Truly a sad time for all the loyal There.com users out there, but with all the talk of There closing and the alternatives that users have out there I notice that everyone forgets about the oldest VR community out there, ActiveWorlds.

Now offering a 6 month free account for any former There.com users, so there’s no reason to not come on over and at least check things out. Building is free, no costs per prim or for the space to build, and anything that you build remains forever.

AW’s public universe, I don’t think has really been a profit venture for years, they make their money off corporate customers, so our little community isn’t going anywhere anytime soon due to any recession issues.

So, c’mon down and join our little community, and see what we have to offer. We need the users

I was in the first wave of beta and was in game last night to say goodbye. THERE did a great number of things right, particularly in terms of how their system channeled people into socializing: auto-dragging people into little chat groups and offering a lot of minigames and exploration. The avatars were also approachable and easy to configure and for the time, a good compromise on visual quality.

While I haven’t been in There for at least a year and haven’t been active since 2006 or so, I find myself quite sad at the world’s passing.

I suspect their downfall was simply not being able to compete with Second Life’s libertarian philosophy. Designers had to go through a tedious (and expensive) approval process to protect corporate copyrights and sexuality was taboo. Combined with a lack of investment and series of periods where it appeared THERE was due to close and most early users, particularly designers and core players, slowly drifted away. I was at Karuna last night with a number of other early beta testers in the “Class of Pangea” and every single one of us had moved to SL as our primary virtual world sometime between 2005 and 2007.

It`s definately sad … but I had never used “There”

this is really sad.. “There” is great as well as the staffs. Helper_zed is one of my favorite helpers.

I was crying when I heard about this..

What bothers me the most about the closing of There.com is the fact that the owner(s) never took the financial problems to the users for suggestions. Why couldn’t we pay a monthly fee for membership (or something similar) to keep things going? It’s the same problem that most American businesses face these days….lack of creative management. When things get slow, close the business and lay off your people. It’s a sad microcosm of the country in general these days.

As a member developer, I find it a really strange thought that I won’t have a place to view and use all the things I’ve created for myself and others over the last 5-6 years. It’s not like those are assets I created for my employer, those were my hobby and personal efforts, easily a few thousand hours or more. Now they are just a bunch of model files on my hard drive that have no purpose. Since most are customized to “There’s” in-world properties and behaviors, they are not really useful in another environment

When will the virtual world industry and web 3D in general come to the place where it is completely understood that separating content specifications from the graphics engine specifications is survival itself?

How much less of a tragedy would it be if when a business model fails, the content and the technology can move to new servers without much hurrah?

Say what you will about VRML, the content is still running. While it isn’t a solution for all 3D applications, X3D + WebGL is a good place to be and with the interop with the OGC specifications such as CityGML, it may prove to be the most sustainable in terms of new business.

I haven’t logged on much in the past couple years but find it hard to accept that the world is actually closing. Played a lot from 2003 – 2007. Made so many great friends there and wish there was some place to keep in touch with them all. To everybody that knows me, please do keep in touch.

dwilliam80@hotmail.com

=(

My personal opinion after being a member of There for over 7 years is it was ahead of it’s time in 2003 and to this day, some aspects of it have never been done as well. I suspect with it’s closure and the struggles other 3d social worlds have to sustain themselves, I don’t think I will find a suitable replacement any time soon. There.com was pretty unique in a few key areas,

I have never found another 3d world/game that gave the same sense of presence to those you meet and chat with. After chatting avatar to avatar in There, chatting via the IM window was not the same, it make it clear it was more personal when standing with the other person’s avatar. Most of this came from the early work that gave There avatars natural seeming behaviors (breathing, lip-sync with voice, automatic arm/hand gestures, head tracking to the speaker, etc).

A lot can be said for modern worlds and their ability to simulate distance, but I don’t expect to find another world that is complete in that you (and some did) can walk, drive, fly for weeks completely around the globe and return to your starting point. It also had height allowing travel 100,000m above ground level transitioning into a space dome.

While top-end systems today can do much better gravity/physics simulations, There’s ability to provide it since 2003 for pretty low-end computers is not matched today (imo). It was the basis for many of There’s unique properties, notably their vehicles. Although for many Therians, mountain sliding was probably one of the funniest things they ever did.

I think many would agree that There’s vehicles are still one of the best simulations around ‘for the general user’. Modern racing games are substantially better looking but most found they never offered the same ‘fun’ factor has There’s vehicles. “There” vehicles could be used for quite accurate head-to-head racing that required a level of user skill to just casually driving/flying around the country with passengers along.

In the early years, the early exploration aspect of the original art by “There” artists was one of the main reasons many people got hooked on “There”. In the later years as it shifted to member developer creations, it offered users a lot more variety and diversity in their creations, but the original “There” created scenes are still considered wonderful by old and new members. While expensive, there is still a useful place for original content by the service creator imo.

While much has been said over the years about “There’s” fixed camera approach (which they offered some additional flexibility later), it is one of things I most notice when trying other worlds. I have to screw with the camera too much. In “There” for general use, the cameras tracked near perfect and when in their ‘chat group settings’, the simple ‘next camera position’ approach allowing viewing from other angles by a simple arrow key press allowed you to focus on communicating.

As a member developer, I find it a really strange thought that I won’t have a place to view and use all the things I’ve created for myself and others over the last 5-6 years. It’s not like those are assets I created for my employer, those were my hobby and personal efforts, easily a few thousand hours or more. Now they are just a bunch of model files on my hard drive that have no purpose. Since most are customized to “There’s” in-world properties and behaviors, they are not really useful in another environment

After all the challenges “There.com” went through, I never thought I see the day it would formally close. I consider it a personal loss since it has been a ‘safe’ and fun place on-line for my family for many years. The number of great friends made by most members is a testament to it’s real social value. As the younger generation expends more and more of it’s time on-line and less actually socializing, I don’t think the Facebook’s of this era are going to meet their needs as they age.

There.com while probably a niche product in comparison to the numbers reported on the ‘next’ hot thing offered something unique. It will be missed by many for a long time.

It’s sad to see There.com close its door and a community lose its home. There.com has been an inspiration also for Twinity. We Twinizens would like to show the people of There that all is not lost; this is simply a new beginning.

We’d love to talk to you all and see how we could have a new home together. We’re meeting in Twinity at 17:00 (GMT), we would be delighted if you could join us!

Wow, a troll! Are you from the Blackspear tribe?

It’s a sad day in the there world. After all the rent raising on all zones they took the money and ran. Just like any other It came down to we just don’t make enough money. The whole world has turned in to a very sad place were every body just says show me the money I need more. I guess we had fun while we could so goodbye to all.

Raph,

Thanks for your post, it’s appreciated. It’s a sad day for everyone, but we made some great friends, and learned a heck of a lot in the process. In the end, not sure we could ask for anything more.

We used the classy way you handled MetaPlace’s closing as our guide for today ‘tu for that.

Michael Wilson