Blue Mars Blows

It can be decisive in determining whether one will try it at all.

That's true........but does that make it good or bad? Seems people are saying because it's a large download it must be bad. You know how long it took for me to download Linux Ubuntu? Over 6 hours........on a cable 20 meg connection too (tests regularly at 18 +). Pointing out the time to download is not necessarily a bad thing so people will know and make the decision themselves...........but using that size to imply or state that the program is somehow bad because of it is nothing more than dissing for the sake of dissing. There's a lot of that that goes on here.

I've followed all the BM threads just for the entertainment value. It's fun watching the 2 factions bash each other back and forth. I'm not interested in BM myself, but I see nothing wrong with it , and also find the amount of vitriol directed toward it amusing. Take a look if you are curious and if it isn't your thing, no big deal.

It's not clear, but from what other people have publicly said it sounds like that is close to the case. The server provides common assets and mediates interactions between clients.

Oh crap, I forgot to talk smack about Blue Mars today!

The lag from large numbers of avatars has nothing to do with whether they're streamed or downloaded in bulk... they're transient content in both cases. There's two issues with large numbers of avatars: (1) physics in SL is server-side, and avatars are physics-intensive, and (2) avatars in SL are extremely complex and sophisticated compared to avatars in other games, because of the amount of UGC that is associated with them.

Yes! This is my point... BM will no doubt be very successful, but it's fundamentally a different kind of thing to SL.

All of whom can come visit me and while they're hanging out with me they can rez prims and play a quick game of Primtionary. They can all terraform if they've got the right group abilities... and if they don't, they can't. Abilities are not an aspect of the type of account you have.

In fact the underlying graphics engine, Cryengine 2, was designed for the Crysis game series. A Blue Mars city is fundamentally the same as a game level in Crysis. What is being changed vs the original game is:

Letting independent developers create levels, and modify them at will vs a game where the levels are designed once and pretty much not changed aside from bug fixes.

Letting them make money off their creations, either full cities/levels, or by creating items (clothes, skins, etc).

Letting levels be parceled out into smaller pieces (called blocks) which you can build on your own, and then merge back into level.

In both Second Life, and Blue Mars, the content has to be sent to your computer in order for you to see it. In SL, it starts being sent after you TP to a new location. In Blue Mars, most of a city/level is pre-loaded before you arrive.

Most of the script and physics load is carried on your own PC in modern games, because graphics cards are designed to do that kind of stuff very fast. You still have to communicate data back and forth in both SL and Blue Mars to update avatar locations, script events, etc. But having less for the server to do means it can handle more players at one time.

It's more like LindenWorld in 2001, really, with a prettier Primitar, and golf instead of guns. Except you don't get to blow up buildings with hand grenades.

By 2003, SL was recognizably SL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHH2CAE9Y6o

PS: Looking at the screen shots and the golf course, looks like they used some USGS topographic data of Oahu. I recognized Diamond Head and the golf course looks like it's somewhere along the eastern shore.

Uhh, Argent? It's based on a graphics engine written for a combat game. There's lots of functions for blowing stuff up :

DeformMesh(slot, point, radius, strength)
deform mesh for an explosion-impact style morph object
NoExplosionCollision()
BreakToPieces(nSlot, nPiecesSlot, fExplodeImp, vHitPt, vHitImp, fLifeTime, materialEffects)
GetExplosionObstruction
GetExplosionImpulse
SimulateExplosion(tableExplosion)
RegisterExplosionShape(sGeometryFile,fSize,nIdMaterial,fProbability,sSplintersFile,fSplintersOffset,sSplintersCloudEffect)
RegisterExplosionCrack(sGeometryFile,nIdMaterial)

I didn't say you couldn't MAKE hand grenades. I said you didn't GET hand grenades. You need to watch the LindenWorld video.

"Except you don't get to blow up buildings with hand grenades.."

does not equal

"You don't get hand grenades to blow up buildings with"

English is not commutative in the mathematical sense

(and yes, I have watched this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK3x3FNlleU )

I don't dispute your general thought that the demo regions in Blue Mars right now are somewhat like that video - its a "hey look what we can do with this!"

Right now, you do not get to blow up buildings with hand grenades in their demo cities. At some time in the future it might be possible, but it is not possible right now. No, doing it in your sandbox doesn't count.

After seeing the trailer for Blue Mars, my first thought was "SL Killer"! After going inworld, Second Life has nothing to worry about at all. I'm sure LL has also checked it out and probably has a smile on their face.

New update sometime in December. (so they say) To me this will tell how the core development team is doing. The thing I sure hope they get ironed out is the navigation, camera, and chat bubbles. If not....well....I guess those who choose to stay better get use to it I'm afraid.

Great idea Blue Mars, but the application seems to need "ALOT" of tender loving care at this time. (ya, ya, 60% complete, open beta, I know)

That's really no surprise I guess. However it is used in it's final form, what can make it an SL killer is how responsive to it's customers suggestions and concerns it's owners are. LL's total lack of engaging it's customers is costing them dearly. The had a virtually insurmountable headstart, yet they are in danger of losing it due to their seeming disdain for their users.

