In 2008 it’s a virtual world a day, most of them for kids, but some contenders for the Second Life audience and purpose. Now comes Blue Mars, which has observers drooling because of the brilliance of its graphics.
Problem? First, the developers say it won’t be launched until late 2008, by which time 100 other virtual worlds will have staked their own claims to various bits of real estate, some of which include the “we’re the prettiest” terrain, to others like Twinity which are staking out the “we’re really real, including our really real commerce” section of the virtual world mainland (thanks to Rai for his review which was more “on the ground” than my previous post on its economics).
Second, they claim to be developing for common user computer platforms 3 to 5 years hence - which makes me wonder how they KNOW what platforms will look like 3-5 years hence? Maybe we’ll all be walking around with HUDs in our sunglasses and caring more about data and social interaction as compared to how real the trees look?
Having said that, the Blue Mars screen shots are gorgeous. They might want to use a touch more Windlight though and a little less high rez texturing. 
But I’m a big believer in two things: stuff is engaging not because of how it looks, although that can be the thing that gets you in the door; and the more “real” stuff looks the easier it is for the human mind to spot the stuff that looks off. Verisimilitude was the Holy Grail of the virtual reality days - and as game world proved, virtual doesn’t need to feel like reality to have a really high level of engagement and impact on the user.
Well, nice looks will get you a lot of interest, but that is all you will get — you nailed that down in your last paragraph :). By the way, isn’t there some name for the law that says that the more « realistic » things get, the more the human mind focuses son spotting what is off ? I seem to remember having read something like that once…
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