I have an addictive personality, so I won't touch an MMORPG with a 50 foot pool.  It's the same reason I stay away from heroine, but at least with heroine, I'd be more likely to ask for help.

Put that lifetime sub to use and Endurance Run up your entire STO "life".

Jeff, you're a nutter. I couldn't comprehend doing what you've just done. Maybe that's just me.

I don't understand, why do MMOs have to charge a monthly fee?

Better think carefully about how you are going to name your ship ^^
 
Would i have the expendable income to get this offer i would do it to but unfortunately i don't.

For that kind of money I'd expect a Star Trek babe (Jeri Ryan please) to come and play with me, after which I might show her the game...

The problem with the game is that most quest is solved either by fighting in space and then fighting on ground or vice versa. And the few "detective" quests are a bit boring. I'll miss playing the beta, but there are other games around with more variety.

you know that you could have used that money to buy a WHOLE lot of other things, like 5 60$ games.

With the games that are coming out this year, do you really see yourself playing STO at the end of the year?
Especially when it sounds like you didn't like the game enough to consider getting it after the beta until you saw the life subscription anyway.

On the one hand, Hellgate tried this and they were done in a year.  On the other hand Matrix Online lasted a really long time because of its license.  Plus I suppose you could always sell the account when you're done with it.

If I had the money, I'd do the same thing. Although, I do have my Gamefly Sub that I rarely use, so I could cancel that and put that money towards STO. yea, I think I'll do that.

I hate you jeff. I would kill for a lifetime subscription, but I'm flat broke....

Well, this isn't the first game to do this. I remember there have been a couple, the only one I'm sure of is Lord Of The Rings Online. It was also 200+ish for a lifetime subscription. At the Time, I'd been paying Blizzard for two years, and as you said, I had just been playing it due to a guilttrip. LOTR Online seemed like a WoW clone, so I decided to get the lifetime subscription.....then the beta "talked" out of it. Its only really worth it if you even think you'l be playing it up to 20 something months (depending on the other pricepoints), and in my case anyway. I decided that if the so called best game in the genre, WoW, had been boring me after around 8 months (and Lv 40), a game that wasn't even on par with it would probably be even less likely to hold my attention.
 
Anyways, best of luck. When it comes down to it,  Its these kinds of random spending that make life worth living!!!!

That purchase was illogical.  
 
Live long and prosper, Star Trek Online...seriously...

Oh god. I COULD'VE GOT A PS3 FOR THAT MONEY. 
 
I think STO will die out like LOTRO, AoC, WHO etc did. There's just no competition against WoW. Certainly there will be a hardcore crowd who'll stick to it until the servers are taken down, but I don't think that's the point of an mmo. 
 
I'm sorry, bad deal :<

The best bet for you would have been the 1 year deal. I mean come on, with all the games coming out this year there is NO WAY you are still going to even think about this game a year from now (or even six months from now). It's your money and you can do what you want with it, but this seems really stupid and the way you seem to be relatively ok with that is kind of disgusting.

A fucking great idea, to be honest. If, for example, there would be EVE Online 2 or something like that and they'd announce shit like that, I'd do the same shit Jeff did in an instant.

Congrats, Jeff - if you want to waste your life and time, do it batshit. With style.

NEVER.

oh jeff... you know youll never play it for real. Then again you did buy the Renegade Edition of DJ Hero after already owning the normal version so...yeah... :P

An MMO average lifetime is a year, so why pay more upfront?
 
How many games do you still play for longer than a year that you would willingly pay for if you had to? Any games I go back to after a year it's usually time killing between new releases and I only play them for a day or two.
 
$300 can get you a lot of used games.

Jeff, love you to death man. Bromance for life but duder...you're insane. 
 
don't ever change!

" The problem is that yes, you love the game today. Sure, you'll love the game tomorrow. But -everyone- falls out of love with a video game eventually, and MMOs are no different. People stop liking them eventually.  Imagine a kid who was crazy about Gears of War 1. He would play his Gears of War constantly. No one could best him in a shotgun duel. Well, Gears of War 2 comes out two years later. Now he wants to play that instead.  There will always be a new awesome game that comes out which will soak up all your time. And this is why no single game is ever worth 300 dollars, IMO. "

If only we all had your level of disposable income, Jeff. I would buy even more video games than I already do.

Silly silly Jeff, when will you ever learn. I don't even know if you could play more than a year of it with GB and such.

I'm going to try and play alot of beta till the 1st to decide.
 
The tempting thing is that I can't just pay the life-time fee after a few months of play time....   Then again, being a Borg is mighty tempting.

