Cryptic Studios, the company behind Star Trek Online, is offering an alternative to the standard monthly pricing model that most MMOs run on. Instead of paying per month, or per year, would-be starship captains can put down a larger amount upfront, and guarantee their lifetime access to the game.

I’m saying “lifetime” a bit liberally here, meaning as long as Star Trek Online stays online, although there are probably enough Trekkies in the world to keep it alive much longer than Tabula Rasa, even if it turned out to be underwhelming.

Those who pre-order the game can sign up early and get the full lifetime membership for $239.99 US. Wait until after the game launches and the price will go up to $299.  The lifetime membership has the added bonus of offering two extra character slots above the monthly subscription, which costs $14.99 per month. These two slots are also available to annual subscribers, who pay $119 per year.

Unique to the lifetime membership, however, is the ability to play as a character who has recently been liberated from the Borg collective.

All subscription options are in addition to the purchase of the game itself, which will come packaged with a 30-day free subscription.

Star Trek Online launches February 2 in North America, and February 5 in Europe.

Square Enix’s upcoming Final Fantasy XIII is, of course, going to be one big, long game. I expect that, you expect that. Now, Square Enix is giving us a number.

FF13 will lock in at least 60 hours of your time in the first playthrough. Motomu Toriyama, who’s heading up the project, tells Kotaku:

… the size of the entire game is considerable. Just running through the main story takes experienced players over 50 hours. For the first time, I think it’s possible to play through in full in about 60 hours or so.

That’s for the storyline alone. For completionists, who look for details and run through as many sidequests as possible, we’re probably looking at nearly 100 hours of gameplay.

Not too bad.

Final Fantasy XIII will be released on December 17 in Japan, and March 9 in North America, Europe and Australia.

In an effort to grow its player count, Mythic has released a new free trial for Warhammer Online — and this one never expires.

While most MMORPGs are offering limited 10- or 14-day trials, Warhammer Online is allowing new and returning players to enjoy their online world indefinitely without paying a dime. Of course, there’s a catch. The trial caps your characters at level 10, so if you’d ever like to advance beyond the low-level quests of the game, you’ll have to become a paid subscriber.

Still, there are plenty of things to do in those early levels, and you can play more than one character — with as many jobs as you’d like, so you can try out the first ten levels of each character class. Mythic is betting you’ll get enough of a feel of what Warhammer Online is all about to sign up and break the cap. They’re also hoping that older players will return to try the game out, and experience some of the recent enhancements they’ve made.

Warhammer Online has also introduced a new streaming client, which allows players to install a somewhat smaller version of the game and have world environments load in as you explore the world. This new client allows quicker access to the game.

Those interested in taking Mythic up on their offer can sign up for the trial online.

Square Enix’s president and CEO, Yoichi Wada again confirmed that his company plans to release Final Fantasy XIII to North America and Europe next spring.

Wada gave a brief comment on the game’s localization progress, saying that it is coming along well, and that the company should be able to release FF13 to international markets by the end of its fiscal year, in April 2010. This is more-or-less on par with the schedule laid forth back in January, when Wada said that April would be the earliest we would see Final Fantasy XIII outside of Japan.

The Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII is now being completed for a December launch in its native country. The Japanese FF13 will be exclusive to the Sony PS3, while North America and Europe will have a choice between PS3 and Xbox 360 versions.

The upcoming MMORPG Star Trek Online has been given a release date. The game will be launched on February 2 in North America, and February 5 in Europe.

Star Trek Online will allow players to captain a starship in either Starfleet or the Klingon Empire. The game is currently in beta, with Cryptic working on ironing out the details for next week’s release. The game will be published by Atari.

Square Enix has revealed the method of character growth in Final Fantasy XIII. Instead of a traditional level-up system, FFXIII will introduce the Crystalium System.

Those familiar with the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X won’t have too much trouble adapting to this new system. In Final Fantasy XIII, characters will earn Crystalium Points, or CP, from battles — instead of the traditional Experience Points. The CP can then be used to unlock nodes on a grid, which grant character traits and abilities. Unlocking a node allows you to progress your abilities further down that area of the grid, enabling abilities beyond that node to be unlocked.

The Crystalium System places character growth on an expanding grid, allowing earned CP
to unlock nodes and create a path to desired traits, magic and abilities.

Magic upgrades will work in the same way, allowing the familiar progression through the tiers of Final Fantasy spells, such as from Fire, to Fira, to Firaga.

Presumably, players will have to choose which abilities they want their characters to unlock to make them most useful in battle.

Final Fantasy XIII will be out in Japan on December 17, with the English translation due to hit North America and Europe in Spring or early Summer of 2010.