I was excited to join. I work a 60 hour schedule in the medicine/academies field. A lot of numbers and stress during the day. I have been out of the swimming game awhile and looking over the rules found it all a bit much. What I enjoyed most about swimming was the politics, advancement in a sim, story lining. I'm not sure I'm a good fit for this universe right now. Seems a bit too complicated. But I understand the importance of ruled and respect the time and talent which went into it.
This echoes so much of what I've been thinking the past few years.
We've tried to reduce the game's complexities further [in GCWIII], while still leaving a strong game-mechanic to it, in response to some of your observations - but as you say, it's still quite much for someone with a full life and schedule.
And, perhaps most importantly, the "advancement in a sim" aspect captures what our modern game cannot presently offer at all, which is a large, interactive community of multiple players on teams, competing against other large, interactive communities of multiple players on other teams. With so few of us, that sort of experience, which I believe was at the core of the simming fun on AOL message boards, is and will be absent. Probably never to return.
Truth be told, my mend bends more towards story every year. The battle simming, I think, has come and gone. We put up a good fight with low numbers but the game is never truly satisfying without those large group vs large group dynamics. The game mechanics of actual simming were never the important part really but those communities competing. Is it time we jettisoned the mechanics all together? If we did, what shape would the game take?
In my thinking, we could continue with "each man a faction" (with some players free to be in the same faction if they liked) as it is in GCWIII, and allow that player to develop the story of his characters and armies as he wishes, while coordinating with the other players to bring to life events, battles, intrigues that will be fun creative fodder for the two of the to work with (perhaps luring in other players to their plots). Or we could be much less 'strict', with players free to create all types of characters and governments etc as they like (you might have an Imperial task force commander, a rebel fighter pilot, etc all under your yoke, characters you bring to life and that exist in the reality of the story world for other players to interact with etc).
We could include specifications, larger planet lists, and that other material as just that: material for our stories to be written on.
We could go less drastic, and remove the battling and leave in place the economic/empire building pieces or shades of them.
Something I think we should start thinking about.
