Future of the metaverse, and all that

[Mollymews]

23 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

https://www.playableworlds.com/news/just-how-close-are-we-to-achieving-the-metaverse/

the main takeout for me from this article was Mathew Ball saying (i am paraphrasing) that the metaverse is not really knowable at this time. That the not knowables are not dissimilar from the internet thru the 1950s to 1990s. That parts of what would make the internet were known early on but the substance of the whole was not knowable. That what we know now today as the internet was the outcome of a process of discovery. And that this process of discovering the knowability of the internet is still happening today

it can be disconcerting sometimes to hear industry leaders cheerfully admit that they dunno. I find it quite good tho that in the same breath as saying dunno, they also say we have to go and discover something about the things we know we dunno

[Prokofy Neva]

11 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

the main takeout for me from this article was Mathew Ball saying (i am paraphrasing) that the metaverse is not really knowable at this time. That the not knowables are not dissimilar from the internet thru the 1950s to 1990s. That parts of what would make the internet were known early on but the substance of the whole was not knowable. That what we know now today as the internet was the outcome of a process of discovery. And that this process of discovering the knowability of the internet is still happening today

it can be disconcerting sometimes to hear industry leaders cheerfully admit that they dunno. I find it quite good tho that in the same breath as saying dunno, they also say we have to go and discover something about the things we know we dunno

My main take-home from this article and the video that goes with it from a conference is Raph Koster's urging to end the authoritarianism of virtuality implicit in games, in making everything be a game, or follow game rules, etc. and to have open ended spaces. And he is someone who has enormous experience as a developer of some of the most popular and large MMORPGs in the US and also some small indy project that he did, some of which I was in, like "Metaplaces". 

The discussion is simply literally worlds apart from anything you see here from the wannabe authoritarians deciding what other people "should do" in the Metaverse and how the Metaverse "has to be" because these are people who have raised millions of dollars, and put in their own money, making worlds and studying all the issues and writing books and papers on the subject, unlike people on the SL forums who extrapolate from some tiny business they had or who don't log in any more. Koster is really a Renaissance man as well, excelling in a variety of fields like song-writing.

Any discussion fussing about how the graphics are pretty much misses the point, in my view. I think also regarding the "not knowable" and "not discoverable," I think once the masses were content just to stumble around in these devices made by a small elite in Silicon Valley, but the world has changed and people are far more critical, and Congress and other parliamentary and regulatory bodies are taking a far greater interest in the destructive power of platforms and want a say in them, and that's how it should be. They aren't in a special unicorn realm.

[Mollymews]

9 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

 Raph Koster's urging to end the authoritarianism of virtuality implicit in games, in making everything be a game, or follow game rules, etc. and to have open ended spaces

for sure Mr Koster has long been an advocate of open ended spaces filled by people able to do their own thing and that an offering that doesn't cater for this is not a metaverse. In the same sense that Facebook is not an internet, even if it could be considered as a world

a tangential thought. I think that the adoption by the masses of the immersive part of virtual reality is not going to come from games or even virtual worlds like SL. I think mass adoption is going to come from television/film/video. Sit on your couch and immerse yourself in the story from the characters' camera/viewpoint

[Merlina21]

4 hours ago, Mollymews said:

for sure Mr Koster has long been an advocate of open ended spaces filled by people able to do their own thing and that an offering that doesn't cater for this is not a metaverse. In the same sense that Facebook is not an internet, even if it could be considered as a world

a tangential thought. I think that the adoption by the masses of the immersive part of virtual reality is not going to come from games or even virtual worlds like SL. I think mass adoption is going to come from television/film/video. Sit on your couch and immerse yourself in the story from the characters' camera/viewpoint

I'd agree re the use of 360 degree video footage. i already experienced where this was being used at a demo at a local event a couple of years ago.  It created the experience of being involved in a car accident as it unfolded in real time, where you were sat in the passenger seat with a 360 degree view of what was happening around you.  It was disturbingly vivid, and the purpose was to encourage safer driving.

