Multiverse gets more funding
Good news for Bill Turpin, Corey Bridges, et al. Multiverse is definitely one of the most interesting plays going on right now in virtual worlds.
Year: 2007
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Is a standard lurking?
More and more of these open networked platforms for shared 3d spaces keep popping up on my radar. Here’s a list of three new ones to add to the likes of OpenCroquet and Ogoglio.
- Muse is an oldie that I had forgotten about, but I’m linking it here for completists’ sake — it’s has been around since 1998. And it looks like the site hasn’t been updated since 2003. But there’s an SDK to download!
- Interreality’s Virtual Object System. Dates from … 1999. Their FAQ states that it’s compatible with Wndows 2000, which means, I guess, that they haven’t updated their site in a while either.
- On the other hand, Uni-Verse seems to be a going concern, and has the backing of some universities.
What else is out there lurking? Outback Online hasn’t announced specifics of what they’re doing yet, but they do have a nice list of what they’re not. 🙂
Edits from readers:
- Warb which seems to have a site over at PocketRealms
- OpenSim
- Open Source Metaverse Project
- M.U.P.P.E.T.S.
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Mundos Virtuales en Latinoamerica
Our remote correspondent Andrés Chilkowski says:
Just a quick report of Latin American MMO developments as Raph Requested!
Read More “Mundos Virtuales en Latinoamerica” -
Google maps and photos
Google Maps has taken another step towards making the whole world an MMO.
If you’re like me, you said “Holy shit” the instant he starts walking around. 🙂
Of course, photos alone isn’t all that interactive. But I imagine that with the SketchUp buildings and other data getting piled into Google Earth, it’s just a matter of time…
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EVE scandal a frame job?
It comes up all the time: the question of whether managing an online community is like governance. Whether the users are at least somewhat like citizens, and not just like customers, and whether the admins are effectively policymakers, and not just game developers out to make a buck.
It’s an interesting question with tons of ramifications. Indeed, Ted Castronova’s upcoming book, which I was lucky enough to get a manuscript copy of, is entirely devoted to the idea that the real world is going to learn a lot of lessons from online governance.
In the meantime, what we get is the opposite. It turns out that the latest allegations of corrupt administration in EVE Online may have been a deliberate smear attempt by a guild. CCP, makers of EVE, have posted an evidence trail that in their opinion in damning — the fact that there was a prior beef between the guild in question and CCP, the fact that somehow the story hit all Net outlets simultaneously right at the start of a holiday weekend…
I can’t judge who’s in the right on this. To me what is interesting is that frankly, it looks like the action of a political party against their opposition. But it’s not like EVE’s “government” can be toppled. The only real result from an action like this is effectively a scorched earth policy: “we don’t like how things are run, so we’ll destroy the game for everyone.” Of popular reactions like these are dictatorships made.