Star Trek Online, the massive multiplayer game set in Star Trek’s 25th century, took a big step today towards its release on February 2nd. Atari and Cryptic have begun the ‘open beta’ test for the game, giving more fans and gamers the opportunity to find out what it is all about. We have details on how you can get an open beta key below.
Get your open beta key
Cryptic have been running a ‘closed beta’ test of Star Trek Online since October. That has gone well for the company and now they are ready to open it up to a much larger group for the final tests before the game goes live in February. The Open Beta begins today, January 12, 2010 and will end on January 26, 2010. The easiest way to get an open beta key is to pre-order the game. 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. Cryptic also has a list of additional retailers at their site.
If you haven’t made up your mind, but want to try the Open Beta, Cryptic are also giving away keys at some of their partner sites:
- FilePlanet
- Ten Ton Hammer
- Massively
- Zam
- more partner sites will be made available
Once you have your key you go to http://www.startrekonline.com/openbeta and download the game client. If you have more questions read the Open Beta FAQ.
Press Release
STAR TREK™ ONLINE OPEN BETA BEGINS TODAY
Fans and Gamers Now Have the Opportunity to Explore the Vast Star Trek Universe Through Space and Ground Gameplay for Two Weeks Prior to Launch
New York, NY (January 12, 2010) – Atari, Inc., one of the world’s most recognized videogame publishers, and acclaimed MMO developer Cryptic Studios™, announced today that the highly anticipated Star Trek Online for PC has entered open beta, bringing fans one step closer to playing in the final frontier. The open beta runs through January 26, 2010. Fans with valid open beta keys can explore the Star Trek universe and play the first-of-a-kind massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).
Information about where to obtain open beta keys and where to download the open beta client can be found on the official Star Trek Online website at: http://www.startrekonline.com/openbeta
“We are thrilled to give open beta access to fans as we draw nearer to the official release of Star Trek Online,” said Craig Zinkievich, Executive Producer on Star Trek Online. “We are looking forward to the launch of our first-of-a-kind MMORPG with anticipation and excitement and we expect Star Trek Online to explode onto the scene, giving fans and gamers a Star Trek experience like no other.”
Taking place in the year 2409, Star Trek Online boasts extraordinary features and lets fans both new and old experience unparalleled adventures. Players will have the opportunity to become a high ranking Starfleet officer and will participate in missions that will take them into the depths of space, across exotic planets and even inside other starships. Star Trek Online offers total customization, where every ship players command can be customized, from color to construction. Additionally, anyone can create their own species in Star Trek Online, as well as customize the look of their avatar’s uniform.
Star Trek Online allows players to become a warrior in the Klingon Empire or join the Federation’s esteemed Starfleet and explore a never-before-seen, completely interactive Star Trek universe.
Star Trek Online is a licensed product from CBS Consumer Products. For more information, please visit: www.startrekonline.com and www.atari.com.
I’m downloading the open beta client now!
I won one of the 50 beta keys last week – my son and I have been having a wonderful time! It has to be one of the best Trek games yet.
Thanks Anthony!
I cried myself to sleep when I didn’t win…
The beta test is only 2 weeks long? That doesn’t make me very optimistic about how good this game will be.
So how do we report bugs? Anyone know? There is no e-mail contact info that I can find on their web site.
Downloading….NOW!
So…. anyone who’s tried it: how does it work in the real world? And what kind of tech specs are we looking at (in terms of real world performance, not just what it says on the box).
Cheis
they have been running a ‘closed beta’ test since October. We have written many articles about it and given away three sets closed beta keys
To anybody that still wants/needs a Key, i just got one from Fileplanet. They might still have more :D I can’t wait to download/try this game!
at Andrew #5 you should see a little thing on the far right of your screen it’s a green bug and that is how you report a bug
man..I’ll never get a key..been trying for months
It’s awesome, thanks for the beta key.
BTW, do the old beta keys still work in the open beta, or do I need to pre order and get back in that way?
Stil trying to figure out the best pre-order deal with goodies for the game.
preordered via play.com no good downloaders luckily found a copy on usenet yay usenet 1hour togo..
yeah Cheis inform yourself
#4 – this is only open beta….closed beta has been going on for months and the game is built on an engine that was tested on their last MMO so no worries…
Now all we have to do is download the 8gigs of files. :(
Big Queue but its getting there Cannot wait
I would love to get into this but I don’t like the idea of playing a game on my PC so I suspect I’ll have to wait for the console release. Assuming that actually happens…
It was a huge download and then there were the updates – but folks, I’m tellin’ ya – it’s worth the wait.
