Newest Patch for STO

I started playing again earlier this week and, to my surprise, STO had the biggest patch so far!

While I haven't catalogued or experience all of the changes yet, I will go ahead and list what I have noticed/encountered/experienced, for I feel that these changes point towards two interesting trends. First, from what I have gathered through the grapevine of MMORPG news sources, both STO and World of Warcraft have been preparing for the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic by creating large patches that have added new game elements. Second, STO is also preparing to move to a Free-to-Play (FTP) system in January.

So, without further ado, some of the changes with the new patch:
- The currency system has been simplified, to a certain extent. Cryptic (the game makers) have introduced Dilithium crystals which, as far as I can tell, function as a major currency form in the game world. I do know that the dilithium crystals can be turned into c-points (the game maker's currency that one normally has to purchase with real money) to allow users to purchase upgraded merchandise through the online store without having to throw money at the company.
- There has been a large increase in daily quests; these are primarily run through the in-game calendar system, which charts the progression of various phenomena within the game universe on an hourly basis. Earlier today, I participated in the "Star Fleet Academy" daily quest; for an hour, I ran around the area scanning anomolies in an effort to earn dilithium crystals. There are also times when farming resources yields double the amount, when one can compete in a race around the galaxy to earn in-game currency, and when specific large bad guys attack various settled places.
- The quests have been sorted by type to enable easier access; specifically, the quests relevant to specific "seasons" (like a television show's seasons) have now been sorted clearly into a new interface that allows one to access all five season's quest trees.
- The game play has been simplified (skill trees are less diverse, allowing the player to specialize more broadly) and has been made more complicated (now the player must also deal with assigning on duty crew to specific tasks that can benefit your ship/crew in combat situations).

For the most part, I am pleased with these changes; they have addressed some of my problems with the game and enabled the game play to become faster. I'll have more opinions in the near future, I am sure.