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Pump up your local forum with Metaplace!
Got a small or medium sized community forum? Want to add YouTubes, mini-games, customizable avatars and heck -- a whole world all your own (why not?) -- in it? Then Areae wants to talk with you. Their Metaplace minigames for the masses / virtual world portal needs beta testers who wouldn't mind giving their new tech a trial run in their forums. You will probably need to paste some PHP code here and there -- but if you know what that entails, are comfortable doing it and want to give your community members reasons to spend more time on your forum, then head over to Metaplace for more details.This could be your chance to get in on the ground floor of the Next Best Thing. Give it a shot, and if it works out for you, tell us about it!
Metaplace sends Metachat live on Myspace
A few of the Metaplace folks have announced that their first virtual world has been released on MySpace in the form of an app called Metachat, which you can add to your Myspace account right now. In terms of virtual worlds, it's not much -- there's a chat room, obviously, and a little soccer ball kicking area, and some RSS integration in terms of stock quotes, some weather info, and even translation features.But even better than what it is is the potential that something like this represents. Social networks are already dabbling in social games (and planning even more interaction between the two), so a virtual space like Metachat may be the first virtual world that most of its users enter. It's a far cry from some of the more mature virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life (not that those two are all that mature, actually), but spaces like Metachat are a big sign of the coming collision of social networking and virtual worlds.
Vastpark approaching open beta in April
As a recent communique to its beta testers states, Vastpark, the other virtual world development platform other than Metaplace, will enter open beta in April. As such, it's calling on its testers to provide a stress test. Now, unlike Metaplace, Vastpark requires that its creators download proprietary software to make everything work, but it plans on releasing an SDK for full user customization. Currently the software is PC-only, but a Mac version is planned.Their website shows an impressive array of screenshots and video -- when I lamented the state of what Raph Koster was showing at GDC this year, this is the sort of thing I was envisioning. Vastpark is the next logical step in the evolution of virtual worlds that Second Life pioneered. Time will tell whether it garners the same community and devotion.
Metaplace's new stress test: Uberspace
Raph Koster's baby, Metaplace, will be undergoing another stress test this Saturday, March 8th, at 12 PM PST. Uberspace, a space-shooter, is the game they'll be using to test 'scalability, bandwidth, and instancing within a multiplayer space.' Some have thought that we may have been a bit too hard on poor ol' Raph with our coverage of his GDC presentation, but bear in mind that we're tough on things because we only want the best to succeed. If you would like to be part of the stress test, get on over to Metaplace on Saturday and blast your friends. It's free and clear for everybody to try!
GDC08: Raph Koster's 'Reinventing MMOs, a Metaplace 'antemortem''
Raph Koster, president of Areae, and Sean Riley, Lead Programmer, held a panel the final day of GDC '08 called 'Reinventing MMOs: a Metaplace 'antemortem'', which was all about dissecting why the concept of MMOs needs updating. Going in, I was hoping for insight, which I got, but wasn't expecting a lot of technical talk, which I also got.And the takeaway I got from this session is this: Koster's doing some good, forward-thinking work, but Metaplace doesn't really shine for me just yet. Details on both after the break.
