Slashdot Mirror

Vary writes "The LA Times is running a story today saying that marketers are pulling out of Second Life, primarily because — surprise, surprise — the 'more than 8 million residents' figure on the game's Web site is grossly inflated. Also, as it turns out, the virtual world's regular visitors — at most 40,000 of them online at any time — are not only disinterested in in-world marketing, but actively hostile to it, staging attacks on corporate presences such as the Reebok and American Apparel stores. The companies aren't giving up on virtual worlds altogether, though, but moving on to games like There, Gaia Online and Entropia Universe. The article also contains some commentary from a marketing executive who conducted an informal survey of the game and discovered that 'One of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia.' What company wouldn't want to be in on that action?"

jstrauser writes "According to an email reprinted on the official boards, Linden Labs has released version 1.4 of its PC 'virtual world' MMO, Second Life. It includes many new features, among the most notable is support for XML-RPC. Taken from the email: 'XML-RPC allows data and commands to be sent back and forth between disparate systems over the internet... Some applications for XML-RPC include faster in-world blogging, the ability to send newsfeeds into Second Life and the capacity for store owners to manage their inventory remotely.' Will we ever need to leave the game to use functions like email and web browsing anymore?" Also mentioned in the Second Life update is: "The ability to upload custom animations, to stream music to your parcel... [plus] those of you with Second Life partners can now express your affection for all to see in your profile." We recently covered Second Life in relation to the development freeze for former rival, There Inc.

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with Will Harvey, founder of There Inc., after the virtual world creator announced this week that it "is reevaluating its consumer-side game environment, giving itself 90 days to determine if a licensing-only model might offer a more secure upside to the company." Harvey explains that he has "left the company and I'm no longer on the board", and describes his original vision of There: "to support all the kinds of rich interactivity and human experience that top-tier video games are capable of, but in a single, unified world where everything works together." When asked to describe the problems with 'virtual world' products, he suggests: "If you look at the nongenre MMORPGS--There, Second Life, The Sims Online--they are all version 1 products that won't really be complete until version 37. The challenge is making version 1 commercially viable."

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with Will Harvey, founder of There Inc., after the virtual world creator announced this week that it "is reevaluating its consumer-side game environment, giving itself 90 days to determine if a licensing-only model might offer a more secure upside to the company." Harvey explains that he has "left the company and I'm no longer on the board", and describes his original vision of There: "to support all the kinds of rich interactivity and human experience that top-tier video games are capable of, but in a single, unified world where everything works together." When asked to describe the problems with 'virtual world' products, he suggests: "If you look at the nongenre MMORPGS--There, Second Life, The Sims Online--they are all version 1 products that won't really be complete until version 37. The challenge is making version 1 commercially viable."

Thanks to Terra Nova for its story discussing a major refocusing at PC 'virtual world' company There Inc., as an official statement mirrored on ThereUniverse.com explains the company is "changing its strategic direction to focus on our technology platform", and "we will no longer be making regular updates to the [There 'virtual world' consumer] software, and we will not be fixing bugs", some claim due to plateauing interest in the game. Terra Nova points out: "Presumably There will be continuing their work with organizations like the US Army. Though they make it clear that this isn't a shut-down of the consumer world, it can't be good news for the development of virtual worlds beyond the typical D&D-inspired MMOGs", a category which also includes PC 'virtual world' title Second Life.

An anonymous reader writes "Over at GameSpot, there's an interview with Dr. Michael Macedonia of the U.S. Army about the AWE training sim, a 'massively multiplayer simulation [based on the There 'virtual world' game engine] that will be used by military personnel to train troops in urban situations before they are airlifted to a battle zone.' Macedonia says 'We built downtown Baghdad in this environment', and also says 'we call our games tactical decision aids. Our thing is not making people shoot better; it's making people think better.'" We previously featured an initial announcement of this project in January.

transient writes "BBC reports that the US military is creating a second Earth with help from There. At the moment, only Kuwait City has been modeled, but the ultimate goal is to model the entire Earth using existing terrain data and a super-accurate physics model. While combat will be part of the game, 'the emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.'"

