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.

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.

Here’s the English version of the Final Fantasy XIV trailer shown at the Tokyo Game Show last week. Most of the content matches earlier trailers and screens, but it gives you a good feel of the FFXIV world atmosphere.

Final Fantasy XIV is due out sometime next year.

Blizzard’s success in the MMO market makes other games claiming to be “massively multiplayer” look like schoolyard clubs.  Its online game, World of Warcraft, boasts 11.5 million subscribers worldwide.

That’s made some people wonder about Blizzard’s strategy for keeping those subscribers, and about their next MMO which has been secretly in development.  Wired sat down with Paul Sams, Blizzard’s COO for an interview, and to get some information about the game.

What they were able to learn is that the game is significantly different than World of Warcraft. Sams explains, “you’re not going to feel like they’re one and the same resulting in that you have to pick or choose” between WoW and the next game, though he recognizes that they may “lose” some WoW subscribers to their new game.

As for the nature of the MMO, all we know is that it’s not based on Warcraft or Starcraft, Blizzard’s obvious choices for a new game.

“… what I could tell you is that we’re intending to create a game experience that is unlike anything that has ever been done before. Something that I think takes things far beyond what anyone has imagined and certainly anything anyone has executed.”

Of course, World of Warcraft isn’t going anywhere. The next expansion, Cataclysm, is in the works, and Sams assures us that Blizzard is close to delivering on its annual expansion promises.

Some new details have emerged about the upcoming MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV).

One interesting detail is that surnames, or last names, may appear in FFXIV.  The idea came out of the attempts to allow players to keep their names from Final Fantasy XI.  Final Fantasy XIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka explains:

“… for Final Fantasy XI we had 32 worlds, and each character had to have a unique name in each world, so if they move to XIV there might be a conflict, so what we’re trying to introduce is surnames for the characters so people can keep their original names but add something else to it to make it more unique.”

This reminds me a bit of the now-past Tabula Rasa, in which you could also choose a last name that would apply to all of your characters.

Also, the world of Final Fantasy XIV, Eorzea, will have its own religion.  Now, I’ve already heard some opinions on this matter, but nobody should be surprised.

Religion plays a significant role in Final Fantasy XI, given the fact that much of the storyline has to do with various dieties in the fictional land of Vana’diel. Consider the fact that Wings of the Goddess refers to Altana, the apparently-supreme diety of Vana’diel, and that all Campaign forces are named after her. Similarly, Promathia of the second expansion has a divine status as a devil-like figure.  Final Fantasy games almost always have some kind of mythology, which is essentially religion, whether or not the characters seem to participate in a religious experience.

So, naturally, the world of Eorzea will be no different, although the attention it’s getting may indicate that religion plays a more important role, and that the characters in the game’s story are more dedicated to their faith.  It may also suggest that the gods are less apparent.  Although Altana never appears in FFXI, Promathia and several supposed demi-gods do, making the religions of that world less like the major religions of Earth.

A final detail is that Nobuo Uematsu has confirmed that he will be composing the entire musical score for FFXIV.  The development team was unsure if he’d be able to do that, given his current work with a wide number of other games, but the composer has signed on to complete the whole soundtrack.

Final Fantasy XIV is tagged with a 2010 release date.  Final Fantasy XI still has about a year of planned additions as well, and Square Enix promises that the games will run simultaneously for some time.

With the news of Final Fantasy XIV yesterday, the active player base of Final Fantasy XI has been wondering what’s going to happen with thier game.

Square Enix commented on it briefly today.  The company will continue to put an effort into bringing new content to Final Fantasy XI for at least one more year.  The small add-on A Crystalline Prophecy was recently released, and two more similar add-ons are on the way.  No full-sized expansions have been announced, as Wings of the Goddess still needs to be completed (as not all missions are yet available).

The company says that at least one year of new content is lined up.  It’s unclear how long the company plans to keep developing content or keeping FFXI online after that, though the game will probably shut down when the player base falls below an economically viable population. Square Enix has expressed that it plans to keep Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV online together for some time, and that the new MMO is not a replacement for their previous title.

Some players have already made pacts to make the move from FFXI to FFXIV together, with the possibility of entire linkshells moving at once.  Although FFXIV is not a direct sequel to FFXI, it seems that the game will be similar, and even appears to have the same races available to characters.

More on this as we get it.