GDC08: Raph Koster gets sentimental about Virtual Worlds
In the program for the Worlds in Motion summit, the description of Raph Koster's address (the kickoff event on Monday) concludes by saying "Industry pioneer Raph Koster ... will discuss why virtual worlds and online spaces are more than a fad-and why you absolutely should care."That description has absolutely nothing to do with what Raph actually spoke about. In fact, most of Raph's speech was quite depressing. He spoke about the reality that many Virtual Worlds are meaningless 'Castles in the Air", the horror and disconnect from 'metaspace' of places like Darfur, and the failure of the design community to really push the possibility envelope. That said, the packed-to-overflowing room met Raph's harsh realism warmly; as if some of his unyielding statements were reassuringly brutal to a few choice ideas and sacred cows. Read on for a rundown on how Raph began by looking back at the history of online games with a bitter eye, and ended up offering up a rallying cry for the entire industry.%Gallery-16369%
Metaverse U conversation: Raph Koster, Cory Ondrejka, Howard Rheingold
We headed to the Metaverse U event at Stanford University this weekend to hear a smorgasboard of prominent thinkers and workers in the fields of virtual worlds and online gaming have a meeting of the minds. Below is a recap (caveat: some paraphrasing involved!) of one of our favorite sessions featuring a conversation with Metaplace's Raph Koster, former Linden Lab CTO Cory Ondrejka, and social media and online community guru Howard Rheingold. Henrik Bennetsen (moderator): (Introduces 3 panelists and asks Raph to kick off with his thoughts on virtual worlds) Raph: From the beginning, virtual communities has never been about the "virtual." All the oddities come from the mediation, not from human nature. We build trellises, and communities are plants growing on them... you get to shape them a little bit, and sometimes in very bad ways if you're not careful. We tend to think we have more power than we do when architecting these things. I wince at the title "community manager" ("relations" would be better) because it perpetuates the myth that we have power to control what users do. Mediation gives us a window into things that in the real world can be hard to see. Virtual communities are an opportunity to see how people tick. Cory: Having spent 7 years building Second Life, the interactions and collisions with the real world are what make it interesting. We had only 400 users at launch and we were ecstatic! Can you imagine that today (especially for companies with big name investors)? I think about virtual worlds as communication technology. I agree there's a need for customer service and arguments about the declaration of avatar rights are important but yet I feel there's something off in these arguments... (he's referring to earlier conversation about declarations of avatar rights) %Gallery-16285%
Metaplace to stress test its platform
Raph Koster's Metaplace app is getting closer and closer to workable reality every day. This Friday at 5 PM PST, they'll be stress testing their platform by gathering as many people as they can to play one of their puzzle games called Wheelwright. The idea is to see if the underlying technology can sustain a large number of users at the same time.It's exciting to see these baby steps happen and feel that one is part of something potentially huge. And if Raph is prescient, Metaplace will be merely the beginning of a revitalization of what the Web can be, the next step in multi-user, multi-site interactivity. I'm eager to see how it all works out, but can anything live up to this level of hype?[Thanks, Steve!]
RocketOn to make the Web an MMO
Or, something like that. According to its press release, RocketOn is a new company that's creating some sort of experience that spans the Web and doesn't reside in a single place. From the release: "What would it be like if people could take a virtual world with them wherever they go on the Internet?" says Steven Hoffman, CEO of ROCKETON. "The answer we came up with is a parallel experience, where players rocket through cyberspace with their avatar and interact with virtual environments on almost every website they visit."What the press release doesn't say, however, is exactly what that means. A look at the website reveals no information other than a group of colorful pictures and an email address to send applications for entering the closed alpha. I'll admit to being a bit intrigued by this, just as I was when I heard about Vastpark and Metaplace. We'll keep our eyes open.[Thanks, Eric!]
Metaplace live developer chat today
Raph Koster -- known for being the lead designer on Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies -- and his development studio Areae are the masterminds behind a little piece of software you may or may not know as Metaplace. Some also know Raph as that guy who did the MMO thing on Penny Arcade a while back. Today at 5pm PST, a live developer Q&A is scheduled over at the Metaplace site. We're not entirely sure what to expect from it considering that Areae has said it won't be taking place in IRC, but you can be certain that we're going to be there to report on it for anyone interested. Metaplace is planned to be a platform which will allow users to create their own online space -- be it a massively chat room or a 32-person puzzle game server -- and then connect all of these games together like the internet. The software itself is not locked to any one platform and is planned to be accessible by anything with an internet connection. The whole idea is to let users create the kind of game they want, in the kind of way they want and in the easiest possible way.Join us after the jump for coverage of the whole event, live blog style!
Stanford University's Metaverse U Conference
Virtual worlds and online gaming continue to grow in cultural importance, changing the outlook of commerce and entertainment almost daily. To make sense of these changes, Stanford University feels it's high time they convened a group of leading experts in the field to discuss what it all might mean, both today and reaching into the future. To this end, the Stanford University Humanities Lab is hosting the Metaverse U Conference, to take place on campus on February 16th and 17th. Among the notable names speaking at this event are Raph Koster of Areae's Metaplace; Cory Ondrejka, formerly of Linden Lab; Howard Rheingold, author and critic, credited with coining the term 'virtual community', and many other guests. In fact, those three in particular will be speaking together in conversation on Saturday, an event I expect will be both illuminating and provocative.I'll be attending with Massively's Barb Dybwad, so look for us and say hi! If you can't make it, however, don't despair -- the organizers have told us that "we are about to announce that the entire conference will be streamed for free into Second Life for anyone who wants to attend there."
