We dedicate our time and our money to STO because we care and we've helped build a social community because of that. The number of month subs that we've helped Cryptic gain thanks to the niche community we have here has greatly outweighed any additional cost that the lifers in this fleet have incurred. Not too mention the Cryptic Points we've purchased over the last year and a half.

Cryptic isn't losing $5 when they give us the Cryptic points. Cryptic points don't have any real monetary value. It could be said that they'd loose the potential profit from sub or lifetime members purchasing Cryptic Points that they otherwise would have, but that'd be a difficult argument to make. The only real cost incurred would be the price of storing the items we choose from the C-Store and how we equipped them to our character which considering that vast amount of data they have to store anyway would be negligible.

Quote by NicholasJohn16

From what I've learned, Lifetime accounts can be a great thing for a MMO. Many times, lifetime players provide a stable player base that can be counted on for a long time into the future and help develop the social aspect of MMO games. Take for instance, this fleet. It's been lead largely by players who are Lifetime members. We dedicate our time and our money to STO because we care and we've helped build a social community because of that. The number of month subs that we've helped Cryptic gain thanks to the niche community we have here has greatly outweighed any additional cost that the lifers in this fleet have incurred. Not too mention the Cryptic Points we've purchased over the last year and a half.

Just to make the point ...Having a life time wouldn't guarantee any kind of "Stable player base". A life timer is just as likely to quit the game as somebody paying the monthly sub the only difference it makes is that Cryptic will forever include that life timer in their player numbers even if that person stopped playing a long time ago.

My brother for an example. He purchased a life time account a few weeks after launch and played the weekend following .. he has never played again. The only thing a life time account means is that the user had the money to put down at the start.

I was going to start the game last nite but it's still pay to play. I guess I got to excited and forget to read the "end of year" part. :)

I've never been in a game that offered life time memberships, I can see that if you love a game and intend to stay with it this would be a great benefit. I played WoW for 7 years and at one point I had 4 accounts or was it 5?? Please don't ask I tend to go overboard on things I like. So having a lifetime membership in that game would have really paid off for me.

Quote by Van

I was going to start the game last nite but it's still pay to play. I guess I got to excited and forget to read the "end of year" part. :)

I've never been in a game that offered life time memberships, I can see that if you love a game and intend to stay with it this would be a great benefit. I played WoW for 7 years and at one point I had 4 accounts or was it 5?? Please don't ask I tend to go overboard on things I like. So having a lifetime membership in that game would have really paid off for me.

There should be a free trial that you can play until the end of the year.

You can try using this code:
SCBK1-CM8RB-U4DUX-8LYUH-6NW3E

It should give you ten free days of game time to try everything out.

Quote by NicholasJohn16

There should be a free trial that you can play until the end of the year.

You can try using this code:
SCBK1-CM8RB-U4DUX-8LYUH-6NW3E

It should give you ten free days of game time to try everything out.

Thanks hon, but it looks like that code was already used or so the error msg I receive is telling me.

Quote by Van

Thanks hon, but it looks like that code was already used or so the error msg I receive is telling me.

Okay, then give this one a try:
SCBK1-LLKJH-CBR8Q-ML7FT-VFM7A

woot, thanks hon it's working.

Quote by NicholasJohn16

It should give you ten free days of game time to try everything out.

Ah! Ten days. You know, I could not easily find out how long a trial acct lasted either on the official STO site or the STOwiki.

My trial acct just expired - and having had a taste, I'm certain I'll be back. My wife asked me how they would make money with STO being free-to-play, and I told her "They'll sell hats." And yeah, I'll buy me some hats... The Constellation class interior, for one - that's a REALLY nice hat.

There's still a temptation to fork over money for a subscription in the interim. Maaaaaaybe.

If anyone else needs a trial code I have a few lying around.

Stephen D'Angelo has started a dev blog about testing for F2P. It appears Tribble is back as of today for F2P testing. Unfortunately, I can't check it out until tonight when I get home from work. :S

Here is the link to the blog:

http://startrekonline.com/node/2623

Also of note, for the first few weeks, the Tribble shard will not allow you to copy your character, so you'll need to start a new one from scratch to test.

Test shard sign up page redirects me to the site's front page, which is helpful.

January 17. Now I know when I get to rejoin you guys. :)