The open beta test for Star Trek online has proven very popular and Cryptic have now extended it one more day, so those participating can continue until tomorrow. More details below, plus a new Klingons video and a profile of a new ship: The Vigilant, a Defiant for the 25th century.
One more day of free open beta play
Last night Cryptic announced they will be doing one more day of Open Beta of Star Trek Online: The post states:
Red alert! Check your photon torpedo count, make sure your phaser banks are full and keep transporter room two warmed up… The Final Frontier’s first online Open Beta Test will remain operational until Tuesday, January 26 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific.
We’ve experienced such an incredible response to our Open Beta Test that we’ve decided to extend the play time by a full day as a thank you to our fans. If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to check it out, come give us a look. We’ve made impressive changes, improvements and additions to Star Trek Online and the infrastructure that maintains it over the past two weeks of Open Beta. We would love for you to experience it all before we engage at maximum warp and officially launch on February 2, 2010.
Of course, these extended Open Beta Test times will not impact the planned Head Start for our supportive pre-order customers.
See you in the Sirius Sector!
The ‘head start’ is an early release of the game for those who have pre-ordered. That begins this Friday, January 29th. The official launch of the game is on Tuesday February 2nd. The head start is available for those who pre-order. You can pre-order the game from TrekMovie’s preferred retail partner Amazon (where you can select either the Standard or Collector’s Edition). The Amazon editions also include am exclusive Borg bridge officer, and a $10 credit for a future game purchase at Amazon. (Remember purchase of the game includes 30 days free trial, after that there is a monthly fee).
(Cryptic also has a list of additional retailers)
Klingons Montage Video
Here is a new Klingon montage video from Atari/Cryptic.
Ship Profile: The Vigilant
After the success of the Defiant class in the Dominion War, it was clear that small, heavily-armed starships had a role to play in Starfleet.
Production on these warships diminished in the 2380s in favor of exploration and multi-purpose vessels, and several prototypes were abandoned in the planning stages. In the early 2390s, however, tensions with the Klingon Empire and the Romulans were on the rise and Starfleet Command looked once again for ships capable of holding their own in battle that didn’t require the commitment of crew and resources of a larger vessel. The first of the new class of ships was the Vigilant.
With a design inspired by the Defiant class, the Vigilant is designed for one thing: combat. It has limited space for crew and no quarters designed for families or guests, a feature that is standard on Starfleet vessels assigned to long explorations. Also missing are many of the comforts common to Federation vessels, including recreational facilities and lounge areas. A multi-purpose space provides room for both relaxation and physical training.
Video
Capabilities
Weaponry
- Designed as a front-line attack ship.
- Configurable for massive, single-target strikes or multi-target volleys.
- Improved phaser coils that generate more energy than previous models.
- Advanced torpedo guidance system.
Other Notable Equipment
- Two layers of ablative armor.
- Reinforced shield generators to protect against different types of energy weapons.
- Can be outfitted with tetryon, plasma or polaron weapons.
Screenshots
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Specifications
Dimensions:
- Overall Length: 180 meters
- Overall Draft: 32 meters
- Overall Beam: 136 meters
- Displacement: 115,600 metric tons
Defensive Systems:
- Reinforced Deflector Shield Generators
- Dual Ablative Armor
Velocity:
- Cruising: Warp Factor 7
- Maximum: Warp Factor 9.5
Offensive Systems:
- Fore and Aft Type XII Phaser Arrays
- Fore and Aft Torpedo Launchers
- Phaser Cannons
Profile shots
More STO coming
Over the next weeks TrekMovie will have more STO coverage including first impressions, interviews and more.
Hah.. I actually have a cross between the Defiant and Vigilant as my current ship in the Open Beta.. shame it’s over soon and I’ll have to revert to that crappy Centaur/Miranda/Shir’Kar.. :D
The model shots all say “Defiant” and have the Defiant’s registry (NX-74205) – are we sure this is the Vigilant?
I know somebody is going to nitpick this, but when the game designers made this ship, they probably just took the Defiant’s name and registry and pasted on this Vigilant-class just to show people what their name and registry number will look like. Otherwise, this ship looks awesome.
James, I guess #3 is correct in this respect. Names and Registries are created dynamically ingame (which you can pick – name is arbitrary, the NCC goes up from 93000 to 999999).. it even shows on the ships. It’s a nice touch even though you rarely ever come close enough to read it :)
Just about all of the ship designs in this game are highly unoriginal, just an upgrade of an already existing ship tagged as a new class. And $50 to buy the game and $15 a month to play it? You’ve got to be kidding.
I miss the real Defiant. That ship was my favorite starship design of all time. It still is.
I’ve enjoyed the beta, plunked down my $ for the preorder, and am waiting to get into the command chair of my ship for good. Can’t wait for this weekend!
it looks cool but the registry NX 72205 is the Defiant’s registry on DS9
It looks like this will be a great game, how many people are getting it.
I mean 74205
I had preordered this game but canceled after participating in the beta. It just didn’t capture my attention and I couldn’t justify purchasing it. I ordered Mass Effect 2 instead.
Still, I hope the game is successful and those folks enjoying it continue to do so. The greater the success the better chance we’ll have of even more Trek games in the future.
Heh, I have pre-ordered both Star Trek Online & Mass Effect 2. Most of my friends & relatives have been notified of my upcoming extended absence from reality. Shame I’m not due for long service leave at work yet. :(
Plus isn’t an ‘X’ designation mean experimental. If these ships are part of the fleet shouldn’t they be “NCC””?
Very nice. I’ve got a lot of love for the Defiant and similar ships.
Of course, that being said … what I really can’t wait to get my butt into the captain’s chair of is an Akira-class.
