If you've got your hand in any of Cryptic's online worlds, including Champions Online, Star Trek Online, or Dungeon and Dragons: Neverwinter Online, you'll probably be seeing the following message very shortly. If you're not into any of these MMOs, the transition will probably go unnoticed.
Cryptic Studios has been purchased by Perfect World Entertainment. This (probably) means that most of their MMOs will be moving into the free-to-play family at Perfect World. If you've been interested in playing Star Trek Online, but don't want to put the cash down on a monthly fee, you'd probably do well to pay attention to Cryptic Studios in the coming months.
Thanks for the tip 213EDD. Full text of the letter from Cryptic follows:
Greetings,
Cryptic Studios, previously a wholly owned subsidiary of Atari, has recently been acquired by Perfect World Entertainment, a company dedicated to delivery quality MMO experiences to gamers. As part of the acquisition, Cryptic has begun a process of separation from Atari. We've prepared succinct informational pages with details about the transition, frequently asked questions and a Q&A discussion thread to help you better understand the transition and what it means.
http://www.champions-online.com/transition
http://www.startrekonline.com/transition
http://www.playneverwinter.com/transitionIn short, our games and associated services will operate with minimal interruption and most of the changes apparent to our players and other users will be largely cosmetic. Thanks so much for your time and interest!