Slashdot Mirror
Beginnings Of The Metaverse For The Gaming World
narq writes "From the world of Counter-Strike comes an interactive 3D environment for online interactions. Users will be able to accomplish productive goals or just waste time. I can't wait for the sword fighting algorithms to start to take shape. Here is the post at Counter-Server."
This is definitely a cool idea, and its just another step towards William Gibson's view of the future web (read Idoru). Its definitely more fun to actually traverse a DustCity instead of forum categories, and it certainly does better to make your online conversations more interesting.
I think it would be interesting if someone setup an open source project/community for a similar deal. Have everyone build up their own identities, instead of just being limited to nicks you can finally have 3d physical representations of yourself. But I guess that would be moving towards the idea of a virtual city, but then again that would definitely be interesting.
Would also be fun to see how people would hack such a project.
I was reading today about Doom 3's new editor being integrated into the engine, and was thinking if you developed a BSP tree server you could assign permissions to nodes on the tree and allow people to infinitely edit spaces they "own". I'm not sure if BSP would allow such a thing. ie. would the BSP tree not put rooms in a building below the cube representing the building itself? But all in all i think BSP would be a good technology for building a real time editable metaverse. If you could break up the tree into multiple files you could put it up on a CVS server that at the end of the night would compile all the changes and update the metaverse.
Tons of other engines exist.
CS is based on a really cheesy one (Adobe whatever) and the big other player (Id) won't commit their best tech.
Script kiddies will mess everything up.
Previous attempts, from C64 days to now have always failed.
Navigation sucks.
Boy, if I didn't know better, I'ld say you're mostly a bunch of losers more interested in off the cuff remarks then in substantive responses. Naw. Couldn't be.
So, from the top, let's go back to Snow Crash and see what it actually says made the Metaverse succeed. Hmmm.....
-Close linking with sophisticated and micropayment-friendly commerce engine. Nope.
-Ability to seamlessly exchange data (such as the virtual business card containing the Snow Crash virus) without breaking the metaphor. Nope.
-Navigation and motion precisely correlated to actual full body physical motion (think how Hiro practices). Nope.
-Detailed and nuanced renderings of facial expressions. Nope.
-Stripped out, bare universe in the beginning, allowing early "settlers" to make their mistakes *years* before newbies are let in. Nope.
-HUGE telecom company with billions of dollars worth of computers and the power to overthrow governments backing the project (remember who owns the black cube in the desert, folks). Nope.
Yeah, you're all of you right. This is *exactly* like the metaverse and so proves that such a project will never work. Oh dear; I'm going to go home and cry now.
Maybe not.
Doggone, pathetic, defeatist, ignorant, shallow, grumble, mumble, bitch, moan . . . . .
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
This reminds my of one of the interviews he gave when Quake III was finished.
From what I recall he said that he was surprised not many people were interested in metaverse type worlds.
He said that if enough people would be interested he would think about giving it a shot.
Now this guys are using his code (quake II engine) to try and implement it.
I bet he will be interested.
By the way, there are a couple of projects along the same line using the free (LGPL) 3D engine Crystal Space ( crystal.sourceforge.net)
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."