Give Stardock support a call or email. They have pretty good support. If all else fails, see if you can cancel your preorder and get your money back.

Some people are saying that this game doesn't look too good.

Besides, open beta means open.

AFAIK the preorder key should be in your receipt email.

Agroroberts,

I have been following this game for years now and my feelings about it have gone up and down like a rollercoaster.  Up until Monday afternoon I was dead set agaist trying the beta as I had read so many negative reviews I was kind of like the guy who didn't want to ask out the girl he liked for fear of being rejected.  I finally broke down and ended up deciding what the hell, I may as well preorder and give it a try for myself.  So I preordered from Gamestop (because I wanted the Constitution class cruiser bonus item) and got my preorder key via email yesterday.

That said, I have to say I was mildly surprised at how much I enjoyed playing it yesterday.  I think it's partly because I went in with such low expectations, but in all reality the game isn't that bad IMO.  It has its flaws here and there, but overall it could develop into something very nice if Cryptic provides good support after launch.

I think alot of people are sceptical because of the lack of support many recent MMO's have received after release and I don't blame them.  I too am a bit worried, but at the same time I am going to give it a chance (mainly because I am not playing any other MMO's at the moment anyway).

Here's hoping Cryptic gives the game the support it deserves after release, they have a diamond in the rough and with a little polish and love it could turn into a real gem.

In a way you're both right. Even though it was announced in 2008, work began on it much before then by Perpetual Entertainment which was acquired by Atari as was Cryptic. Cryptic has a golden opportunity with this game that no other MMO can claim. What is that you might ask? Trekkie's. Hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS of Trekkie's world wide. I've read some posts on the official forums about new players to MMO's coming out of the wood-work to play STO. Guys in their 50's and 60's, who have Never played a Computer Game before, much less a MMO, are coming out to try STO because of their love for Star Trek.

If Cryptic does a good job with continual support after launch and they incorporate a lot of the players ideas to keep up interest Cryptic will have a gold mine on their hands. No other MMO that has ever been launched has been able to claim coming with a built in fan base like Star Trek, not even Star Wars which is the only other one I've known which could have come close in terms of Fan Base prior to being a MMO.

In the days since launch of Open Beta I've seen massive improvement in loading times, lag, bug fixes for broken quests, improved stabilization of the code and a few other things. Of course right now you have to take into account all the people who are viewing the Beta as "Free Play Time" and that's just not what it is. It's a Beta Test, a Stress Test. World Wide over 1 Million Beta Keys have been given out through web sites, contests, and of course Pre-Orders. STO has the potential IMO to be the MMO that topples WoW but it's going to take a lot of hard work from Cryptic. I'm very interested in seeing where the development goes with this over the course of the next year or two. Mark my words though, it's either going to be HUGE, or it's going to start out decent then fade away over time. I've seen a LOT of people on the forums bragging about their life-time subscriptions so the player base is there for this to be a hit. When compared to all the other MMO's I've been a part of in the past, including UO which I worked on, I've never seen this kind of money spent on a game by the player base in such a short amount of time.

The game IS fun, you can't deny that, but yes it does get repetitive in some areas. That though is the nature of the beast when you talk about MMO's. Designers have yet to meld together MMO style game-play with single player game-play in a way that is truly dynamic for the players. As such I think it'll be many years before any game, much less this one, turns out to be exactly what the player base was expecting. Still though, I can see Cryptic laughing all the way to bank with this one. I've been watching the market and Atari's stock is rising. If this is as successful as I think it will be, even if I stop playing in the first 6 months, I'm still going to buy some stock in the company with a little spare cash I have laying around. I wanted to buy stock in Stardock but I don't think they sell stock publicly.

Anyway, if anyone wants to play come launch I can be found in game by searching for Raven Xavier. Hope to see some of you in the deep reaches of space

I don't know how much Cryptic got from Perpetual though since they didn't actually get any game code. Without transferring game code, I don't know you could say STO, as is, had been developed a long time. I mean the Away Missions is Champions Online with a Star Trek skin and very little tweaking. I kind of like space ship battles, but not enough, to really buy it at this point. I've purchased MMOs a year or two after launch before though. Maybe i'll give it go in a year or so to see if Cryptic does even half of what they say they will do. As is, it's not my thing but I can see why some people might like it enough to pay for it. That's anothe factor for me two. If they bundled up the space battle portion, slapped it in a box completely with multiplayer, i'd buy it. As an MMO with retail box price, plus a monthly sub, plus the microtrans that are coming... not so much.

I just preordered and I downloaded it instead of waiting to get the boxset on friday with preorder. I got the reciept Im just not sure what the key is. Is it the order number or the serial number?

Ok, So Ive downloaded the game atleast three times now. And everytime I reopen Impulse, it says the game is not installed. SD better get its shit together.