Is the Universal Avatar an idea whose time has come?

[Resi Pfeffer]

1 hour ago, Hintswen Guardian said:

What's wrong with believing in something real?

Its not wrong at all. And i would love if it would become reality.
But im a realistic person, and i doubt this is going to happen. You cant even "walk" from SL to Sansar, soo...

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 hours ago, MaggiJin said:

 Universal means everyone has it.

I'm assuming that the entity physically typing your posts is a human.

As a human, your body has many universal properties - using oxygen, water and various organic compounds like carbohydrates, proteins and fats for fuel; a standard skeleton with a top-mounted skull and in all but a very few cases two arms and two legs; a standard chromosomal makeup that allows for universal breeding; etc.

Does this mean that your body is identical to everyone else's?

[Hintswen Guardian]

22 minutes ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

Its not wrong at all. And i would love if it would become reality.
But im a realistic person, and i doubt this is going to happen. You cant even "walk" from SL to Sansar, soo...

That is not the real thing...

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

3 hours ago, MaggiJin said:

Google the definition of universal.

Here you go 

Quote

Definition of universal

1 : including or covering all or a whole collectively or distributively without limit or exception; especially : available equitably to all members of a society - universal health coverage

2 a : present or occurring everywhere

    b : existent or operative everywhere or under all conditions - universal cultural patterns
3 a : embracing a major part or the greatest portion (as of humankind) - a universal state, universal practices
    b : comprehensively broad and versatile - a universal genius
4 a : affirming or denying something of all members of a class or of all values of a variable

    b : denoting every member of a class - a universal term
5 : adapted or adjustable to meet varied requirements (as of use, shape, or size) - a universal gear cutter , a universal remote control

(from the Merriam-Webster dictionary website)

It really does mean an avatar which can be used across multiple sites, not that everyone's avatar looks like everyone else's.

[Phil Deakins]

For it to mean what Maggi thought, it would have to be 'univerally identical', not just 'universal'.

Edited November 29, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

What if this universal avatar was developed as an extension of the shared protocols necessary for the internet to work at all rather than as a visual web tracker from a corporate overlord?

[Theresa Tennyson]

8 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

What if this universal avatar was developed as an extension of the shared protocols necessary for the internet to work at all rather than as a visual web tracker from a corporate overlord?

You say that like those are two different things.

[Zeta Vandyke]

What if we ourselves live in a computer simulation and are universal avatars...creating avatars in a simulation in the simulation?

[Phil Deakins]

In that case, we would already BE the universal avatars

In a real sense, we DO live in a computer - the universe. Its programming is the laws of physics, which it must obey. We are part of it and we may well be univeral 'avatars', but we don't know if we are universal. There may be different ones somewhere else.

Edited November 29, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Rachel1206]

11 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

In that case, we would already BE the universal avatars

In a real sense, we DO live in a computer - the universe. Its programming is the laws of physics...

My God - he is coming and pressings CTRL+ALT+DEL - run!!!

Edited November 29, 2017 by Rachel1206

[Theresa Tennyson]

7 hours ago, MaggiJin said:

The whole reason i joined this game is because my friend val told me i could make my avatar look like anything i wanted and i make it something that really speaks to me. having the same one as everyone else would be horrible.

And yet, you belong to groups for the most popular mesh body (Maitreya), the second most popular mesh head (Lelutka) and an extremely popular clothing store (Blueberry.)

Hmmm...

[Rhonda Huntress]

7 hours ago, MaggiJin said:

Google the definition of universal.

/me laughs out loud.
Are you joking, trolling or serious?  I'm not entirely sure.

Would you prefer the phrase universally compatible avatar system?
If universal is tripping you up, how about "platform agnostic" instead?

Universal is used the same way as it is for Universal Serial Bus.  It is not specific to any one thing; it is open to everything that cares to use it.

[Amanda Crisp]

I was never a big fan of Universal, could I get a Paramount or United Artists avatar instead ?

[Pamela Galli]

All universal remotes are not identical. 

[KanryDrago]

Personally I dont like this idea. I prefer to choose which companies have information about me. This would lead to the same as we often find for websites now with the whole sign in with facebook/google account thing. 

