Sorry, been away in England for a few days, visiting the Gadget Show Live! at the Birmingham NEC. I hoped there would be some Virtual Worlds in the Gaming Hall to write about, but the number of exhibitors was way down on what they hoped for. Only Electronic Arts were there (that I recognised).
From what I can gather about Blue Mars, it will more akin to the Private Island Regions in
SL, and not like the Mainland or any of the other Continents.
Developers with grandiose ideas can create a 'City', using a 2km x 2km land mass, or above (and maybe even smaller than this, but still not decided on). On this landmass could be built a futuristic city, or a copy of Vienna, or whatever. The City could include residential property, commercial property etc, available for rent.
The developer of the City pays fees to AR in much the same way as Private Island owners do to LL. They can then sublet homes and stores, again, in much the same way as private island owners do in
SL.
Tenants of commercial properties can be granted to the right to upload their merchandise, eg clothes, shoes, furniture etc.
A lot of the details of the mechanics of all this is still to be seen when the beta goes live in June.
As for scripting, I am not familiar with the LUA-based scripting AR referred to, nor about their own 'Casual Games API'. If anyone has any info on these two I would be most pleased to hear about it.
I got a reply from Will Sink (relation of Jim Sink ??) of Avatar-Reality, and attached was a copy of the NDA for me to sign and fax. He went on... 'Once we have received the NDA, we will send you a link to download the SDK.'
I faxed the signed NDA on Thursday, but have not received the link yet. Maybe on Monday.
Anyone downloaded the SDK yet? I am interested in knowing what it contains in addition to the CryEngine Sandbox (terrain editor perhaps?).
Rock