STO F2P Confirmation…sorta

Well, looks like F2P is not just a rumor this time. There is still no official announcement, but Dan Stahl let a lot slip last night. Got a few hints at what it will entail:

• There will still be a Subscription and Lifer (Gold) level that will retain everything we have now, plus probably a monthly stipend of C-points.
• A chart outlining the differences between Silver and Gold is coming.
• All ships are being converted to be purchased with Dilithium. Dilithium will replace Emblems/Marks/Honor Etc. You will earn it from missions and can be bought with C-points.
• There will be lots of ship variants added. These will likely follow the Rhode Island/Prometheus/Oberth model, where there is a console that gives a unique ability that can be transferred to a new ship.
• Based on the last Engineering Report and Ask Cryptic I would anticipate launch of F2P by end of Sept, possibly end of Oct.
• I would anticipate official announcement with details within the next week.

Post 1

There are certainly a lot of questions you may have about this news. The team is working on an FAQ and side by side comparison details that will spell out very clearly what this means for Lifetime and Subscription members. Until then, please stay tuned as we confirm all the details.

There are alternate ship variants like the Rhode Island coming to nearly every tier and class of ship. All of those ships will be available for cpoints. All of the ships that you can currently purchase for EC are going to be purchased via Dilithium. Dilithium is replacing Emblems/Badges/Marks/Etc and can be earned at all tiers (plus you are given some as rewards). Many ships (Dilithium and Cpoints) are going to be repriced in the near future. Then if you factor in a subscribers stipend, and the ability to trade cpoints for dilithium – then subscribers will have the ability to get any ship they want, where as others will have to trade their dilithium for cpoints to get them. All will become much clearer when I can go into further detail when we start to talk more about the coming soon details.

Post 3

Before this spins out of speculation control, I can assure you there are no restrictions on content access, including future Feature Series. In addition, subscribers should notice little to no change. As far as I’ve seen, any changes in price will be to lower prices on some items.

That aside, if you don’t like the game, you don’t like the game. The entire concept of F2P is that you don’t have to pay for the game. You can play it for free and if you like and want to play deeper into the game, then you can still do that for free. Perfect World has a strong philosphy that it should be possible for a free player to reach maximum level without spending a dime. In my opinion, if you enjoy the game, then you will spend money on it. And if you don’t then that’s ok too.

The game certainly still has issues (as do most young MMO), but I’d argue that the game has improved tremendously since launch day. By our 2nd anniversary in February, I think this game will be significantly better than it was even at year 1 anniversary.

Perfect World has made it very clear that they want to invest in STO because they believe it has great POTENTIAL and they see an investment that can yield an even better game. That to me, is the golden path that this game deserves. It is Star Trek we are talking about!

Post 4

The basics is that we are changing the currency used to buy basic ships from EC to Dilithium. We are also changing rewards to give out more dilithium (where previously we would have given EC).

The amount of dilithium you earn goes up over levels (as do ship costs) similar to EC.

This is partly to remove some of the confusion and clunky UI around “Ship Tokens” and weird workarounds we’ve had to do in order to give players ships.

That said, we expect some ships at high end to require some game time to earn (similar to how you would normally pay 500 Emblems for a ship, now you will pay dilithium). But keep in mind not all dilithium will be tied to “dailies”.

There are many reasons we are making this change, but one of the reasons I like best is that it helps new players understand which content to do that will earn them credit towards purchasing a ship – and that helps me tailor the game experience to direct players towards content that might be more interesting than other content… etc.