Even in space, cheap marketing can make you scream

Just in case you may think the distributors of Star Trek Online have run out of ways to market the upcoming massively multiplayer online game, a fast food chain has bee brought into the mix.

With would-be players already navigating Klingon-style minefields of various pre-order offers and lifetime memberships, not a large soda could have you in a federation uniform for free!

Customers who purchase a Macho-sized drink at Del Taco will receive a free limited edition Star Trek collector's cup and a free trial of the Star Trek Online while supplies last.

Each collector's cup will have an individual peel code that can be redeemed for a 48-hour free trial of Star Trek Online. Customers can redeem up to four codes and receive 48-hours of gameplay with each code. As an added bonus, customers that redeem the maximum four codes will receive an extra 48-hours of access to the game for a total of 10 full days.

And look no further if you want more additional in-game content. If consumers choose to purchase the game after their free trial, they will receive a free Type-8 Shuttle "pet" add-on for their Starship, available exclusively from Del Taco.

"Early response to Star Trek Online has been tremendous," said Jim Wilson, CEO and President, Atari, Inc. "Our partnership with Del Taco brings this unique sci-fi massively open online game to an even broader mainstream audience as well as avid Star Trek fans."

"We're excited to be partnering with Atari and the Star Trek franchise," said John Cappasola, vice president of marketing at Del Taco. "We think our customers are going to enjoy the collectible cups as well as the opportunity to get a free trial of the Star Trek Online game.

Star Trek MMO goes from online to in person!

Its very rare for gamers to have the opportunity to meet the creative team behind their favorite title but Star Trek Online really is going where no one has gone before.

This weekend the Star Trek Online team will be at the San Francisco Star Trek Convention having some fun, and they're inviting fans to find them. The invitation extends beyond the convention floor to the bar Swig's from 7 p.m. PST to 9 p.m. PST on Saturday, January 23.

Making the whole thing even more exciting, people who show up in Star Trek costumes will get a free drink!

Well the development team certainly get an 'A' for effort.

Star Trek fans cause systems overload

It may have been a shock to the game developers, but plenty of beta players knew.

Cryptic's Star Trek Online was swamped with beta players studdering and glitching where no gamer has gone before. Claiming a 'massive surprise' at how popular the beta is, saying, "The actual numbers crushed our predictions."

Having been one of those busting out of starfleet and thrown into command in the beta stage of the new massively multiplayer online version of the legendary science fiction powerhouse I can atest to the online test that tried the patience more than the play loads.

"The first week of Open Beta has been amazing," said the dev in an update. "We have seen more signups and players than we ever imagined we could.

"So very many people have shown interest in Star Trek Online and logged in to play that we've actually had to scramble to support everyone. Our core engineers are this very second working like crazed technology wielding madmen to improve performance and stability across the board. We're also adding a lot more hardware to accommodate our players."

Cryptic continued, "We looked at numbers from Closed Beta, numbers from games we've worked on in the past, and some numbers that float around the games industry.

"Based on those numbers, we predicted that about 65% of the keys we generated would eventually turn into active players (some keys never get delivered, others are lost in spam boxes, some are never redeemed, etc.). And, we predicted about 1/6 of those redeemed keys would turn into players that game at the same time. It's what we call our concurrent users or CCU, for short.

"The actual numbers crushed our predictions."

"So, we tore apart our logs and began doing a lot of extra optimization work even while we stumbled upon some truly bizarre crashes that can only appear with this sort of load. The result? The shard has been steadily improving over the first few days of Open Beta. Given the hardware we're adding and a couple more fixes we have in the pipe, shard performance and stability should continue to improve over the coming week."

The game is getting mixed reviews on various gaming forums not helped by some confusion over retaining ship names and handling quirks.

Star Trek Online wants to assimilate your wallet

So Atari is uping the anty with Star Trek Online, seeing exactly how dedicated the game-playing fans of the sci-fi legend really are. Anyone who pre-orders a copy of STO will be eligible to sign up for either a $240 lifetime subscription or a $120 per year annual subscription.

And theres more!

Not only will players who plan to stick around for the long haul save money, but they'll have the chance to play as the borg.

