Zuckerberg Comes for the Metaverse

[Adeon Writer]

Sorry if this is already known but Linden doesn't own Sansar anymore. They sold it off. The chances of them buying it back are very, very slim.

[Coffee Pancake]

30 minutes ago, Adeon Writer said:

Sorry if this is already known but Linden doesn't own Sansar anymore. They sold it off. The chances of them buying it back are very, very slim.

Yeah, no way that happens.

[Mr Amore]

45 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

I see nothing has changed in Sansar since it went public beta.
Avatar movement/camera control, world selection and world to world transfer is still clunky.
The system avatars still look like uncanny valley claymation.
The worlds still look like and interact with as art exhibits or collaboration-of-the-month portfolios/advertisement.
The lighting still makes the lens flares from the Star Trek movie more attractive.
The concurrency is still abysmal.
How many years has Sansar had to get its act together?
How many more years are we supposed to wait for it to happen?

Sansar's movement was somehow frustrating, now they can jump though.

The default Sansar avatars are an improvement on SL's default, their clothing system has an actual interface, along with options to tweak the fit.

With a few more years of development Sansar's a stronger foundation to build upon and take into the future. Meanwhile, SL hasn't announced a roadmap for the 2020s because nothing substantial is coming.

[Mr Amore]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I don't think they can add in-instance content creation. Our ability to do that in SL is a corner stone of why SL works the way that it does. Sansar deliberately didn't go down this road.

They are going for the buzz created by fortnite's massive attention grabbing events and missing the mark in spectacular fashion. They have zero platform goals or development roadmap.

It wouldn't surprise me at this point if the business plan was literally

1. Host events and hype ...
2. ???????
3. Get bought by Facebook.

I did .. it was passable for pick and place building a fixed location, the light baking was painfully slow and reminded me of making quake levels.

It was a miserable experience, much like being in world.

It was a mistake to build a separate world editor and not just build the blender tools to create and publish from that.

I'd never looked into Roblox before, but it's clear now Project Sansar was LL's answer to Roblox. Complete with instanced Experiences and the creation phase occurring out of the world. As opposed to inworld like SL.

And I did think a part of Sansar's ambition was to be picked up by Facebook or Google, earning LL's investors a tidy sum in the process.

If Sansar was developed further with content creators in mind, it can join the metaverse race.

 

And for something entirely different.

 

[Akane Nacht]

6 hours ago, Misty Rookstown said:

SL let a lot slide over the years and lost momentum. If you recall there was another attempt that went no where with that Blue Mars place which looked like it had potential. They need to move because Zuckerberg will dominate if LL doesn't get a better foothold. 

Speaking as a casual long time user - visually, SL has improved enormously. I've seen more stunning builds in the last 2 years than I did in the previous 10. I tried Blue Mars back in the day and it had more of a game feel - everything matches and fits and is, frankly, boring. It had golf. Yay. Plus it crashed every few minutes. I had a similar experience with Sansar, though I admit I didnt give Sansar much of a chance as it crashed so frequently.

New platforms seem to fall into the same thing - curated content either pre-built or done by a selection of professional designers who have their own interests and ideas of what is interesting or entertaining. I can get that from a host of games already. I'm at best a hobbyist/amateur creator, but it's an important pull factor for staying in SL. Where would my nonprofessional uploads and tinkerings fit in to a curated new world? I have fun with the process of making stuff, and I like to be able to share it, and to see what others are making. I didn't even realise how much I enjoy customising til I play on a platform where I can't.

I feel pretty sure Facebook/Meta would prefer us as simple consumers rather than DIY-ers or small entrepreneurs, and will build their platform accordingly. If I am in a tiny minority of hobbyists who enjoy tinkering, then an exodus of big creators and simple consumers may be the end of SL.  I really don't know, but I hope not.

[Nick0678]

Facebook has 2.89 billion monthly active users .. i am sure it will do just fine.

[Akane Nacht]

18 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Facebook has 2.89 billion monthly active users .. i am sure it will do just fine.

Yep they got a lot. I had 2 gaming accounts under character names. My spouse has one for his car. 😄

[Nick0678]

8 minutes ago, Akane Nacht said:

Yep they got a lot. I had 2 gaming accounts under character names. My spouse has one for his car. 😄

Nods. Truth is we are just 5 people using the internet , the rest are our alts.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

1 hour ago, Nick0678 said:

Nods. Truth is we are just 5 people using the internet , the rest are our alts.

All in front of a bank of monitors!!

[Maryanne Solo]

https://community.zed.run/2021/10/28/melbourne-cup-carnival-enters-the-metaverse/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=melbourne-cup-carnival-enters-the-metaverse

Fascineighting!

Edited November 2, 2021 by Maryanne Solo

[Akane Nacht]

1 hour ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

All in front of a bank of monitors!!

i would never do that 

[Akane Nacht]

15 minutes ago, Maryanne Solo said:

Fascineighting!

that's a new one, I'd never heard of Decentraland before... 

I tried a randomised avatar on guest account and it gave me a unibrow 😒

[Maryanne Solo]

Neither had I Akane, but there it is: NFT's, Land parcels. clothing etc etc etc.
I specifically DID NOT draw attention to Decentraland buried within the Zed event page.
I wondered how long it would take someone to jump on it and bingo!
You did within 25mins.
Time for SL2/Necrolife 😂 and for LL to guarantee we haz the best avies in the meta.
I got the hardware, I'm ready to go.  

[animats]

Microsoft's "metaverse" is out. Legless avatars again.

SL should use this as a marketing point. "Our avatars have legs!"

[Coffee Pancake]

46 minutes ago, animats said:

Microsoft's "metaverse" is out. Legless avatars again.