CowboyRobot writes "Slashdot's former editor Chris DiBona has an interview with videogame creator Will Harvey over at ACMQueue. Harvey has had a hand in lots of stuff you've used, from Zany Golf to Adobe AfterEffects, and now runs There, a kind of online 3D 'virtual world' game. Their conversation covers games in general, as well as specifics of the challenges that There is facing. From the article: 'You have to project the curves: the rendering curve; the CPU speed curve; the money spent on the Internet on online games curve; the number of people who play online games curve. I think we guessed right on almost everything, but we underestimated Moore's Law and we overestimated the low-end graphics capability'."

Thanks to HomeLan Fed for their interview with Robert Gehorsam of There Inc. regarding their U.S. Army-funded 'virtual world' project, as previously mentioned on Slashdot. This extension of an the existing There Inc. MMO title will apparently "enable a commander of an [Army] unit to say, 'Hey, my unit needs to train for its upcoming peacekeeping duties in Kumar.' He works with a trainer to develop a specific environment and scenario (or better yet, modify an existing one out of a repository), figures out who is going to play the bad guys, the civilians and the 'others' -- like the Red Cross, the UN, etc. -- and then prep his unit for the exercise." However, when asked about the types of features MMOG fans might recognize, Gehorsman suggests: "Guns? I'll admit, however, that the magic system is not particularly robust."

Anonymous Coward writes "Military Training Technology (online edition) has an interesting article, 'The End Game', containing revelations about a Research, Development and Engineering Command project 'that is as timely as the nightly news' - a Massively Multiplayer Simulation for Asymmetric Warfare, or simply MMP: 'essentially a virtual world [developed by There Inc.] intended to train soldiers well beyond the goals of war gaming'."

Thanks to GameSpy for their feature discussing user-created content as the future of massively multiplayer games. In one section, Will Harvey of There Inc. discusses potential problems with more exotic player-created features: "If third-party developers [A.K.A., gamers playing the game] write games for an MMPG, will the code for those games also run on the servers? What if it crashes?" Elsewhere, Will Wright talks about quality issues after players create content: "Once we have the ability to leverage the creative process, how do we move that content between players in the most efficient way? There's always some content that a small number of players create that will have the most appeal."

Thanks to GameSpy for their feature discussing user-created content as the future of massively multiplayer games. In one section, Will Harvey of There Inc. discusses potential problems with more exotic player-created features: "If third-party developers [A.K.A., gamers playing the game] write games for an MMPG, will the code for those games also run on the servers? What if it crashes?" Elsewhere, Will Wright talks about quality issues after players create content: "Once we have the ability to leverage the creative process, how do we move that content between players in the most efficient way? There's always some content that a small number of players create that will have the most appeal."

An anonymous reader writes "A former beta tester has written up a negative, but interesting, review of the 'virtual world' MMO title There. While it mainly contains sarcastic remarks directed at the game mechanics (or lack there-of), near the end it also claims that There is 'a mirror of the shallowest possible view of American consumerist society.' It concludes by saying that There is missing anything that would classify it as a game, and that as a chat service it capitalizes on 'our society's tendency to believe that being attractive is a prerequisite for being accepted by others.' Should developers try to be aware of whether their game will reproduce negative trends already present in real life?" We recently ran a story on the official launch of There, a game that has its fans as well as its detractors.

Thanks to Yahoo! for hosting the press release announcing the official opening of There Inc.'s online world. This ambitious PC-based virtual world, created "with over $37 million in funding", is aimed at the 'mainstream market' and highlights socializing and playing, as well as world object creation, since: "70 percent of all objects currently for sale in There are created by members and 80 percent of events in There are organized by members." Real-life money can be converted to in-game currency, and during the Beta, "members... voluntarily spent on average of $7 USD per month purchasing There currency and buying in- world goods." There are even some amusing advertising tie-ins: "Digital versions of Nike's AirMax 2003 and Nike's Zoom Celar have been created... members who buy these Nike shoes for their avatars will find... they can run faster."

