Star Trek Online preorder TRIBBLE!

[Oskuro]

Apparently they are so desperate eager to have people play a game based on a popular franchise, that they need to bribe reward those who preorder, from The Escapist:

The plethora of preorder goodies available for Star Trek Online are downright impressive and makes you wish you could preorder from more than one source. Well, I suppose you could...

Even if you are only vaguely considering playing Star Trek Online, then there's absolutely no reason not to preorder. First off, you will be able to participate in the open beta between January 12th and January 26th. In addition, you will be able to start a whole weekend before (January 29th) the game officially "launches" (February 2nd) with the Early Start program and be able to carry over experience and equipment. Then, depending on where you preorder from, you will be able to get some freaking Trek-ilicious in-game items.

Here's the list of possible in-game bonuses for preordering Star Trek Online:

• A pet Tribble (Federation)
  A violent and destructive beast called a Targ (Klingons like crazy pets)
  An auxiliary Starfleet Shuttle
  A 'Liberated Borg' Bridge Officer to help you on your missions
  A Constitution Class Ship (which looks like NCC-1701 or the original Enterprise for you newbs)
  A TR-116 rifle which teleports bullets around corners
  Joined Trill (exclusive racial abilities)
  Multi-Spatial Personal Shield
  Chromodynamic Armor
  Additional Skill Points (lame, but deserves mentioning)
  "KHAAAN!" Emote
  Klingon Blood Wine Toast Emote
  Unique Registry Prefix (NX-)
  Costumes from both DS9 and TOS
  Red Matter Capacitor (a nod to the new movie?)

The items are available at different retailers depending on what country you order from. More specific information on what item is available from what website can found at Cryptic's site.

Come on, a tribble? That's awesome.

Emphasis on the item list mine. If I could I guess I'd go for the ship, I bet the KHAAAAN! emote will get old pretty fast.
On the other hand, I don't like preorders, I'd rather wait a bit and see if the game is actually worth it, but hey, at least they put some effort into it.

Edit: Here is the ship offered by the GameStop preorder

[Gramzamber]

Virtually every game these days offer pre-order bribes.
What gets me is how these are distributed among various retailers and territories. I want a fucking Constitution but guess what, I'm British so I can't get one since no retailer here seems to offer that, instead we get that lame wankrifle from DS9 with the micro-transporter, or Voyager batmobile armour for humanoids (wat?) or some other lame shit that doesn't appeal to starship porn wankers like me.

Bollocks, that's what it is.

[Mr Bean]

I'm in the Beta, I'll let you know if it's crap or not once I can be arsed to install the thing. I had low hopes for this game until I got a look at Champions Online. At which point I can now predict that Star Trek Online will be fun for exactly 28 days. Which is pretty damn good for most games, but not so great for an MMO. You will drop 50$-60$, you'll play it for that first month and you won't re-up.

[Gasphemer]

The game looks alright, but then I'm not one of those gamers that hole myself in for a month. So... it might be worth it, might not be.

And now for the real reason I stopped in here:

"I said stop flaming, ok? Ebony's name is Enoby, not Mary Sue!" - Tara Gilesbie missing the point

Ahahaha My Immortal.

[Gramzamber]

By the way, STO does evidentally follow continuity from the movie by having those unforms from Countdown and Romulus being destroyed.
It does however give two fingers to the latest TNG novels about the Borg invasion so it's not all bad.

[Ghost Rider]

I'm in the Beta, I'll let you know if it's crap or not once I can be arsed to install the thing. I had low hopes for this game until I got a look at Champions Online. At which point I can now predict that Star Trek Online will be fun for exactly 28 days. Which is pretty damn good for most games, but not so great for an MMO. You will drop 50$-60$, you'll play it for that first month and you won't re-up.

Not even for the ultra cool PvP Klingon race ?!

Okay, that aside...I do know a few in Beta and they are echoing that sentiment if not more. The problems they are having is it feels like WoW with ships, soloing is damned easy(easier then WoW) and it's just missions or PvP. And oh yes, looting is not exactly fun to do. While that final part sounds a tad dumb, remember you're in a 3D enviroment, so you have to get close enough to your loot instead of having a window come up and go "Take it? Y/N"

But hey, it looks shiny.

