I think the biggest problem is more with a lack of time then a lack of caring. While apathy is a huge problem, who has time to sit at work and watch YouTube (or CSPAN) video all day? Hell, most of the Congress speeches are already written, rehearsed and recorded before they even step on the floor. They even have the press releases out the day before. How many times have you seen "Senior Senate from a state to deliver speech on [topic de jeur] tomorrow." So little is actually a surprise inside the chambers that there is no actual reason to watch this crap, on TV or online.
It sounds like this, yes. In fact, his entire concept sounds very much like David Brin's Uplift universe and the Galactic Library Institute, where everything there is to know has already been found, cataloged and retained. All you have to do is find it in the fast cloud of interstellar information.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems everyone is looking at the show as an extension of the game. RTFAing, it seems they are going for a game that's based on a television series. Is this really much different than making a game from a novel series (ie Lord of the Rings) or from a movie trilogy (ie Matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies).
And even if there is a reciprocal interaction where the players can give storyline feedback to the writers, there might (*gasp*just might) be some real aspiring writers with some really solid concepts that help feed the TV show storyline.
Hell, even if they just had an advancing time-line in the game, that would go a long way to adding something to the MMO "standard" (why does it take 3 years for the inn in Westfall to get repaired?).
If you want to de-throne WoW, you've got to build a well marketed, feature and content rich MMO that runs on today's low-end machines. It's more than this, though. World of Warcraft came with several million fans before the game was even released. By the point WoW came out, Blizzard had plenty of people drinking the Blizz Kool-aid from playing the Starcraft and Warcraft series. Blizzard could have put together a box with a pretty picture on it, labeled it as "Our next game" and sold it for $60 and people would have still bought it.
WoW's biggest initial leap forward was the fan-base that came with having Blizzard's logo on the box. There are very few companies that have the kind of 'brand loyalty' that Blizzard does in the PC gaming market, especially in the fantasy genre.
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I think the biggest problem is more with a lack of time then a lack of caring. While apathy is a huge problem, who has time to sit at work and watch YouTube (or CSPAN) video all day? Hell, most of the Congress speeches are already written, rehearsed and recorded before they even step on the floor. They even have the press releases out the day before. How many times have you seen "Senior Senate from a state to deliver speech on [topic de jeur] tomorrow."
So little is actually a surprise inside the chambers that there is no actual reason to watch this crap, on TV or online.
It sounds like this, yes.
In fact, his entire concept sounds very much like David Brin's Uplift universe and the Galactic Library Institute, where everything there is to know has already been found, cataloged and retained. All you have to do is find it in the fast cloud of interstellar information.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems everyone is looking at the show as an extension of the game. RTFAing, it seems they are going for a game that's based on a television series. Is this really much different than making a game from a novel series (ie Lord of the Rings) or from a movie trilogy (ie Matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies).
And even if there is a reciprocal interaction where the players can give storyline feedback to the writers, there might (*gasp*just might) be some real aspiring writers with some really solid concepts that help feed the TV show storyline.
Hell, even if they just had an advancing time-line in the game, that would go a long way to adding something to the MMO "standard" (why does it take 3 years for the inn in Westfall to get repaired?).
WoW's biggest initial leap forward was the fan-base that came with having Blizzard's logo on the box. There are very few companies that have the kind of 'brand loyalty' that Blizzard does in the PC gaming market, especially in the fantasy genre.