Besides watching 360 degree performances, capturing footage of actual locations can also be a way to experience virtual travel and sight seeing including visiting museums and other tourist attractions.  I know of a new platform currently in pre-launch that is targeting this area and is about to commence filming in the first location this year.

I also know that in the longer term they plan that this will evolve into a 'metaverse', with possibilities for partnering with gaming companies as a 'vertical' supported by the platform. So then - presumably - you would have access via their headset, and enter the game including SL via a portal within this platform.

And presumably 'green screen' filming techniques already used in the movie industry will enable combining 3D animation with footage of 'real life', so there will be a convergence with imaginary worlds and real life.

[animats]

11 hours ago, Mollymews said:

I think that the adoption by the masses of the immersive part of virtual reality is not going to come from games or even virtual worlds like SL. I think mass adoption is going to come from television/film/video. Sit on your couch and immerse yourself in the story from the characters' camera/viewpoint

Ted Turner, who created CNN and Turner Network Television, once said "The great thing about television is that it's so passive".

ABC-TV had a trade promotion in Beverly Hills in 2003 with banners reading "All we ask is 5 hours a day".

[Mollymews]

8 hours ago, Merlina21 said:

I also know that in the longer term they plan that this will evolve into a 'metaverse', with possibilities for partnering with gaming companies as a 'vertical' supported by the platform. So then - presumably - you would have access via their headset, and enter the game including SL via a portal within this platform.

And presumably 'green screen' filming techniques already used in the movie industry will enable combining 3D animation with footage of 'real life', so there will be a convergence with imaginary worlds and real life.

on the first. Definitely. There have been some public showings of this kind already. Like the Auckland Museum where I live did such a showing of Antarctica. Was pretty amazing to sit in the theatre on a swivel chair wearing a headset and able to turn round and see it all. The production team went to Antarctica to record the video with this in mind. Is still pretty nascent all of this as an art form (lots still to learn) but is also pretty exciting

on the second.  I think that other nascent technologies like deep fake  will come into their own also.  Like park up on your couch, pick a video. Then choose your character (actor) and see the story thru their eyes. The tech auto-filling in the scene should you look in a direction not captured initially by the video production. Able to also superimpose your own character of your own design onto the actor chosen. Other people able to enter the scene also as other characters. Or in the case of a music performance able to see the show from the viewpoint of the stage performer

certainly people be able to use this technology to create their own scenes and whole productions, but I think that most people from an entertainment pov, will be content to dial in to existing stories. In the same way we do now with 2D Netflix, etc

[Merlina21]

2 hours ago, animats said:

Ted Turner, who created CNN and Turner Network Television, once said "The great thing about television is that it's so passive".

ABC-TV had a trade promotion in Beverly Hills in 2003 with banners reading "All we ask is 5 hours a day".

Maybe it's going to be possible in the future to combine passive and active?  People could be watching/experiencing a 360 degree show or presentation,  and then immediately be able to visit a virtual location to hang out and interact with other members of the audience, maybe attend an after show party, visit a related exhibition, buy merchandising and related products, or enter an rpg or platform like Second life where they can actually actively interact with some kind of simulation based on the show or its themes..

I had a glimpse of what that would feel like from when I used to attend fan conventions for the Sixties cult fantasy series The Prisoner, which was filmed in a permanent location in the form of an italianate village in North Wales, UK, called Portmeirion - itself the vision of an eccentric architect.

Back in the eighties, long before the internet or even video being widely available, the only way to re-watch episodes of the series was through attending an event where prints of the film were screened.  

It was quite something to watch the episodes projected onto a big screen, and then immediately step outside and actually be immersed in the same environment, with people walking around dressed as characters from the series.

Another time I actually stayed there - as it also has a hotel and self catering cottages - with a group of people as a team building and personal development exercise, and the combination of watching the episodes which were available on video by this stage, and being immersed in that environment, was intense. to say the least.

And back in 2009 a simulation of Portmeirion was actually created in SL - as revealed in this article. I've heard this mentioned previously by a friend who is part of Prisoner fandom - sadly the project did not survive because of lack of income to sustain it and cover the costs, but it's possible all the actual buildings still exist sitting in an inventory somewhere....

