How Metaplace was born

 Posted by (Visited 5204 times)  Gamemaking  Tagged with:
Sep 052008
 

I got asked where the idea for Metaplace came from on our public forums. I wrote this lengthy reply, which turned into a blog post over there, and now a blog post over here.

I came from the world of muds. That means I got my start in virtual worlds in the days when anyone could download a codebase, and assuming they had a server they could get going and dive into running a world of their own.

That went away with the big MMORPGs. But when we did UO: The Second Age, there had already been a movement among players towards having “grey shard” server emulators. Some of the tools users had made to hack the UO datafiles were actually better than the tools we had in-house.

So I informally floated an idea for the expansion that didn’t go anywhere. Why not release the game server as a binary, release documentation for our scripting language (which was fantastic for the time), release our tools client, and let people make their own worlds?

You will have to go over there for the rest. 🙂

VW08: Business Guys Debate the Future, one take

 Posted by (Visited 6493 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , , , , ,
Sep 042008
 

Dusan Writer has a take on the panel I was on, casting it as Metaplace vs Linden Lab — though to my mind that leaves out the contributions of Mike Wilson of Makena and Corey Bridges of Multiverse. That’s because Dusan is interested mostly int he clash of philosophies about where virtual worlds are going:

But it leaves a question: are virtual worlds places? Or will the technologies that enable 3D spaces become so ubiquitous that we’ll stop thinking of them as distinct places? Because in Raph’s view, the tools and technologies to create 3D artefacts, the system for managing your avatar and identity should be EXPRESSION-agnostic. In other words, we should have the tools for creating content and then be able to seamlessly publish that content to cell phones, browsers, Flash, separate clients – whatever, it’s not the viewer, it’s in the engine from which content is derived and creating standards and tools for expressing the content from that engine.

FWIW, virtual worlds are definitely “places” in my mind. But to me, clients and devices are merely windows that look onto that place. That doesn’t preclude rich 3d “windows” — I merely happen to think that multihead, flexibly represented VWs is the future. I would swap the word “engine” for “server” perhaps, or “world.”

Metaplace status update!

 Posted by (Visited 4466 times)  Gamemaking  Tagged with:
Jul 162008
 

For those wondering what’s up with Metaplace, we have a July Update up on the company blog that should serve to catch you up. We’re really really busy these days, gearing up for going beta.

We’ve seen some absolutely amazing work being created within Metaplace. We’ve had educational learning software, the start of basic RPG’s, an RTS, a beginning shooter game, arcade games, word games. We’ve seen people make procedurally generated maps, the start of standalone clients, and then all the games we’ve shown in our Community Spotlight posts. We’re consistently entertained by the creativity that is shown, and we are excited to see what you all can make.

The post also has a short term roadmap, and lots more…


Metaplace – Transition Tile Maker

 Posted by (Visited 7294 times)  Gamemaking  Tagged with: ,
Jul 082008
 

Another day, another little tool release over at the Metaplace site. This one is a little helper that assists in making transition textures between different terrain tiles. Sure, some engines do blending for you, but some don’t. And some effects really require handmade transitions. Well, the Transition Tile Maker lets you make your own blend masks and share them, or use the premade ones for making transitions. We figure there’s art tasks for UGC that are kind of tedious, so why not help the process along?

You can grab it for Windows or for Intel Mac…

Areae makes the 2008 OnHollywood 100

 Posted by (Visited 5332 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Jun 062008
 

The 2008 OnHollywood 100 | AlwaysOn

We proudly present this year’s OnHollywood 100. With this list of top private companies, AlwaysOn’s editors and our panel of industry experts introduce a new generation of game-changing players in the digital entertainment industries.

These 100 companies have emerged in an exciting year in the world of entertainment–a year in which the old business models came crumbling down as writers took to the picket lines, musicians ditched their record labels, and breakout creative artists turned to venture capital for funding.

The OnHollywood 100 companies are fueling this disruption and creating new business models to fit evolving trends in consumer habits and content creation.

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