games like this

I have a question if this is the only game in this genre out?

Games that are like real world and you can do more than just kill each other?

Yes, THERE are others. But, you don't wanna go THERE. They suck.

Sissco,
There are several others.

These are some of the others

Darknlight.com
There.com (allows sort of primative building)
activeworlds.com
planeshift.it (free but incomplete but has stunning graphics)


also do a google search on this
and use the quotation marks.

"free mmorpg"

This returns a lot of FREE Ones .

A lot of people tend to use the forums to bad mouth the compitetion. While they do have the right to their opinions I do think it is in poor taste . I say try them . If you like them then fine, If you do not like them then fine too.

There are literally thousands of games online now a days.

Have at it

I thought you could build in There.

You can only build in There if you're approved to, I think. You have to go through a lengthy process, then be approved, then spend money for the privelige, and then get everything you build approved by the creators of the game.

LF

This is not quite true, LF. You have to get approval to bring in-game and sell the stuff you model for There, such as clothes, vehicles, furniture, etc. There provides "housing" for residents at a huge cost per month, so you really can't build a house or anything like that. They do have some kits now that you can use to make some very limited structures, but they, also, are expensive. And everything you buy in There is paid for by REAL MONEY... there is no in-game stipend of "play money." After playing There for over four months, I have to concur with Dev's astute observation that There does, indeed, "suck." (My apologies for being frank, Regnar, but if someone solicits opinions, I'll give one.)

I tried There just last week, just to see it. I'm sorry if some folks like it, but I didn't like it. The speah bubble are silly and the land looked plain and uninteresting. Graphically it looked unimpressive, and the in-world prices!! 5K for a pair of pants! And you have to buy the in-world money with rl money to spend 5K on a pair of pants???? What a crock.

Also tried activeworlds. Interesting. Looks like a very very primative SL.

Everything everyone here has stated about THERE seems to be true in my eyes. I played for a few months and during my last month started playing SL. I wouldn't go back to THERE if you paid me. hehe.. SL is by far the better game in my opinion. And that's what this does boil down to, is opinion. Be that for or against the game of THERE or any other.

As a long time There player, I will respond to everything Regnar said about it. There does have its appeal, if a homogonized game world is your thing. Very little new content, everyone looks the same fundamentally, and it is quite expensive. It does have some interesting technical innovations - voice chat and streaming music (though streaming music has been broken for the past 6 months). It has severe restrictions on building, and everything is basically prefab. You cannot create items from scratch without resorting to using gMax and going through an expensive submission process to get your objects into the game (and they have to be based on an existing model, and have equal or less vertices than the original). Let's see:

1. This is true, there is a monthly plan you can pay, and you get some T$. However, with pricing the way it is in There, you would still have to buy more to do anything of note.

2. Again, extremely limited building using prefab pieces.

3. This is true, though their mentor program has also been severely broken for months. There are ways to earn money in the game. There however does not pay for user hosted events.

4. Yes, and yes - streaming music is broken however, and has been since the launch of PB3 in August.

5. There is not thousands of times larger than SL. Land space is probably about equal at this point, and the user base has dropped significantly. The land is more varied however in There, something I have wished SL would address. The land in SL, while vastly improved in 1.1 and beyond, is still bland. Terraforming is the only saving grace we have with the land right now.

6. You can drive on There's oceans because they never property implemented water. They abandoned it early on in the beta, so "water" is just another surface painted blue. There is one region that has water, but it is very limited, and there are no watercraft to speak of.

And the other observations:

The barrier fence looks nothing like the fence in There, and the artwork changed during the beta of 1.1 to make it easier to see restricted land. There had a horizontal fence with moving textures around the fun zones, which look electrified.

Actually many programs had the popup messages before There, and they do not pop up in the way in SL that they do in There. There has a central notification center in the middle of the screen where messages appear. The SL notifications are more in line with something like MSN Messenger.

And finally the vehicles. It is true, There's one big draw for awhile where its vehicles, however limited they might be. There was a hoverboard, a buggy, now there is a second model of kind of an SUV thing, a hoverbike, a back pack, and a giant floating boat that holds five people. Mind you, that vehicle costs the equivalent of $30 US. I believe. The vehicle support added in 1.1 was the first true appearance of vehicles in SL, and the beauty of it is that they are purely user created, not painted models of the same vehicle over and over again.

