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Possibility for a true Metaverse world.

Started by rian carnarvon May 11, 2006 at 4:33 PM 20 replies 2.6k views
Original Post
rian carnarvon
rian carnarvon
I am goin g to assume that you have read the book Snowcrash by Neal Stevenson. I am also going to assume that you have a basic knowledge of the game second life. if you dont, you probobly wont get much out of this thread. I've been Mulling over an interesting idea of late, and i decided to post it here to get some feedback on it. Remember the "metaverse" that was outlined in the book Snowcrash? it was a sort of visual adption of the internet, where people could meet and walk around and pretty much live a second life. It was completely immersive throught the use of a virtual-relaity visor; like the one shown here: http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5711.html In this "metaverse" people could meet from all over the world, buy property, script vehicles,programs,avatars,etc. Which brings me to my second topic: the game Second Life form linden labs: www.secondlife.com . Second life is the first "Game" that simulates the real world, And the closest thing we currently have to Snowcrash' "Metaverse" Now here's the idea i had. Take the idea behind Second Life's technology and engine, and kick it up a notch from being a game and a fairly lucrative buisness, to a literal iteration of the "metaverse" idea. Instead of distributing the program with many things pre-built (as linden labs did), distribute it as a blank slate; as a completely empty and limitless world that the users can customize to their every whim. Make it compatible with the kind of "VR" tchnology as shown above, to make it even more realistic. Dont put any "realism" Constaints in the software, other than those needed to keep it running without crashing. Institute an economy model like second life's, so that users of the metaverse could theoreticly make thier livings in there, or even LIVE their very lives in it. In time, this "Metaverse" could grow advanced and powerfull enough to take over from the current internet, with users walking into a building in the metaverse to purchase something rather than going to a website, and users hanging out in virtual lounges instead of banely typing on forums. Could this be done with todays technology? even just the basic idea, though more advanced than Second life's? Is it even worth the effort? Discuss....
Sneftel
Sneftel
Quote:
Original post by rian carnarvon
with users walking into a building in the metaverse to purchase something rather than going to a website

Why would they?
rian carnarvon
rian carnarvon
Why wouldnt they? which would you rather do: Go into a website and spend ages looking for a particular peice of hardware or software, or go into a virtual store where you could examine the specs and such first-hand?

And then there's those people who would do it just because it would be cool to do so.
Spoonbender
Spoonbender
Quote:
Original post by rian carnarvon
Why wouldnt they? which would you rather do: Go into a website and spend ages looking for a particular peice of hardware or software, or go into a virtual store where you could examine the specs and such first-hand?


you mean seeing a model of the product on a screen as part of a 3d environment, versus seeing a model of the product on a screen as part of a page with information about the product? I don't see the big difference there.

Or you mean "Go into a website and click on the product to go to a page with its specs, or go into a virtual store where you would have to find the product before you could *look* at it, and then find a clerk or something to ask about the specs?"

I think the website thing sounds *much* easier.

Let me ask you one question. What would you rather do? click a bookmark (or use your browser's search bar) to do a search on Google, or walk to some kind of virtual subway station, to take a virtual train to a virtual place called Google, where you can give your query to a virtual receptionist, who then gives you a virtual map you can use to navigate back through the virtual subway, to the place you wanted to find?

So, like Sneftel said, why? What'd be the point? why would it be better?
Oluseyi
Oluseyi
Quote:
Original post by rian carnarvon
Why wouldnt they? which would you rather do: Go into a website and spend ages looking for a particular peice of hardware or software, or go into a virtual store where you could examine the specs and such first-hand?

Curious interpretation of "first-hand" - you can't touch or feel or taste the object. All you can do is examine a render of it, which is on part with viewing a QuickTime VR 360-degree render on a website.

Then there's the time involved with "going to a store" versus visiting a website. Remember, in Snow Crash there was actual locomotion within the Metaverse, and a time cost in travel from one virtual location to another.

The abstraction leaks. The Metaverse is very implausible.
rian carnarvon
rian carnarvon
Hmm. I agree locomotion and time-delay would be a problem. Perhaps the metaverse theory needs a re-plan...
tstrimp
tstrimp
Another GDNetters dreams come to a crashing halt. on the other hand, I think that this would be an amazing contribution to the porn industry.
rian carnarvon
rian carnarvon
Not to a halt, Merely to a temporary standstill. I really do think that this idea could be made to work without too much hassle once its finished, the idea must just be thought out very carefully.
hymerman
hymerman
Quote:
Original post by tstrimp
Another GDNetters dreams come to a crashing halt. on the other hand, I think that this would be an amazing contribution to the porn industry.


There'd have to be some pretty specialist peripherals developed though, I guess.

Anyway, the idea sounds 'nice', but really is terrible. Look at how badly VRML flopped - people really don't want to emulate real-world shopping etc., as the WWW is much more efficient in many ways.
CIJolly
CIJolly
Walking around shops to buy things in Second Life was a huge pain. You had to wait for everything to load, your character walked too slowly, it was hard to find things, there often weren't any good search functions, you had to teleport to the store and wait for the building to load in the first place.

So someone came up with slexchange.com. A website that fixed all of the problems with shopping in a 3d environment by being simple, searchable, fast, well organised and 2d.
Captain P
Captain P
It sounds like an intrigueing idea, but I'm with the others - it's probably not a good idea in reality.

Besides being more complex than a website from the users point of view, it also brings additional costs for the salesmen - it's not enough to take a picture of the product anymore, instead it needs to be modelled, or otherwise visualized. Also, interaction between man and machine would need to be pretty tight before you can really examine such objects completely virtually - even then, it would still be a simulation, with no guarantees at all!

