Yesterday, Cryptic announced that multiple pre-order bonuses will also be available—even for the "regular" game edition—depending on which retailer you decide buy your copy from. Seven retailers are announced so far, including both Internet and brick-and-mortar stores. Each bonus is an in-game item or character, like the "Liberated Borg" Bridge Officer or your very own pet Tribble (Klingons get a pet Targ instead). Click on the jump below for a complete list of participating retailers and descriptions of the all the pre-order bonuses.

All Star Trek Online pre-orders receive guaranteed access to the Star Trek Online Open Beta test from January 12th to January 26th, 2010. In addition, Star Trek Online also offers an exclusive Early Start Program with pre-orders at all participating retailers that runs January 29, 2010 through launch on February 2. The Early Start Program allows players to get a leg up on other interstellar explorers and access the Star Trek universe the weekend prior to the game's launch. Unlike beta play, all in-game progress made during the Early Start Program will carry over to the live adventure.

All customers who pre-order Star Trek Online receive access to the Open Beta and Early Start Program. Details on exclusive pre-order content for Star Trek Online include:

GameStop

GameStop customers receive the ability to command the exclusive and always classic USS Enterprise from Star Trek The Original Series.

Best Buy

Best Buy is offering their customers a fun in-game pet. As a Federation Captain, players own a famed Tribble of Star Trek lore that will accompany them on their travels into the final frontier. As a Klingon commander, players control the boar-like Targ, a beast found on the Klingon home world of Qo'noS.

Amazon

Amazon is offering an exclusive "Liberated Borg" Bridge Officer. This bridge officer, who comes with unique nanotechnology augmentations, assists in missions and gains experience as the player does.

Wal-Mart

With the Wal-Mart Bonus Skill Points package, receive addition skill points that enable players to improve their characters quickly.

Target

Target customers who pre-order Star Trek Online receive a unique ground weapon -- a TR-116. This rare projectile weapon is used in dampening fields and other challenging environments; it is also modified with a micro-transporter which beams the fired projectiles to targets at close range so that a user can fire without a direct line of site.

Direct2Drive

Direct2Drive customers receive an exclusive Multi-Spatial Personal Shield. This advanced personal shield system is based on Borg technology, which constantly regenerates itself and the health of its wearer.

STEAM

STEAM is offering customers Chromodynamic Armor. This armor is based on technology brought back from the Delta Quadrant by USS Voyager improves the damage and critical hits of energy weapons.

Editor's note: All screenshots are a work in progress from the Star Trek Online closed beta.

Whether you’ve enjoyed their super hero MMOs or not, it’s easy to admit that the character creation portion of both City of Heroes and Champions Online have been the most robust character creation tools ever devised by an online development team. The level of detail that can be drilled onto each character is phenomenal, and you can end up with online video programs completely devoted to the creation of a player’s character in these games.

Their background automatically sets the bar incredibly high for Cryptic’s character creation in Star Trek Online and, if it doesn’t meet the unspoken standards by Cryptic’s fans, there might be hell to pay. So when we fired up the latest beta play session in STO, character was the first segment of the game that we had to take a crack at.

In many ways, the Star Trek Online character creation system was exactly what we expected from the developers at Cryptic, but there was also a level of caution employed as well. Unlike its super hero cousins, STO is based off of a licensed property that has always been firmly planted in a "humanistic" reality. Starting a character (at least initially) in STO means that you’re signing up to be a part of the Federation’s Starfleet, and that means you won’t be donning any hot pink capes or neon green masks anytime soon.

As STO fans are aware, you begin your creation process by selecting between an engineering officer, a science officer, and a tactical officer. Once you've made that choice, you can then choose between the pre-created races – Human, Andorian, Bajoran, Bolian, and Vulcan – or you can create an "unknown" race of being.

This is where the real appeal – at least for most MMO junkies – kicks in. Unlike Champions Online and City of Heroes before it, the customizable portion of Star Trek Online is more focused on a player’s face and the developers give us options that seem more organic and "real" than what you see in CO.

Gender, eyes, neck, face, ears, forehead, skull structure, skin type, pattern, nose details, tattoos, scarring, all of that can be customized to an extravagant degree. Gradients on coloring and facial details can be adjusted to make your alien’s face appear softer or stouter depending on your needs.

Of course, experimentation needs to be done when you have so many options at your disposal. Over the course of a few hours, the ZAM staff set out to create two completely different looking aliens: an enormous, burly, yet still scandalously sexy reptilian woman (that’s a mouthful!) and a midget-sized, super-intelligent, arrogant, obnoxious-looking male alien from a race that has never seen the light of the sun until they discovered space travel.

