STO is rapidly approaching the 1000 veteran reward mark for its lifetime subscribers, and had been promising a new ship to go with it. But they did one better. Not only are there new ships (a new Heavy Destroyer for each side, more on that below), but they put up a sale on lifetime subs and went one better – anyone with a lifetime sub will now instantly receive all the veteran rewards, regardless of join date.
The sale itself is for $200 instead of $300 – which knocks it down to what is pretty much the industry standard these days. So in that sense, its not too much of a deal. But the game seems to be in good shape, with no danger of going anywhere anytime soon, and to be honest, dropping a lifetime sub any lower than that almost defeats the purpose of the monthly sub. At $200 you really only need 13 months to get your money’s worth out of it. Given that I’ve been playing the game regularly for the last 8 months, and haven’t hit any sort of ennui or dissipation of interest yet, and am in fact on the verge of getting a second character to 50, with a third on the way…it still seems like a great deal to me.
There has been some blowback on the Veteran Rewards going out instantly. From a business perspective, it is certainly the way to go – nobody is going to buy a lifetime sub now only to wait 1000 to get their hands on the new ships. So it kind of had to be done. Still, I can understand the angst there.
As for the ships…boy are they sweet. A cruiser/escort hybrid, they both look great. The Starfleet one is actually one of the runner ups from the “design the new Enterprise” contest. Its gotten mixed reviews but I absolutely love it. I’m not wild about the “modes” – a little too Transformer-ish to me (I had the same problem with the Voyager’s variable sweep nacelles), but the overall design is great. Its a fresh take on the elements while looking aggressive and sharp at the same time. And to be honest, its the real sell for me.
Getting that ship, which I would already be paying $25 for, means I’m really looking at less than a year to recoup my loss. Not to mention there are a couple of things in the C-Store I still want, and since Gold Sub status pays out $5 a month in store credit, I will save that money in Game Cards over the next year as well.
On the other hand…there is a tiny part of my brain wondering if this is a good idea. I mean, it looks great to me, but pull back the camera a little and I’m paying out $200 for a F2P game that is two and a half years old. They say the devil is in the details, but this time I’m thinking its the other way around.
Harbinger Zero 