Again, it boils down to personal taste, and how involved you want to be in the creation of the world in which you play. If you want the content created for you, and don't mind paying a lot of money for virtual items, There is for you. It certainly had its appeal, and SL tends to be too technical for a lot of users to this day. The user bases are very different. It comes down to which ever one you feel most comfortable in. As both can be visited fairly easily, I would suggest trying out both for an extended period. You can't decide after one day which one is right. SL is too deep for that.

Right now SL and There are the two only real viable 3d online worlds (TSO cannot be compared to either one). It will be interesting to see what others emerge.

Cristino,
Streaming music was working yesterday. and believe it or not it IS possible to play and like both There and SL. They are Different. I don't mind anyone taking and issue or disliking any service as everyone has the right to an opinion.

There Also still pays for events but it takes forever and the mentor page was working yesterday also.

I see people bash Sl on there and There on SL but what annoys me is the hatefulness that people do it with. A discussion about pros and cons like we are doing is fine but I sit here day in and day out watching people on SL trying to start wars over a whole lot of nothing.


I Play both worlds. I like the building and scripting of SL but there is NOTHING like a good ole fashion dune buggy ride on there.com. Or to hoverboard up a good steep cliff. No comparision despite the lower res graphics and cartoony trees . Both worlds are COOL and affordable .

I did the There trial for one week. Oddly, it took several weeks to get 'approved' for it. I guess they had to wait for the background check on me to clear.

I did really like how full the scenery was.. themed and all. Very nice to look at. LL should consider adding a few areas similar to that.

My overall impression (and I was only in There for a week, so I'm no expert), is that it reeked of Disney. That was enough to get me to leave.

Regnar,

I agree with you that there is equal animosity on both sides. Neither game "sucks" as is often the general posting from either side. The music and mentor thing must have been recently fixed, because as of 2 weeks ago, neither thing was working, and has been broken since August. I have probably played both games equally, and you are right, the vehicles in There are appealing, but after awhile the generic (and as someone else pointed out Disney-like) atmosphere of There just bores me to tears. I would rather create something, so that is why SL appeals to me. There appeals to more casual players, and there is nothing wrong with that. I disagree that There is affordable however - their economy is way too based on RL $, and has gotten progressively worse with each build. I used to love There, so I am not speaking as some sort of There hater with no experience in it. They can both coexist peacefully. I do think SL tends to cannibalize more There members than the other way around though. Every There person I brought with me has stayed and abandoned There. I think There is a nice stepping stone between TSO and SL. I am sure in time it will get better, but it has been stuck in a limbo for 6 months, during which time SL has had two major version upgrades and probably 20 point releases at least. As someone who loves new things, no update in 6 months is the equivalent of watching paint dry online for me. That buggy ride was fun once or twice, as was hoverboard, but when that is all there is, it gets old fast.

Cristiano

Following are the three most prominent reasons I dislike There (there are others, too):

1. There looks like a giant cartoon. The landscape is flat and uninteresting. The avatars look like cartoon characters and have very limited changeability. You can walk on top of water.

2. There allows players as young as 14 years old. Some may see this as a good thing; after having been told in explicit detail where I could go and what I could do with/to myself when I got there by several young players (on voice chat, no less) while playing in There, I do not.

3. In my opinion, Second Life attracts a higher quality of player to the game than There does. This sounds somewhat snarky, but again, this is my opinion, and I call it like i see it. SL is a more complex and intricate world where you can be more of a creative individual. There forces you into a homogenous mold and most people look pretty much the same, have the same house, drive the same basic types of vehicles, etc. There doesn't even trust you to take off your avatar's clothes, you are forced to wear at least a bathing suit or underwear at all times! The economy in SL is much more stable and there is more of a community feel here, as well.

Add to this list the other things that are missing from There but that SL offers (particles, scripting, free-form building, nearly unlimited control over what you can bring in-world, the ability to fly unassisted, having to choose to be either male or female and not be able to vary, etc., etc., etc.) and there is really no contest between SL and There for me.

Regnar, while it's true you can get a stipend in There if you choose, you have to pay RL money for it on a monthly basis (it's part of the subscription plan you choose), and it's a mere pittance compared to what goods and services cost in There. (The shirts I sell for L$50 in SL I could easily sell for $2,000-4,000 Therebucks, or more.)

