Well, sometimes the old saying, "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it" ain't all a bad thing!

There's a new space sim on the horizon. It's called Infinity: The Quest for Earth. It's not official yet, but it's more than likely it will be an MMO. Click HERE to go to their official website to talk on the forums with the devs and others who are looking forward to this game.

It looks like this game will be potentially all I've been asking for in a space sim. I say "potentially" to keep my self grounded and not get my hopes up, but this game does look good. It will have an even better look and feel than EVE-online and it will NOT have EVE's dreaded skill training system. In fact, Infinity does not have ANY skills (character stats/XP for eg.) to train. It's a "player skill" vs. "player skill" game. Not a game about who's the "highest level" or "who's been playing longer."

I'm keeping my eyes on this one and "trying" not to get my hopes up; but I have to admit, I'm almost on pins and needles waiting for Infinity to launch.

Hopefully one day soon, we'll meet.....out there.

Eve-online was a great game in ways. I played it for about a year. I quit because after awhile, it seemed to me that the developers of that game were more interested in making things that one could do in one build or patch, take longer in the next, than in making the game more "fun." One example was that at one point I could fly and fight with this particular ship ( I won't go into "particulars" though. ) Upon the next patch, I had to now spend more time training skills just to be able to do what I could "already" do before, but with the new build, could not until more training was done. This made me feel the developers were just trying to figure out ways to keep people "hooked" on trying to get stronger, instead of getting them "hooked" on having fun.

Anyways, the best space sim MMO game that I would love to see and think would be very popular would have the following criteria:
1... Would have the look and feel of Eve. (That game DOES have an awesome look, even by present standards if you ask me).
2... Instead of thier skill system (the "oldest" player thereby being the strongest in skills usually wins. Using a one on one scenario here for measure purposes). I would have it be a similar game, but the goal would be to earn money to customize your ship to your combat style thereby making the combat skill and strategy based and not "who's been playing the longest" based. The rest of the game would be similar, I would just try to make the combat and how you/your ship gets stronger not so "absolutely tied to how long you've been playing."
3... I would have the combat be very similar to that of Starfleet Command 3. (I played that game for a good 2 years and change and skill and strategy always won the day.) With a few minor changes to keep the pace down to something fun, strategic, but not arcadish.
4... In the space stations, or at certain ones anyways, I would add the ability for players to go into "casinos" and play Texas Hold 'Em with thier game moeny/credits against other players. This could be "another" viable way for players to earn money in the game once they got some to start with, and it would add a whole new depth to the competitive nature of the community and the ability for people to actually role play some more.
5... The rest of the game I would leave roughly the same, except add more ships, ship types and customization ability of said ships.

I'm not saying I'm absolutely right about this. I'm just ranting (this is my blog right? I'm supposed to air my personal rantings here right?) about what I would do if I were in charge of the next space sim MMO.

I'd love to hear how people would add to or change this idea.