Thank you for all of the feedback and responses to this Ask Cryptic. Over the next month we will be sharing more details about the specifics of Legacy of Romulus, and later in April, we will be opening up access to create and play a Romulan on TRIBBLE so that you can see how everything works for yourself.
Keep in mind that the team has been hard at work on this expansion and this remains an entirely FREE expansion. We are not charging for it. It will be a free download when the expansion hits. So with that in mind, try it for yourself and see what you think without any risk. This isn't a $50 expansion that you have to buy up front in order to play. Yes there will be plenty of additional items in the store later on to enhance the experience (we are a business), but you will be able to play a Romulan from 1-50 as a free player.
We are happy that many players appreciate our decision to have the Romulans join existing FED or KDF fleets at launch. We realize that not everyone understands or agrees with why we did this, but it is the best decision for Star Trek Online. As stated in the Ask Cryptic, we will consider allowing the construction of Romulan Starbases in the future, but at launch, we want to recognize all the effort that existing Fleets have put into their Starbases and not introduce a "must start over" approach this early.
Additionally, we have a story to tell with the Romulan Republic that is central to the future updates in our game. We specifically chose to go this route as far back as the Romulan Feature Episode series where we introduced Obisek and Hakeev. Romulans are splintered and there are factions within the Romulan Empire that are specifically pursuing goals that are not necessarily beneficial to the Romulan species (investigating Borg Technology, collaborating with Iconians). One of our next blogs will go into detail about these conflicts and how they will play into the Romulan Republic storyline. That storyline will advance the plot for all factions in coming seasons.
With the Romulan Republic being a prequel to the Romulan FE series and the founding of New Romulus, our intention has been to allow players to explore the backstory of what has happened since the destruction of their homeworld. New Romulan captains do not even start in the military. These are Romulan citizens that must decide how they will survive. As the launch site says, "you are one of the survivors." "These are dark and dangerous times for your people."
The New Romulan storyline will dive deeper into the underlying darkness threatening the galaxy than any species has thus far and by the time they finish their storyline, it will be clear why New Romulus needs to exist and why we chose to have players play Romulan citizens rather than the Tal Shiar. Future Feature Episode series will continue the story from this point.
To answer some specific questions, Romulans will be asked to choose sides in the war by the time they are level 10. The exclusive Romulan storyline takes place in all of the new prequel episodes that have been made that will now end in and around the events that culminate in the Romulan Feature Episode series. Since we are moving around many of the levels of episodes with this expansion, we expect Romulan captains to be around level 40 when they finish their primary episodes (much like the Feds at launch). Note that for Romulans, most of the feature episode series have all been moved past this point. Thus the Devidians, Breen, and 2800 series all take place after the Romulan storyline. This also includes all of the Borg, Undine, STFS, Nukara, New Romulus and end game event content. So when we say that the alliance has an impact on end game, it is in reference to all of the level 40+ missions and end game content that exist for all factions. Instead of creating a 3rd set of queues, we're limiting it to the existing 2 sets and, at least for now, limiting Romulans to helping the Feds or KDF with their Starbase while the Feds and KDF help to build new Romulus. We will be adding more Fleet Holdings in the future and, as stated, Romulan Starbases have not been ruled out.
As an MMO we can always evolve this in the future, but this is how it will be at launch on May 21. Again, you'll have a chance to see all of this in action when we put the update up for testing prior to May.