As you can see from the screenshots we’ve included in this article, we managed to attain both types of aliens – and both will appear very different at the helm of a starship.

So what else can you expect to find during character creation? Although we can’t show you details, each alien is allowed to select four racial bonuses (for the known races, two bonuses are pre-selected) that help characters in various forms of gameplay. These range from traits like "Aggressive," which gives a bonus to combat damage to “Cold-Blooded,” assists with resisting heat damage. There’s a vast number of traits to pick from the pool, so we made sure to give our female alien an assortment of combat buffs, and our little STO gnome a host of abilities that help him with starship piloting.

Even at this early stage, it’s easy to notice that players will have the ability to pick out the traits that suit their desired play styles – those that want to focus on ground combat can select those bonuses while those that want to stick to the blackness of space can benefit from other traits that enhance those stats.

While we can’t give you the numbers that we saw – we know that you’d like to see as much as you could – rest assured that there are just as many starship related traits as there are ground combat types. It’s a nice selection of flavored abilities and they will certainly make for some interesting characters down the road. 

But how did Brains and Scales (as we lovingly refer to them) manage once they got into the heat of combat in the STO beta? Check back in with us soon to see just how they fared!

This is CBT client interface.

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As soon as they log into the game, players have to create a character and choose one of the three careers: Tactical Officer of tank type, Science Officer of DPS type and Engineering Officer of Buff type.

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Choose Your Species and Gender (I haven't made a further research on whether each species has special skills)

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Three selectable traits

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The loading interface

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This is the user interface, the left side is character status (including Bridge Officer), top is social panel (guild, friends etc), bottom is skill window and the right side is inventory.

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Map and Mission Log

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Having been familiar with the user interface, it is time to get down to newbie missions. Here you can get access to the Ground Combat System in Star Trek Online for the first time which is similar to common European and American MMOs. The difference is that this game is Sci-fi genre, laser guns and melee skills are both available. Note that you are allowed to switch weapons freely.

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Newbie missions mainly require you to beat back the ship invaders. After that, land on the planet ground and start the quest of rescuing hostages, including collecting items and so on. This screenshot shows the battle against enemies in the front line.

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Your rank goes up on completion of several missions. The progression system is embodied in the form of point distribution in accordance with players' preference.

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This is a Bridge Officer's character status. In this game, players have to develop their characters as well as Bridge Officers and ships. Bridge Officers also have their own skill points and players must spend these points in a certain rank, in this way the Bridge Officer can be promoted to a higher rank.

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Space exploration and ship construction is the main gameplay of this game. This screenshot shows players first appear in the game interface.

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In the screenshot below, the light blue ring is the ship's shield and players can enhance it through fours arrows on the UI. For example, if enemies focus firepower on the upper side of the shield, players need to press "Up" arrow to enhance that side of the shield. The Speed Controller is on the left side, Q Key and E Key are used for slowing up and down respectively. Full Impulse is extremely speedy flying state, in this state, ships will lose battle ability; Reverse is for going backwards. Tactic Modification can draw up tactics for your ship; Press Attack to open full firepower (defense and movement decrease), Defense to full defense, Speed to full speed and balance to set a normal state. Emplacement is used to open fire and Fire All is recommended. Additionally, auto-toggle target function will take effect when ships are attacked. Generally, I set tactics before meeting enemies, open Fire All within attack range and then enhance shield according to enemies' firepower direction. Don't forget to add Buffs during the combat. Besides, it is worth noting that players can turn round their ship to absorb damage by all sides of the shield. Likewise, enemies can also do that to decrease the damage to ships. Once the shield disappears, the ship will suffer direct damage. Players had better concentrate firepower on a certain side of enemies' shield so as to destroy them in a minute. In a word, the combat system is very interesting.

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This is the earth station players will come to after completing space newbie missions. Wow, a large number of players can be found there.

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Inside the station, players are able to trade loots, exchange, beatify ships, accept quests and so on. Like other MMOs, the game will have hubs.

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This is ship's equipment column and players can equip the best weapon to their favorite ship here.

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This is regional star map and you can see some different star systems. Plus, there is outer space map, which illustrates the scene out of regional stars.

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This is solar system.

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More star systems and other players

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This is meteorite system, let's visit it.

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After entering a star system, players will automatically get missions which range from smashing all enemies there to landing on the star surface and etc. These missions will lead to ground combat mode.

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Back to the regional star map and then move to the outer space map mentioned above. The outer space map which includes several regional star maps can be considered as the most magnificent map currently.

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Enter a region with three stars.

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Generally, the rewards after destructing hostile ships are primary emplacements.

