Blue Mars beta

free hosting, you don't get that in SL, either. What world are you in where you get free land?

Cos its not Second Life.

I have free land in Opensim, but that's only because the thing runs on my personal hardware... but if I was to throw Opensim out on the web for general access, I'd have to pay to have it hosted just like any other web application. (needless to say it costs way less than SL sims, but it still costs)

actually their business model is very close to secondlife when it first opened in that respect...

Sl started with free land, some free cash, and taxes on prim usage (which was a bitterness to content creators)

I don't know much about the technical stuff behind these worlds. All I know is that the long Blue Mars video I watched had graphics there were really no better than SL would be if it had shadows. On the other hand, the original publicity video with the waterfalls and golf course were much higher quality. So I might be forgiven for thinking there was a bit of hyper-promotion involved.

I definitely forgive you.

Actually, examining the model for sales on Blue Mars, its taking more of a content approach that you see on the 3d content sites on the web - a percentage off sales. Xstreet does the same thing

I don't think you can compare Blue Mars to SL one on one... Blue Mars is more geared to gaming and high end real time 3d than SL is. They have different strengths.

There's a lot I still don't know yet, as it comes down the pike. Much is going to be wait and see... I can see a lot of people in SL not wanting to be in it, on the other hand I can see a lot of people from the modding communities and 3d visualisation jumping on this like mad. And there's always the possibility of it going over OnLive, which means a much greater exposure to netbook, television, entry level computer users who can't run SL (good video hardware nonexistent).

So probably very different customers and definitely different focus. That's not a bad thing, really.

I'm going by the somewhat vague specifications the article Rock quoted gave. They specifically said to avoid integrated graphics controllers, which rules out netbooks.

That's got nothing to do with the closed and proprietary CryEngine versus the Open Source Second Life viewer. That's a policy decision, not a technical one.

You might as well say that the Second Life engine is better because it allows non-human avatars, no matter how much of a hack it is, while there's been no indication that Blue Mars will allow that. But that's, again, not a technical decision... it's a policy one.

The biggest differences between SL and BM are policy, and on that front BM takes a dump. Unless every account has been 180 degrees off track, under even the best possible interpretation of the reports, it will impose far tighter controls over creators than the worst nightmares people have had about the "Adult Content" fiasco.

www.onlive.com

server based cloud rendering... it was the rage at GDC. It runs games based on Cryengine2, Source, Unreal Engine, etc.

Anyway, we'll see. But the cloud rendering concept is interesting, because it opens a heck of a lot to mobile and thin devices.

When I joined SL you got virtually free land with a Premium account, and even a Basic account could get stall space in malls for free because the economic system encouraged that through dwell. I didn't pay for space to sell any of the stuff I made until I was already making enough to pay tier from sales.

Bandwidth caps?

The biggest difference is you don't know the differences

SL is a streaming platform, and IS very different than game engines which don't stream and make you download the whole mod. SL has strength in that area, no doubt about that.

And one could make the argument that SL has not enough control over creators. Especially the ones who don't actually create, but copy and reupload

I wont miss those "creators"... not at all

Well I wasn't necessarily talking about free land, but rather free storage space for the content. LL's attitude is also quite poor towards content creators, but not as bad as some.

With XStreet I think it's possible to sell content without owning land. I think this came about because some people were going inworld to buy the items they saw listed on Xstreet. So Xstreet was losing out on their sales fee.

The point is that elsewhere in the industry a developer will pay lots of cash to 3D artists for their hard work. Yet many of these virtual worlds seem to think that content creators are desperate individuals willing to pay to have their content hosted.

I think the ideal business model is to offer free hosting and to charge a sales fee. LL already does this indirectly when selling the L$.

Uhm, you used to and then the world got too big and the system was exploited.

Back in 2004, i used to get a $595/mo check from LL and it paid for my 2 Mall sims and my 3rd sim worth of tier. That happened for a while since I had the #1 dwell for about 6 months in a row.

They may not do it not, but it definitely was a model they exploited for the better while the time was ripe.

XStreetSL might use this model, but Second Life itself never has. And remember that even if you use XStreet you still need to host the magic box somewhere!

If you want to work in an employment model you can find someone in the world to hire you. Nobody will pay for you while giving you full creative freedom, unless you have proven yourself to be the next Van Gogh

Which confirms:

DI may have put off more developers than it encouraged. Certainly there seems to be more movement in many fields than there was then.

I read on the site that they'll host your box for you.

No.

Gaming the system put off developers. Not DI itself, which was a reward if you had something that drew people. The first Island Mall estates, were definitely a draw.

The only developers that got pissed are the same ones that get pissed now with that "If you build it they will come" mentality that have some feeling of entitlement just because they made a place that everyone tells them is groovy - but yet people did not come.

Bitterness and jealousy comes in all shades, colors, excuses and reasons.

*shrug*

Well in that aspect that is what Blue Mars is doing. They are charging a sales fee on transactions and people can freely upload when they are registered as a content dev. So in that aspect I see very little difference, aside from the fact that they ask you to apply for the SDK. Mind anyone can get the SDK - its free and available to anyone who applies for it. If someone wont apply for it then I can't help them.

There's much I dont know about how they are going to handle things, I will see as we go. Much of what I have learned is quite novel and I havent seen done before. But the general methods for selling content are not hugely different from Second Life, aside from some extra controls to register a creator's items. SL was supposed to do that too but like so many other things, never happened.

The major difference is they are not going with an easily exchangable currency - it will be pegged and only devs can cash out, so in that aspect it is more like a game like WoW as far as the users are concerned. But for the users, the world is entirely free (aside from having to buy currency) as far as I can tell... I don't see any subscription plan for general users - only for developers. (the city devs, which would be a sim owner in SL)

But WoW is pretty doggone popular, so I'm not sold on the theory that its a world killer.

Okay, well that sounds good. But there still needs to be a way of displaying your content to potential buyers.

Oh, and there needs to be lots of potential buyers!

I don't think you can make it quite that simple - ultimately there is very little point in tiering anything in SL if you don't believe that people will come!

The issue with DI was that developers had to deal with having to compete against other developers who were getting free land from LL, _plus_ usually making larger amounts of money as well, if they were commercial builds. It was a big part of the whole FIC thing.

But yes, the whole "camping chairs can be profitable" thing was the main problem I agree.

and you are free to stay in SL, and I am free to go where I like as well

Nobody is twisting your arm to do anything you don't want to do.

And shock... horror. Some people go to Vegas and Aspen!! And maybe a few other places along the way.

I'm in Vegas, Aspen and well, what would we call Opensim? Wall Street, I reckon... because they are actually implementing real money transactions.

They've stated a number of differences. Can you point to ANY text online ANYwhere that implies I'll be able to have anything like this avatar in Blue Mars:

Blue Mars will likely be popular. It just won't be a world, any more than Warcrack and Evercrack are.

I really don't see how you can claim that lack of in-world building makes it "not a world", especially when most people in SL don't do that.