Daniel Stahl, executive producer at Cryptic Studios and responsible for popular MMORPG Star Trek Online, is leaving the company at the end of the month to "pursue new challenges."
Having worked on Star Trek Online for three years, Stahl noted that current Cryptic CTO Stephen D’Angelo will be taking over management on the project until a permanent executive producer is chosen.
Stahl explained, "Perfect World is going to be an amazing partner for Cryptic to work with."
"Free-to-play is something that I’ve always wanted for this game because I have seen the value and success of that business firsthand by watching Champions Online."
Stahl originally took over the executive producer role at Cryptic Studios after Craig Zinkievich left the company last year, after more than seven years working there and over two and half years working on Star Trek Online.
"Perfect World is going to be an amazing partner for Cryptic to work with." Really? Have you looked through the forums at the horrible posts regarding their customer support for Champions and STO. It is absolutely abysmal. Ever since Perfect World took over in July the service has sucked big time. Not sure what happened there but someone needs to seriously start helping customers. Before that I loved playing this CO and the support was exceptional. I have since moved on.
I don't know about Champions Online having not played but have noticed improvements in Star Trek Online recently. Patching is less of a hassle and many of the buggier side quests have started to be cleaned up. There is however still much to be done. I bought the lifetime membership and look with some trepidation at the move to go free to play. I am still not clear on what that will mean to me. If it is unappealing I will likely not do any other MMOs.
