I'm starting to like this discussion :-) Michael, thx for the interesting views, there are some parts where I agree with you and some where I don't, so I'll try to sum up quickly :
Agreed : * Simple start with a few missions and some simulation, and quickly involve the player through the storyline (with the player being directly impacted, for instance with your example of documents that are related to him and get him into trouble), yep I like this kind of stuff. o And move on to multi player after that : yep, but let's keep this one for a future discussion, I suggest, as it won't be part of our first iterations * The game being about knowledge, information, truth on the web : that is absolutely what I have in mind since the beginning and one of the reasons why I wanted to make games in the first place, I'm happy that you wrote this word, knowledge ! This is for me the general scope of our game. But it's very generic and long term view I think, so we need a strong and thinner angle to approach this (see the parts below where I disagree). o And yes, in the future, we could have the player chose different angles according to how he wants to play, I'd like that too. And it would be a good leverage for multiplayer, with factions based on areas of interest, I agree also here. But once again, long term :-) o Note on the side : in a way, we are fiercely against long term views here as you might have noticed ;), because the players will break our long term views and help us refine it along the way, that's what we expect from them. We can talk about it in another thread, but I have quite some experience of making things not as good as they could be in video games because of the desire to plan too many things in advance. * Gaia : like you, right now I'm not able to picture neither Gaia being there directly on the internet, nor the spirits, mostly for the same reasons as you. I think this needs to be reworked, but what I like with Xav's idea is the overall context of environmental/ecologic/sustainability, and how this can be incarnated on the web through realistic entities (governments/NGO/corporations/medias...) or more magic/fantastic ones (maybe not Gaia and spirits, but some mysterious organization that clearly has powers that don't seem human). Not agreed : You say that this game based on information and incarnated by AI provides immediacy, and that's the main part where I'm not sure. Here's why. * In general I think you're still trying to see too far away in the game. We really need to take our current gameplay (missions & small life sim, solo gameplay), and define a strong angle for this, that gives immediacy and addresses a large niche of people. Yes, information will be the core of the game, and in the future we might create different modules around this core, and yes multi will be important, but it's too soon to say more. For me we still need to pick up a theme that catches the attention, links us with the world, and lets us take some strong positions in order to exist. And saying that our game is based on playing with information does not provide it for now, for me. * So we're back to the question of the context : we need a strong angle to start with, something stretch but that appeals to a large number of people. And up to now, we have two leads, AI/sci-fi on one side and environment/ecology/etc on the other. While I personally like sci-fi a lot, I believe that independently of the way we present things and write the script, environment has more potential than AI theme to start with, for what we're trying to do here. I'd really like to understand better your views on this point specifically, independently of personal taste. Question n°2, I think I understand that you think that the theme (AI or environment) is secondary, that all lies in the way we'll present things, can you elaborate a little to explain how for instance AI could be presented in a way that does not repulse people who don't like SF (maybe the question is biased ;)) ? question n°3, don't you think that if we take environment, there would be a way that would be appealing for someone like you (in the sense, find something that relates to you more than Gaia/spirits) ? D PS : ARG -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game, IMHO-> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=imho :-)
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