Patience.

What parent hasn't tried to teach us this valuable quality?

When the MMO's first started hitting the market back in the late 90's I jumped in.  I think most of us who grew up on board and paper games, be they wargames, role playing or what have you, decided MMO's were heaven sent.  After about a week of playing EQ 1 non-stop I finally took a break and the first thing I did was watch an episode of TNG.  And then it hit me: WHEN WILL THEY DO SOME KIND OF STAR TREK MMO?

All the fantasy players were getting their pudding placed on the table.  It seemd to me a week wouldn't go by without the announcement of some fantasy oriented MMO being slated for development and release. And then March of 2000 hit like a brick.

LucasArts announced their partnership to create a Star Wars MMO.  Huh? Star Wars before Star Trek? I bit my lip and figured let Lucas break the mega-hit sci-fi empire MMO arena and Star Trek would surely follow.

And just when I managed to get a beta invite for An Empire Divided, some unknown group in Iceland announced EVE Online.  Huh?  Why weren't they doing Star Trek?  What could a Trekkie do?  I plodded along in Galaxies, checked in on EQ once in a while, and fired up EVE. 

Wow.  If... no wait... When Star Trek MMO releases, if it has any of the promise of EVE, I'll retire and move into my office and that will be it.  Please bury me with my computer, 24" LCD and my Star Trek MMO gamekey.

Time passes.  No Star Trek.  Why am I wishing my life away prodding the future to come at me even faster? Finally in September of 2004 I got stunned. Perpetual announces development of ST:MMORPG.  Whoa! Finally! Who is Perpetual? Viacom we've hear of.  Well, at least the journey was starting.

It was a couple years of bliss if not impatient agony.  But at least I had forums to go to to discuss STO, get very few tidbits from the developers, and generally whittle away the time for beta.

Then in January of 2008 someone took my phaser, set it to heavy stun, and hit me over the head with it. Perpetual collapsed.  After canceling "Gods and Heroes" which was in beta, and being sued for fraud by a former public relations company, Perpetual announced it was no longer developing Star Trek Online. I just wanted to die. Yes. Seriously.

What more could I do other than seek comfort in SWG and EVE? I was so disgusted I never looked back at the STO Forums. I started to wonder if there would ever be a Star Trek based MMO in my lifetime?  I just couldn't understand it.  I mean, there were MMO's coming out based on everything from cartoon characters to comic books.  I thought Star Trek had staying power.  It's been syndicated forever.  It has had 4 TV series spinoffs, umpteen movies, books galore, comic books, and yes, even a cartoon. And it all started back in September of 1966 and is still going strong.  There has to be something special about that.  There has to be a market for some sort of MMO for Star Trek.  A small group of Trekkies and Trekkers couldn't possibly be responsible for the economic survival of the franchaise all by their lonesomes over all these years... could they?

Finally, on 28 July 2008, Cryptic the developers of City of Heroes and City of Villians, announced they had procured the license for developing Star Trek Online.  And on 10 August 2008, with great fanfare at the Las Vegas Hilton, Cryptic made it official with the release of the first in-game trailer and interviews provided by Jack Emmert of Cryptic Studios.

I watched the interview with great anticipation.  The big question? HOW LONG? There is no doubt Jack hem-hawed a tad on this one.  I can understand his position.  He knew we've already been waiting forever.  He knew many of us had lost faith and trust in the industry. He knew he had some senior Crytic officials in the back room waiting to hear his reply. Out came the words in a cautious tone ".. under three years.." with the added suspense line ".. but sooner than you think".  Huh? Was that a hook? Ok... I will bite.

The new STO forums are flourishing. Morale is high.  Trust is building.  The dev's are talking (some). Patience... well that's still short.

Will Cryptic come thru?  Is the Star Trek MMO cursed? Will I live long enough to see it's release?

All we can do is wait... patiently.

P~