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/north-wales-village-portmeirion-been-2070078

[Mollymews]

3 hours ago, animats said:

Ted Turner, who created CNN and Turner Network Television, once said "The great thing about television is that it's so passive".

ABC-TV had a trade promotion in Beverly Hills in 2003 with banners reading "All we ask is 5 hours a day".

in a similar vein, Netflix's Reed Hastings once said that their biggest competitor is not so much other streaming services. That their biggest competition is sleep. Mr Hastings said that passive engagement is addictive. That falling asleep is far more effective in stopping people from watching Netflix than anything a competing streaming service can offer

Edited March 29, 2021 by Mollymews
s

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

47 minutes ago, Merlina21 said:

nd back in 2009 a simulation of Portmeirion was actually created in SL

I loved that place. A Portmerion Camera Obscura still exists.

 

But it's demise does throw up an interesting question not merely about SecondLife but about the metaverse in general, and that, for things to endure, they have to have a purpose, looking good or faithfully recreating something in RL isn't enough.

Taking that idea on a step further, does the Metaverse itself have to have a purpose to continue to exist?

Edited March 29, 2021 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Ardy Lay]

1 hour ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

I loved that place. A Portmerion Camera Obscura still exists.

 

But it's demise does throw up an interesting question not merely about SecondLife but about the metaverse in general, and that, for things to endure, they have to have a purpose, looking good or faithfully recreating something in RL isn't enough.

Taking that idea on a step further, does the Metaverse itself have to have a purpose to continue to exist?

Would be nice if scarcely occupied meta-places could be archived for retrieval as depicted in Star Trek episodes with "holodeck" stories.  Then, perhaps, we would not have to miss out on places that do not continuously rake in money to pay for continuous run-time resources.

Imagine, if movie theaters had to have an auditorium for every movie ever produced because they had to be played continuously for ever or they would cease to exist.  Unfortunately that's what we have been trapped into in Second Life.

Too many wonderful places to visit in Second Life no longer exist because of the expense of keeping them playing continuously.  (feature request)

Edited March 30, 2021 by Ardy Lay

[animats]

43 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Too many wonderful places to visit in Second Life no longer exist because of the expense of keeping them playing continuously. 

Open Simulator can archive an entire region to a file, but Second Life cannot do that. It's an intellectual property issue. There was a full-sized model  of Versailles once, from some organization in France, but they couldn't keep up the tier payments for such a huge project. So it's gone.

You should be able to save your parcel to a file, with all the objects you've created and the placement of everything in the parcel. If you loaded such a file, you'd get everything in the file, plus anything with UUIDs matching your inventory. Everything else would come back as a cube of the right size and location, with a link to Marketplace if one could be found from the original UUID.

That would be within the IP rules of SL.

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, animats said:

Open Simulator can archive an entire region to a file, but Second Life cannot do that. It's an intellectual property issue. There was a full-sized model  of Versailles once, from some organization in France, but they couldn't keep up the tier payments for such a huge project. So it's gone.

You should be able to save your parcel to a file, with all the objects you've created and the placement of everything in the parcel. If you loaded such a file, you'd get everything in the file, plus anything with UUIDs matching your inventory. Everything else would come back as a cube of the right size and location, with a link to Marketplace if one could be found from the original UUID.

That would be within the IP rules of SL.

 A no-asset oar in Opensim should afaik only be a listing of the uuid's and their placements on the region. The actual asset is kept on the grid's asset server with all the appropriate permissions and creator name etc. When the oar is loaded back out, it pulls the appropriate assets out of the Grids database and places it correctly back on the region. There should be no issue as far as IP rules as long as it is the same region owner.

[Coffee Pancake]

There is an answer to historical or significant regions being saved without exports.

