Cristiano

cnet has a pretty detailed look at two browser based Flash virtual worlds - Metaplace and Small Worlds:

Metaplace: Platform for user-created virtual worlds | Gaming and Culture - CNET News

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* slu stuff *

Pie Psaltery

In my mind, 2D platforms will never win out over 3D platforms.

I have a beta account with Metaplace and I've never really bothered with it because it reminds me unfavorably of TSO. It seems "childish" and far too cutesy for me personally.

And it's 2D, which seems archaic and a step backwards. It might be easier to create your own world in the platform, but so what? It's still in inferior 2D.

I can see where it would appeal to the masses for its ease and surely someone talented will come along and make a profit from it by building a decent world but why would a really good 3D content creator bother with a 2D platform?

Sounds like a hearty endorsement to me

CaleVinson

I think all the current VWs have a long way to go, and that none of them "do it all" currently. I could certainly never give up SL's graphical splendour completely. On the other hand, MP's flexibility (players are nothing special in the MP system) in general, and its approach to scripting (using the well-established LUA, and exposing virtually all the underlying engine to the scripter) seems like a step forward to me.

Ultimately it will come down to what the individual person values more - graphics, or scope for interactivity. If we can't have the "complete meal" now, I'm glad we can still get the different courses, even if we have to visit different restaurants to do so.

Raph Koster

Oh, come now... we all know the same is true for SL builds, or indeed any other form of user-created content.

There's no doubt that some folks will require 3d for what they want... and we don't have that right now. But it is also true that 2d has big advantages. Among them, usability, ease of content creation, and distribution via the web (including much faster logins, lower tech reqs, etc).

As to why would a really good 3d content creator care? Because if, as you said, it appeals to the masses because of its ease, then that's where an audience for your creations is. The best MP objects are sourced from 3d.

Walker

I just can't get into Metaplace. I joined during the alpha stage (Jan 08?) and got bored of it within a few hours. Then everybody here discovered it towards the end of last year. I chatted with a couple of friends, but that was the only thing that made it interesting, and we already have more compelling chat platforms available so I didn't see the point. I logged out and forgot about the place again.

Immersive, it wasn't. Care about the content, I did not.








Backwards, I talk.

Raph Koster

It has grown and changed pretty dramatically since early alpha.

Again, no claims that it is for everyone, though.

Sophia Tantalus

I had a lot of fun messing about in my limited way with Metaplace. The experience took me back to my childhood hobby of creating worlds in Hypercard. I joined to evaluate its potential for use in education & like the reviewer at CNET I can see it really catching on in that market. Overcoming SL's learning curve and access issues makes sense for some institutions/student populations but for the bulk of them it's overkill. Metaplace has the potential to offer some serious competition.

Walker

I realise that. As I said, I logged in again when everybody here discovered it at the end of last year.

I just see it as more of an alternative chat medium to Google Lively (albeit with a better content creation toolset) than an immersive virtual world.

Lewis Luminos

I had a look at metaplace and wasn't at all impressed. The 3D is poorly faked, and I couldn't figure out how to move around properly or change camera view. Bored in 15 minutes, never found anyone else to talk to, gave up, uninstalled it.

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Raph Koster

"Uninstalled"? It's on the web.

For future reference, movement is "click to move" -- click on the ground where you want to walk to, and your av will pathfind to there.

Camera view is up to the world builder, but many worlds allow at least zoom on the mousewheel.

CaleVinson

Please forgive me Walker, I'm afraid I got out of my (even-more) pedantic side of the bed this morning.

I think that immersion comes from many different sources, and the relative importance that we attach to those different sources varies from person to person. As I've rabbited on about before, *for me*, SL feels like a giant movie-set - if you take a photo it looks wonderful, but if you poke your finger at it you can feel it going through the plywood.

Immersion can also be found by giving people the ability to *do* things (rather than just *look* at things), to make choices, and to have those choices have consequences inside the world. An example of this sort of immersion, admittedly outside the realm of VWs, is the success (and addictiveness factor) of "Dwarf Fortress" (Slaves to Armok II: Dwarf Fortress - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia),
a game with little or no conventional graphics. This is speculation on my part, but I think that the richer scripting environment in MP will enable people to more readily build world systems of greater "action" (rather than "visual") complexity than we've seen thus far. We'll only know for sure once MP has been in public release for a year or so.

Rebel Television

Hiya Raph! A Theory of Fun just came in yesterday. I'm so happy Amazon finally got it back in stock.

Lewis Luminos

IIRC I found a zoom but not a way to change the angle of view, so if my avatar went behind a building or an object I had no way to see it any more.

There probably ARE controls for it, I just totally failed to find them, and there wasn't any help in the FAQ.

Also I forgot it was just on the web. Nothing on my machine, made me assume that there had been and I'd gotten rid of it.

Lordfly Digeridoo

Metaplace has the best chance for emerging with a compelling content creation toolset, ala SL. If Raph plays his cards right, worlds/regions/experiences will be pretty seamless from one to the next, like the SL mainland (or, more obtusely, the islands).

It's SL, except entirely 2d, not 3d.

I wish I were a 2d artist or even reasonably competent in 3d Maya.

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Lordfly Digeridoo

PLUS you have the added benefit of having an extremely low barrier to entry. Entry level Dells sold today STILL can't run SL any better than they could in 2003. Hooray, Intel integrated graphics!

If compelling content can be made within Metaplace, I think it has a chance to really start to undermine SL's competitiveness.

