Puzzle Pirates Creators Go Web 2.0

Alice, over at the Wonderland blog, had the chance to see the demo of the new social/game world Whirled . It's a web-based project with tons of the MySpace/Second Life/YouTube elements that are becoming so common with these projects. The difference with the Three Rings design is the look: it's ugly. "Kids can make their own animations which is good, because if you look out there, it seems ugly is a key feature of rapid viral growth. [laughter] So we'll release all the source for these minigames and make it really easy to hack them up... so people will make their own stuff. Most of [what you are seeing here] is player-created."

Comments

A second Second Life?

[BruceTheBruce]

I just sort of glanced at it, but the bullet points sounded like a description of Second Life to me. Maybe I overlooked something.

Re:A second Second Life?

[piratedirk]

only game i have seen that is proven to work to play and make money is http://www.piratetheworld.com/?ref=ZGlza21lZGVs great game, had a re-launch in march 07, so if you want to be there from the start now is your chance! plunder villages, search islands etc, and cash out your gold for real money :) i love it.. addictive game,i joined for the money but stayed for the great game. sponsored by ads, but the ads are small and you don't have to click them or anything.

Re:A second Second Life?

[Ustum]

I think I've been able to upload crappy 2d avatars to chat rooms since the 1990's. Heck, I think I could even have played crappy, monotonous browser minigames with random people back then. Where's the web 2.0 connection? Are they tacking on a gameplay wiki? Can a user make a special website with a bigger version of her purple pot-smoking Pikachu avatar? Will it link with his iPod to tell the world how many minutes and seconds into DJ MixSMore's latest track he is?

...Come to think about it, maybe I should call my broker...who ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of bored people?

I don't get it

[AKAImBatman]

It's a web-based project with tons of the MySpace elements. The difference with the Three Rings design is the look: it's ugly.

I don't follow.

Re:I don't get it

[Seumas]

Saying something, compared to MySpace, is ugly?! Wow. That has to be horrifyingly bad, then. Also, promoting something as having "myspace/youtube elements" is hardly a way to entice me to your service. UGH.

Re:I don't get it

[Tim C]

Both YouTube and MySpace are insanely popular. You don't like them (and no, nor do I particularly) but I think the company is probably willing to take that hit.

Patience 2 Persistance.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Kids can make their own animations which is good, because if you look out there, it seems ugly is a key feature of rapid viral growth. [laughter] So we'll release all the source for these minigames and make it really easy to hack them up... so people will make their own stuff. Most of [what you are seeing here] is player-created."

Of course all it takes is one discovered Rembrandt and a thousand illegal downloaders to make the pain all worth it.

standard tools

[Takichi]

These are the tools we used: liquor, wikis and flash. -- Daniel Sounds like a standard Web 2.0 tool set.

Re:standard tools

[Anonymous Coward]

These are the tools we used: liquor, wikis and flash. -- Daniel

Ahahahaha, ooh boy... alcoholism; it never gets old!

Are they new to the internet?

[TubeSteak]

Q: This reminds me of The Palace. I mean, people can upload anything, they'll upload things that look horrible, do you worry about the loss of control?

A: No,that's the idea!

I hope they've got some powerful filters.
Eventually, the trolls and griefers will descend upon this creation.

Aren't they afraid of Goatse?

Re:Are they new to the internet?

[Synic]

I thought of the same thing, but if you're intentionally exposing that kind of material to minors then I believe you can be prosecuted under federal sex crimes law.

Re:Are they new to the internet?

[ockegheim]

Yes, I don't think I'd be ready for it.

But then a bad day on the WoW trade channel has me despairing for the human race.

Palace

[Anonymous Coward]

As the interviewer said in the second link: "This reminds me of The Palace." Being web based, I wonder how fast and smoothly it will be able to run. Even Flickr feels sluggish at times and they don't even have the most complex web applications out there.

Attraktive! Isn''t viral.

[sumdumass]

Ugly is catchy and popular for the same reasons jims that cater to overwieght people or specificly overweight women (Curves) are.

People tend to have performance issues when everyone else is better then them. The mass amount of people on the web would be mediocre at best. on designing something. It isn't like the ugly sites are supposed to sell anything but advertising but then the adds aren't as ugly. They flock to places like this becuase they won't be judged on their ability (more like inability) to design something. And sometimes, it is just fun to see how wacked someone would take things.

Now, I'm not sure I know what the site referenced in the aricle was trying to do. I didn't care to read it. But it seems like it is attempting to attracked certain people. And if it lets people make pages like Myspace or whatever, it should get them in.

Re:Attraktive! Isn''t viral.

[sneezinglion]

You meant gym not jim. I'm sorry to be a curmudgeon, but this misspelling gets on my nerves.

Re:Attraktive! Isn''t viral.

[sumdumass]

Don't take it personal. I do misspell thing on purpose in some situations and it has come to make me do it on accident sometimes too.

In this case however, I think it was the spell check that changed it for me. I remember trying to spell it Gim but it didn't look right and it corrected me.

Kids can make their own animations... good?

[serodores]

All it takes is one kid to make some animations that other adult entities would not approve of, and it seems like it could rapidly collapse.