Blue Mars Blows

There's been talk lately about how various goings on is creating competition for Second Life. Well, I just checked out Blue Mars, and it completely sucks. There's virtually nothing I can say about it that's better than SL other than the fact that the graphics are a bit better. On top of that, the only places I visited (I suppose) are the pre-defined areas built by the creators, hence, those areas look professionally built (Like Linden areas do in Second Life). The graphics engine does seem a bit better. Objects do appear to cast shadows (real ones, not faked out prims such as you see in SL, however SL does have shadows in the works (for quite some time now)). Anyways, beyond a tad better graphics than SL, everything about it sucks.


1. Camera:
When you turn around, you face a static camera. The camera never moves unless you move it manually, which means that you can't simply turn and walk and have the camera automatically follow behind you as in SL.

2. Buggy/Laggy:

I walked into a structure and my avatar lost all textures, and went into a posing stand stance, not to mention, the camera stayed outside the room, and I had to fiddle around to get the camera inside the room. Overall movement was slow, clunky and a tad laggy.

3. Movement:
The 'recommended' way to walk was to click in front of your avatar (where a blue cone shows up), and the avatar walks to that point. A 3 tone do-do-doot sound plays each time your avatar reaches the cone, so you're constantly hearing the sound over and over just walking around. Walking with the arrows isnt much better because the camera stays completely static, so to use the arrow keys you have to walk, then switch to the mouse to move the camera left or right, then walk, etc... No apparent option for setting a follow cam option either.

4. No Place to go, no way to get there:
It places you in a welcome area with a handful of destinations to go to, and once you're there, you're on your own. No teleporting (other than back to the home location (Telehub anyone?, even LL dropped that lame concept ages ago). The only options you have are walking or running. No teleporting, no flying, no nuttin'

5. What's my name again???
When you sign up, they want you to create a user ID, and they give you an option for a first and last name. Once you're logged in, your user ID is above your head. However, when I typed in the bubble chat, my avatar name appeared. This HAS to be confusing from the word go. I'm not sure what others are seeing, my user id, or name, and I'd loved to have asked someone what they saw, or saw someone else's avatar, but....

6. No one around!!!!!
Now, I understand it's new, and still in beta, and I most certainly wasn't expecting to see 50-70k concurrent users, but ONE person would have been nice to see. There was absolutely no one anywhere at all what-so-ever. At least in SL, you appear on orientation island with a few other clueless avatars to chat with and wonder how everything works. Also, at times, there's welcome folk to give you some pointers. Again, while I wasn't expecting to see tens of thousands of people, I figured there would at least be a handful of people around to chat with.

7. Menus:
What menus? There are none, no way to access an inventory, no map, no way to locate people, nothing. Just a home button, and a few icons at the bottom for avatar adjustment and a camera icon that does nothing but allow you to select 1 of 3 or 4 zoom settings.

It's obvious that the goal here is to compete with Second Life, since LL has pretty much set the bar, and all the competition is trying to catch up, but I totally can't understand why whoever is behind Blue Mars would create something so ridiculously clunky, with such outrageous system requirements. With a 1 hour download/install time and more-than-SL system requirements, I was expecting to see something alot better graphically than I did. I will say that the while the graphics are better, it's not by that much. The UI is nothing short of a joke, and I can't possibly see it competing with Second Life ever unless they loose the outdated concepts, and improve the interface by leaps and bounds.

What a waste of time that was.

I haven't been able to use Blue Mars myself as it the download time was, if I remember right, 5 hours!

From the demo videos I've seen, the only things that look better than SL are the natural landscaping features - water, rocks, earth and particularly trees. Avatar details and sculpt shapes look better close-up, but strangely, that benefit is lost in normal views.

When Second Life gets dynamic shadows, that'll make the graphics a lot more realistic. I've had dynamic shadows enabled occasionally on the current viewer and the visual effect is brilliant, although it's buggy and slows the frame rate right down.

I'm an SL loyalist, but to be fair to Blue Mars, it's still at a very early stage.

I still think that if a serious competitor for SL emerges, it'll probably be derived from SL itself, via Open Sim.

