[Moogs]

So uh, seems the WoW phenomenon and its copy-cats are attracting the attention of media mogul whores everywhere, trying to scheme on ways to cash in. So far the results haven't been pretty. In fact no one has noticed apparently, they've been so bad / contrived. But the talk is that this sort of thing could make both television, and places like this go away. IOW, places like this won't survive down the road unless there's a virtual environment to go with it, and television will merge into the world of computers (iTV is just the beginning maaaan, it's all a conspiracy!)... pulling people into virtual entertainment worlds instead of passive ones.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6431207.stm

Thoughts?

(I'll reserve comment for now because I've never played WoW, though I know what it's about / what it's selling points are... but this theory that everything will go that direction, seems far-fetched to me.)

[cosus]

Massively multiplayer games... anyone remember eq accounts going for 30k on ebay? Or having an economy just under the size of Russia? It's ridiculous, from literal nothingness we create virtual economies, virtual lives, virtual relationships... Reality is too real. Idealism man! Idealism! It's why we do these things and WoW is just an easy straight forward game that has a big name and a strong following in a game with minimal realism. Escapism is a strong power these days.

[Wrao]

And here I cancelled my Myspace Account. fuck, looks like I'm going to be out this round guys. Whippersnappers.

[cosus]

I sometimes think people saying that everything going 3D is a little presumptuous. I mean, what real practical reason would adding 3D serve? It seems to me like fluff that would just make the experience slower... similar to walking from city to city in WoW because you can't afford a ride.

[Moogs]

Well I think it's all based on assumptions, like "in 5 years, computers will be so powerful that no one will even think about whether their graphics card can hang, dude." Ya right, just like 5 and 6 years ago they were saying "In five years everyone's connection will be so fast that no one will need TVs anymore; everything will be streamed".

Basically take the tech-nerd hype and reduce it by a factor of 8 and that's your real life result. This is why I came to despise Wired magazine, because they did decent reporting and depth, and then fucked it all up with these ridiculous prognostications that were based on absolutely nothing. Oooo but the cover art was nice.

[Schnauzer]

RPGs are for noobs

its all about RTS and FPS

[cosus]

Haha, it's better than what popular mechanics said: in the future computers will weigh no more than 1.5 tons! Or who was it that said no one would ever have a need for a home computer? There's always Bill Gates saying no one will ever have use for more than 640k of memory.

Though when it comes to TVIP a reason it lack prevalence is that we haven't yet made use of open phone or cable lines. I believe that IPTV is more popular in France for reason that they do have more competition by virtue of their open lines.

Says in this article their typical speeds are 24mbs. Hell, this article says that the UK is lagging behind with 8mbs, I think over here the best they offer dsl is 3mbs

Here.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by cosus Or who was it that said no one would ever have a need for a home computer?

I believe that was an executive (founder? CEO?) at IBM.