Overrated

Hardly

Being succesful does not mean he's not overrated.

I think his popularity is well deserved.

Great writer, fantastic artist, made the comic industry more mainstream, paved the way for tons of independent artists and writers to have their work seen. Yup, he's overrated.

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Aesthetics does not a good game make. Experts of game mechanics, interface, and design do. I can almost guarantee 90 percent of all WoW players do not read more than 30 percent of the quest text. It usually comes down to "what are you here for?". If I'm reading a book, I care about the storyline. If I'm watching a movie, I care about the storyline. Jumping online with 2 million other players is not the ideal setting for a storyline. The only interesting stories that come out of MMORPG's stem from player interaction.

I read books in morrowind.

So did I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG

"MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing game) is an online computer role-playing game (RPG) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. "

It's a bit different when you're trying to buy into a *fictional* storyline. It's a little different when a l33t d00d is jumping around you as you're trying to read said quest text. How many MMORPG's do you know of that actually had fantastic, Tolkien-level quality stories? How many companies actually even spent a large amount of time on developing them? There's a reason they didn't. The majority of people play games and read books for specifically different reasons. Couple this stuff with the fact that MMORPG's encourage less time spent on trivial things in order to get to the good stuff like raiding later on, and there's even less encouragement to spend time reading. That's a big difference when it comes to MMORPG's and single-player games like Morrowind - pressure to not waste time due to the length of the game. When you know you can clean a game out in a certain amount of time, there's no such pressure.

As far as in depth storyline, im happy reading the background lore in the strategy guide or something. All it takes is a few lines per quest to establish a decent excuse to do it, and with a little planning you can even make them tie into each other. It doesnt have to be pulitzer prize winning. The only thing that makes me happy about these guys being involved is they have already shown they can create entire worlds that make good sense, with a solid magic system that doesnt have holes so big you can drive a truck through them.

I just threw Tolkien in there as an example. My point was, how many MMORPG's do you know that actually had any form of a decent storyline? I believe it's because gamemakers know what their audience is mostly interested in, not because they're lazy or can get away with it - and yes, that's my opinion not fact =p

And I totally agree graphics is not everything. Both graphics and storyline are part of the aesthetics in my opinion, not the gameplay itself. Substance is more along the lines of improving game mechanics, interface, interaction, overall gameflow and design. Story is just a backdrop for the environment. Without good gameplay you cannot succeed - I cannot say the same for the storyline. Every MMORPG to date has succeeded without a good storyline, and I see no reason why that's going to change suddenly.

But I'll just say - we will see if this tactic actually works. I highly, highly doubt this game will even get off the drawing board. The fact that they've hired these guys so early in the development process lends credence to the idea that they might not be as focused on gameplay - but instead relying on celebrity starpower.