[charlemagne]

German preorder bonus according to Amazon.de seems to be the DS9/TOS costumes, which is lame. I'm not really interested in the game, but getting a connie or the Khan emote sounded like fun.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

In a fit of temporary insanity (and being rather fond of Champions), I ordered from Steam. It doesn't have some of the stuff I would have wanted, but apparently the TOS uniforms do have the miniskirts, so it's not all bad.

[PREDATOR490]

In my own fit of insanity I did my pre-order from Direct 2 Drive which offered:

Multi-Spatial Personal Shield: This advanced personal shield system is based on Borg technology, which constantly regenerates itself and the health of its wearer.
TOS Uniform Set: Three Uniforms from the original series (blue, red, yellow)
Joined Trill: Play as a Joined Trill. Joined Trill come with a symbiote that grants you several lifetimes of experience. The "Joined" species trait grants you a bonus to five skills.
“KHAAAN!” Emote: An unforgettable moment from the second Star Trek Film. This exclusive emote allows players to relive Kirk’s unforgettable moment of fury, with the timeless cry… “KHAAAN!”
Klingon Blood Wine Toast Emote: Raise a glass like a Klingon! Greet and interact with other players with an exclusive Klingon gesture -the blood wine toast.
Unique Registry Prefix: Give your ship the coveted NX prefix, seen only on a handful of elite Starfleet vessels like the Defiant, 22nd century Enterprise and Prometheus.
Unique Ship Item: Automated Defense BatteryThis Tactical Module grants any ship a passive 360-degree attack power with a short range.
Head Start Access: Gain early access to Star Trek Online, the weekend before launch!
Open Beta Access

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Mostly worthless I guess, but I dont expect the pre-order items to be worth much anyway in the long run but if its going to be a skill based thing then Trill sounds a good deal. I would have prefered the gun or the ship rather than the stupid emotes but I guess I can go around spamming KHAAAAAN and blood wine toasts. Might be amusing for around 20 seconds.

Is this game going to be guild based warfare, is so will there be an SDN guild ?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

From what I understand (which isn't all that much, mind), the PvP takes place between the Federation and the Klingons in the Neutral Zone, in competition through direct PvP and competitive PvE for RvR objectives (hm, that was entirely too many MMO versus acronyms in a single sentence). As they'd be insane to not have guilds of some kind ("Squadrons"?), factional PvP like that usually lends itself well to organized guilds.

[Oskuro]

I'm personally not disliking the Borg officer option too, if only to have my own Seven of Nine to drool about.

Now, seeing how it is Cryptic, I'm hopeful for this game, but again I'll wait. Also, some of the cool offers are in case you get the collectors edition, wich I wouldn't in any case.

It wouldn't surprise me if these items are made available to the general public eventually, though.

And now for the real reason I stopped in here:

Quote:
"I said stop flaming, ok? Ebony's name is Enoby, not Mary Sue!" - Tara Gilesbie missing the point

Ahahaha My Immortal.

Bennet the Sage is doing a readthrough of that masterpiece (I got the quote from his reading, I couldn't stomach the thing), I recommend it.

[Gramzamber]

I've pre-ordered from Steam too. I get the personal batmobile armour. Yay.
The joined Trill, Khaaan emote, NX registry and stuff are across all preorders, I think.

[OmegaChief]

All pre-orders of the Digital Delux version yes.

The regular version would just come with the bonus from whereever you ordered it, in addition I belive here are guilds, called "Fleets" I belive (and possibley houses for Klingons) but my info on this is sketchy.

Will almost certianly be having a bout of insanity and pre ordering at somepoint.

[Oskuro]

Funny, the STO site has a page devoted to explaining how the game continuity fits in with the JJ.Abrams movie.

I just rewatched that movie, by the way, and all I can say is.... LENSFLARES!
Woldn't mind that sleek Enterprise ingame, though.

Back to the preorder bussiness, I guess you can always preorder from a retailer in a different country and then have them mail it to you or something. I'm suspecting that, just as Champions Online, this game won't have EU servers at all, so the game should be compatible regardless of region.