You aint kiddin!

I came here to leave a review after my first log in of Blue Mars and found your thread.

I have taken some snap shots, which in iteself was a nightmare as it really messed up the performance of the client.
I have a failry high end spec PC designed for "gaming" its 1.4 years old now however.

Windows Vista Home Premium 6.0
Packard Bell BV
Model - iPower X9810
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q8200 2.33GHz ( 4 CPUs ) 2.3 GHz
3326 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT

The first time I logged in all seemed well re the performance. It was dead. No greeters.
A basic welcome area.
Some small signs showing places to visit.

I made the mistake of increasing the resolution size to make the window bigger and after that all of the options and menus were out of vission so I couldnt get to the menu options.

I went to some garden and was trapped. All I could do was manage to walk around a limited area. There were bridges made out of wood that invited you to walk over but you couldnt.
The builds there were pointless un interactive bland huts with no obvious purpose, so neither use nor ornament.

To walk you had to click the groud with your mouse to where you wanted to walk to. So as far as I could tell, there were no free and easy way of navigation as if you clicked on an area far ahead, your avatar would simply stop moving if for example something got in the way. Sometimes you clicked the screen bit if a bush was in the view you ended up clicking the leaf of a bush and your avatar moved towards the bush and then stopped looking confused! ( me too ! )
Why they make trees and bushes interact with navigation is a bit silly.

I managed to play a round of golf but honestly, there are better golf games for free you can play.

I went to some rock city type place that looked like apartments or buildings. You could not see inside nor could you interact with the doors.

In short, you are locked out or trapped most of the time and it takes ages to get anywhere without getting stuck behind random objects.

I went to another place that was designed as a flying game, there was meant to be a craft ready for me to leap into and head through the "start" circle. I couldnt see any craft or even my own avatar. I clicked on the ? button and it shows me to use W to move forward and other navigation keys but I couldnt move at all. All I could do was spin 180 degress using my mouse to view the surrounding area.

I eventually managed to go "home"

After that all the options menu were hidden and off screen after I increased the window size. And try as I might to drag the window so I could get to the menu, I was stuck.

Finally... after logging out 5 times and one of those times requiring me to completly shut down my PC when I logged in again to get more span shots, the menu pop ups and options would not interact with my mouse at all. Each time I clicked on the menu all that happened was my avatar walked to the area my mouse was clicking the bloody menu on the screen!

Apart from all of that, I saw no one. The graphics didnt blow me away in any way shape or form, it was laggy and choppy, the avatar options basic and I didnt manage to see any 3rd party store at all. No shopping. No obvious "buy currency and shop" signs..
Couldnt find anything to access my profile ( if I have one )

I have been in the online gaming community for 10 years and so I am used to new beta games and accept there is always a period of getting used to the interface but Blue Mars seems like its been released into beta before it was ready, as first impressions matter its not good to have to power down your PC just to be able to log out because the game freezes and you cant move.

( as I write this I am still stuck in the game unable to interact with the menu so cannot log out or anything. I will have to re-start my PC again! groan )

Hi, it took me 10 mins to download but then I have 20 GIG of bandwidth so thats not Blue Mars's fault, it all depends on your ISP package

Once i realized they were keeping the "Click to walk" with the blue cone feature, i knew it was doomed and that they have no clue about what people want in a virtual experience.

I certainly don't want a blue cone and beeps happening everywhere i walk to.

Yeah, when I saw that I knew they couldn't be serious about making a well done platform. I have played some horrible, free MMOs that had better movement controls, and most use click to walk as a secondary incase anyone really wants to use it. The camera and movement controls seemed more polished in those games oddly.

People always make the excuse that its in beta and such. I could buy that, but I have seen that statement made too many times in the gaming community. I used to play a popular game that seemed to be the only game in town. It seemed that every new game of the same genre came out was going to do a lot better and "kill" the current game. People always made the excuse that its still in open beta, when confronted with points about how much it sucked. I still havent seen a game that has surpassed the one I played. I have tried some of those games years later, and found that a lot of the complaints people had in open beta still existed.