And the two things you mentioned that There "had first" (fences and on-screen pop-ups) are two of the most annoying things in SL, to me. I do know about There, Regnar, I played for 4 1/2 months, and I desperately wish I had back all the money I spent (wasted) there; I could have bought almost four SL lifetime memberships for friends or paid for a whole sim for at least four months (you do the math).

@_@

How about other games of this type?

Any one tried them?

I have to just mention A Tale In The Desert (www.atitd.com). This is a multiplayer online game that is based on ancient Egypt. Technologically ATITD isn't nearly up to the standards of SL or even there.com, and I have to say that the avatars are just gawdawfully ugly. Also, a lot of the players are French, and dealing with their rudeness takes some patience. BUT, having said that, I am having a great deal of fun playing there with some other SL residents. The opportunities to plant crops and mine for minerals and raise animals are some of the few that we don't have in SL, so it's nice to have someplace with slightly different craft-based possibilities.

I have been playing Horizons lately, which is an MMORPG in the vein of Everquest and DAOC, and it is the first one I have actually liked. I love the fact that it has a whole crafting side to it - you can exist without ever killing a monster, and still advance in the game world. I have not had much of a chance the past few days to play, but I have to admit I find harvesting flax and making clothes out of it to sell to people to be oddly enjoyable Elegant interfact too - I would rate the game at 4 stars, which I did not think I would say about an MMORPG, having tried EQ, UO, DAOC, Asheron's Call 1 & 2, Shadowbane ,Star Wars Galaxies and FFXI and hating them all.

I'll have to try out Horizons! Raising flax and processing it is what I like about ATITD. Devlin Gallant said Horizons was awfully laggy in beta, but I guess that wouldn't affect low fps crafting and farming activities.

I have spent the good part of my internet life looking for "Virtual Realitys" which face it, SL is more of a VR than of a MMOG, theres no ever lasting goal to acheive (unless you set one yourself), the fact that some people think of it as an MMOG and others think of it just as another extension of life proves that it is not just an MMOG. Anyway, off topic there, I spent a long time in ActiveWorlds even buying my own "World" which I still have today (but do little with), and spent pretty much time in There which I was at first addicted to.

Of all of these the one I have liked most is SL. The reasons I loved ActiveWorlds are here in SL plus an addition 100 other things, many of which ActiveWorlds has been begged by its users to add for the past 2 years. ActiveWorlds looks primitive, because it is, its been around since 1995 and uses much of the same stuff it did then, it actualy uses the same engine used in GTA (renderware), I think. Much like There they don't update much at all, I think AW has been in v3.4 for the past year. Its worth a try though, you could end up loving it like I did before I found There and SL.

There is a great place if you don't like to think real hard. This may sound like bashing, but its the truth, There is a highly simple place, its like Playskool toys, they don't require you to think alot, but they can still be really fun. And I just wana comment on the "the sky looks real", while it does, it also doesn't move. Something that has always bugged me about it is that the clouds don't move and the ocean is like a giant cement pond. I think There can be a great place as long as you don't get stuck in the many pitfalls it has (literly and figurtivly, watch out for that spikey island).

As for other places like this, visit this site:

http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/

Many of those places I've gone too, some of them can be fun, but SecondLife is my favorite so far.

I just looked at that site Oz, and I totally forgot about Moove. I tried it out one day - great web site, horrible environment. It was oddly alluring making myself look like Pamela Anderson and then crawling around on all fours, but that is neither here nor there.

On VWR
the highest rated is Voodoo Chat at 4.8. Second Life is rated at 4.3. Get on there and rate! We're certianly better than a 2D graphical chat space.

Yeah, Horizons! If you're on Expanse, look for Frumkya Stoneborne, the grumpy dwarven lass!

I'm not sure how often VWR is updated, but its the only site like it I have found, that TowerChat I think is a new listing, so maybe they do update more than I realize.

Uh... just noticed at the bottom of the front page...

"Last Site Update: January 5, 2004"

Your razor sharp observation skills strike again, Oz. It only took you several months to notice the DMCA link

<selfplug>www.nickmerrill.com has a game called Maythria which is currently in alpha testing... it's really cool and everyone should get it </selfplug>