Thanks to Legalaffairs.org for their new article called 'To Kill An Avatar', discussing lawmaking in online worlds. Although this is an often-explored subject, some interesting examples come up, such as a case in which "..an avatar [in virtual world There] put up a 'For Sale' sign in front of a house that he didn't own.. the scam artist collected some serious Therebucks (the currency of There) before the creators of the world discovered what was afoot and took corrective action." The article concludes without much hope of resolution: "You could make a virtual world without the possibility of crime - but it would probably be about as dynamic as Pong or Tetris.. by creating virtual lives, investments, and freedoms, we create the conditions for virtual crime."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out the Slate article called Iraq: The Computer Game, and subtitled "What 'virtual world' games can teach the real world about reconstructing Iraq." Written in a similar vein to an MSNBC article we covered a few weeks back, it looks in a bit more detail at how simulations "may offer useful lessons for rebuilding broken nations in the real world", mentioning the recent news that virtual world company There Inc. has been commissioned to create anti-terrorist training simulations, as well as Richard 'Lord British' Garriott's suggestion that "..games do clarify the essential rules for stabilizing a chaotic society."

maddugan writes "CNN recently posted a story about a company by the name There and their opening of a public beta for their 'Virtual Universe'. One of the key element is that you can buy virtual Levis and Nikes for your Avatar. " Hemos & I have been playing The Sims Online- Come visit the Slashdot Charisma Sweatshop on the absolute west edge of the Mt Fuji City and say hi. I got my real nick for once too! I love MMORPGs and 'There' looks like another wrinkle on taking Sims type games online. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

jlouderb writes "Following in the heels of Worlds Inc. Blaxxun Interactive and Linden Labs, super-stealth project There Inc. launches Wednesday at CES. ExtremeTech has a preview of the world up, which is characterized by expressive avatars that look like idealized humans. Backed by a long list of notables, including Halsey Minor, Trip Hawkins, Jane Metcalfe and Louis Rosetto, it's an ambitious effort. But will the target market of Wal-Mart moms show up? Who knows, we all laughed at AOL too. You can sign up for the public beta and find out for yourself."

jlouderb writes "Following in the heels of Worlds Inc. Blaxxun Interactive and Linden Labs, super-stealth project There Inc. launches Wednesday at CES. ExtremeTech has a preview of the world up, which is characterized by expressive avatars that look like idealized humans. Backed by a long list of notables, including Halsey Minor, Trip Hawkins, Jane Metcalfe and Louis Rosetto, it's an ambitious effort. But will the target market of Wal-Mart moms show up? Who knows, we all laughed at AOL too. You can sign up for the public beta and find out for yourself."

Joy! Cleaning out the submissions box: Praxxus sent us a link to an article you'll swear is a joke... a new use for old computers: filling potholes. HerbieTMac wrote in to say that Ice-T has joined the fray by releasing a new MP3 single. sanpitch sent us an interesting article about facial expression recognition. polar_bear` wrote in to say that Linux Mall has an Associates Program just like CD-Now. Or Amazon, speaking of which Sevn gave me the heads up on their entry for Bill "Family Circus" Keane- check out the reader reviews of Daddy's Hat is on Backwards. Trust me. Read it. Someone had to much spare time, and I'm glad they did. [null] hooked us up with the definitive Mr. T vs. site and east sent us an offensive dilbert parody site. gseidman wrote in to tell us about an important translation project underway to decipher the alien language used on Futurama. Assorted Slashdot notes from the world: An anonymous reader linked us to a cute comment on Neal Stephenson's server about the Slashdot effect. suprax noted that Slashdot and Freshmeat have a cameo in the current dead tree edition of PC Computing. adamv sent us a link to an interview with the creator of IMDB where he says he wishes he designed Slashdot. Funny, I wish I had designed IMDB. And Lastly, Jesse Shrieve, my favorite BSD pusher and dedicated Slashdot Server whipping boy noticed that Slashdot is up to 28 on hot100.com. We're neat.