The Metaverse Blogger

I Think Not

It’s been a long time since the first virtual worlds began opening their doors to the well receptive “masses” back around the distant year of 1996, with platforms like Worlds.com, Active Worlds, and Blaxxun making a few small waves. Over the years, Activeworlds and it’s predecessors (more recently SecondLife, IMVU, There, etc) have become synonymous in the industry for being the leaders of the virtual environment endeavor. When virtual worlds first made their appearances, the idea of logging into a spatial virtual environment that you could move around in was so novel that games like 3D chess, checkers, bingo, etc all seemed like worthy pursuits when supplemented with the limitless potential for 3D exploration within hundreds of different worlds.

SWCity, an environment in Active Worlds that allows users to be a part of a larger community around them.

Enter Soap-Box

Almost 14 years later, we’ve kept all the old games but added onto them with virtual concerts, museum exhibits, real time shooter/strategy games, and countless other things. At heart, the philosophy seems to have remained the same though: provide people with as much content as possible in the hopes that boredom doesn’t flourish and cause the decay of our wonderfully crafted environments. At the heart of it, it seems that we still hope that 3D bingo, and even virtual sex (in some environments) will satiate the appetites of the average users. At the heart of it, we are still relying chiefly on the novelty of our virtual environments without asking ourselves as developers on this new frontier: what can we do that’s different than all the other guys? What can we do that is not simply just replicating the real world across the internet? At the heart of it, we’re still the same. To this day, I’ve not seen one virtual environment that has tackled (or even attempted to pursue) this question.

In the beginning it seemed appropriate to focus on replicating real life activities, in an effort to aid community building (ahem), and the fostering of friendships. Indeed, for a good number of years what I consider the original Big Three (Active Worlds, SecondLife and There) focused on and nailed these objectives. It’s true that each has made noteworthy developments off the original path to begin to answer our previous question (virtual economies in There and SecondLife, and a dramatic attempt by Active Worlds to appeal to education and private organizations). And while these are most definitely noteworthy endeavors, none of them answers the question: What are we doing in virtual worlds and environments that is fundamentally different (and therefor appealing to the masses) from our waking lives?

Says Who?

In an attempt to illustrate this, I set out to find a few videos to share with you that in my mind, drive home the crux of the issues. The next few videos are all (in my opinion) very well done in respect to music, cameras, dialogue, etc. Where they lack isn’t necessarily in the execution, but the information delivered. They all make arguments or show off fantastic environments that truly make me curious about exploring them, but at the end of the day they do little to tell me about an experience I’ll be having that I haven’t already had, or experiences that most people haven’t already have (or don’t already have) in other gaming environments either console or PC/Mac based. And maybe that’s the problem we’re facing today.

Blue Mars Online

Right now there’s an incredible amount of buzz throughout the Metaverse and on the internet in general about the soon to be open beta of Blue Mars, a new-ish virtual environment that’s been in development for years, that’s just now making it’s way to more open testing. And even with all the flashy, exciting environments we see, many of the buzz words about economies, exploration and user interaction are nothing different than what we’ve been getting from the other big players in virtual reality for the past ten years or so.

There.com

There has always been one of my favorite virtual environments, chiefly because of the “cartoony” feel of the 3D world, and how tactile everything seems to feel. There’s an edgy, almost messy and non-real life feel about it that I like quite a bit. But even still, in this fan made video, there’s little that the narrator gives us about what’s different from her previous Sims Online experience. In reality, even though this is a user made video, I think you would be hard pressed to come up with ways in which There really IS fundamentally different than things like the Sim Online, or even the other virtual environments out there.

SecondLife

Another user video of the environment that is probably most synonymous with the world virtual environment or 3D internet. Even with SecondLife probably being the most popular environment out there, what are we getting there that’s dramatically different than the other places (besides maybe uninhibited fantasy lives)? I’ve seen some hints of open source qualities which is fairly exciting, especially for SecondLife, but is that where the answer to our question stops?

Alright, Alright - Focus, Captain

This all brings us back to THE question: What are these virtual environments giving to us that is different from the real world, or what other gaming environments are giving to us? And if they’re not giving us anything different, how is what they are giving to us an improvement over what we have? So far I’ve yet to see any virtual environment that has provided gaming environments that have come anywhere close to the leading gaming networks that are available to the masses online. For instance, the experiences provided to players in the virtual environments of Eve-Online and World of Warcraft trump even the best attempts at gaming in our Metaverse platforms.

In Eve-Online alone, for example, whatever a gamer wishes to do is nearly within limits. Whether it’s the humble wish to be a single person mining operation in the depths of low security space, or the idealized dream of conquering an entire start system, and all things in between the two are nearly possible in the environment. If we look at our virtual environments that we spend so much time in, what is there for us? Surely, we have the abilities to begin user groups, and in some cases real world businesses based out of our virtual lives, which most certainly counts for a lot. But beyond that, what has been the end goal of most virtual environments? I’m certain that you will find that most of the time it is to provide more and more content, in the hope of 1. Attracting new visitors and 2. Keeping the old visitors from getting bored. But fundamentally, is that the answer to creating a successful virtual environment, or simply the way to patch the inevitable sinking ship that is the Metaverse?

I love the Metaverse, and all of the possibilities it presents to each of us on a daily basis. I find myself fascinated with all of the various environments, and little aspects of each of them that keep me tinkering with each that I pursue. But at the end of the day, are the experiences that I find myself fascinated with, as a long time Metaverse user who still has some amusement in 3D bingo, still fascinating to the contemporary internet user who did not grow up in a Metaverse environment? Probably not.

There is something fundamental that we have to consider: What makes, or made, our environments successful when they first came out? What provided us with the tingle inside that made logging in exciting? In most cases, you’ll probably find that the answer is somewhere along the lines of “having the chance to be part of something”. A fair answer, of course. But how are new and current environments providing us with NEW and original ways to be a part of something greater? If we can find a way to harness that wish, of being a part of something, and push it along further than we already are, the Metaverse and subsequent virtual environments will be in good shape for a long, long time.

The best example I can provide to you is that of Facebook: an environment that is wildly successful, and does it on a 2-Dimensional surface. Millions, and millions of people login to Facebook on a daily/multi-daily basis to do nothing but interact with friends over 2D space, with little in mind but emoting to their entire social network. The same example can be made of Twitter. These are two environments that have tapped into a very basic want of most people in the contemporary world: to emote to the masses, and in many cases, to people they don’t even really know.

My hope is that at some point virtual environments like Active Worlds, SecondLife, Blue Mars… someone, anyone, will wake up and dive into answering the questions of WHAT are we doing that’s better than the other options out there, and what can we do to truly harness the desire of people to be a part of something? Maybe applications like Facebook have already provided us answer, and maybe part of the answer is in allowing people to connect to all of their real world friends, and to emote to them like they do on Facebook/Twitter. I’m not sure, but I wish *someone* would start trying. Give us something to do other than 3D bingo or 3D fashion or environment design.

Woah, Nelly

It’s quite possible that I’m just becoming a bit jaded by the prospect of virtual environments and all of their unanimous claims that you’ll find something within them that you haven’t found anywhere else. So far that hasn’t been true for me in any case, although I do find myself hopelessly devoted to some of them, like Active Worlds, perhaps out of nostalgia. Who knows. And then again, maybe I should just go back to Eve-Online and Facebook to satiate my hopes and desires to be connected to something bigger than myself.

Tell me what you think.