When Virtual Worlds Collide

Wired is running an interesting article on the realization of past predictions with regards to online gaming and where we are headed for the future. The author predicts that the separation between online worlds like Ultima Online and World of Warcraft may be headed out of style, making your in-game persona as pervasive as an email address. From the article: "Because the current metaverse evolved largely out of videogames, it makes sense that it should be composed of fiefdoms - after all, you wouldn't expect a Grand Theft Auto crack dealer to drop in for a barbecue with the Sims. But there is reason to believe that the divided metaverse is merely a transitional phase, and that its component worlds will coalesce."

Comments

Yawn...

[smoor]

And those of us with jobs and lives will STILL not be a part of it...

Re:Yawn...

[everphilski]

... and yet you post on /.

Games too?

[MacDork]

So gaming worlds are going to coalesce just like instant messenger serviced did years ag... oh, nevermind ;-)

And why not?

[Buckler]

I think the GTA crack dealer would be a hell of a lot more fun at my sims bbq than, say, headcrabs.

Sims and GTA

[phorm]

after all, you wouldn't expect a Grand Theft Auto crack dealer to drop in for a barbecue with the Sims

When I pictured this in my head, it was one of the funniest damn concepts I'd seen in awhile. I wonder if somebody could make such a similar game, where various groups work happily at creating little people and families and others play as the carjackers and dealers. Imagine that you log on onto to find that your car has been jacked by local online-gaming hoodlums, or perhaps your wife abducted, and you could persue a form of quest in which you have to hunt them down a-la hollywood style. This could be fun for both those playing the 'criminals' and those playing the 'citizens'.

Perhaps one could through legitimate playing work up to the level of mayor or congressman, making you a target of the darker elements but also allowing you to hire bodyguards and/or accept bribes. Interesting ide.

no it won't

[Joseph_V]

Analogy: I'm going to wear my DnD gear to work because of my persistant avatar. I'm going to be a professional lawyer even though I have a degree in medicine because of persistant avatars.

This is stupid, different people have different ways of escaping, and just because it COULD happen (which would require a level of industry cohesion that will likely never exist) doesn't mean it will.

1/10 for being a bad idea and not even being funny.

"There is reason to believe..."

[raehl]

Translation:

I've made up a few reasons while ignoring all the reasons it won't happen. By not giving you a source of the reasons, you might buy this as being anything other than attention whoring.

hmm

[engagebot]

"making your in-game persona as pervasive as an email address"

I think the closest we'll get to this is the kind of thing MS does with the Xbox gamertag. Maybe you have the same gamer id for all games, but that doesn't mean the game universes will all intertwine.

More accurate title...

[Hamster Lover]

"When basement worlds collide".

Ah, that's better.

Too much Snowcrash

[winkydink]

Yet another person who needs to spend less time re-reading Snowcrash and more time in the real world.

Ah, don't forget the eternal question

[hey!]

Federation of Planets vs. Star Wars Empire.

Where do they get these writers?

[brucifer]

Its great to post speculative articles and all, but seriously, I'm not buying into using the word "metaverse" no matter HOW many times you use it in one paragraph.

They have that game.

[raehl]

It's called Real Life. Graphics and sound are EXCELLENT.

There's a lot of time spent mindlessly earning gold though, and the biggest problem with it is the lack of a save feature.

Re:They have that game.

[acvh]

"biggest problem with it is the lack of a save feature."

actually, there IS a save feature, it's just that no one in the US knows how to use it.....

Step away from the crack pipe.

[Shivetya]

I seriously doubt it.

Apparently the author has no understanding of why these games appeal and why the differences between how they appeal to different segments of the gaming populace is what stands between what is now and what he is dreaming of.

First players would want to have some kind of convergence and I doubt only a few do. If people want to communicate between games its not hard to IRC/AIM now with other applications. Trading between games? As in skills, items, etc, - he is smoking way to much crack. First most game companies probably could not get their own products to talk to each other let alone find a viable means of exchanging persona or items between the two. Can't imagine the hell that would be there for communication between two different companies. Like they would really want their customers playing a competitors game.

