12-11-2005 13:41
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/

Great article on the concept of a new class of avatar-centralised metaverses where the shared space will take a secondary role.

From: someone

Avatars are going to start to be everywhere. And they aren't going to be the kind we know and love, where first the world is put in with 2-3 or 3-D depth and streamed, contained a sense of place, then the avatar is plunked in like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise.

No, in the new avatar experience, the avatar is central, and everything else is folded in around him like a kind of Hollywood stage backdrop. The backdrops and props don't even have to have any actual streaming or depth, they can be just very good-looking to compel you to go spend your IMVU credits or whatever to create them. After all, if you're going to be just looking at your screen and cybering, why having any friction (except um where you want it)? Why have the annoying task of flying, bumping into stuff, landing and rezzing?
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Taken from The last paragraph on pg. 16 of Cory Ondrejka's paper "Changing Realities: User Creation, Communication, and Innovation in Digital Worlds :

"User-created content takes the idea of leveraging player opinions a step further by allowing them to effectively prototype new ideas and features. Developers can then measure which new concepts most improve the products and incorporate them into the game in future patches."