Zii

So that's what Furcadia would be like if its devs actually cared about anything besides making more ridiculously expensive pay content...
3D graphics have spoilt me horribly, you'd have to make something really excellent to catch my attention with 2D nowadays.

Raph Koster

We still get requests for camera pivot, and users have even built prototypes of it. I am sure we will get to it at some point. (I had it in my prototype client, for example).

Camera tilt exists, but it's a builder setting; Flash is not fast enough to do it on the fly yet.

Someday we will have 3d. Once there is a widely deployed, "everyone has it" 3d web plugin, we'll be all over it so fast...

Scientists have demonstrated immersion (or at least a sense of presence, which is what I think most people mean when they say immersion) happening even in text chat, IRC, etc. In the end, visuals are not the real barrier... as anyone who was addicted to games in the 70s and 80s knows! (PS, Dwarf Fortress rocks)

Io Zeno

y did u ruin SWG

Cat Cotton

OP: I don't like the toon like feel of those worlds.

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Rebel Television

Neither Trammel or the NGE were done under him. Common misconceptions.

Io Zeno

I was there since beta, they fucked it up from day one and wouldn't listen, they never listened.

Anyway this is nothing but a fun blast from the past, I used to get suspended for saying shit to the devs.

And I was proven right.

Charlemagne Allen

I agree completely. As the Internet moves towards increasing degrees of social connections, the idea of a chatroom where people can interact, not just in text, not just with smileys, but in very human ways will become expected. Metaplace (or service like it), with its ease of use, will allow people to create little sandboxes in the web to sit down and play in.

just my 2 cents....

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Quiplash

I've just been accepted into the Metaplace beta program, and I thought I'd share their Terms of Service with you all. Sounds promising

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Terms of Service

Unless the fabric of the virtual space is threatened and so long as world creators and users are not in violation of the EULA or relevant national or local law, we will endeavor to provide our world creators and users with the following rights. Metaplace also encourages that world creators and users meet certain responsibilities as set forth below.

Rights of world creators:

1. Freedom of speech.
2. Peacefully represent their religious beliefs, but not to the exclusion or disparagement of others.
3. Reasonable processes to resolve grievances with Metaplace.
4. Own their intellectual property.
5. Create and destroy their own world at their discretion with no liability to Metaplace or users.
6. To be the sovereign power of their created worlds and subject to rights reserved by others to have full power and authority in their created worlds.
7. Earn and extract economic value from created worlds.
8. To be secure in their created worlds so that communications, designated private spaces, and effects, are protected against unreasonable snooping, eavesdropping, searching and seizures. Any such activity will only be undertaken with good reason, such as investigating the violation of the EULA, these Terms of Service, or applicable laws.
9. The enumeration in this document of rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by world creators.
10. Set up worlds with their own rule sets that may differ from the rules here, so long as they make that rule set available to world users and do not violate the EULA. Any Terms of Service that deviates from the standard Terms of Service must be displayed for world users.

Responsibilities of world creators:

1. Not to harm minors in any way or simulate harm to minors.
2. Know, understand, and follow applicable laws, including but not limited to the laws of the United States, as well as the EULA and this Terms of Service.

The Terms of Service below is the default for all worlds unless you have created your own Terms of Service.
Rights of Users:

1. Freedom of speech.
2. Freedom of assembly.
3. Peacefully represent their religious beliefs, but not to the exclusion or disparagement of others.
4. Reasonable processes to resolve grievances with Metaplace and world creators.
5. Own intellectual property they create in a world.
6. Freely depart worlds as they desire.
7. To be treated equally and not discriminated against on the basis of sex, race, or national origin.
8. To be innocent of any violation until proven guilty.
9. To be secure in their persons so that communications, designated private spaces, and effects, are protected against unreasonable snooping, eavesdropping, searching and seizures. Any such activity will only be undertaken with good reason, such as investigating the violation of the EULA, these Terms of Service, or applicable laws.
10. The enumeration in this document of rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by users.

Responsibilities of Users:

1. Not to harm minors in any way or simulate harm to minors.
2. Know, understand, and follow applicable laws as well as the EULA and this Terms of Service.

Quiplash

Quote from CNET story here (plus a couple of screenshots):
Metaplace: Platform for user-created virtual worlds | Gaming and Culture - CNET News

"To be sure, Metaplace and "Second Life" are only distant cousins. In Metaplace's worlds, for example, the very look and feel is limited by the 2D Flash nature of the system. Yet anyone building a world has tools at their disposal that allow them to quickly terraform terrain, to import a wide array of textures and items--including millions from Google Warehouse--to script just about any object with a wide variety of actions and more.

Perhaps, in fact, the "Second Life" DNA Metaplace most inherited was the dual concepts of almost total open-endedness and user control and ownership over what they create. For example, Koster explained, users can package up the basics of a virtual world they've created and either give it away or sell it on Metaplace's open marketplace.

Other examples of user control over their creations include the ability to set any kind of desired permissions for a new world, and to modify the standard terms of service in any way a creator wants. "

---

"Koster explained that because Metaplace is built so that every object works like the Web--every object has a distinct URL--everything in-world can interact with the Web. That means, for example, that a palm tree in a Metaplace world could be scripted to feed data on what's going on around it to a separate Web site. Or to Twitter. Similarly, a Twitter feed could be used to direct objects in a Metaplace world to do things. The possibilities are endless, Koster suggested, and are limited only by users' skills."

Quiplash

Oh Lord.

Prokofy is already here and already venting her spleen in the forums.