Competition for SL?

I found this article on the Guardian website this morning. What do you make of it?

the guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

article: http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2093758,00.html


Watch out Second Life: China launches virtual universe with seven million souls

People to work from home in alternate reality
Entropia Universe will create 10,000 'real' jobs

Vic Keegan Saturday June 2, 2007 The Guardian

This week may mark a coming of age for virtual worlds - the three-dimensional spaces on the internet where people have their own avatars, or on-screen characters. Last night BBC2's The Money Programme was screened in Second Life, the best known of the dozens of virtual realities that are springing up. This week Sky News opened a replica of its studio in Second Life and IBM sponsored a ballet.Yesterday the Swedish virtual world Entropia Universe announced that it was teaming up with CRD, an offshoot of the Beijing municipality, to build a virtual universe able to handle 7 million users at any one moment. David Liu, chief executive of CRD, claimed that virtual worlds would generate about 10,000 jobs in China.

He added: "An important aspect for this project is also the positive effects on our environment that we foresee. People will actually be able to work from home inside Entropia Universe as many people do today, even from rural areas, thereby decreasing the amount of pollution generated by travel."

Entropia beat other bidders, including, it is understood, Second Life, for this venture. Even Second Life, with a claimed 7 million members, rarely has more than 40,000 on simultaneously, which means that the Chinese venture, if it succeeds, would have a population greater than all but the biggest countries. This raises the prospect that such ventures could become major economies in their own right with no allegiance to any particular administration (or tax gatherer).

Second Life, which is still in its early days, has a daily turnover of $600,000 (£302,000) and claims to have created the equivalent of 6,000 full-time jobs as its residents make furniture or clothes or sell land or services. It is talking about having its own chancellor to control the money supply and manipulate interest rates when its banks start lending money.

Second Life and Entropia are three-dimensional reproductions of almost anything in the real world, virtually all of it created by users. At first Second Life was a barren landmass divided up into lots of 500 sq m. It is now so big that it is reckoned that no person could see it all in a lifetime as businesses, universities, arts institutions, pop groups, casinos and, of course, the sex industry start to colonise it.

Corporations such as IBM have found it is a good place to hold international meetings without needing to burn aviation fuel. Thousands of other individuals are working on projects, often in partnership with people in other countries, raising the prospect that virtual worlds could not only boost the trend for home-working but also give globalisation a human face bringing individuals as well as corporations together on a big scale.

Second Life's supporters claim it has three "killer" applications. First, unlike the internet, it has a system for micropayments using its own currency, Linden dollars, which are convertible into real dollars. Second, unlike other virtual worlds such as the massively popular World of Warcraft, it lets residents keep the intellectual property rights to what they create. Third, its owner, Linden Lab, recently welcomed the "open source" movement, allowing anyone qualified to create their own applications whether games, education or business projects.

These could generate the kind of conditions which lead to massive growth, even, it is sometimes argued, to the emergence of new economic sectors comparable to agriculture or manufacturing - unless China gets there first.

One of Entropia's claims is that it is more secure than other virtual worlds. Mr Liu says that it provides a secure operating platform for business transactions and cultural exchanges. Its virtual universe has two planets but intends to expand this to hundreds by September next year.

It recently launched a cash card enabling users to convert virtual dollars into real dollars at high street cash machines.

Last month MindArk, the owner of Entropia, raised $404,000 in an auction for banking licences in its virtual world. If the recent explosive growth of virtual worlds continues, the distinction between real and virtual may become very indistinct.

Governments don't seem to have got the message yet - except for Sweden, where Entropia is based. On Wednesday it became the first major country to open an embassy in Second Life.

Olie Wastberg, director general of the Sweden Institute which promotes interest in the country abroad, said: "Second Life allows us to inform people about Sweden and broaden the opportunity for contact with Sweden." There are no plans to issue passports.

Oh thats very interesting.


Im also interested to know- is anyone here active in entropia universe, and how does it compare to second life? It seems more fantasy geared?

It seems to me that alot of SL people think that SL is what kicked all this stuff off. These companies come and go all the time. Before SL was even on the drawing board there was something called Traveler! (http://www.digitalspace.com/traveler/).

This company before purchased by DigitalSpace was once huge. MTV even used it for their basic chat rooms. Ah yes.. I remember Tiki Island. Then all of the sudden it just started to vanish. Not sure why... People moved on. These "3D Worlds" and or "Chat Systems" if you will seem to have a hard time keeping on the tracks after a while. Traveler! is still around however only the hardcore old time members go in anymore and the software is now used more for educational purposes.

When Entropia came out of beta I downloaded it, very painfully slow at the time, bought a disk, tried downloading again and could never get in world so I gave up. Doubt I will ever go there now.

Entropia is damn hard to get the hang of the keys and all SciFi themed on another planet. Avatar choices are limited too. Still many obviously do enjoy it. I only logged in 3 times, maybe 6 hours inworld, couldn't get motivated to go back.
Landscape was good, but Avatars looked like 90's technology.

I've spent a few days in Entropia Universe, and would've stayed had it not felt like such a cash cow for Mindark (its creators). These are the things I remember most:

1. The avatar is nowhere near as customizable as the one we have in SL. It doesn't even come close. There are more sliders for your avatar's head in SL than there are for your entire body in EU. You also can't change your shape until you've acquired more skills in game, so make sure you like the shape you've moulded when you first sign up. You'll be stuck with it for a while.