SL should use this as a marketing point. "Our avatars have legs!"

This seems to be the trend for "serious" use cases.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This seems to be the trend for "serious" use cases.

 

Which is scary. The reasoning here is obvious.

"People don't use legs to interface with their devices. They use their eyes, their ears, their fingers. Some of them use their voices. Nobody uses legs, except maybe to walk away from their screen. So make the avatars without legs, boys."

They see us as interfaces, as consumer nodes in the network, as exploitable data. Not as people.

[Solar Legion]

1 hour ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Which is scary. The reasoning here is obvious.

"People don't use legs to interface with their devices. They use their eyes, their ears, their fingers. Some of them use their voices. Nobody uses legs, except maybe to walk away from their screen. So make the avatars without legs, boys."

They see us as interfaces, as consumer nodes in the network, as exploitable data. Not as people.

It also quite clearly forgets that Full Body Tracking - though not cheap - is indeed a thing.

[Alazarin Mondrian]

It's an ambitious move but I don't think it'll amount to much for a good few years until the entry-level tech requirements become as cheap and accessible as a beat-up second-hand laptop. Sure, Facebook / Meta has a crapton of cash to throw at their Metaverse project but out in the real world, the droves of people who have signed up to Facebook and turned it into the juggernaut we love to hate don't have the cash to buy a high-end gaming computer and Oculus headset especially given the shortage and sky-high prices of graphics cards at the present time. You think it's bad now with all the crypto-miners bulk-buying all the high-end graphics cards as soon as they go out the factory door? Wait until you add in millions of people squabbling over them to power their VR headsets!

It might be a runner if all the rendering was done server-side and all the everyday user needs is an entry-level setup like the Google 'Cardboard' [remember that?] that runs on a mobile phone. Otherwise Zuckerberg's Metaverse will die a long, slow death as a niche environment for the affluent who can afford all the expensive gadgets just to get in the door.

Facebook became the juggernaut it is today because the entry-level requirements were so ridiculously low that anyone, anywhere in the world with a beat-up second-hand smartphone running an outdated version of android could access it. The same goes for Instagram and Messenger. Good luck making the metaverse accessible to people who can't afford to buy the gear necessary to get in the door. Don't get me wrong, I'm a long-term SL resident and I'm really into virtual worlds in a big way but you have to be realistic about it. Short of Facebook / Meta giving away a billion Oculus headsets and computers to run the graphics, I don't see how Zuckerberg's big metaverse idea will ever gain the kind of critical mass he's got used to with Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

6 hours ago, animats said:

Microsoft's "metaverse" is out. Legless avatars again.

SL should use this as a marketing point. "Our avatars have legs!"

There's a story on the Verge website about this and in the comments many are asking why are they re-inventing SL. I think all this meta stuff going to put more eyes on SL and Linden Lab. The Lab could say "FB and Microsoft --- move over! We'll show you how it's done!"

[Akane Nacht]

I guess Facebook won't be scanning people too closely to make avatars...

Facebook to end use of facial recognition software - BBC News

[Maryanne Solo]

Linkedin Legless.
This is getting embarrassing for the human race lol.
What are they all on?
10 years on....
"Mummy I don't want my legs anymore. No one online has them so.... yeah"
Okay darling lets go get it sorted then............

[Nick0678]

Well.. they could use OpenSimulator and not have to deal with Linden Lab at all, if they wanted something similar to Second Life..

Probably isn't what they really want, i suppose.

[Luna Bliss]

9 hours ago, Alazarin Mondrian said:

It's an ambitious move but I don't think it'll amount to much for a good few years until the entry-level tech requirements become as cheap and accessible as a beat-up second-hand laptop.

...don't have the cash to buy a high-end gaming computer and Oculus headset especially given the shortage and sky-high prices of graphics cards at the present time. You think it's bad now with all the crypto-miners bulk-buying all the high-end graphics cards as soon as they go out the factory door? Wait until you add in millions of people squabbling over them to power their VR headsets!

 Short of Facebook / Meta giving away a billion Oculus headsets and computers to run the graphics, I don't see how Zuckerberg's big metaverse idea will ever gain the kind of critical mass he's got used to with Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

Graphics cards are expensive, yes, but the new Oculus VR headsets are gamechangers as they don't require a PC or good graphics card. They are standalone headsets that run off of wifi... and the cost is only $299.

[Coffee Pancake]

12 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Which is scary. The reasoning here is obvious.

"People don't use legs to interface with their devices. They use their eyes, their ears, their fingers. Some of them use their voices. Nobody uses legs, except maybe to walk away from their screen. So make the avatars without legs, boys."

They see us as interfaces, as consumer nodes in the network, as exploitable data. Not as people.

Serious people sat around a serious (virtual) desk don't need legs.

Legs in motion interacting with the ground is hard to get right, especially for all the weird motions a floating torso can make.

Limiting general motion to what they can create leg movements for may increase nausea.

I don't think it's specifically intended to prohibit adulting activities, although it's telling that's where our collective minds went first.

 

They have never seen their users as people, they are and always have been, the product.

[Alazarin Mondrian]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Graphics cards are expensive, yes, but the new Oculus VR headsets are gamechangers as they don't require a PC or good graphics card. They are standalone headsets that run off of wifi... and the cost is only $299.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I had no idea that it was a self-contained standalone device. I was under the impression that it needed a video output from a graphics card in order to function. They're still kinda pricey compared to the fact that a cheapo brand-new smartphone costing £50 on a £5/month pay-as-you-go sim can access all of the 'regular' flatweb Facebook services.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Alazarin Mondrian
more bla bla bla to add ;-)