Wouldn't it be nice to have all of the freedom and relaxation that comes with having a Second Life, but packaged up into a beautiful little ball of Pixel Shader and Vertex Shader 2.0 technology? I love SL to death, don't get me wrong, but there's just something missing in the engine as far as graphics go that make me want to burst inside into a million pieces of nothingness.
I do game development in real life using DirectX and OpenGL technology, and I understand the difficulties involved in creating a massively multiplayer online whatever game, especially when every little thing has to be streamed in real-time... that's really besides the point... amazing new video cards are coming out and everyone will be upgraded to the next best thing in a year's time... makes me wonder if SL will do anything to account for such a wild shift in graphical abilities?
Take the Unreal 3 engine that will be coming out soon. Don't know if any of you have seen it, but if you haven't, I recommend doing a quick search on Google for "Unreal 3 Engine." It's simply amazing, and they are thinking ahead to the video cards of next year. That's why it will be the biggest game of 2006, guaranteed.
But... I dunno... wouldn't it be nice if SL looked like this perhaps (see pic)? Funny thing is that this is perfectly acceptable for video cards of THIS YEAR, and will definately be more accepted next year after almost everyone has upgraded to PS2.0 and VS2.0 capable video cards (and who knows, supposedly there's a hush hush rumor about PS/VS3.0? hmmmm).
And just how Second Life completely destroyed There in every way possible (at least in mine and many other's opinions), could there be another MMOG around the corner that sends Second Life back to the drawing board? Hmmmm... food for thought?
...to be continued.