Enjoy!
I’m salivating, but I’ll wait until the bugs are worked out.
@#20…..
It’s really cool. Come on, just try out the beta. It’s the coolest Star Trek game ever.
To me it feels like a combination of the 25th anniversary game and the PSP tactical assault game. All the good parts with more detail added in.
Plus you get to modify the look of your own ship! What more could you want?
I’m hooked.
How much money is this going to cost per month?
Sweet! Most of the download mirrors are currently overloaded though. Some have gone down completely.
I did not win a key on 3 attempts, I am going to pout and not try the game, they should allow anyone to beta test, specially someone with over 20 years of gaming experience and 10 years of mmo, oh wells, their loss. I will wait for non mmo D3.
So, the open beat keys only go to people who paid for the game already, or pay a third party for a service. No way to get one without paying?
Guess I’ll never know if the game will run well enough for my tastes on my slightly-below mimumum graphics card in my laptop.
***I did not win a key on 3 attempts, I am going to pout and not try the game, they should allow anyone to beta test***
The server already have problems to handle the mass of players. The beta-server wouldn’t be running anymore if everyone could access the game.
***specially someone with over 20 years of gaming experience and 10 years of mmo, oh wells, their loss. I will wait for non mmo D3***
Honestly, this comment proves that cryptic hasn’t lost anything.
Sure they lost a experienced gamer who was interested in testing a new mmo, all good. I am sure it will be a good game with good citizens, except for a mouthy poster who has to comment on others opinion and venting. This is when I wish was playing and can fire a torpedo at you and blow your face up and yell OWNED.
Been playing most of the day, on and off as its been pretty full!
How is everyone so excited about a game that has no price tag, as of yet.
I mean it sounds cool but , how do any of you have any Idea if you will be able to afford this game?
When I go to game stop every thing has a price tag on it.
I know what I am paying for and how much it costs.
I
It’s a little crashy, but that’s because of all the people going in and out. I can’t wait for all the little bugs to be fixed. It actually is really fun
Open “Beta”‘s aren’t really about testing and reporting “bugs”, though you can do both should you desire. Anymore, the “open” periods are really just pre-release test drives. Another form of marketing. Cryptic has made it pretty easy to try the game without buying a pre-order, so get your key, dl the client and have some fun.
you can get a key at Target for 99 cents and you also get a $5 off coupon for when the game comes out and a special phaser rifle only for target buyers.
Well, i am not going to buy it until i can test it, not beacose i want to knew if is good or bad game, its beacose i want to tray if i cant play it or not with mi internet conecction. I dont have a key, so it would not be open beta, thats ok, but i hope they give up some free demo or something like that.. beacose if they dont, sorry guys, ive really would love to play it, but i am not rich, so, until i am not sure i can play it.. sorry.
And sorry for bad eanlish, not mi natural lenguage.
I’ve looked at Target several times for this (and at different ones in fact) and never seen it available. I also have no interest in buying this game if I can’t test it out first. I’m not sure if my computer can run it. My graphics card is top of the line but my processor is horribly slow. After playing WoW for over 3 years I’m looking for a new MMO to play but again I have to be able to try it out first. If it runs and it’s fun then I’m all set to devote way to many hours to my former crack habit.
it’s fun. when you start playing the open beta keep in mind, it’s still a beta. give the game and developers a chance. the development team is doing a great job. it’s been laggy all day, and they just implemented a patch that fixed it. so far the loading times are fast. anyway, this mmo has a chance to stand on it’s own. non-trekkers can play it and have fun. don’t compare this to WoW or EQ. STO is it’s own game, and it’s worth it
So if I preorder it via Amazon, the site says it’s emailed to you 2 days after you buy. So if I buy tonight, I have to wait 2 days still? All the linkys are showing “we are out of keys”. :(
If you go and Pre-order it at gamestop they give u the open beta key right there in the store… i have been playing for a few hours and it has been packed but fun.
Well I don’t know about playing it today. The client is huge and will take at least anohter 8 hours to download, due to Cryptic’s poor planning (and no I’m not going to pay Fileplanet an ADDITIONAL subscription fee to download the client quickly).
Looking forward to it, but I really wish I could have downloaded the client when I input my beta key a week ago. Then I could have been playing tonight, rather than tommorrow night (maybe).
