It would appear that Standing Stone Games isn’t the only MMORPG developer making controversial business decisions at present. Cryptic announced yesterday that they were introducing a means to purchase reputation tiers in Star Trek Online. A move that was met with much virtual eye rolling over on the games unofficial subreddit and more angry comments on the Massively Overpowered website about “pay to win”. The main issue isn’t the adding of this particular mechanic to the game. STO is no stranger to adding services that allow you to bypass “the grind” by spending money. Monetisation has been built into the game since it went F2P in spring 2012. The primary objection to this rep buyout system is the price which is about £20. Furthermore this only buys reputation up to Tier 5. Tier 6 still has to be earned and it’s a particularly arduous chore. There are also 13 reputation factions to complete.