Uh, this guy saw the Matrix and believed it. Some people just buy into the idea of Virtual Reality and then seek to apply it to anything that they don't understand or any group that is managed/organized via a computer. Throw the word internet in their for good measure too.

It won't happen for a number of reasons.

[WidescreenFreak]

This is one of the silliest things I've heard in a long time for a multitude of reasons.

First, it assumes that companies are willing to share their gaming technology and infrastructure. That alone cancels it out. Do people really think that EA is going to make the server and game specifications, possibly the source code itself, for Battlefield 2020 available to be licensed by competing gaming companies so that Diablo VII can interact with it - and vice versa? After all, if you're going to cross into another games' realm, that realm would have to look as though you were playing it through the other game for it to be convincing.

Also, would all of the worlds in this "common architecture" and their graphical components (models, textures, and so forth) have to be loaded on my system or will I have to wait while several hundreds of GB are downloaded? I personally don't want to see "Now integrated with Common Architecture(TM)! Comes on seven BluRay discs with all of the components of other Common Architecture(TM) games right on your system!" This would of course require the necessary system requirements of 400 GB of hard drive space.

Then comes the corporate politics of who will be responsible for connectivity between the various games. "Well, it's not our problem that our game servers are not communicating. Contact the other company." "No, our network is running fine! It's a connectivity problem on their end."

Of course, the cost of development must come into play. Does it make sense to have to disparate games that communicate together and effectively end up looking and playing the game and risk the inter-corporate political BS that will undoubtedly ensue?

But on a more practical level, if I want to play a Star Wars game, I obviously want that kind of environment! To even suggest that I'd want to take a Star Wars character and interact with an EverQuest character is nonsense! If I want EverQuest, I'll load EverQuest.

And shall we guess how a bug in one developer's coding might disrupt the gameplay of the other developers' products?

I can understand perhaps bridging the gap between play systems, such as allowing players of the same game on the PS3, Xbox, and PC game together. In fact, EA is already exploring that possibility based on a few customer surveys I've received from them. I can even understand different games from different developers under the same publisher, but only as a fun, side benefit that does not encompass the entire game.

But bridging the gap between games and companies in order to form a "common architecture"? I'd rather just have a "common artchitecture" under one game company with the inherent benefits (and drawbacks) of only having to deal with that company instead of the massive potential for the blame game to kick in. Otherwise, how is this "common architecture" going to be nothing more than the same damned game from different publishers?

No, thanks. I'll pass. I don't know what the author of the article was smoking, but that must be some really good shit.

Re:Since we're headed toward 1 avatar

[Neologic]

Sorry, I think Hiro Protaganist is one step ahead of you.

Is this really so far-fetched?

[DrVomact]

People seem skeptical of this article's prediction--and I have to admit there wasn't much attempt to outline how such a "metaverse" would work, or counter obvious objections. Still, I think something like Neal Stephenson's metaverse would be fun--and maybe even useful and possible.

One obvious objection is that each online "fiefdom"--let's just call it a "fief"-- currently has its own set of rules, and that these rules are incompatible--you can't mix a high fantasy RPG with Grand Theft Auto--or even Star Wars. That would make about as much sense as mixing chess with baseball. But why couldn't there be a neutral layer that connects all these now-closed universes? You could regard online games as a set of conventions that are adopted by a certain subset of those who inhabit the metaverse. Indeed, the metaverse could provide a meeting place where potential players gather to design and implement games. (I'm making the assumption that game engines and design components will be made accessible enough in the future so that it doesn't take years of heads-down coding to make a game.)

The metaverse could also provide a forum for the adherents of different fiefs to negotiate a common interface--which could involve agreements about what powers or artifacts can be transferred from one fief to another, how a certain level of achievement can be translated from one fief to another, and so forth. Games could become open-ended, with players moving on from one fief to another without losing everything they gained in the last one. Avatars might be allowed to play in more than one fief at a time, or might even gain status in the metaverse depending on their achievements in fiefs.

In time, the metaverse itself could become a very interesting place--a place where people meet to talk, plan expansions or vote on changes to the metaverse, or just hang out. Hey, can I call dibs on the lot across from the Black Sun?