Hipihi Virtual World

Beijing based online game company HiPiHi will soon receive US$ 7 to 10 million in investment from three overseas venture capital (VC) firms for a 10 percent stake in the company, reports China Business News quoting unnamed insider. HiPiHi began alpha testing for its in-house developed 3D online virtual community game HiPiHi World in April. Another Chinese virtual community game developer, UOneNet Technology, finished its second round of funding as well, according to the report. Both HiPiHi World and UOneNet Technology's game "uWorld" are similar to Linden Lab's Second Life.

The Top 10 Things About HiPiHi
10. It’s surprisingly fast. Even though it’s served from China, we’re seeing 75-100fps typically on a midline system. Of course, the maximum concurrency is low, so we’ll reserve judgement on heavier use for later.

9. Water effects are quite nice. From the reflections, to the distortion of your avatar when you’re underwater, this is nicely done.

8. You swim!!! Yeah, that’s built right into the system. Take a dunk and you end up swimming through the water, complete with realistic sound effects. No scripts required!

7. There’s weather. There are days when it rains. The water ripples, dulls, and loses reflectivity. The palette of the world slides to gray. It may not be everyone’s, er, cup of tea, but it’s nice to see some variation.

6. On the fly ground retexturing. Yeah, I know, now I’m getting developer-geeky, but it’s neat to be able to pick a tool, set the size, pick a texture, and redo your plot on the fly.

5. It’s a contiguous world. Want to swim from the mainland to the islands? Go right ahead. Want to fly from one side of the world to the other? Sure.

4. The flight engine. Whoever did their helicopter knew their stuff. This is responsive, nicely realistic, and very usable. Also, the helicopter appears to be made of irregular prims, which is neat in and of itself.

3. Inventory preview!!! Yes, you can see what’s in your inventory (and relative size) before you whip it out and surprise yourself. This is a great feature.

2. The distance algorithms. Yeah, it’s clear that fog is covering something up, but again, it’s nicely done. The world melts away rather seamlessly into a fog of brilliant white, like there’s always something just on the edge of your vision, waiting to be discovered.

1. The whole surreality of spending time in a Chinese virtual world. It’s a helluva trip. The very fact we’re wandering around in virtual worlds from every corner of the globe and comparing their relative merits is hugely exciting. And then there are the random people who walk up and start speaking Chinese . . .

When it comes to companies’ approach to the virtual worlds, Brady does see one key difference. “There's much more of a flow to HiPiHi--a sense that it's one world,” he said. “Since you can swim island to island, hit no barriers, teleport very quickly, it feels more like a world rather than a bunch of connected sims. However, this may change somewhat when it's heavily populated, people put up barriers, and things load more slowly. I don't know. I think, though, that the sense of a virtual world being "a world" is sometimes lost in Second Life. Companies often treat it like a marketing space but not as an entirely complete world.”

Joey Seiler
www.VirtualWorldsNews.com
joey (at) showinitiative.com
(512) 535-8650
skype: joey.seiler.vwnews