Star Trek Online Perfect World Entertainment previously announced that Star Trek Online would become to free-to-play by the end of 2011; however, Developer Cryptic revealed today that the date would be pushed back just a little. The official launch date for F2P Star Trek Online is Tuesday, January 17.
Along with this news, Executive Producer Stephen D'Angelo made a few more announcements on his blog:
"… will be starting the Gold member stipend benefit on December 1st. This benefit grants 400 free Cryptic Points each month to each subscriber to STO.
The stipend is granted on the “anniversary day” for your account. This is the day in the month which corresponds to the day after your subscription would renew if it was monthly. 3-month, 6-month, 12-month, and lifetime accounts use the day of the month in which they were started for this purpose. This means that you won’t necessarily get your stipend right at the beginning of the month, but it will be coming for you at the appropriate time during December and each following month. Stipend points from STO can only be spent in STO."
D'Angelo also added that they will be bringing the new build from Tribble to Holodeck somewhere between December 1 to December 8.