Besides, what exactly would the advantages be of a virtual world on top of this world? Personally, I'd rather take a stroll and actually get outside to walk to a real shop than steering a virtual character with the wasd buttons to a virtual shop - some physical movement is healthy and it's much better to have contact with people in real-life rather than a virtual, degraded replacement of it.

Bytheway, The Matrix, anyone?
NotAYakk
NotAYakk
We have a non-physics bound metaverse.

However, it is called "the Web".

It is possible that adding 3D interfaces to the browser could be useful, but as yet people haven't found much use for it.

Write a 3D browser plugin. Make generating 3D content cheap and easy. And you'll see a metaverse.
ToppDog
ToppDog
Why would they?

Well, the first reason is the same as why they already play in online virtual worlds -- the community. The second reason is for the free or less costly games that will be the result of both the advertising revenues & the lowered costs of game developement due to using the assets & tools of the metaworlds game engine.

I have been predicting exactly this for several years now, & we will see it in the not so distant future. My concept differs from the original poster's in a few regards, & basically changes what Second Life is doing wrong. I can't write it all down right now as I'm at work, but it's definately do-able, even with today's technology, & would definately answer everyones "Why would they? questions.
Oluseyi
Oluseyi
Quote:
Original post by ToppDog
Well, the first reason is the same as why they already play in online virtual worlds -- the community.

Shopping is not, generally, a communal affair. Certainly not in the same way that play is. You can "meet" a random person and share a rich play experience without any awkwardness, but do you really want to go shopping with the middle-aged guy with the combover (who, of course, is presenting an avatar that is a lithe, nubile blond with oh-so-perky nipples) that you just met?

Quote:
The second reason is for the free or less costly games that will be the result of both the advertising revenues & the lowered costs of game developement due to using the assets & tools of the metaworlds game engine.

Games will never be free or less costly, no matter how much infrastructure can be reused. There will always be greater content creation or generation costs, and when those can be done fairly automatically by technology, the purchase and licensing costs of said technology will be significant (to offset the gains in terms of reduced per-content expenditure). There will be increased physical modeling and simulation costs, increased artificial intelligence expectations and costs, and so on.

The idea is enticing, but completely impractical. There simply is no clear benefit to either consumers or producers, making it a spectacular lose-lose.
ToppDog
ToppDog
Tell that to Multiverse, Microsoft, Second Life, & just about every corporation who has either already payed to have their products advertised or is looking for ways to have their products advertised in games in the future. If it's so impractical, why are all the big boys still trying to find ways to do it? Obviously they think differently. It will be done, & it is already being done in one form or another... it's only a matter of time before this kind of idea sees daylight.
rian carnarvon
rian carnarvon
And the idea wasn't just to have it big virtual shopping mall, that was only one aspect of it >_>. Think of the mini-games you could script into the world... like area's with Counterstrike type games being played, or medieval communities. Like Topdog said, Second life & other companies are on the right track, but they need to stop thinking of it wholly as a "game" universe, and more of an alternate reality.
Oluseyi
Oluseyi
Quote:
Original post by ToppDog
Tell that to Multiverse, Microsoft, Second Life, & just about every corporation who has either already payed to have their products advertised or is looking for ways to have their products advertised in games in the future. If it's so impractical, why are all the big boys still trying to find ways to do it?

I see. You're the clueless sort.

The cardinal issue here is the feasibility of Neal Stephenson's Multiverse from his book Snow Crash (really cribbed from Gibson's Neuromancer, or even Johnny Mnemonic, though I'm unclear on which came first). What applications the Multiverse are put to are secondary, because the system itself is not practical, efficient or particularly profitable. It has ludicrous overhead. It's only redeeming usage would be as a Holodeck - which is definitely not an avenue for something as pedestrian as shopping. It would be a very cost effective means of, for example, training soldiers in environments indistinguishable from the real world, given the costs of death and injury in physical approximations of military training (people die in training exercises, too).

What you cite as a counterargument is just regular commerce - the desire to get your product advertisements in front of elusive consumers in a fragmented digital media audience. *yawn* The idea there is to find a way to integrate mentions or positive connotations of your product with the media itself, such that consumers are transparently influenced to hold a more favorable disposition toward your particular brand of sprocket. This doesn't need a Multiverse. If anything, the Multiverse detracts from this because it would turn advertising and shopping into destinations in the absence of other forms of entertainment. Now, shopping for clothes and test driving cars may be fun, but shopping for CRM software? I think not.

What Microsoft et al are doing is leveraging companies like Massive Inc (which, incidentally, Microsoft acquired and plans to deploy transparently to all Xbox Live publishers as a revenue/monetization stream) to integrate their products, their products' likenesses, or favorable mention of their products into consumer entertainment that has shown it has an audience that will yield a resonable return on investment. That has nothing to do with the pie-in-the-sky notion of a "Multiverse."


Is there anything else I can clarify for you?
ToppDog
ToppDog
When I said "Multiverse" I am referring to the company that is creating the engine & tools to create MMO's with... And, when I was referring to Microsoft, I was referring to the fact that they want to create software packages to create games with. I was not referring to the "Metaverse" described in the original post. I never proposed developing futuristic VR technology simply to shop from home with.

I am only contesting the point that many of you are making – that advertising in a virtual world is a waste of time. Because, in my opinion, a virtual world (set in a modern day environment) is the one and only place that advertising is ever going to make any significant impact in the gaming world.

The original poster didn't ask if exactly replicating the Metaverse was possible, he asked if similar concepts from it could be achieved using todays technology... and the answer is yes.
liquiddark
liquiddark
Quote:
Original post by Oluseyi
or even Johnny Mnemonic,

Johnny Mnemonic didn't have enough of a VR element to really "crib" from.
No Excuses

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