Star Trek Online to be free-to-play

Perfect World, the new owners of Cryptic’s Star Trek Online, have plans to make the sci-fi MMO free-to-play by the end of the year.
That’s according to the company’s recent financial conference call, which didn’t reveal too many other details about the move.
Star Trek Online has a microtransaction-based store already, so that should make the transition pretty smooth. As tends to be the case with a switch from a subscription to free-to-play model, long-term subscribers are likely to be placated with various perks and extras.
However, this is all speculation at present, as all we know is that the intention is to go free-to-play.
Cryptic’s other MMO, Champions Online, went free-to-play in February. Sooner or later, we’ll just be able to make news posts about MMOs that aren’t free-to-play, because those will be the ones outside the norm.
Source: shacknews.com