Star Trek Online at Ten Ton Hammer

We’re six weeks into the Tribble testing for Star Trek Online’s free-to-play conversion and the latest Path to F2P dev blog details a slew of new changes and fixes on the way to the new testing server. Some of the changes planned include some adjustments to Patrol missions, which will simplify the missions a bit more and make sure that they scale to the player’s level. Dilithium will also be getting added into a portion of the crafting process, allowing players to pool their resources on high end recipes.

IGN has posted some new free-to-play details for Star Trek Online. The solid date given in the article indicates that the free-to-play switch will happen on January 17th, 2012. Learn more about the upcoming free-to-play switch in IGN’s article and interview with Star Trek Online Executive Producer Stephen D'Angelo, who explains why the game didn't launch as a free-to-play title.

"We've always wanted the game to be free-to-play," he says, "in fact we tried to make it free-to-play at the original launch, but our publisher [Atari] didn't want us doing that so we didn't do that."

Sources:
Path to F2P Dev Blog #20 – New Pass of Fixes Coming to Tribble
IGN - Star Trek Online Free-to-Play Details