The troubling thing for me is I can imagine the following situation : I am at a club in sl I get chatting to someone. We get on they tell me come back to my house I have this game you will enjoy. TP offer comes I accept. Bang I am in IMVU suddenly that company has access to all my details even though I never made a conscious choice to use them.

At least with single sign on such as facebook/google etc I am aware I am visiting a different website and giving them my details. I fear with a universal avatar that the push would be to make it seamless and half the time you would not even be aware you are spewing your personal info to other companies

[Bree Giffen]

The perfect realization of a universal avatar that addresses all the concerns everyone has brought up would be a wonderful thing. However, it's time has not come. Even if a universal avatar could get past the hurdle of corporate politics, technical issues and mainstream acceptance the result would be an avatar made by committee. A fractious and adversarial committee with every strand of hair decided upon by consensus. It would also stifle the creativity of every game company's art and modeling department. Imagine a company saying, here's your Lara Croft, as you can see she looks like an avatar from the last 50 games in the past few years. 

[Morgan Rosenstar]

On 29/11/2017 at 6:25 AM, Pamela Galli said:

Nope. Read the linked article.

one customizable avatar with inventory,

(...)

if the major players ever do agree on some open standards (...)

 

Yes, I think we read it.

[Morgan Rosenstar]

23 hours ago, Hintswen Guardian said:

Oh I know what universal means. I also know what the article is referring to which, as everyone has pointed out, is different to what you think.

The way they mean universal is not "everyone had the same avatar" but rather "every system has the ability to use your avatar" just like certain blogs use Gravatar which allows you to set a profile picture which follows you as you comment on other Gravatar enabled websites. This is what they are referring to in the article.

The major and utmost important point that this article is ignoring, dismissing and denying blatantly it's that the reason behind the lack of uniformity between the different mmos made off CryEngine, Unreal, etc... is not a lack of at all, it's about to adapt the contents to the environment.

[Morgan Rosenstar]

16 hours ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

Universal is used the same way as it is for Universal Serial Bus.  It is not specific to any one thing; it is open to everything that cares to use it.

If you want to do an analogy, this Universal Avatar is much more like a HDD that one could plug on USB, SATA and uses with Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc...

As titillating it can sound for all the geeks, it's not really a good thing.

As soon as you flatten the diversity to zero, you enter a world of conformity.

 

Edited November 30, 2017 by Morgan Rosenstar

[Gopi Passiflora]

One of my avatars in IMVU probably wouldn't be possible in Second Life...her hair is probably way too long.....

[Rhonda Huntress]

8 minutes ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

her hair is probably way too long

I have seen ankle length hair.  If you want it flowing behind like the train of a gown, you can always make your own hair.  Everything in SL was created by some one.  I assure you, no matter what her hair length was it is entirely possible.

[Madelaine McMasters]

9 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I assure you, no matter what her hair length was it is entirely possible.

Yep...

[BilliJo Aldrin]

how can there ever be a universal avatar when LL can't even find a way to create any connectivity between SL and sansar? You can't even rezz a prim in sansar so for anyone to blather on about avatars and inventory able to log into all virtual reality systems is just blowing smoke 

 

[Gopi Passiflora]

58 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I have seen ankle length hair.  If you want it flowing behind like the train of a gown, you can always make your own hair.  Everything in SL was created by some one.  I assure you, no matter what her hair length was it is entirely possible.

I suppose. But it would probably be hard to make something like this, though:

http://userimages-akm.imvu.com/userdata/70/31/44/08/userpics/Snap_gPJw4jWNoV267327601.jpg

That's my avi in IMVU, by the way.

[Parhelion Palou]

1 hour ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

how can there ever be a universal avatar when LL can't even find a way to create any connectivity between SL and sansar? You can't even rezz a prim in sansar so for anyone to blather on about avatars and inventory able to log into all virtual reality systems is just blowing smoke 

 

Sansar itself won't have universal avatars. I don't think it's implemented yet, but experience owners will be able to specify what avatars look like within their experience. I''m tempted to create an experience just so I can make everyone be a penguin.