Star Trek Online's Joe "Rekhan" Blancato posts a new article on the ST:Online Dev blog over at MMORPG.com.

Prior to my time at Cryptic, I was a game journalist. I ran my own gig at Giant Realm before the economy changed my plans for me, and before then I was an editor at The Escapist. Other than the tabletop game I created with a friend of mine, the closest I ever really got to game design was sitting in back rooms at conventions, prying information from developers large and small, then delivering what I learned to readers just as hungry for tidbits as I was.

Then came the Holy Grail: The chance to help make games instead of just talking about them. Truth be told, it wasn’t really a career I knew I was interested in until I got the chance to interview at Cryptic. I was happy in my role as a journalist, but once this new door opened, I was beyond excited to step through.

So here I am, wide-eyed and eager. I get to sit in meetings with Bill Roper and Jack Emmert and Craig Zinkievich every week – that’s access I would’ve killed for six months ago. The company is gigantic compared to a press shop. We have over 200 people here on the team; the largest company I worked for prior to this had 40. There’s free food and coffee and Star Trek episode screenings, and it’s awesome. (source MMORPG.com)

Read the full article here.