Star Trek Online Season 5 Goes Live

Today the massive multiplayer online game Star Trek Online has just been given another big update with the release of Season 5. The new update titled "Call To Arms" contains new missions for both the Federation and the Klingons along with a number of new features. This update is the last big revamp before next months transition to a free-to-play model. See below for more details.

 

Star Trek Online Season 5

Cryptic (now part of Perfect World) have launched their latest big update to the Star Trek Online MMORPG. The new update titled "Season 5: Call To Arms" has new features and new missions. Here are some highlights:

  • New Duty Officer System allowing you to collect and trade crewmembers with other captains
  • The Borg Advancement: new missions confronting the Borg armada as they advance on the Alpha Quadrant
  • Klingon Gameplay Updates: New improvements for leveling up Klingon characters
  • Skills Revamp: Updated way to choose how to specialize your captain
  • Mission Revamp: More streamlined way to play through episode content.
  • Lore Missions: New type of non-combat play in social zones testing your knowledge of the game’s lore
  • Economy Restructuring: For the first time ever, this update is going to allow players to acquire Cryptic Points without having to spend money.


New Duty Officer System


The Borg are advancing in Season 5


More Klingon content for Season 5

The new changes have been running on the Tribble test server for a while and the folks at the STO Academy have put together a couple of videos showing some of the new features. (Note video from test server so there may be changes to final design)

For more details on Season 5 visit the official STO site.

Free To Play Coming January 17th

As reported earlier, Star Trek Online is transition to a new optional "free to play" model where there will be two choices on how to play the game: Gold member (subscription) and Silver member (free). While you can play the game for free with Silver, some options and features require purchase. See the F2P Matrix for more details.

 

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Can’t wait to try the Free play. Everything looks great and from what I am told. A lot of Fun to play. Oh and 1st. Like anyone really cares. Lol.

Anyone see anything worth renewing one’s account for?

hey Anthony, any rumblings about the 2012 Trek game? That beta teaser trailer looked great!

damn and i was planning on dropping my subscription from lack of playing… hmm… time to spend an hour updating again…

oh and Mr Harry Ballz? i used your name as a red shirt Kuritan Jenner pilot on my son’s first Battletech campaign. you got crushed via a DFA from a Wasp…derp.

The game is addictive, and at times I find myself saying things out loud:

“Rotate shield frequencies”
“Brace for impact!”
“Take us to warp Mr….”

The variables in the game are practically endless. I’m paying for it now, and will continue (assuming paying the extra has benefit). There are parts of the game that need better explanations, namely developing skills. I had racked up an extra 900 skill points (unused) before I realized there were more skills (scroll down).

Overall it’s fun. You start as an ensign, and your command crew is killed. It’s up to you to get your crew to safety.

Warning… don’t accept free tribbles. Frakkers ate everything while they multiplied.

Anthony! You’re back! Thank God all those rumors about your PSA test were false. We thought you were in a hospice unit, pecking at the keyboard of your netbook with a straw clenched in your teeth. When you had the strength to lift your head, that is.

*lol*

Thanks for the STO news update Anthony!

@ #2 Atlantians: There’s no need to renew your account, just wait until the middle of next month and it’ll be free-to-play. It’ll be great to have more features than when I briefly subscribed to the game, and yet I won’t have to pay for it anymore. I still have my Amazon pre-order copy that gave me a Borg Bridge Officer. Can’t wait for January!

THIS GAME TOTALLY BLOWS

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

BTW, they’ve been lying about more Klingon content for 2 years now and haven’t put up a single thing even though they say they will with each season release.

Also, they actively screwed over their paying members for the conversion to F2P, taking away half of their time-based currency because they don’t want there to be too much money in the system when all the F2P people join.

I am boycotting STO and all Cryptic games.

STO goes free to play in feb next year, got to go and get ready for another beta test if star wars the old republic

Does anyone know if F2P will be available on both Windows and Mac! I so want to play this game! Cheers!

yuck rip off payment monthly!!!

Mongo want know if game work on Atari? It only game Mongo good at.

It has been months since I have had more motivation to play this game than Freecell. I may have to give it another try.

I don’t totally hate STO but as a long term subscriber, this season is the worst they’ve ever released.

Season 5: Call to Arms is a horrible title and calling it Season 5 is ridiculous. It’s mostly stuff that should have been in Season 4.

Better titles would be:

Season 4.1 : Grind for Arms
or
Season 4.1: We’ll take those Arms (and possible those legs)

Most of the “new stuff” is made to either to force you through horrible grind or make you pay money.

It’s really sad after the upswing they had earlier this year.

Season 5 is a huge plus for Star Trek Online. Respec’ing is now balanced toward skills and doesn’t lock players into spending points for ship-type but instead allows points to be spent on skills. Very nice.

Duty Officers allows us to “do more” in the game and makes it very interactive; and I can see where this would benefit the RPG’ers out there who dream of more content instead of more PvP.

PvP seems more-balanced, with the new update. For once I can hold my own against Klingons and not get pummeled in the first second of a battle. This is where those neat additions tie-in and become a great equalizer against efforts of UBER Klingon steam-roller squads.

I like where STO is headed and look me up in game, if you want. I usually fly a MV Escort and go by the name of Tasik Surak, of Vulcan. And logically if you fire-on my ship, tactics dictate that you will be destroyed.

PvE and Long Life.

[Quote: trek dead/] – December 2, 2011
STO goes free to play in feb next year, got to go and get ready for another beta test if star wars the old republic [/Quote]
It goes live Jan 17th, not feb. I heard moterate feedback of SWTOR but certainly not great feedback. One key point is that if your into ‘space’ game’s then SWTOR is not for you & STO is the best game of its field – hands down. SWTOR is mainly ground based and I’m sure everyone else can also see that for themselves. Thanks

Oh, now they started the stipends and continue to show utter hate and contempt to long term subscribers.

I pre-ordered so I have to wait till the latter end of the month.

Someone who just bought it last month gets it before me.

Why? Because he bought it on the 4th of the month and I bought it on the 18th of the month.

Stay away from Cryptic if you value your money.