Oh, they apparently had the same idea I had about the Borg officer (That is, a Seven of Nine-ish hot borg chick):

[PREDATOR490]

After a bit of reading of the forums, it seems more than a few people are pre-ordering multiple copies so they can get lots of these bonuses because the game allows the to stack on one account.
On the one hand I have to give credit to the marketing department for pulling off a nice profit skimming but its making me think this game is going to be shit when you have dozens of rich guys flying around with all the bonuses.

It seems the Klingons have been left in a shit state and I'm kinda confused about how this game is supposed to work.
Everyone gets their own ships and flies around randomly or do we have to run around on a planet shooting stupid monsters to 'level up' to flying a ship ?

Is this game going to have a loss system like EVE where you lose everything or is it just lose a bit of xp and spawn back at base ?
The former should be hilarious when dozens of people log in with their 5 pre-orders worth of bonus only to lose them in the first fight.

[Oskuro]

I'm guessing it'll be like Pirates of the Burning Sea, where you level your character via naval and ground missions, and thus can use better ships, as well as earn special abilities.

What I'm not sure if they'll do is make ships degrade (as in you permanently lose them after they get blown up several times). PotBS's economy depends heavily on the building and supplying of new ships, so if this game doesn't have a strong economic focus (and being Star Trek it shouldn't) then I doubt they'll go that route.

But, then again, this will most probably be WoW in Space, with a heavy focus on PvE content. Comparing it to the player-driven EvE probably won't be too adequate.


And, by the way, I would actually laugh at someone idiotic enough to preorder the game several times just for the goodies, specially if said goodies are eventually made available to everyone.

[charlemagne]

And, by the way, I would actually laugh at someone idiotic enough to preorder the game several times just for the goodies, specially if said goodies are eventually made available to everyone.

Yeah, and you can laugh again at those idiots crying on the official forums once everyone has their oh-so-special goodies Regardless, that practice is kind of unfair, but every MMO yet did it.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Reading stuff from the STO website, I was getting "PotBS in Space" vibes too, except now with manageable officers under your command. I seriously doubt the ship combat will be nearly as intricate, but I guess we'll see (open beta starts Tuesday). Here's hoping the Klingons are in decent shape as well; I'd like some semblance of PvP going on.

[Oskuro]

The issue now is... How long until they release playable Borg as part of an expansion? Polyhedrons of DOOM FTW!

[PREDATOR490]

I would hope they arent that stupid. Just leave the Borg as the equivelent of EVE Sleepers, if they wanna be smart random encounters with Borg invasions every so often might be interesting. Playable Borg would end up needing to be balanced to be killable and that just ruins them.

[Oskuro]

Yeah, the so-called Voyager effect.

Ok, fuck the JJ.Abrams movie, fuck it! fuck it! fuck it! It's making me want to play this game A LOT!

Actually, it's making me hope for a future Old Republic style Star Trek MMO set in the new continuity.

[Mr Bean]

Notes from Beta
Races are Human, Betazoid, Trill, Vulcan's, Blueman group and others. Can't be bothered to list all of because you also have "Unknow" which feels very much like the Champions Online Character creator, but none of this wings and tails. It's limited to parts only used on existing aliens and everything else that the TNG/DS9/Voyager shows could have DIY'd up.

Bumpy foreheads? Check! 24 Varieties
Crazy Ears? Check From Coral to Elf, from Giant ears to horns
Chin Horns, Nose ridges, hairstyle's made of feathers and everything else you could spirit glue onto the side of an actor.
It's gloriously cheesy and the random button just like Champions is worth ten minutes of fun by itself.

[Gramzamber]

How about playable Q?
All powerful beings who don't need starships to go in space, but suffer a -10000 penalty vs. muskets.

[Mr Bean]

How about playable Q?
All powerful beings who don't need starships to go in space, but suffer a -10000 penalty vs. muskets.

No "Q" but I expect to see some knockoffs

[Oskuro]

Bean, a question, when playing in an starship, can you purposely zoom in and look at the action from the bridge? In PotBS I could kind of do that to make it more immersive, it was harder to play, of course, but it'd be nice if the option is there so, is it?

And, of course, is starship navigation 3d? Or are you locked to a single plane?