Metaplace developer chat open to the public
Raph Koster's getting some attention for his highly-anticipated Metaplace app, but it's all still so new and confusing. Fortunately, Metaplace's very first developer chat will help answer some questions. On the agenda so far: When can we expect Metaplace to reach beta phase? Will there by ways to advertise on the Metaplace portal and have some kind of "favorite games dashboard" or maybe the "Top 5 Games" being played? Any hints on what stylesheets/modules will be included at launch? Will Metaplace support sprite or map scaling/zooming to allow for a user to literally zoom out the camera? The answers to these questions and many others will be revealed on January 31st, at 5 PM PST. I guess my only question is 'Why did you call it "Metaplace"?' I mean, I get it, but it's kinda clunky and uninspired. But the 'meta' prefix is a hot commodity these days, so why not? The app itself looks like it'll be a hoot and a holler, in that order!
Behind the Curtain: What's in a name?
How much attention do you pay to the names behind the MMOs we're playing just now? Do you dig up as much information as you can on the developers, producer and designers involved in up and coming games? Do you even pay any attention at all?I'll be honest – I picked up Star Wars Galaxies based on the licence alone. While I've been a gamer since my Uncle gave me a ZX Spectrum as a child, I didn't know anything about the people behind Galaxies. I had heard about Everquest of course – I wasn't stupid after all – but Galaxies was my first MMO, and I was a noob in every sense of the word. I didn't know anything about the designers, the developers, and I didn't even think to check up on them.I was a little more aware when I came round to World of Warcraft. I was, and still am, a big Diablo 2, fan, so I knew who Blizzard were. I hadn't picked up Warcraft 3 when it came out, due to the PC I had t the time not being to run it, but I knew that it'd been a huge commercial and critical success for Blizzard, so I knew that it was a safe bet. Plus, it was taking the world by storm already, so it was a bit of a no-brainer. Maybe I'm just older and wiser now, or maybe the information is just easier to get a hold of, but I pay more attention to the people actually making the game that I'm interested in – I thought this week, we could have a look at some of the names you should be aware of.
Raph Koster on why MMOs should be free
The Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview recently posted with noted Massive designer Raph Koster starts off "Raph Koster knows a thing or two about MMOs". That's a bit of an understatement. Looking at Raph's CV is like stepping back through some of the most important moments in the online gaming genre. Most of them, as has been the norm in the USA, are subscription titles.Raph thinks that's quickly going to be an artifact of the past, as already there are more free-to-play games than flat-fee-per-month titles. He believes that big budget games are going to start to get the hint and offer tiered services, free-to-play special clients, and other ways to get an 'in' on those particular worlds.Ultimately I think that's one of the most important points he makes in this discussion. MMO developers (in the West at least) have always seemed to be resistant to the idea of 'just get everybody you can in there'. That seems counter-intuitive to me, because more than anything else butts in the seats are what makes a Massive environment seem truly alive.The rest of the interview is equally thought-provoking with discussion of the concept behind Metaplace, the misuse of the web by game developers, and the conceptual skeleton used by designers to make these games in the first place.
Become a professional MetaPlace guru
Want to work for Raph Koster?If you have some object-oriented programming experience and a "familiarity with game and user-interface design," you may apply for a job as a Content Designer at Areae. If hired, you'll provide the MetaPlace community with game content as well as support and documentation for the MetaPlace toolset. Plus, you'll get to be one of Master Koster's Padawan learners.For those who are unfamiliar with Koster or MetaPlace, Koster was the lead designer of Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. He also worked on some other SOE projects, and wrote the book A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Now, he's helming the Areae project MetaPlace, which is a platform on which users can create their own online games and virtual worlds.[Via Raph Koster]
Raph Koster imparts MetaPlace game design wisdom
Areae's official MetaPlace blog is a bastion of quasi-regular updates amidst a whole field of general silence. You usually have to go to the source for any kind of information, but the source made some visits to the MetaPlace website; Raph Koster published two whole posts there over the past few days, and while he didn't go into a lot of detail about MetaPlace itself, he had a lot to say about the basics of game design.Since MetaPlace's premise involves users creating their own games or other interactive environments, Koster thought it would be prudent to lay out the core principles of game design. The first post was about the "atoms" that make up a game -- essentially mini-games that come together to make a greater mechanic. Koster used Tetris to illustrate concepts. The second part was about the mathematical skeletons of gameplay mechanics, and offered up some techniques for brainstorming ideas.He didn't spend any time at all discussing the less mathematically-oriented attractions in games, like social interactions, narrative structure and writing, visual artistry, emotional engagement , or immersion. It might be accurate to describe those things as the meat on the mathematical skeleton, but maybe they're coming up in a future post. These were just "fundamentals" posts, after all!
