It's too bad that Ironclad doesn't have the huge amounts of manpower that would be needed to develop an arena-style FPS because with the suicides of Epic Games (Unreal Tournament games--killed by consolization) and ID (Quake III--never released a real sequel and don't seem to have any interest) in that market, it's wide open.

I'm guessing that they'll do the safe thing and produce a Sins-2 though I'm not sure what it's selling point would be.  A greatly improved online multiplayer system and interface with features that rival or improve upon Battlenet with built-in voice comm might be a selling point along with additional game types (some sort of Capture the Flag game) and more races and planet types.

I would also expect some new ships for the already existing races, maybe moving turrets and non-static combat by default for Sins 2. By then most computers will probably be able to handle those sorts of things so they won't have to be dropped for the game to run on lower end hardware.

Doubtful. The vast majority of sins players do not play online. If they really wanted to sell, they'd have to focus on single player aspects. Perhaps a very dynamic campaing. A campaign/scenario editor. Maybe a ship editor like spore but less cartoony.  Then just have a far more detailed game. Things like more indepth diplomacy, more factions to choose from.  

Just look at how big the modding community is. Imagine how popular it would be if they gave the average joe the tools to make a mod without needing 3dmax or XSI or having to fiddle with codes in notepad!

As awesome as multiplayer is, from a business stand point, that really wouldn't be a good area to focus on for a sequel ( ).  With luck though, they'll produce a really detailed game with customization options and an enhanced multiplayer.

What I was thinking was that perhaps the game could become a success in multiplayer if they copied Blizzard's way of doing things for Warcraft III and Starcraft.  That shouldn't be Sins-2's only selling point, certainly not.  As I said, to appeal to the single player crowd it could have new races and planet types.  I don't think that all of that should be mutually exclusive.

Agreed with multiplayer....if they want Sins to last they need to make Mulitplayer better.  Right now it's as basic as it could be.  With intense match-making, ranking, achievements, customization unlocks, etc... being at the forefront of mulitplayer games, they should hop on that when (not if) they make Sins 2.

I want it to happen, but it's a cost to benefit ratio that doesn't work out. People who play sins play single player. Yes there are people who play online (I DO!) but for the most part, that is a slim amount of people (thank god we have them because it helps balance the game immensely).  But realistically, they sold over 500 k copies and the total number of people online is maybe in the 1000's. That's 500 to 1 on being very liberal.

Something like blizzard was able to go multiplayer because they already had some background in the multiplayer arena (starcraft and warcraft were both big online games).  Something like Sins is known for it's single player gameplay (regardless of how awesome MP is).  

So I think they could possibly make a multiplayer game, or multiplayer intensive game (which I think is what you're getting at, better online play), but it would be a big gamble and hard to pull off if their sequel is any kind of real time 4X4.

it would be awesome if they could make Freelancer 2! that was an awesome game