Giving this topic a bump - I'd love to find a wave-based 2e or 4e game, but am not at the point where I could serve as a GM. Rest assured I'm studying up to do GM stuff, but I'm not experienced enough to make it fun for anyone above age 10 -- yet!
The Wave didn't seem to be reaching its potential as a platform for gaming so I, personally, set it aside. Not sure how many really stuck with it that initially gave it a go. Maybe they've made some improvements and I'll take a look again.
I lurked in several games when gaming with wave was the rage. It didn't seem to bring much more to the table than a good forum. Perhaps that will improve as time goes on.
" Google today said it would drop Google Wave. The over year-old service had "not seen the user adoption [Google] would have liked" and won't be a developed further. "
I'm not too surprised. They opened it up to the public too early, I think. many folks looked at the initial functionality, saw it lacked real utility, and walked away and never looked back.
If they'd just waited for some of the later functionality to be available before opening it up, it might have been a different story.
" Google today said it would drop Google Wave. The over year-old service had "not seen the user adoption [Google] would have liked" and won't be a developed further. "
I kept hoping they'd figure out that they'd created major walls for people through a basic lack of functionality. Trying to innovate a new type of scrollbar (which, frankly, is completely inferior to the existing scrollbar) at the same time you're trying to innovate communication is a really stupid idea, for example.
It needed critical mass to have a shot at being successful. Being invite only and it taking a fair amount of time to get an invite once sent took its toll I think. There were also some pretty serious speed issues with it as well.
As for playing on it, it just didn't seem to scratch the right itch. If I want a play by post feel there are many forums better suited with better tools than Wave had. If I want realtime, an actual chat client or a VTT such as MapTool handled it better than a Wave did.
I played with it initially and after some of the issues encountered above gave up on it.
Invite only sounds like a cool way to start off a product, but in reality it is another hurdle for consumers to jump, and can turn off a lot of people.