Cryptic's Star Trek Online was released nearly two years ago to good reviews and moderate fan acceptance.  According to Executive Producer & Cheif Technical Officer Stephen D'Angelo, Cryptic intended to release STO as a free-to-play MMO from the begriming, but Atari wouldn't have it.  He tells IGN; "We've always wanted the game to be free-to-play, in fact we tried to make it free-to-play at the original launch, but our publisher didn't want us doing that so we didn't do that."  

Nearly a month before the two year anniversary of the initial game launch, Cryptic will finally get their wish and STO will become free-to-play. With the new change, the games economy is going to go through modifications as well. "A lot of the things people acquired weren't worth very much to them," D'Angelo says. So the plan leading up to the switch to free-to-play is to make the high-end stuff more difficult to acquire, and the low-end stuff simpler. Put simply, "[We're] revisiting the game's economy." 

Star Trek Online will launch it's free-to-play model on January 17th, 2012.  Included in the launch is a brand new opening cinematic featuring Leonard Nimoy as Spock.  You can check out the video of the new cinematic below.

(Source: IGN)