A bit of advice: DO NOT PRE-ORDER THE GAME FROM IMPULSE!!! They promise the beta key, but there isn’t a download link anywhere. They’ve also made it very difficult to get your money back, requiring me to go through their tech support until the techies authorize a refund. By the way, their tech suppor line is only working between 9 am – 4 pm Eastern … and I live on the west coast >:(
I’ve also got the beta key I purchased from Target and it doesn’t make downloading the beta client any easier. All of the “non pre-order” download sites are jammed up like the 405 during rush-hour. File Planet is the absolute worse one of these: every time you click on a download button, it sends you to a window telling you that the link either doesn’t exist or has been re-named.
Best advice from me? Purchase a pre-order that gives you the beta client download from a more reliable & reputable vendor such as Amazon.com. I’m downloading the torrent and it’s going to be another 26 HOURS before its done. I’ve also got the download from atomicgamer.com going, and it’s at a -51%. You read right, a NEGATIVE FIFTY ONE PERCENT download so far.
If anybody can help me find the beta client download on Impulse, I’d really appreciate it. HEEEEELLLLLLLLLP!!!
@VorpalK – Although I’m having trouble downloading from FliePlanet, I’ve found that the “subscription” at all other sites only gives you the chance to start downloading immediately instead of waiting in line. However, the actual download itself is just as long as if you had waited in line. Definitely not worth the fee, much less the hassle.
Re 8 & 15: My bad, I should have paid more attention to the details.
It still feels like a short time period though to hold an open beta, even if a closed beta has been going on previously. I’m sure the game will be smooth and mostly glitch free, it’s the “fun” and “good” part I’m worried about. Of course I haven’t seen any of this first hand and I could be worried over nothing.
On the other hand, it seems like the open beta is more of a marketing tool/promotion than a beta test; get the big gamers/ star trek fans to play the game and hype it up before it releases. In that regard 2 weeks doesn’t seem like such a bad time period.
The open beta phase is more of a stress test of the game’s hardware and software and a chance to discover and sort out more bugs and glitches before the final retail release.
Those of us who are in the open beta, do not expect this to be bug free and there will be plenty of waiting involved. The first day was pretty hectic and it was hard to log in at times, but Cryptic have already released a patch which has fixed some of the major bugs brought to light during the last 12 hours or so.
It looks very promising. I don’t know if STO will be a WoW killer but it’s fun so far. If you get your hands on a beta key, I say check it out.. just be prepared to be patient.
I preordered the game from amazon.co.uk on december 14, 2009 and I was waiting for the beta key, but after the order I received email from amazon.
From this email I know that the beta keys are sending only to people that preordered STO before December 8, 2009. Peple which preordered after this date will receive only exclusive borg crewmember key. I was furious.
I canceled the preorder, because I wanted to try the game before I buy it.
But from the vids on youtube I can say immediately that I really hate the sets. Bridge, doors, consoles everything is too big. I know its because of the 3rd person view, but it looks like every lifeform in the universe went into subspace compression anomaly and something went wrong when they came back…
Pizko, its that true?? if i pre order now i wont get the beta key?? hooo well.. i guess they just loss 50 U$S, i am not going to buy it if i cant test it first… sorry.
Star Trek Online: 1000 Open Beta Key Giveaway Extravaganza!
Go to: http://hailingfrequency.com/boards/index.php/topic,2006
Try the torrent file on http://www.startrekonline.com/download it’s the last option on the page. It downloaded faster than all the other for me just takes a while to build up speed sometimes
@#47 – thanks for the advice. I had tried the download you suggested yesterday, but after 4 hours it was at 0.4%. Ouch! I’m running it again right now just in case. By the way, as of 8:09 PST, my torrent download is at 48.3%. Looks like I’ll be trekkin’ after work – yeeeeehaaaaaaaa!
It is true. If you preordr from amazon.co.uk you won’t get beta key.
Only the borg crewman key, which really is useless.
But perharps amazon.com is different from amzon.co.uk
I tried to get the beta key from fileplanet. They wanted me to subscrime to their site to get the beta key. So I subscribed and payed $8.27 inclusive vat for a monthly subsribtion.
The site then informed me that all beta keys are given away but they are expecting to get new ones and they put me on waiting list.
I don’t think that I will receive any key from them. But they really pissed me off…
@49
Aye, I’m trying to download the D2D preorder and its saying
“Star Trek Online Digital Deluxe Edition was removed from your cart due to : Age restricted.”
they are certainly making UK customers jump thro a lot of hoops to try the “open beta”
if in fact it is open to UK customers.
and yes , to hell with the borg crew member, I would much rather have a TOS connie, yet another example of bias towards USA customers
I am starting to have second thoughts about this game without even playing it