Originally posted by SFRT - Frenchy
I was waiting for the same thing online ... well 
Ever heard of jumpgate?
http://www.jossh.comIt USED to be a great game in beta. After release things went downhill and it became yet another mmog.
It's the only game I've ever played where politics was the most powerfull skill you could have. It's also the only game I've ever played where you could say a player has power. It's biggest problem was the lack of a game. The game was created by the players, and those who didnt get involved were bored out of thier minds. It's also the only game I've ever played where an unembellished account of a players actions makes an interesting story.
I've started wars between different groups, started wars against others to make it look like thier fault. I've blackmailed groups for completly in-game actions. I've had, and used spies in high ranking places in player-run organizations. I was a successfull pirate, trader, and mercenary. Not a single bit of this was actually built into the game, except for player squads. All of it was done simply through dealing with other players.
After release there were a series of carebear vs quaker wars(mostly on the boards), a major cheating epidemic(which was fixed, after many players left) and the devs stopping virtually all work on it to work on a new secret game. The game died. It's mostly deterioriated to blind pvp, and players trying to get more money for no real reason.