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How will the Romulan faction factor into the story of STO?

Star Trek Online (STO) Executive Producer Dan Stahl recently addressed another round of community questions from the STO community in the latest Ask Cryptic. The community tossed out a number of good questions about future content, Klingon War Targs and even new races. Stahl touched on Targ Breeding, something being looked at as a metagame to allow Klingon players a game similar option to the Federation's ability to breed Tribbles.

Possible long-term plans for the Romulan faction are also discussed along with the challenges of adding a new faction to the game. Romulans will require their own new artwork and ship designs, so it's a huge undertaking and one without a solid date. So check back later and we'll update you with more on the Romulans as it becomes available.

We are in fact discussing Romulans and how to get more of their story and faction into the game. We have always talked about the next faction we add to the game being Romulan. This would involve them having their own ships and storyline content. It is a big endeavor and as we've learned with the KDF, not something we could do in the span of a single update. So our long term plans are working on ways to start tackling this over multiple updates but I've no specific dates to give on when you'll see a Romulan playable faction.

Stahl also touched on the free-to-play speculation for STO since the announcement that Champions Online (CO) will be going free-to-play next year. According to Stahl, there are no plans to currently take STO free-to-play. But if the CO switch proves to be as profitable as Turbine's conversion of Dungeons and Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online, it would not be surprising to see STO travel the free-to-play road.