Areae explains MetaPlace's MetaBucks
The MetaPlace developer blog was updated with a description of Areae's plans for "MetaBucks." Unsurprisingly, MetaBucks will be the currency of MetaPlace. They will be exchangeable both ways for real-world currency, and will be used to buy tools and assets with which to build worlds. Also, MetaBucks will provide a system for creators of virtual worlds made in MetaPlace to charge subscription fees.If you're thinking, "gee, that sounds very Second Life-esque," you're not the only one! MetaPlace seeks to bridge the gap between gamers and virtual world residents by providing tools (like MetaBucks) that will be useful to both. For a browser-based title, MetaPlace is unusually ambitious in terms of scope.If you're curious how all this fits into Areae's business plan as a whole, check out the business plan FAQ. Basically, MetaPlace is free until the world you create crosses a certain traffic threshold. After that, it costs money to continue hosting your world there, but you can use MetaBucks to charge players or take donations, and use that income to cover the costs.
What's new with Metaplace?
Last week MMOG development veteran Raph Koster updated his site with some insights about his newest project, Metaplace. The extraordinarily unique mmo-in-a-website concept is proceeding apace, with their Alpha test now closed and furious systems development work continuing in the background.Raph highlighted some of the recent posts that have been made to the Metaplace website. For the non-technical, you'll want to check out their business plan or the interview I did with him right after the initial announcement. Artists will be interested to learn what the framework's art integration process is like. Those of us who can only draw stick people can also enjoy the perty pictures. And, if you are technical, you can take a gander at the description of the Metaplace event system - the guts of how gamer input is handled by the framework.Think all of that sounds fascinating? They're hiring! They're looking for an experienced Flash Programmer, a Software/Client Engineer, and a LAMP Dev.For an overview of the whole situation with Metaplace as it stands, Next Generation has up an interview with Raph nailing down the particulars of the project in layman's terms: We have a motto: build anything and play anything from anywhere. But Metaplace isn't built solely around massively multiplayer games. You can make single player games as well. We've already made things like puzzle games, 2D overhead space combat games, and we're working on RPGs and MMORPGs, so really it means any of those things. I don't doubt that there'll be things that the platform can't make, but we'll figure out ways so it will.
MetaPlace goes MetaPunk
If you're not familiar with MetaPlace, here's the deal: it's an open platform that allows users to create and share their own casual massively multiplayer games. It's platform-agnostic -- meaning it'll be usable by anyone with access to the web. Oh, and did we mention it's the brainchild of Raph Koster, one of the big names in MMO development, and the guy behind Penny Arcade's hypothetical construction MMO?MetaPlace is still in alpha testing, but fans of the project are thinking ahead. Check out the brand new official website of MetaPunk, a MetaPlace-based "cyberpunk massively multiplayer online role playing game." It's never too early to start planning for the fun. MetaPlace could be one of the most exciting things on the MMO horizon, so if it's something that sounds even remotely interesting to you, get involved in the community.[Via Cuppytalk]
Raph Koster's Penny Arcade Construction MMO
I'm tempted to append "Electric Boogaloo" to the end of that title. Regardless, Wednesday's Penny Arcade featured a guest post by Raph Koster, wherein he talks about a challenge that Tycho set up for him to solve: Create a construction-based MMO. So, Raph gets to it, and damned if it doesn't sound intriguing and layered! It's a massive doc, at least relatively massive, considering Tycho originally asked for a mere 500 words from Raph. I won't rehash the details here; suffice to say this ties into Raph's recent announcement of his Metaplace project, in which Joe Average can create the virtual space of his dreams. For those of you a-hankerin' to exercise your creativity, Raph has the design doc for you!