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Another huge blue star is very beautiful. (Science knowledge: in the universe, blue stars are hotter than red ones and stars can give off light)

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This is a planet and its rubbles, a satellite torn by the planet's great gravitation is on the right side and a star is in the distance.

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This is the largest-scale war I met in the game (a group of players are doing missions)

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Finally, look at my ship.

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Conclusion: The CBT client is quite stable and it seldom lags, even though I have enabled all effects. Star Trek Online is a game between EVE and MMORPG. Its space battle is under the impact of EVE, while its ground combat is similar to common MMOs'. The game definitely gives me a sense of space exploration which is close to original Star Trek movie. I have only played PVE system this time, although I've no idea about the PVP system, I am sure it is certain to be interesting. Compared with EVE, this game's system is simplified and the ground combat plus exploration is funny. It is a space-themed game not just focusing on ships. At present, not much game content is released and the missions seem somewhat boring and repetitive, which is a common shortcoming of most MMORPGs. Overall, Star Trek Online is better than I imagined, so I am considering getting its collection client.

Needless to say, the thread became so popular that Cryptic's Jack Emmert decided to respond. Emmert confirmed that "Klingon gameplay is almost entirely PvP," but did say that the team will add more content if players demand it. Cryptic has apparently already added some PvE content for Klingons.

"If people like the federation gameplay, we can put that in for the Klingons. If players have a different set of requests for klingons, we can do that instead. We can make STO into the game that YOU want," Emmert said. So we'll ask that question to our readers: What do you want to see in Star Trek Online? Would you like Klingons to remain mainly PvP or not?

Keep reading after the jump for Emmert's full statement.

Seems like good ole Dan kicked off Klingon month in STYLE!

First, let me apologize that info has been slow to get out. Believe it or not, December was supposed to "klingon" month. I have zero clue why it's Dec. 15th and still nothing, but I can tell you this WILL change (I just saw the threads yesterday).

Secondly, yes, Klingon gameplay is almost entirely PvP. We are trying to get some PvE in (there's already a tad bit). And, if the players demand it, we'll add more content (like episodes). I want us to be agile as a company and respond to what the customers want.

Third, I'll reiterate my point in the other thread. I'm most excited about playing a Klingon. I love combat in a bird of prey. Klingons are getting attention - from me. It's not as much as I'd want, but we have a foundation that we can grow into. If people like the federation gameplay, we can put that in for the Klingons. If players have a different set of requests for klingons, we can do that instead. We can make STO into the game that YOU want.

I'll close with that. MMORPG's aren't just about release. They're about community and the years of gameplay. Disappointed that there isn't more Klingon gameplay? Play STO, tell us what you'd like and we can deliver that. Every passing day, we can make STO into what the fans want.

So, when it came time to preview the soon to launch MMORPG, I have not been looking at it to see if it captured everything that I dreamed a Star Trek MMO would be. Instead, I've asked myself if it did enough.

Honestly, it's too soon to tell. So far, the game is a mixed bag. Some of it is a lot of fun, while other parts need a lot of polish in very little time, and still other aspects leave me scratching my head.

The following hands-on preview is based on hands-on time with the game through their ongoing Closed Beta testing. I've logged, as a rough guess, about 20 hours in the game over that time. This preview won't cover every single detail of the game, but honestly, I think it's a fair amount of time and as much as any prospective customer is likely to give it before they make up their mind.

Missions

Star Trek Online has a pretty standard formula when it comes to PvE content. Episodes, as they've been dubbed, are just themed missions. I'm one of those terrible players that ignores the story entirely by default, and if that's you, you can easily navigate a mission without paying attention. For those who do read, there is a bit more depth there and lots of references to the lore.

The average Episode is a pretty standard thing. It always begins with an NPC who sends you out in space to explore something or other. Refreshingly, they took advantage of future communications and don't actually make you return to the quest giver every time. You simply hail him from your UI to redeem completed missions and pick up new ones.

It gives the game a kind of forward progress. Players work their way through zones naturally in a geographic order. This is aided by "patrol missions" that keep you moving and bread crumbs where eventually your superior in that sector is done with you and tells you to go report to someone at a base in the next sector.

The main piece of this game though is the episodes. Once you arrive at the target sector, the formula remains. You first face some kind of space-based obstacle to overcome. Sometimes this is as simple as killing five bad guys, but Cryptic did a very good job at this stage of keeping the simple fresh. There are usually twists in the Episode missions. In one case, I had to fight along side another (NPC) Federation vessel. In another, I took out my "seven squadrons" of bad guys naturally as I chased a run-away freighter. The missions, at this stage, largely consist of two options: kill it or scan it. It's not a bad thing though, because they did a very good job of mixing it up just enough to keep things interesting.