Second Life Region Preservation Society

https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2019/05/chouchou-second-life-linden-lab.html

 

[Ardy Lay]

1 hour ago, animats said:

Open Simulator can archive an entire region to a file, but Second Life cannot do that. It's an intellectual property issue. There was a full-sized model  of Versailles once, from some organization in France, but they couldn't keep up the tier payments for such a huge project. So it's gone.

You should be able to save your parcel to a file, with all the objects you've created and the placement of everything in the parcel. If you loaded such a file, you'd get everything in the file, plus anything with UUIDs matching your inventory. Everything else would come back as a cube of the right size and location, with a link to Marketplace if one could be found from the original UUID.

That would be within the IP rules of SL.

Why would you assume I want to copy anything from Second Life to Open Simulator?

I would want Linden Lab to have a product that allows the owner of a region to set it to a sort of "Buy Pass" state that allows it to be completely shut down until someone pays for it to be loaded so they can visit it.

[Coffee Pancake]

30 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

I would want Linden Lab to have a product that allows the owner of a region to set it to a sort of "Buy Pass" state that allows it to be completely shut down until someone pays for it to be loaded so they can visit it.

This locks LL into data structures that must remain compatible indefinitely. It's not technically  impossible by any means, but It creates a commitment that will impact all future region work and might be a deal breaker all by itself.

It's worth mentioning that Buy Pass is probably the least used parcel feature ever added. No one wants to use it because no one is prepared to pay for access, ever.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

9 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

Too many wonderful places to visit in Second Life no longer exist because of the expense of keeping them playing continuously. 

Strangely, this is where Real Life out-performs SL, many places are recognised by the powers that be as needing to be preserved because of their intrinsic merit or contribution to the world as we know it. But, of course, they have money, guns and lawyers.

Sadly, though, it brings me back to my earlier pint, the metaverse must be financially viable if it iss to be an independent entity. If it were to be supported by taxation in order to maintain otherwise-uneconomic places it would be subject to bias as a result of being minority owned.

[Ardy Lay]

13 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This locks LL into data structures that must remain compatible indefinitely. It's not technically  impossible by any means, but It creates a commitment that will impact all future region work and might be a deal breaker all by itself.

It's worth mentioning that Buy Pass is probably the least used parcel feature ever added. No one wants to use it because no one is prepared to pay for access, ever.

The region state saves are quite extensible in nature as they are compressed XML files that have, so far, been very compatible with new simulator versions.

Buy Pass, on a per-parcel basis, is quite different than what I suggested for on-demand regions.  I have only seen Buy-Pass, in the current form, used in four places over the years.  One was a water park.  One was a library.  One was a theatre and I am not sure what the other was as the name of the parcel and what I could see from the border did not compel me to enter. I would expect use model and uptake for activating archived regions to be somewhat different.

[Merlina21]

Sorry - accidentally posted this twice.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Merlina21
duplicate post

[RunawayBunny]

SL using old simulation software patched many times over and over it is bound to have flaws after so many patches (mesh addition, marketplace integration, mono LSL etc..).

They tried new start with Sansar but it didn't worked out. It is supposed to be next gen thing I guess.

At some point some other company will do better simulation with new engine and take market lead. SL still have long life span IMO because competitors not very competitive.

Every legend gets old eventually dies

[ChinRey]

On 3/29/2021 at 7:00 AM, animats said:

• You can have meetings in Second Life, but they're not great. What would it take to make them attractive and useful to more people? Now that too many people have had to deal with Zoom, can SL offer more?

• You can attend a meeting right out of bed in the morning, bleary eyed and still in your nightwear and nobody will know.
• If you use text chat you get the log of the meeting automatically
• In theory you can integrate presentation tools into a virtual reality in ways not possible in video conference software. Linden Lab never got around to that though. All SL has to offer are plaintext notecards, static textures and MOP

 

On 3/29/2021 at 7:00 AM, animats said:

• Education in Second Life was tried, and it failed. Is there a role there?

This is where I can finaly claim some documentable expertise. I've do ahve a college degree in education, worked as a teacher at all levels from preschool to university and even published a textbook or two.

