While being forthright with his community about the woeful state of Star Trek Online‘s player-versus-player combat, a developer at Cryptic Studios also admitted to something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: PvP in the game is so bad, no one’s participating in it. Participation is so low that the studio has seriously considered removing PvP altogether.
Cryptic, the guys behind Star Trek Online and City of Heroes, has found out this week that it’s been hacked. User details have been stolen and some “portion of the passwords” present in a database were even cracked. Which is bad. What’s worse is that the hack took place in December 2010.
Set your phasers on stupid Trek reference, as Cryptic’s Star Trek Online opens its free-to-play docking bay and invites the world inside following a brief subscriber-only period. To see what players get for free, hit up the official Star Trek Online web page.
Publisher Atari is “divesting” itself of MMO specialists Cryptic Studios, which it snapped up in 2008. It’s trying to sell the creators of Star Trek Online and Champions Online after losing Atari millions. [Atari Results (PDF)]
Bill Roper — one of the forces behind Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo — defected to Cryptic Studios back in 2008 to work on Champions Online and Star Trek. He has recently stated that he’s leaving Cryptic, but hasn’t given specifics.
Atari and Cryptic Studios have mounted a huge push for players in Star Trek Online, featuring a referral program, veteran rewards, a free demo, and an invitation to lapsed players of the three-month-old MMO to try it again for free.
