Atashi Yue

You ever see a person riding a bike down the road with the gears set so they're pedaling like a fiend, yet creeping along slower than you can saunter?

That's Blue Mars.

Until it's possible to actually get somewhere, and maybe have some idea of WHERE you need or want to get to, it's a no go for me.

I don't have hours to spend in Blue Mars creeping around trying to find things. It's painful, it's awkward, it's stupid.

This isn't real life, there is no reason to lock users into an antiquated step step step method of travel.

Honestly, it's bad.

Angela Talamasca

Iow how long it will take them to figure out, their retention is gonna suck unless the address the client problem. It really is rather horrid. That, and I finally figured out why some people are getting motion sickness when they use the client.

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Atashi Yue

It's not really a client problem, since you can "fly" in New Venice. Which means I can explore NV quickly, find where I want to go quickly, then spend my time as I want to rather than wasting it all having to walk/run slowly all over the map.

Argent Stonecutter

DO tell.

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Atashi Yue

I detect sarcasm!

infiniview Merit

I have not checked lately but I think that I remember that the decision to allow flight or not is with the city developer. And it just seems silly to me if they do not allow it.
I know that many people think that disallowing flight makes it more likely people will walk by their shops. But in SL I cannot stand no flight sims. To me it feels like I have been disabled by the sim owner which I find to be very inconvenient and a bit offensive.
I just usually tp right out of there unless it is some kind of obligation I agreed to.

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Atashi Yue

Yes, it is set by the city developers.

Walking in Blue Mars is too slow to be useful unless your area is very very small. Or if you could maybe click on a building, or something in the distance, and choose to teleport there.

infiniview Merit

They are still officially in alpha are they not?

Angela Talamasca

It's not really about "allowing it." We have to program it to support flight. If it was as easy as flipping a switch, I woulda set it to true when I first deployed my city.

Angela Talamasca

Well, they are allegedly, officially, in beta.

Angela Talamasca

Yes, it's extremely painful to go places. I hate running around digital dna and that's my city! And honestly, I rarely log on bc I simply do not like the client. I did however add some teleporters so at least one can move the far distances (or rather, hop btwn a couple of islands). You just have to find where the red fern grows. I'm also working on a TP map.





The idea here is to provide a "you are here" beacon as well as providing a means for someone to click the map "anywhere" and TP there. Unfortunately, I keep getting distracted with RL stuff. Though, at least its fun RL stuff! lol

Atashi Yue

That would be VERY helpful Angela.

Argent Stonecutter

You infer sarcasm. Falsely. I'd like to know what the cause is.

eku Zhong

less than 30 min in BM leaves me queasy.. and then i have to go lie down.

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Angela Talamasca

The best way I can describe it is the camera movement. It is very shaky. Ever see the movie, "The Blair Witch Project?" While the camera in blue mars isn't that bad, it shakes around quite a bit. To get some idea what I'm talking about, check out this vid by Eddie Haskell.

Free Xue

We know this is how you looked when you posted it:

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Argent Stonecutter

That's not a function of whatever screen-grabber was used to make the movie?

Angela Talamasca

I'm figuring he used fraps or something like that. Part of the prob is likely the fps. So the lag prolly factors in as well. However the client camera does appear to jitter. Not sure how the flyabout camera does. Though, I would expect it to be smoother, as the default camera was recently changed up in the way it follows the avie.

Masami Kuramoto

That's not the only reason. Some creators believe that there's a higher level of immersion if it's not possible to get from anywhere to anywhere instantly. Level designs in video games often include teasers, i.e. locations are shown to the player before they become accessible. The player is supposed to explore the landscape just like he would do in the real world.

I actually like this approach. In fact I frequently walk around sims even if flight is enabled.

Of course this is only fun the first time. There should be a way to disable flight only for first-time visitors until they acquire some kind of flight assist item that is hidden somewhere in the region.

Imnotgoing Sideways

A couple observations of that video:

1) WOW! What an atrocious frame rate! DX

2) Did anyone notice the shoulder/eye level doorknobs? Who's building this stuff and why do I think they're coming straight out of SL with out-of-scale crud? Or... Was the "Man" in that video a child avatar? =^-^=

... Ugly little kid. DX

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Jeni Roussel

I've spent a fair amount of time exploring Blue Mars and it's never looked jerky like that. Quite the opposite. While the camera and movement controls still leave a lot to be desired, the overall feel for me at least is smooth.

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Imnotgoing Sideways

Blue Mars isn't the kind of virtual world you go at with computers made of balsa wood and chewing gum. =^-^=

(I learned sumth'n funny today. =^-^=)

DanielRavenNest

Not only do I agree with you, I think the vast majority of everyone who has ever used Blue Mars agrees with you. The default options are Walk (agonizingly slow) and Run (still pretty damn slow). I've measured Run at 2 m/s, which is a brisk walk/jog speed. Real life atheletes can go 7-11m/s. And in a virtual world there is no reason to limit movement to real life speeds.

My personal suggestion is they have Walk (1 m/s), Jog (4 m/s), Run (16 m/s) and Zoom (64 m/s). Neither Angela nor myself seem to know how to set up the fly option, and we are both city developers. It should be something easy to do, like a single line in the config file and *tell us how dammit, in the wiki*.

The workarounds we have been using until there are better movement options are to keep all the interesting stuff near the spawn point, and use teleporters, which actually work pretty well. I set up 4 teleports in a ring around the 4 corners of Tharsis, and you can visit all 4 corners in 4 clicks in 4 seconds. Later when there are more things to visit, I can set them in routes at 100m or so intervals, with the last one returning you to the "bus station" at the spawn point. But still, it would be better to have improved movement and not need such workarounds.

They call this "Beta" and have from the start. I estimate Blue Mars to be 50% feature complete, and by normal software standards thats "pre-alpha". Beta should mean all the basic features are working, if possibly buggy, and they are a long way from that.

I have just started a "requested features" wiki page

Requested Features - Blue Mars Developer Guidebook

Requests on the user and dev forums tend to get lost, or added to their black hole "wish list". So my plan is to get people to put all their requests on that page, and then start hammering them to tell us what's the plans and status for those things. Being in the dark does not make for happy city/block/shop/content creators/players. I want to know what they plan to add, in what order, and to what schedule. I realize things can slip during development, but some kind of info on their plans is better than no clue about them.

DanielRavenNest

(1) I agree, his fps was pretty low.

(2) That would be me building that stuff. Until they implemented a follow cam, ceiling heights less then 3 meters look cramped, and then doorways look stupid if you make them actual size (about 2m tall). In fact the other houses in Tharsis have various door sizes, room dimensions, and ceiling heights exactly to test that stuff out. Go ahead and visit and tell me which house you like best. I have my own opinions, but I would like to hear what other people think.

Atashi Yue

I don't have any issues with camera movement at all. And I seem to get a pretty decent fps also. I'll pull up the stats next time I'm in and check it though.