Maybe Blue Mars will be different, and change a lot of stuff. For it to be playable, camera and movement would have to be completely redone. A more open world would be good as well, nobody really wants to stay in a canned "world", clicking on a billboard of non imersive places they can go. Then again, they might just keep it the way it is and go for a small niche market. Who knows?

I haven't looked at it but I was under the impression that Blue Mars was more of a development platform for you to create your own worlds, rather than being the world itself.

I went over there when beta was closed, stopped going when they opened it. my sense is that they are gonna be too managment heavy, too corporate intensive and just boring. Also u gottasign up as a dev to build anytrhing last time i was there. blue mars is some committee of execs IDEA of a virtual world not anything to interest anyone

If thats what they want, I don't really see doing to well. Attracting developers relies on the potental for developers to attract regular people to their world. I don't see that happening if regular people are turned off by the basic movement functions. I see it as buying a stall in a super laggy mall. Why bother if nobody will stay around long enough to see it?



That totally makes sense. It felt like it was missing soul. (Blue Mars)

I can't decide if you're referring to *what* Jumpy said, or *how* he said it ...

Blue Mars does offer some impressive graphical effects, such as the underwater volumetric lighting which is gorgeous, and a few other environmentals, but Second Life is getting there slowly. Implementing SpeedTree would greatly enhance our foliage options.

i unno secondlife on a high end graphix card with anoscopic ans 16x antialiasing looks pretty good. i havent tried blue mars on 16x antialiasing yet but then again whats the point lol im not here for the graphix. might give blue mars some more time when i get more time for now its on the "might not get done" to do list

Am with the jumpman on this....i downloaded BM a while back, took nearly an hour and after that?.....well very little, the interface and user menus were difficult to manipulate. The mouse didn't click on the tabs very well and the screen resolution sizing hasn't been satisfactorily resolved. All in all it was/is quite a frustrating experience. My BM email account remains annoyingly bereft of any information and I have to go on twitter to find out wtf is going on. The ID and user name thingy is weird like the OP said and walking movement is totally bizarre. Definately consigned to the back boiler for now...........

I was there in June as I like exploring, and I'm sure they've changed a lot since then, but I haven't felt the need to check it out again. I liked the water on the cam effect, and the puffs of sand that came up as I walked on the beach, but beyond that nothing at that time grabbed me.

isn't it true that you end up putting everything on your system and running it from there ..kind of like you would a regular game??
you all just meet on some server that hosts those maps..

i heard they can have all those people in one sim because everyone has everything on their own systems..

i'm not sure if that's exactly how i remember hearing it but it was something like that..
is that how it works?

I did the closed Beta when it came out.. Was horrible. The click to walk is so beyond FAILED it is retarded... What happens when there is a bunch of people around? You click to walk and have to walk through them all? It is a real pain on the bridges. Clicking hundreds of times to cross a bridge that has corners... It doesn't auto navigate a walkable path for you. You click across the river it won't find a bridge it walks you into the river...

The only thing it has going for it is the ability to create 3D games within it. Other than that a waste of time. I find it funny they concentrate on developers.. It is going to be a lonely world of developers. I guess they are expecting the developers to attract people. Good luck.

Pretty much yes. Thats how all other MMO's work. When you login you may get an update pack that will download and install any new content from the last time you were there.

My impression of Blue Mars was one of overwhelming blandness. The avatars are pretty in a featureless Caucasian sort of way (even the non-whites) but have no character. There is no way to get into any mischief (and I am not referring to griefing).
You are led and guided to behave the way the developers want it. Sort of like rats in a maze. Everyone's a Stepford Wife.

There are statements made by Blue Mars that say that it, in itself, is not supposed to be like Second Life but is meant to showcase that sort of platforms for others who do want to take on Second Life (or words to that effect)

But the bottom line is, pretty graphics aside, they have a LONG way to go before they can compete with LL in all it's blingy, user-created, wacky, drama-riddled, xxx, gritty, creative and ultimately "real" insanity.

I want to point my wand and make a cube do things. I want to shape my avvie and dress the it way I want. I want to interact with STUFF.
I, too, can't see what Blue Mars has to offer that competes with SL, as much as we like to complain about LL's strokes of questionable genius.