" Haha wow, I'm not sure I could ever buy a lifetime subscription fee. Even if it removes the  "guilt" of a monthly fee, I'd rather be  charged once a month and be able to get out of it, rather then realize I spent $250 on a lifetime subscription for a game I don't want to play. "

Dude... that's crazy...

Darn, Jeff, I'm trying to resist the temptation here, and you're not making this any better.

Oh God no

Bad choice IMO. Let us know how is the endgame raiding :P (or whatever you do in Star Trek online end game locations).

I'm sure you could sell the lifetime subscription on ebay if you find out you didn't like it. Save someone else from monthly fees in the future. Just a thought

Jeff you're an impulsive buyer.
 
But yeah, back when I played WoW, I always felt like I had to play it because of the monthly fee I was paying. If I played any other game besides WoW, I felt guilty and felt like I was wasting money. So one-time fee for an MMO is nice.
 
But Jeff.....c'mon now. You're a game reviewer. How many games do you actually stick to playing?

I'm in the same boat as Jeff... and will likely do the same thing. 
 
Steam pre-order. 
 
Lifetime subscription.  
 
I also feel that I'm likely to enjoy it more than Jeff. =)

I would pay $150 for a lifetime subscription with game included.
$15 dollars is way too much to pay to play a game for a month after you already dropped 50 bucks on it and thats the only way to play the game.  Really, it should only be $5, but I guess as long as they can get away with charging $15, they will.
Jeff, you fucked up.  Because Star Wars the old Republic will be out next year and you wont be playing this game anymore.

Do it, Jeff.  You can play as a borg.  And once that money's out of the way you are playing an mmo everyone else has to pay for for FREE. 
 
and even if you don't make it that long, at least you can rest assured that if they release expansions and updates that make the game interesting enough to revisit, you're not paying to get back to that world. 
 
DO IT

Just think, 5 or 6 years from now they'll get red and blue Mountain Dew Robots.  Then you'll be glad that you are still playing...you'll still be playing right?

Lesson to be learned here kids. Sure the single life may be lonely. But look at what you're able to do with some extra cash.

I too often struggle with the idea of paying a lump sum for an MMO to take that pressure off.  Feeling guilty when you aren't playing a game should not be the case and I think you justify yourself well in this case.  The worst thing that can happen is that the game tanks before a year and I feel that not having that pressure of playing it totally worth the price.  I wish that more MMO companies would adopt this strategy simply because it allows you to dabble more and not have that feeling like you always need to be in the game doing something.  
 
Good luck taking over the federation, and space.

I paid $336.00 for my two years of World of Warcraft, so that's a good price if you are into the game.  If I had paid $300.00 for WoW back in the day, I might still be playing it.  When Star Wars: The Old Republic drops I am seriously considering going "lifetime" if it is offered.

Why not ask all those people who bought Hellgate : London (Bill Roper even works for these guys!) lifetime subscriptions how it worked out for them?  LIfetime subscriptions aren't something you offer if you expect to make an MMO that keeps people playing.  Champions Online got boring after 2 weeks.  Cryptic hasn't been making good games lately.  $300 just seems like a poor deal, the only people it would make sense for is hardcore Star Trek fans.  Even then you could go buy the complete series of both the original Star Trek and The Next Generation on DVD for about that much.  The only game in the MMO genre a lifetime subscription would make sense for is WoW and they never offered one.  Most other MMOs are desolate within a year.

GAH this is the exact thinking I have had going on in my head for days and if it wasn't for the stupidly awesome QL I would've never considered this. I know WoW fans that play for years and rack up huge bills over time, and personally I am very against paying monthly so this concept of a one time payment is appealing. But with little time to make a decision and no in depth reviews of the game out there, its a hard choice to make.  
 
Best of luck to you and the game Jeff. Who knows, maybe in a few days time I'll be joining the insanity as well...

Wow, I thought I had an impulsive purchase habit. :P 
 
I can almost hear you on the Bombcast wishing you never made the purchase.

" I paid $336.00 for my two years of World of Warcraft, so that's a good price if you are into the game.  If I had paid $300.00 for WoW back in the day, I might still be playing it.  When Star Wars: The Old Republic drops I am seriously considering going "lifetime" if it is offered. "

Damn, I've got a measly 30 dollars burning a hole in my pocket and can't decide what game to buy. I don't feel bad now, but you sir better play the piss out of that game.

is there any way we could get an occasional video update of your progress in the game, if you do manage to play it for awhile?  nothing on an endurance run level, just a "hey here's something neat I found in this game" sort of deal

Star Wars: The Old Republic and Final Fantasy XIV are both coming out this year, so this is also something else to consider.