The Liberated Borg begins with the following two traits:

• Borg Nanites: +10% Health RegenerationDescription: Ground Trait. Constantly regenerates shields and health.
• 
  
  Efficient: +5 Starship Shield Efficiency, +5 Starship Engine Efficiency, +5 Starship Energy Weapon Efficiency, +5 Starship Auxiliary Systems Efficiency Description: Space Trait. Provides a bonus to efficiency stats, improving the effectiveness of many of your power management abilities.
  
  
  

The Liberated Borg also has a unique optional trait.

• Neural Blast: 30 second debuff. Drastically reduces run speed. Every 4 seconds, Neural Blast has a 40% chance to hold the target for 3 seconds. Description: Activatable Ground Trait. Inject the target with neural toxins, which continually attempt to hold the target for the duration. Also reduces the target's movement speed.

Just whipping out the calculator here, if the online game and players manage to stick it out past 16 months, anyone who took advantage of the lifetime subscription will be ahead of the game, excuse the pun.

Similarly, annual subscribers save about $60 a year based on the month to month fee of $15. Annual and lifetime subscribers also get two additional character slots.

Although not a MMORPG, I ended up playing Planetside, (one of the more successful if not the only MMOFPS) for over six years. While certainly not consistent in the last two of those years, I ended up paying Sony nearly $700. Even when I hadn't logged in for over twelve months, I was bummed to find old credit card information had led to non-payment, cancellation of my account and most importantly, loss of my character with all his ranks and priviliges.

The last point is the one to ponder for potential STOL fans.

PC Game sales and statistics (really is more interesting than it sounds)

So the powers that be, the NPD Group to be precise, issued its 2009 report for US retail sales. The report was delayed by a week with many wondering if the stay of information meant bad news for the gaming industry.

While the figures were substantially off from last year's mark, US non-PC hardware, software, and accessory sales came in at $19.66 billion for the year, down 8 percent from the $21.4 billion the industry brought in during 2008, industry experts claim the overall trend is looking good.

"When we started the last decade, video game industry sales, including PC games, totaled $7.98 billion in 2000," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said of the industry's performance. "In 10 years, the industry has changed dramatically in many ways, but most importantly it was grown over those years by more than 250 percent at retail alone. Considering there are many new sources of revenue including subscriptions and digital distribution, industry growth is even more impressive."

As for what sold the best?

2009 PC Game Software

1) The Sims 3 - Electronic Arts
2) World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
3) The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
4) World of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
5) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Activision
6) World of Warcraft - Blizzard
7) The Sims 3: World Adventures - Electronic Arts
8) Spore - Electronic Arts
9) Dragon Age: Origins - Electronic Arts
10) Empire: Total War - Sega

Yep, you read that right. Gamers would rather live a life on the computer with The Sims, rather than play the latest sensation and shooter on rails, Modern Warfare 2.

Now if you want to know what they're playing online right now, the latest stats from Steam;

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer (116,084)
Counter-Strike: Source (90,252)
Counter-Strike (76,284)
Team Fortress 2 (20,361)
Left 4 Dead 2 (18,212)
Football Manager 2010 (24,977)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (14,188)
Empire: Total War (10,743)
Garry's Mod (4,945)
Left 4 Dead (5,266)
Star Trek Online - Beta (2,942)

The number following the game is the peak number of players at any one time today. What is surprising is seeing a real time strategy such as Empire: Total War attracting so many players and a beta (Star Trek) being so popular.

Will Star Trek Online enjoy the instant success of Star Wars; Galaxies and if so will their fate fair better for keeping players and avoiding gamer disappointment?

Star Trek Online warps onto gaming computers worldwide

Its here!

Pull out those spock ears and set your phasers on fun! 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.

I was lucky enough to get into the Beta a few weeks ago and just made my way past the initial grind. Log in tonight....have to start over again!

The upside, the graphics definitely seem better.

Downside? Still twitchy as ever when in third person mode and with everyone rushing into the beta they were crushing the servers....ugh. Couldn't even grind....others were snaking my tasks!

But any person who has come close to calling themselves a trekker or trekkie needs to give it a shot.