Gamemaking

Wherein I talk about games I am making

Doing live music in Metaplace

 Posted by (Visited 6278 times)  Gamemaking, Music  Tagged with:
Jun 132009
 

Yesterday I had a real urge to play some guitar for people. It used to be that I’d get to do a few hours of playing songs for people at every Cub Scout camp-out — but David is into Scouts proper now, and I don’t go on the camping trips. So I left the office saying, “I might do a concert thing in Metaplace this weekend…” A few folks said to let them know if I did.

Which just added to the pressure! I had never tried it before! So I figured that I should do a dry run first. And I did it last night, and you know, it was a heck of a lot of fun — but also pretty different. So here’s what I did and what it felt like. I am sure some of this is old hat to those of you who have done lots of this in Second Life, but it was new to me. 🙂

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Metaplace is now in open beta

 Posted by (Visited 9248 times)  Game talk, Gamemaking  Tagged with:
May 152009
 

Yesterday was a big milestone for me. Anyone can now go to Metaplace.com and register. You get a small world for free, with full access to all the content creation tools. Lately, I’ve been describing it at “the power of Second Life, with the ease of The Sims, on the web.”

It’s early days yet, of course. There is a lot more left to do. For example, we have not yet released the ability to embed worlds on websites and profile pages, which is a huge part of the story. There’s more to come in terms of web integration, plugins on the marketplace so that it gets easier and easier to make what you want, and so on. We’re not done by a long shot.

But it’s still exciting. As users create more content and share more, the power everyone has to create will rise dramatically — we’re making the classic bet on users and the network effect that has helped so many websites. I can’t wait to see what develops.

Here’s the welcome video, for those who have not seen it:

Meep cupcakes

 Posted by (Visited 8112 times)  Gamemaking, Misc  Tagged with: , ,
May 132009
 

meep-cupcakes-001meep-cupcakes-002These appeared at the office today.

Meeps have continued to develop as a mascot for Metaplace. In Metaplace Central, you can now go to a meep vending machine to buy them. They shoot out and land in the water to be eaten by sharks. Yesterday a user published a meep cannon on the marketplace. It fires them off at a high rate and they make a satisfying, gooey splat when they land. We now give out plush meeps to top performers every week. And they eat cupcakes too.

And this one on the right is the one that I ate. You can tell by the nervous look on its face.

Live concert dual-streamed to Metaplace & Second Life

 Posted by (Visited 8683 times)  Gamemaking, Music  Tagged with: , ,
Mar 102009
 

Is this a first? I dunno, but it’s darn cool! 🙂

Earlier today, I had asked Grace McDunnough if she could help out one of our users, Fredriksson,  try out live concert streams in Metaplace. Grace jumped in with both feet, and after we got it working (using the off-the-shelf guitar I made a while back!)  she mentioned that she had a concert this very evening…!

So at the very last minute, with no prep, Grace suggested dual-streaming the show, and Fredriksson volunteered his folk music cafe… and a few hours later, there we were, listening to live music played in two virtual worlds at once!

A few folks even watched the show in both worlds at the same time… here’s screenshots taken by one of them:

Watching GraceMcDunnough’s live performance in Metaplace and then on Second Life!

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