It's the people, the users, that shape SL and they have been left out of Blue Mars, other than to stand there and say Ohhh and Ahhhh at the pretty graphics.

Downloaded, installed, spent 5 minutes in world, uninstalled. This review pretty much sums it up here:

http://virtualunderworld.net/wordpress/?p=867

Quote: "Bottom Line – The makers of Blue Mars seem to have taken an off the shelf graphics engine, (Cryengine2) an off the shelf gaming engine, (GameStudio) and off the shelf avatars, (Shade 11 or something) put them all together in hopes of being the next Second Life."

Summary: When today's standard navigation is in place, the zillion bubble chat things above avatars heads are gone, and I own a super computer to make up for the poor optimization, I may try again.

i have to say ..one of the things i love about or loved about sl was that it was like a slate..the a lot of the looks of the sims were done from the creators..

the builds textures would stand out in a crowd when you were in a sim that someone truly had talent and made all their textures or organized things in such a way that it became breath taking..
the more eye candy we get the more it takes away from the creators in a way i think..
i really loved seeing all these builds and items with the shadows in the textures and coming off each item..now shadows will end that..

i really didn't come to a virtual world for the eye candy..it was to communicate and enjoy all the stuff that could be done in here..
the little bits of eye candy here and there is what really made me stop and say Wow look at this place..

this blue mars sounds liek all that is already done for builds and land and things..
i loved seeing all the shading being added to clothing..

i guess they are getting like photoshop where you just get the filter now and it does certain things making it easier ..

don't get me wrong i like eye candy to an extent..but not when it's taking over..SL itself could be making other improvements and leaving the eye candy to the residents..to me that make sl special..

What was that other virtual world? The name starts with an 'e'... Etopia or Entropy or Ecstasy or something? You have to rub animals for their sweat to earn money? I never managed to get more than 100 meters from the entrance before I got killed by an animal or ran into a wall and couldn't move. I know I'm used to SL, but I also play regular games, like FPS and adventure games, and simple movement is never an issue like it was in this game. I don't understand why developers can't at least utilize a way of walking that everyone is familiar with.

(Didn't SL used to have a "go here" option on the pie menu? You clicked on the ground ahead of you, then could use the pie menu to navigate.)

last time i used their viewer it still had it..
that was earlier this year i believe..

I've been to BM not knowing what to expect except that I heard the graphics was very good. And it is.........actually quite impressive. It took a while to figure out how to move around, chat, and go anywhere but then it took me quite some time to do that when I first came to SL.........so that part is (was) a wash for me.

Just like when I came to SL I wondered what I was supposed to do........it just did not have much for anyone besides wondering around looking at stuff. I almost unistalled SL thinking what a waste until curiosity took over for me..........I wanted to learn how to join groups and "play". Once the "things to do" aspect of SL became more clear to me I gradually figured out what SL is all about. Became premium, got my first land and the rest is history.

I think I figured out what BM is all about after about 10 visits there. It is nothing like SL. It is not developed with SL in mind and never was designed to compete with SL. It's a platform (unlike SL, a true platform) for game developers or wannabe game developers to build their worlds (not the "residents" building their world....developers building worlds) using BM's platform. I also assume the developers will use BM as the portal to any world they build. I think the similarity to SL stops at the creation of an avatar for most people. But, "most" people are not the people BM was developed for. The thinking (as I understand it) is once the developers build or create whatever it is they want to build using the BM platform the "most people" will enter those devs world through BM. It's up the the individual developer to make the world for us "most people". BM is the platform and entry point for the worlds......it's not the world.

I'm not sure why we are even invited at this stage but it's like those construction sites with plywood fences around them.........those holes or windows cut in the plywood are for the curious to peek in.

Those are my thoughts.

Yeah, this. It's like the movies everyone tells you you just need to see just because the special effects are so damn good, nevermind the missing story.

ya that explains a lot to me..instead of going to a grid we are going to a created game or world through the BM portals..kind of like going to a mall here and choosing from the stores on a tp board in a sense