Blue Mars Progress

The first phase of beta testing involving city and content developers has been very successful (and is still ongoing). The second phase has now also begun, where people who signed up for the early release client have been given the download link so they can download the BM client, and start visiting the 4 city areas: Beach City, Hawaiian Golf, Taki (lush mountainous tropical island with jungle, waterfalls, sea life etc), and now (from an external developer), New Venice. New Venice is still work in progress, but WOW!! This place has to be seen to be believed.

I have been exploring New Venice for a few days now. Here you can fly, you can teleport instantly around the city, and it looks like it is 4Km x 4Km (approx the size of 256 SL sims). I had a play with the telescopes to search around the city, and the HUD design is simply awesome. I was able to zoom in with the telescope and see details on walls over 1Km away in closeup detail.

The actual city of New Venice looks like it could support a population of 5,000, and of course it can handle that number of residents. The sailing regattas look like they will be a big draw, but the scripting is still work-in-progress.

Teleports are available as 1-click, and on-collision (so Stargate style teleports are a reality there).

I really loved the condo. Futuristic, amazing designs. I liked the way the TV console pops up through the floor as you sit in one of the TV chairs. I liked the semi-transparent glass monitors throughout the city, informing me of events (the Terracotta Army of Xian is coming soon, inside New Venice, as is the underwater city). Shops and multistores had been completed, and signs were already in place for rental details.

One interesting feature I really liked about Teleports. In New Venice you press the Escape key and a message pops up asking you to select one of 9 teleport locations around the city, using the keys 1-9 on the numeric keypad. Pressing each number in turn takes the camera instantly there, so you can look around, see who is there, and decide if you want to teleport there physically, you don't actually teleport there until you press 'q' the teleport key. Of course, BM uses Lua, which is non-proprietory, so you can design whatever teleport system you like for your city, this was just the way the designer of New venice had it set up.

BM now has a blog:

https://www.bluemarsonline.com/blog/

and is also on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline

They are planning to go to full open public beta on August 31st, and several other city developers are trying to get their cities ready in time for the public beta, so there should be a lot to see.


Rock

What Is You Question?

Will it blend? (^_^)y

Going by another thread, the butt is quite important. So . . . how's it look?

Very interesting Rock. Thanks for the report

It isn't Blue...that's for sure.

Well i susbscribed both for the user beta, and as a developper... months ago.

So far their lack of ANY responses even to my emails is kind of pissing me off...

No... that would be Blue Moon. (Which is actually a Belgian Ale)

Entropia Universe is going live with their version with the CryEngine2 implementation on the 17th. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

5,000 people in one city? Didn't know there was 5,000 people testing it. Otherwise how could you say it does support that many without actually having 5,000 people there... Linden Lab said they would be able to support millions of people logged in at the same time but we see how that turned out.

I signed up for the early release testing but never got a link.

It sounds nice. Do we have to sign up now for the public beta or can we do it at the end of August? 5000 people in one place is something I'd like to see.

5000 people across one city the "size of 256 SL sims". Using a 40 avatar limit, that's 10,240 people in those 256 SL sims possible. So that is actually 5240 less people than SL in that area. Assuming both have max people present, filling the place.

(I've been to live music events with 90 people present several times. Strangely, sometimes my own lag/connection is sometimes better with those 90 there, less strangely and expected, sometimes lag/connection is much worse than normal)

Good point. I read it wrong, I thought it said 1 city was the size of a 256sq meter sim. I see it says otherwise... 5000/256 is 19.5. So about 20 people per SL sim.. Hardly bragging rights unless that entire city area is hosted on one server and not broken up in many.

*yawns*

Alternatively, I'd like to remind you of the NDA you signed, dear Rock. Please stick to it, if only to spare us non-followers the boredom.

I'm a mac user so to me Blue Mars is broken already.

Ditto - no link, no email, no nuttin

Likewise.

Patience. SL didn't launch with MAC support either.

In the meantime, BM runs on a MAC using BootCamp.

Rock

Those that care I am sure will go to the relevant blogs to get the information they need, its getting kind of tedious now all these BM rocks threads.

Just my thoughts though

It does seem a *leetle* bit like Blue Mars advertising.

I got a 7 day suspension for talking about another grid along with a few others seems like the rules have changed for the forum and we can now do what ever we want to

BM is designed to use Cryengine which will never work with Mac, so do not tell fantasy stories here.

What do you develop in BM, and i didnt see anywhere to sign up for that, only beta testing.

close this thread .... we are in SL and not BM

You know, I i never thought a VW could have a worse name than Second Life, just from the social implication of the name Second Life and what Second Life term brings to mind in the general populace.

On the other hand, you have Blue Mars. Not a bad name, not great, very non related to core product. This is not so bad, but considering that the Acronym is BM it reminds me of a Bowel Movement, yes BM has the worst name of all Virtual Worlds I know of.


I do not expect anything great from it in terms of innovation, everything I have seen so far on it is mundane. Graphics are not innovative, they have a natural progression over time.

Other than that I will hold all future judgments on BM until it releases.



I respect your reality, and replace it with pie!

/me too.

I don't mind these threads. I think a bit of a threat might do wonders for LL.