The answer is definitely yes but not the role that Linden Lab and many educators who tried to use SL envisioned. University level lecturing is more or less the same as meetings with all the same pros and (mostly) cons compared to video conferencing. In other words, it's not totally useless but with very limited practical value in that area.

It can, however, be a very good platform for learning experiences, model demonstrations and applied games type training. In most countries you're not allowed to study a volcano from the inside (all those silly health and safety rules you know) but it's perfectly possible and legal in SL. And you can easily build a working model of a stirling engine for mechanics students to examine or a hip roof for future carpenters to learn from.

As for applied games, the military forces aroudn the world are of course very involved in this. Most people seem to believe they have some super secret state of the art "military grade" software for it but that's not the case. The US military uses Sinespace these days and possibly other Uinty based virtual realities too (it interetsing to note they ahd to go to Europe to find the software they needed). Before that it was Halycon (Inworldz' opensim fork - I don't think it was a coincidence Inworldz ran into financial problems and had to close shortly after they lost their miitary customer), before that again the regaulr opensim and before that there.com. They wanted to use Second Life but Philip wouldn't let them. The Russians military uses Unigine, I don't knwo about other countries. So, perfectly standard commercially available VR software that others can use for training too.

 

On 3/29/2021 at 7:00 AM, animats said:

• Trade shows and conventions are possible but don't work all that well.

I think that's much about accessibility. If the punters have to download special software and create a user account to attend, you can just forget about it. It might work with a browser plugin and guest accounts.

 

On 3/29/2021 at 7:00 AM, animats said:

• Collaborative work within Second Life is possible, but rare.

For good reason. This remidns me of something a game developer once said about UE. He said you can make anything you want with UE but if you don't want to make a shootup game, you're fighting against the software.

Collaboration is possible in SL but everything here is designed to discourage it.

[Harley Linden]

Hey everyone, lots of lively discussion going on here, but please remember to keep it on topic, keep it respectful, and honor the moderation process. Thanks!

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/403538-community-participation-guidelines/

 

[animats]

2 hours ago, Harley Linden said:

Hey everyone, lots of lively discussion going on here, but please remember to keep it on topic, keep it respectful, and honor the moderation process. Thanks!

OK. Please pass the better items up to higher management. Like Chin Rey's post above. Some of us are trying to make SL better here. We'd like to see more action from LL in that direction. Thanks.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, animats said:

OK. Please pass the better items up to higher management. Like Chin Rey's post above. Some of us are trying to make SL better here. We'd like to see more action from LL in that direction. Thanks.

Oh no .. please lets not return to the dark days of LL upper management thinking SL was a place to have virtual meetings. We lost all momentum and it entrenched the perspective of SL's residents as weird perverts the company would be so much better off without. This all set the stage for Sansar, a virtual world for "other people" that turned out not to exist.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This all set the stage for Sansar, a virtual world for "other people" that turned out not to exist.

Maybe they'll get it right second time around with the wisdom of hindsight.

By simply being the first, LL are always going to be hit with the big stick for the crime of experimenting and not quite getting it right.

5 hours ago, ChinRey said:

As for applied games, the military forces aroudn the world are of course very involved in this.

I remember reading back in 2010 or possibly earlier that the US Navy had considered using SecondLife, but I haven't been able to recover the reference. I also recall another article either about the coastguard using it, r something like a warehousing firm using it to do a design walkthrough of a proposed change ( quite the opposite of Heathrow's new terminal fiascos).

[Arielle Popstar]

17 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Maybe they'll get it right second time around with the wisdom of hindsight.

By simply being the first, LL are always going to be hit with the big stick for the crime of experimenting and not quite getting it right.

I remember reading back in 2010 or possibly earlier that the US Navy had considered using SecondLife, but I haven't been able to recover the reference. I also recall another article either about the coastguard using it, r something like a warehousing firm using it to do a design walkthrough of a proposed change ( quite the opposite of Heathrow's new terminal fiascos).

The Army created its own opensimulator spinoff after the Second Life Enterprise program was cancelled by Linden Lab in Spring of 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Open_Simulator_Enterprise_Strategy