I guess that creativity for designing an actual new ship is on hold.
;_; I’m almost level 25… I don’t think I’ll make it to 31 to unlock the tier 4 ships before time’s up…
…not that I would get the Vigilant.. that thing is uuugggly!
“…Check your photon torpedo count, make sure your phaser banks are full and keep transporter room two warmed up…”
Hmm… If only we could do those things IN the game…
“small, heavily-armed starships had a role to play in Starfleet.”
it only took them 130 years to catch up with the Klingons
I didn’t realize you had to download some massive program to play the demo. Even though it’s going for another day, I don’t like the idea of downloading anything, especially when it’s going to take five hours.
Re: #18 I don’t think STO is going to be for you then mate. The client is at least a few GB in size, then there are the regular 100MB+ patches which are standard in any MMORPG. The initial download alone will take a few hours if you don’t have the DVD, depending on your connection.
I’m loving my Akira class in the Beta, hopefully I’ll be able to try out the Prometheus class if I level to 31 before it closes.
Still looks like a glorified Defiant to me. Really not impressed with this next gen version.
DJ Curtis’ Valiant Class looks way better: http://bridgecommander.filefront.com/file/DJ_Valiant_Class;89626
#19. Dav: Sorry, Tier 4 is the Defiant lookalikes :)
I have to echo the unoriginality of the design. I’ve seen some nice fresh sketches on John Eaves site, but the ones they’ve showed off for STO so far seem like cheap kitbashes. What’s the point?
Cool. A warped (pun intended) Defiant. How……..very unimaginative.
The design of the Vigilant is lame. Just a deformed Defiant, nothing new.
Booo!
Calm down everyone. The Vigilant is “RETRO”!
Yeah, have to agree with the assessment that this is just a recycled Defiant. Of course, the Defiant is pretty cool and by extension, so is this but…I would like to see something along the lines of what Cryptic did with some of the science vessels or even the bigger ships.
There is a lot of potential in this game. I have never played an MMO before, no I take that back. I played Ultima Online for a month but got tired of spending six hours a day chopping wood. This will be the first one I pay for. I don’t know if things ever change over the life of the game but there are definitely quite a few things I would like to see in the future.
I think the most important thing would be to have some choice in how a how a mission plays out rather than beam to a planet, shoot stuff, scan stuff and beam back up. Over and over and over. One of the biggest arguments amongst Trekkers is who was a better captain; Kirk or Picard. To fight or to use diplomacy. I wish the player had the option. In one mission, I had to talk two guys outta of fighting each other. Well, talk is really over exaggerating it. I ran to two guys and pressed some buttons and the mission was done.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Sorry. Have a good day.
Pre-ordered, downloaded, played the beta… and returned it.
The space battles are OK, but they should have really looked to Bridge Commander for the dynamics and play style. No top or bottom shields? Then why have a Z-axis in-game? And after the first few skirmishes, it’s really repetitive. As long as you macro the buttons and keep clicking, you’ll win. I like taking an outclassed ship and taking down Goliath with superior tactics and specific sub-systems targeting.
The foot stuff is painful. The controls are cumbersome, and your AI-controlled crewmembers fluctuate between tactically brilliant, and downright stupid. More often it’s the latter. And the lag… it’s horrible.
Also, collision for foot-based players… who’s genious idea was that? They need to be taken out back to the drumhead.
It’s a decent game, but I don’t think it’s worth the $50, $15/m, and probable $$ expansions down the road. They could have solidified their customer base with a $25 and $15, with expansion packs taking up the slack. But what’s keeping this from becoming the next Matrix Online and just having the plug pulled down the road?
It’s not worth the same price as a high quality MMO like WoW. It shouldn’t be priced as one either. I couldn’t see the value. Sorry Cryptic. You came close, but a miss is still a miss.
I await the updates to see if this becomes interesting again.
It would have been interesting if they’d have looked at some of the prelim sketches from early Defiant concepts and chosen one of those.
OK,
I’ve played the open beta, and the game has been fun up to a point. But am I the only one who is in dire need of an instruction manual? I’m pretty lost about how a lot of this game operates. I guess maybe because this is my first MMO? Am I just too old? I’m in a centaur class ship which is the starter ship I know. But whenever I warp to a system, there’s some massive enemy ship/fleet that blows me to bits in 2 seconds. It was fun the first 50 times, but now I’m ready to advance please!
I dropped my cash on the lifetime. Best bang for the busk
Same as #30. Lifetime membership paid in full.
I’ll wager that Cryptic/Atari work hard to retain players and draw new ones to the fold.
I would like to see DirectX 10 graphical enhancements for this game, though. Plus other ship offerings, e.g. Excelsior, Ambassador. This game will succeed if the designers continue to enhance and uplevel everything.
I think its an excellant game, not for some but then nothing is for everybody! I loved it though and pre-ordered it!
Got bored of my stuuupid Miranda though, lame ship! In general I love the game a hell of a lot though!!
Btw, the Vigilant looks like the Defiant because its from the same design tier…the Defiant is also available in the game as well…so there. All ST ships are beginning to look the same anyways
You guys complaining about the redressing of the Defiant and other ships don’t realize the goal of the game designers.
People have their favorite ship designs like the Constitution or Excelsior or Sovereign (etc) and want to play with them. Since this game takes place well after the time of TNG it wouldn’t make sense that Starfleet’s front line would be a bunch of old designs. So what do you do? Design a bunch of ships that would not only be open to fanboy criticism and alienate those who want to pilot the classic designs…OR give the old designs a tweak? That lets people have their favorite ship profiles with a new look.
I think they made the right choice.