According to , that's the direction that Cryptic Studios will be operating under, as their new China-based parent company Perfect World pushes to move the popular sci-fi MMO in line with its other free-to-play properties like Rusty Hearts and Blacklight: Retribution.

From the source:

As part of the company's Q2 2011 earnings conference call, CFO Kelvin Lau explained that the free-to-play model is currently in production, and the game will be updated before the year is up.

"When Perfect World acquired Cryptic, one of our contributions was to share our free-to-play experience with Cryptic," he explained.

"Cryptic is working on the free-to-play model for Star Trek Online," he continued. "This is going to be launched by the end of this year as well. So I think with the free-to-play model, we have bigger potential in the U.S."