Don't forget the similarity to SL starts and stops at "virtual world". It is not an SL killer and I highly doubt it ever will be. It's more likely to be a WoW killer than an SL killer.

Actually, it's niether........it's a platform all it's own.

I've said it before, but it's still true:

They really should reconsider the name.

Everyone's going to call it BM.

Blue Mars at this time isn't going to put a dent in WOW. This is a highly developed mmorpg.

On Sept. 2nd 09, BM went open beta. People flooded the forums about the click on ground and hope you don't run into something moving. 3 months and 1 patch later, no change. Thats why their new "Major Update" should be interesting.

Is it just me or does things seem to be moving REALLY slow over there? Are they being cautious or scratching their heads trying to figure it out?

hehehe hihihihi hahahaha ty

I had no idea what all the hoo-haa was about calling it BM until an American friend told me it stood for Bowel Movement in the US.

I have never used the term 'bowel movement' in any normal conversation I have ever had, let alone so often that I have needed an abbreviation for it. I think my doctor may have enquired about it once or twice in my lifetime, and he never asked 'how are your BMs?'.

Do Americans have different butts to the rest of the World?

Rock

Complicated and sophisticated doesn't automatically mean "better looking", though when you put Uchi's cat avatar in a Silent Sparrow dress and coat, I'll put that up against any wood elf "hottie" in any MMORPG. Mrowr!

You've obviously never been to Miami Beach.

I just can't wrap my head around a web portal as the main way to get around. You have to switch back and forth between a browser and the client. Just silly. SL has multiple ways to get around from direct map teleports to landmarks, profile pics and classifieds, not to mention the search, all in client. SLURLs do exist, and are useful, but it's not the only game in town for navigation.

I don't see how this jives with BM's system. BM is huge and demanding, so how will it be incorporated into a browser for simple on the go smartphones? Also, I've been connecting to Second Life on my iPhone for months now. I have a light VNC client on the phone, and a light VNC server on my PC, and can connect, with the full SL client remotely over 3G or wifi. This is not really anything new.


You also mentioned Phobos, that's also not really a big deal either. Orbiter Spaceflight Simulator simulates Phobos, Demios, Mars, and everything from the Sun to Pluto and everything in between with full physics simulation. It's just modeled differently than a sim. However, that does sound really cool.

As far as 'Bowel Movements' are concerned, I've heard the term bowel movement, it's a common term in the US to describe what's typically described with much less nicer terms. However, I've never ever heard 'bowel movement' shortened to 'BM'. That's just stupid mud slinging by whoever thought it up.

My issues aren't so much with what BM is trying to do, it's with the odd approach of gigabyte downloads, really really really lame controls, and an overall poorly constructed client. I do understand that it's still in beta, but I walked into a building, and my avatar lost it's clothing and animation pose, and the camera doesn't even follow the avatar.

You seem to put big importance on '10's of thousands of people in the same city'. That's just silly. Granted, when the avatar count gets much above 20, things tend to start getting bad in a sim, and SL has alot of room for improvement in that area. However, I don't ever see any reason why a single 'sim' or 'city' would ever need to have the necessity of having 10's of thousands of avatars all within the same simulation. SL does just fine with thousands of sims that have supported upwards of 100,000 concurrent log ons. For me, a laggy sim is an easy fix. I just go somewhere else (which is quite easy to do in SL). What if you spend a day downloading 1/2 gig of city data only to find it's a lame city? All that time wasted downloading massive quantities of data for naught. You speak of wasted bandwidth??? Again, a silly concept.

Certain things about the BM concept, like external content and programming are cool ideas, but SL is heading in that direction already. I use blender to make sculpts, and they're moving towards C# over LSL2. Also, SL is in the process of a complete revamp of the system as it stands. It's going to be a 3 to 5 year wait until we see the new system, but it is coming, and, I'm sure will address alot of the inherent problems of the current SL system. You have to bear in mind that SL is the first world of it's type ever, and it's been through alot of changes over it's short life. All that said, I think it's a fairly workable system considering that it was designed and built up to the level of complexity that it is over time, and without previous systems to work from. BM in and of itself has had the luxury of examining SL, and determining what's inherently wrong with the system, and has tried (and, IMHO, failed miserably), at to create a new system that avoids the pitfalls of the SL system. Overall, I think BM will wind up with a niche market, but not much else. They're just totally missing the point in the basic and key areas....For example, all avatars are human shaped people all approximately the same shape and size. This was obviously done to streamline animations, which might seem like a smart move, but look around SL and see how many folks out there are furries, tinies, robots, and various other things. You're telling those folks, we don't want you, and those folks won't want to explore BM. Also, avies in BM cannot get naked. If SL outlawed nakedness and sex, more than 1/2 of it would disappear overnight (quicker than that even). So, while certain technical and non-technical things in BM have been done to make life easier for coders and content creators, and to present a more family oriented model, in doing so, they've cut out the core market that they are marketing to. I just doesn't make any sense.