Rumor: New STO developers being Cryptic

Word has come down the wires from Jester at w00tstudios that Cryptic is the as-yet-unnamed developer in the Bay Area who have taken on the Star Trek Online title from Perpetual Studios. Now, admittedly we can't confirm this, as Cryptic decided to enter "radio" silence some time back in the intent of working on some new projects. That said, after looking around, we found only a handful of MMO developers in that area that we thought could likely pull it off:

• Cryptic Studios -- Possible. They brought us City of Heroes and City of Villains, so you could argue that they've done sci-fi already. Also, with the cash they landed in selling the CoX properties to NCsoft, they could certainly afford to snag the license. Of course, there is that troubling thing about MUO being MIA. (And the nasty rumors saying we won't likely ever see it.)
• Linden Lab -- Extremely unlikely -- and you can stop laughing now. There again, we have to admit, Mudd's Women and the Orion slave girls would fit in splendidly on-grid.
  
• NCsoft North -- Possible. They've got the money, and the only thing we've heard for sure out of that office was ongoing CoX development. The job listings look interesting, too.
  
• EA -- They've bought up some MMO companies. That would be a cherry IP to land to go with them. It might actually be a good game, too. Of course, that's assuming they'd give it enough time to be developed properly. Most of their job listings are for Sims, though.
  

We'll remain cautiously optimistic, as Cryptic is definitely a company with great vision and style. Hopefully they'll opt to break their self-imposed silence and let us know if they did indeed pick up Star Trek Online. Until then, we're still keeping our fingers crossed that the eventual developers remember that we really really want to be able to play as a Klingon. Q'apla!

[Thanks, Jester!]