Set Phasers To Fun (yeah, I stole that line)

Star Trek Online, otherwise known as the greatest game that will ever rule God's green Earth, is finally making progress.

Why is this important?

Well, let's start with a little history. OK, a lot of history. In 2006, a band of rebels and doppelgangers called Perpetual Entertainment (a tiny, tiny company) decided to take on a massive, just massive Star Trek MMO. Now, we're talking full-scale starships and infinite boundaries of our galaxy, here. The game would start players out at Starfleet Academy, making them work individually and as a team to eventually become captains of their own ships, perhaps (wink wink) even Admirals. A beta was soon developed, and for some strange reason the game was put on indefinite hold. This disappointed long-time followers of the game, since Perpetual had a goal of releasing it in '07.

But, lo and behold, they came back with a vengeance in '07. With a Teddy Roosevelt attitude, they pushed onward to give us loads and loads of concept art and technical jargon. All was well. The game was expected in '08.

And then...

Everything just went down the john. Perpetual was bought out by a non-gaming company, who then attempted to redesign the game to make it more "casual". Realizing this was a stupid move and not what gamers (like me) wanted, many employees left. To make matters worse, Perpetual was sued for an enormous sum of money by Kohnke (Kohkne?) Communications, for "not paying them enough for 'services'" (sneaky things like convincing journalists to give Perpetual's other game a high rating). So, the San Fransicko company shut down. STO was dead, murdered, crushed, obliterated.

But then, like Neelix in "Mortal Coil" (I despise that episode), STO was raised from the dead. Hallelujah, and I mean that in the most serious way possible. And faster than you could say "stupid Star Trek reference", Cryptic Studios of City of Heroes/Villians fame takes over. Now, from what I've seen and heard, the game is pretty fantastic. But Cryptic is working on many other projects at the same time. Only time will tell if they give it the love and nurturing it deserves.

The webcast comes out tomorrow, so I'm excited.

Beam me up. Now.