For the entire month of May, rotating each week, the Feature Episode Series are once again offering their special, unique rewards for completion!

May 3 - May 9: Spectres (The Devidians)

• Special Reward: Ophidian Cane
• Minimum level required to accept missions: 11 (Fed) 25 (KDF)
• How to Play: Use your Mission Journal (Press J or click the Hail button next to your minimap) to hail and transwarp to the different episodes; for Federation Officers, use the Klingon War tab, and for Klingon Officers, use the Federation War tab.
• Episodes in this series: Skirmish, Spin the Wheel, What Lies Beneath, Everything Old is New, and Night of the Comet

May 10 - May 16: Cloaked Intentions (The Romulans and Remans)

• Special Reward: Reman Bridge Officer
• Minimum level required to accept missions: 34 (Fed) 36 (KDF)
• How to Play: Use your Mission Journal (Press J or click the Hail button next to your minimap) to hail and transwarp to the different episodes; for Federation and Klingon Officers, use the Romulan Mystery tab.
• Episodes in this series: The Vault, Mine Enemy, Frozen, Coliseum, Cutting the Cord, and Darkness Before the Dawn

May 17 - May 23: The 2800 (The Dominion)

• Special Reward: Shard of Possibilities
• Minimum level required to accept missions: 45 (Fed) 41 (KDF)
• How to Play: Use your Mission Journal (Press J or click the Hail button next to your minimap) to hail and transwarp to the different episodes; for Federation Officers, use the Cardassian Struggle tab and for Klingon Officers, use the Dominion Domination tab.
• Episodes in this series: Second Wave, Of Bajor, Operation Gamma, Facility 4028, and Boldly They Rode

May 24 - May 30: Cold War (The Breen)

• Special Reward: Breen Bridge Officer
• Minimum level required to accept missions: 48 (Fed) 46 (KDF)
• How to Play: Use your Mission Journal (Press J or click the Hail button next to your minimap) to hail and transwarp to the different episodes; for Federation and Klingon Officers, use the Breen Invasion tab.
• Episodes in this series: Cold Call, Out in the Cold, Cold Comfort, Cold Case and Cold Storage

Cryptic, producers of Star Trek Online and Champions Online, has just announced that they had a security breach in December 2010 that allowed attackers access to their players account name, handle, and encrypted passwords.

"The unauthorized access included user account names, handles, and encrypted passwords for those accounts. Even though the passwords were encrypted, it is apparent that the intruder has been able to crack some portion of the passwords in this database. All accounts that we believe were present in the database have had the passwords reset, and customers registered to these accounts have been notified via e-mail of this incident."

Soure: http://www.crypticstudios.com/securitynotice

On February 2nd, Star Trek Online will release the latest in the line of Enterprises, the Odyssey-class (Enterprise-F) starship.

From the STO Website:

"Players level 5 and above should report to Engineer Kani (in front of Admiral Quinn’s office on Earth Spacedock) for a mission to take one of the new Odyssey class ships on a shakedown cruise. Complete the mission to receive an Odyssey class ship of your very own."

When the Klingon Defense Force intelligence service alerted the High Council with Starfleet's activities, they decided to launch their newest ship, the Bortas (Vengeance) class starship the same day. KDF officers level 21 and above should report to Engineer Tum’Era (in front of the Great Hall on Qo’noS) for a similar shakedown mission. Those who complete the mission will earn a Bortas class ship of their own to command.

These two ships will be free to everyone during the event, regardless of level or rank. The ships require you be level 50 to fly them in combat, so characters of lower level will find an item in their inventory that they cannot use until they reach level 50. After the event, these two ships will no longer be obtainable for a while. We have not finalized details yet on when they will return, but we will announce the details once we have them."

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2838

This is a very well done trailer for the Start Trek Online Free-to-play launch. It certainly made me want to log in right away.

Trekkies get your tricorders ready Star Trek Online is going free-to-play tomorrow (January 17th). It is your opportunity to try this great game, free of charge. STO is a game that went though many changes in the last few years. I think most people will agree that at launch the game was not complete. The game was rushed into production due to some contract constraints and as a result was buggy and incomplete. However Cryptic did eventually polished the game and introduced some revolutionary features into this MMO. Some of the most noteworthy changes included the complete rework of ground combat (which now plays more like a first person shooter) and the introduction of the foundry system which allows players to design in game missions.

One of the questions people usually have about free-to-play games is “what do I get for free”. Well with this free-to-play launch I am happy to announce that you get quite a bit. You will have access to all the regular and foundry missions, both factions (Federation and Klingon), no level cap, most (non elite) ships and PVP. You can earn in-game currency by playing, it will just take time, and hence most of the in-store offerings are focused around saving time, and cosmetics. Free-to-play players will not get access to design Foundry missions but the option can be purchased in the in-game store.

From my experience I can tell you that this is a great casual friendly MMO that I think deserves a try. I personally have a STO lifetime account and I am looking forward to the free-to-play launch as I will automatically start receiving free in-game currency every month. See you in the Alpha-Quadrant.

STO F2P Feature Chart