Different views of the Story

Nowadays, if I mention my ideas about MMO AI and Dynamic worlds, someone always asks whether I know about Storybricks. It's good that a lot of people make this connection, but it seems that there are a lot of ideas and (mis)conceptions circulating about that game.

The way I see it (after browsing through their forums, playing a bit with alpha, and talking to their team members) is basically the following: They expanded the idea of user content creation, to take it to a whole new level, with extended AI, but the story and the actors are very strictly controlled by the script the player (as content creator) creates. The focus is on the story, the world is intentionally kept small and somewhat simple - but the player can obviously extend it after a fashion.

My ideas, on the other hand, are for addressing a dynamic - and huge - world. The story is not scripted, only - kind of - templated, the content creator has even less control over it than in an average MMO. In some sense, the deviation from "normal" is going to the opposite direction than in the case of Storybricks. 

As about Storybricks, though.. First and foremost, I'd like to state that I have a deep regard for the whole team, for their dedicated work. Still, I can't believe this game will be a success for the following reasons:

1. I have a feeling that there is no agreement about the planned features and goals between the team members. This might be something to do with the sponsors, though. 
2. There are too much expectations out there, and the team cannot possibly meat even half of these. That will leave a lot of people disappointed.
3. The team is small, with uncertain funding. This is usually the case for Indie studios, and that's probably the only viable way to product a game that's so different from the current mainstream, but because of the above mentioned expectations, this may be a big issue for this project. 

But there is still a hope - even after their failed kickstarter - that they can create something that will gather enough following (and income) to go further and develop the game as they would like to see it - with all the features. I certainly hope it will happen one day.