Once that first step is complete, you usually have to beam down somewhere. Sometimes this means to a planet, other times it's a ship or space station. These are inevitably dungeons. Again, like space, they did a good job of not just making it about "kill five guys." There is usually some goal, such as shutting down consoles, and the combat is more something you have to do to reach the end.

The structure here is very "dungeon" based, usually. You fight your way through a series of corridors and reach some kind of "end boss" or goal. Usually there is a twist at the end, such as the need to defend a console that's downloading data for a set period of time from an onslaught of Klingons, or to incapacitate an enemy and tag him to be beamed back to your brig.

The away missions are the least polished content, but the basic concept was good. The best thing about Star Trek Online for me was the constant switch between the two modes. Neither one requires hours of gameplay, so it constantly gives you a new challenge. The away missions specifically are usually relatively short. Never did I find myself bored with a planet or area and ready to move on early. If anything, perhaps the game could use a bit more away mission content.

Once completed, you tend to beam back to your ship where you usually face an additional space encounter. Again, they bring twists in to keep it interesting. When dealing with a particularly nasty shape shifter who had escaped me on a planet, I was left face to face with his vastly superior ship. My instructions from Starfleet were not kill the bad guy. They were to survive. I had to engage the enemy long enough for help to arrive.

In each area there is usually a small pile of missions, although rarely is it more than a few at a time. There is no need to pile up and take 50 at a time so you don't have to run back to town. The communication system cuts that need out.

The patrol missions are more about moving the player through the game world. These are far more basic. They usually say "go to sector X and visit every solar system." In each solar system is one of a few kinds of missions: escort missions, kill missions, scan missions (that require killing), collection missions (the only ones that sometimes send you down to an away mission), or some combination of the above. They're simple, and the OCD completionist in me kept me going. My only complaint is when you go to grind one of these out ,the magic they achieve in the Episodes by constantly moving you between Away Missions and Space is lost. I end up spending more time than I'd like in my ship and they can sometimes begin to drag on.

That constant switch back and forth between Avatar and Space Ship is where the bread and butter of Star Trek Online will be in the end. It keeps things interesting and allows them to cut out a lot of the boring bits. You fight a fun space battle, you beam somewhere and do a mini-dungeon, then you beam back and fight another space battle. Hail the Admiral, collect the reward instantly and start on another mission. Nowhere in there did anyone have to run a long distance (sector space rarely takes very long and is the closest thing to a time sink they have) or do anything else boring.

The away mission combat is one of those easy-to-learn systems that has more to it than you first expect. At first, I was disappointed with only having two real solid attacks. Each weapon basically has a default firing option and a special attack. You also have a third attack for melee. You control these by pressing 1, 2 or 3.

My biggest complaint about this system is that this game really, really needs auto attack. Since 99% of your shots are from the 1 button, it's downright annoying to constantly spam it. Especially since it's not like one click is one shot. It tends to fire a phaser burst that takes a couple of seconds. Min/Maxers will drive themselves insane trying to time the bursts to optimum efficiency... or more likely write scripts that do it.

Now I can't promise that you will be able to see the lifetime sub offer, because it looks like you have to have preordered (and entered your preorder key already) to be able to see it. Essentially anyone who preordered is offered a 12month and Lifetime subscription.

12 month - $119.99/yr USD

• Annual recurring subscription locked in at the discount price


• 2 Additional Character Slots
  
  
   

Lifetime Subscription - $239.99 USD

• Lifetime Access to Star Trek Online


• Playable Borg


• 2 Additional Character Slots

Essentially the 12 month gives you a discounted yearly rate that you can continue to subscribe at year after year, rather than being for 1 year only. I don't know if it lets you pick it again if you've canceled your account at some point.

Notable fine print: Note: A retail box or digital download purchase is required to play Star Trek Online and future expansion packs. Lifetime subscription covers your subscription fee for as long as the game is in service. 12-month discounted subscription covers your subscription fee for 12 months and will recur at the same price at the end of the 12-month period. Subscription fees are non-refundable. We make no explicit or implicit warranties on the service period of the game. This offer ends February 1st, 2010 11:59PM PST. While supplies last. Prices displayed are not inclusive of VAT for purchases from the European Union (EU). VAT is charged in accordance with the local legislation in each member state and varies from 15% to 25%.

Q: What are the playable Borg’s in-game traits?

A: The Liberated Borg begins with the following two traits. You can select another two traits from a general list.

Borg Nanites: +10% Health Regeneration

Description: 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.

http://www.startrekonline.com/exclusive_specials