From the Lead developper,

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    Is Infinity a clone of Eve Online ? I can often read this question on the web, and even those forums. And i think it's a natural question especially for people who just discovered the game and just want a quick answer to this question without having to browse hundreds of topics, or read the whole website.

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I grew at the old school of Elite / Frontier, and chances are, if all you know is Eve, it can be hard to imagine what i'm trying to achieve with Infinity. I'm not a big fan of Eve. Don't read me wrong: i'm not saying that i dislike Eve or that Eve is a bad game; on the contrary, i think it's an excellent game. It just doesn't appeal to me much. To describe it simply, Eve is a sort of RPG/RTS in space, while Infinity is closer to a space/universe simulator.

Finally, before starting, i just want to say that i'm not very experienced in Eve. I played for a short while, but i haven't seen the far game, even though i'm trying to stay informed as much as possible. If i'm saying a mistake, do not hesitate to correct me.

Here's the list of main differences i can think of from the top of my head:

1. Twitch based gameplay, meaning that you fully control your ship in real-time in all the directions of space. Except for larger ships, who will have controls closer to those in Eve.

2. Collisions on everything.

3. Immersion; meaning real scales, dimensions and velocities. Planets are truely as large as real ones, and ships extremely small compared to them.

4. Planetary landing with seamless transitions. If you can see something in the sky like a moon, you can get there in real time without seeing a single loading screen.

5. Solar system dynamics. Bodies orbitting around each other, being able to watch a sunset or an eclipse. Planets are not just a fancy background ala X3.

6. Travelling to another system doesn't necessarily involve jump gates. Actually, jump gates are rare and only serve as a way to link distant clusters.

7. A procedural universe - billions of star systems and planets, all unique.

8. No skills, experience or levels.

9. Less waiting time, when you want to mine, or go to a distant system.

10. A living world, with NPCs flying around and living their own life.

11. Being able to affect missions to other players or NPCs.

12. Dynamic storyline. What i mean with "dynamic" is this: in most MMOs, you have a storyline ( sometimes very complex like in Eve ) written by the developers, and missions / quests related to it. However, none of those quests affect or make the storyline progress. Infinity's storyline will be, by many aspects, closer to the one of a single-player game, with some specific player actions "triggering" a progress of the storyline.

13. Owning an empire: multiple spaceships, stations, planets. Setting your own tax/rules for those. Enabling other players or even NPCs to fly your ships. Constructing buildings/factories in cities. Forming corporations, or owning actions into other player's corporations.

14. Multiple players flying in the same ship.

15. Knowledge exchange. Prizes for being the first player to discover some special places / events ( like, analyzing a black hole, or discovering an unknown metal, or a new form of life ).

16. Newtonian physics ( with computer assistance for eacy controlling ).

17. Technology discovery plus patent system ( players have to hire scientists to make new technologies available in game, like a RTS's tech-tree ). I know that Eve has blueprints, but as far as i understand, those are "static".

To be completed.

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http://fl-tw.com/InfinityForums/viewtopic.php?t=1175

Another difference:

EVE is an existing game, with all its promises delivered.

Infinity so far, pretty much looks like vaporware. Lots of big words and pretty pictures but absolutly no meat on the bones. A few models directly from the 3D program... LIke my homepage from the late 90s, not exactly  afullfledged game system.

A bit early to compare, I would say.

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Originally posted by etruscan
It is early to compare, I'll grant you that. Vaporware - I'm not sure... they definitely have an engine in place, so something is happening. Judging by the overview of the game... it sounds very Eve-ish, and that's why comparisons will ultimately be made.

Eve is fantastic, but even with all their updates, it's a pretty stagnant universe. Something like this Infinity project is a step in the right direction... it's where I want Eve to be, but know it can't be without a complete overhaul.

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Dnl and Mourning also had engines in place...

Planshift also has an engine in place and has been progressing over a period of years, but I don't expect a release in the near future. But they are the opposite of DnL and Mourning a dedicated group trying to make a high quality product without extranious errors.

Sadly, even the best work on Planeshift has left people following it without a game for years now.

Infinity is more like a realistic space MMO... while EvE isnt.. i would say its a no to compare both side by side.

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Originally posted by Harafnir

Another difference:

EVE is an existing game, with all its promises delivered.

Infinity so far, pretty much looks like vaporware. Lots of big words and pretty pictures but absolutly no meat on the bones. A few models directly from the 3D program... LIke my homepage from the late 90s, not exactly  afullfledged game system.

A bit early to compare, I would say.

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I, for one, can't wait for this game to deliver.

Eve, for all its revolutionary concepts, reached level where fundamental design compromises (star systems) are crippling the game play as it is.... and even though each star system is almost real life big, lack of ability to free warp as well as no accessible planetary bodies (and hosts of other issues making Eve effectively a small universe) contribute to actual lack of space and mystery in the game.

Actually, I just pretty much retired the game today (my in game name is Naal Morno) after pretty much achieving all a player can in the game (how much people can you kill camping, how many billions of ISK can you make, and still hope to discover something new in such small universe).

Can't wait for this one, I will take some time off from gaming to recharge for Infinity!

i like everything about this game, except, that you dont have an avatar

what is the fun of having billions of living and breathing planets if you cant get out of your ship and go explor them..

Originally posted by b0rderline99

i like everything about this game, except, that you dont have an avatar

what is the fun of having billions of living and breathing planets if you cant get out of your ship and go explor them..

After i found the website and looked at evert 'screenshot' and watched all the movies i was impressed, i'm a Freelancer fan and i hope they look at that game for ideas also (the combat/flight controls) the best thing was flying from space onto the planet.

I hope it will be 'nothing like' EVE, tried that game expecting it to be 'like Freelancer' and i was quite dissapointed. I hope this game comes through.

Keep up the good work ^^.

Infinity cannot be compared to EVE.  Yea, firstly because Infinity is nowhere near completed and secondly because the developers has something totally unique in mind.  The best example I can offer is this.  I came across a Pool program, in the days I enjoyed playing Pool online.  This was so long ago that I cannot remember the name but the programmers wrote a whole 3D pool game which, compiled, was no more than a 1 Meg, more like 466kb or something.  I think it was a university physics project or something.  But this little program impressed me more than complete commerial games found in stores using Gigs of space. 

Now infinity is like this little program to me, compared to EVE. 

I played EVE for months and after all these months of training, I was completely demolished in a few seconds by a player who have been playing for years.  Thats all there is to EVE.  SKill training and more skill training but NO SKILL!  at all.  And no fun unless you enjoy a linear universe confined to the amount of days you've been playing clicking around in space and waiting for your add-ons to activate and destroy the Angels while your character waits days to add 0.5% to the range of a railgun.

Infinity, can already generate an endless universe in photo realism using a procedure and nothing more.  1KB of infinity = 1 megabyte of EVE.

I'm excited about the prospects of infinity and wish the development team loads of success.

B1T3

actually think of yourselve as a ship avatar(AI) with a sential articficial brain... ya can explore so much more as a ship than by just walkin' 'round heheh

Originally posted by b0rderline99

i like everything about this game, except, that you dont have an avatar

what is the fun of having billions of living and breathing planets if you cant get out of your ship and go explor them..