In this editorial, ZAM takes a retrospective look at Star Trek Online success as a "AAA" title and looks toward the future

The whole "Klingon PvP-only" issue (players weren't happy that the Klingon faction was originally PvP-oriented) is another example of something the developers anticipated prior to launch, but weren't able to begin addressing until later. Today, Cryptic has made good on that promise, adding more Klingon PvE content and addressing several other aspects of non-Federation gameplay that fans have requested. The Klingon faction still isn't a fully-fledged PvE group, up to par with the Federation, but the developers have come a long way in these past three months to deliver what fans are asking for.

As we learned in our latest Q&A with Zinkievich, "Season One and Beyond," Cryptic is tackling the "more diplomacy and exploration" problem next. When the "Season Two" content patch drops in July, it will include an emphasis on new "diplomatic" and "anthropology" PvE missions. Zinkievich wasn't able to provide specific details, but the STO "Engineering Reports" published in the official forums will gradually reveal more information about the next patch in the coming weeks.

In our last Q&A we also learned that the developers are taking a serious look at Memory Alpha, the crafting and gathering component of STO. In addition to fleshing out the currently-lackluster crafting system, Cryptic is also tinkering with the idea of incorporating mini-games like "Dabo" into the MMO. Still, players who love the crafting/gathering elements of MMOs won't find much enjoyment in the Memory Alpha system until Cryptic overhauls the entire process; as it stands, the system is widely-regarded as inferior even to the one in Champions Online, which was never praised to begin with.

Nonetheless, Cryptic is forging ahead at warp speed in other aspects of Star Trek Online, like its Special Task Force missions and new PvE content. True to their word, Zinkievich and the STO development team appear to be delivering what players are asking for; in these past three months since launch, STO has received dozens of minor updates addressing bugs, balance issues and other gameplay enhancements. New content, in the form of Episodes, STF missions, races and ships are a regular occurrence even between "major" patch updates like Season One (although some of that content, like certain playable races and customization items, is released as exclusive "C-Store" products).

New Raid Episodes and STF missions help relieve the problem that max-Rank players face when they "hit the wall" at RA 5, and Cryptic is adding a few new game mechanics like the "Difficulty Slider" and "Death Penalty" to tackle repetition between new content releases. "The key is us adding more content throughout the game that is fun and re-playable so that it gives players something to do while we make more content," Zinkievich told ZAM in our last Q&A.

All-in-all, Cryptic has done pretty well with the resources at-hand since STO's February release. Whether or not the developers can maintain that pace might be the defining factor when it comes to STO's subscribership throughout the next three months.

Players of subscription-based MMOs thrive on new content and a solid "replay" factor for existing content; it's important that the STO universe keeps expanding at a steady pace. Once the MMO begins feeling too similar to a single-player video game, the incentive for subscribers to keep playing dries up. But if Cryptic's progress so far is any indication of the months (and years) to come, Star Trek Online will definitely be a viable contender in the "AAA" market in 2010.