2. You can't make your own stuff. Only 'manufacture it' from items you obtain in world. Forget creating your own textures in photoshop, or building stuff. What you end up with (clothes, arms, armor, etc.) has ultimately been designed by Mindark and has to be paid for or manufactured from items you paid for.

3. Here is the most ludicrous bit: Most items decay and have to be repaired at a repair terminal, and this costs PEDs (10 PED = 1USD). So it's not good enough that you paid for a fabulous gun or armor. You also have to pay to keep it in good enough condition to use. So the larger your inventory, the more money you'll need to subsidize your game.

4. You can't fly. (This feels like a serious disability after SL.)

5. You can get killed. There is no such thing as a safe area like in SL. Death is just an inconvenience though. You're just transported to the nearest revival point (which can sometimes be as much as a ten minute run away from where you died). You don't lose posessions in death.

6. You can swim! No Siggy Swimmer attachment required.

7. You can only teleport between 'teleporters' you have discovered while exploring the landscape. When you arrive there is only one teleporter on your map (either the one at Port Calypso or Port Oxford, depending on which you chose to arrive at) so you can't TP anywhere until you 'explore' more of the landscape. It took me over an hour to find my second teleporter. It's difficult because there are so many dangerous dinosaur-like creatures roaming the landscape outside of settlements. You learn the habits/capabilities of different species over time though, and can often figure out how to avoid them. (Still a lot of skill required to avoid some species though.)

8. The landscape in places is absolutely gorgeous. A mountainous area on one continent reminded me of the Scottish Highlands. There were pterodactyls hovering above prey here and there .. which was beautiful. The visible land area was the equivalent of about one hundred mountainous SL sims laid out in front of you in perfect, fully drawn detail, and the height and atmosphere very realistic. From one side of a mountainous valley I thought "it's gonna take me an hour to reach the misty peak on the other side!" I wasn't wrong. It's true to life in that respect and SL can't touch it.

9. Sweating is EU's equivalent of camping. Your avatar has special mind powers that allow it to extract sweat from animals using telepathy. This is a mind-numbing business (no pun intended) though because most times it fails, you keep getting killed because the animals don't like it and the pay off isn't that good. You can expect to obtain between two and twenty or so bottles from an animal when you successfully sweat it, and I'd expect it to take a couple of days to earn the equivalent of a single USD (10 PED) when you sell it to another player. (In combination with other items, it can be used to manufacture stuff.)

10. Mindarks business model is dependent on each player depositing $1USD into each game for each hour of play. You don't HAVE to do this, but the experience won't be much fun if you don't. It's very much frowned upon in EU culture for players to take money out of the game. If you visit the EU forums you'll see that the overwhelming consensus about Mindark's marketing hype about earning decent amounts of money in game is BS. If you think Lindex fees are bad...sheesh. They really *don't* want you to cash out.

OK, this was much more than I anticipated writing, but I think it covers the most important stuff. Other people here will have much more EU experience than me, and will probably add to or contest these points. The points above are genuinely what I came away with though after a few days. Check it out by all means. It won't cost you anything, unless you decide to kick start your existence by buying some PEDs for clothes and arms.

I imagine the Chinese virtual world will have a lot of catch-up to do with SL. But the Chinese government restricts public access to the internet and for all I know Chinese people might not have access to SL.

I had a quick look at Entropia and it didn't look as realistic as SL

What I did see was the promo video on YouTube for Sony's PS3 'Home'. That did look like it has potential. OK it was a promo video but the movement looked good and the environment was more realistic than SL, without the obvious 'primmy' look and with real shadows. But most of tha avatars looked to be male and the the females either had short hair or hats, indicating that long hair (like wot I've got) was yet to be perfected!

It seems that Home looks like an acquisitional rather than creative environment, less flexible to users. But one has to remember it's only at its start and with a few new features it could steal a lead over SL.

I forgot to mention that Anshe Chung has been playing Entropia Universe, and won a banking license there (I think it cost her around $50,000 USD). She has since created a financial market which links SL and EU. See here: http://dreamland.anshechung.com/dse/dse.php?fct=HOME

I've not figured out a way to link my EU avatar to my account there yet, but if I can convert my earnings in SL to PEDS (the EU currency) and send them to my EU avatar, I will definitely be playing EU more in future.

I've already converted L$s to PEDs via Anshe's site so I could buy some shares in her company.

some bits (ie. landscape; organic plant and animal life) are far more true to life, other bits are nowhere near as detailed as SL (ie. avatar meshes, skins, clothes). Lack of creation ability is the rub really.

People complaining about SL's recent censorship binge are going to jump over to one from China? Oh, best laugh this morning.

Don't worry. An Hour later they'll come back.

As far as competition goes ..

With all this recent crack down on SL sex, that Red Light District game looks more apealing all the time.

heh, best one came from Google likening Sweden to a dictatorship a couple of days ago.

http://www.thelocal.se/7452/20070530/

hmm, is this the same Google that censors its search engine for China?

just in case there's any confusion due to Entropia Universe being mentioned in the same article as a Chinese virtual world project - Entropia Universe is actually a Swedish product.

What is this Red Light District Game you speak of?

EU looked awesome on my PC .... the landscape was realy cool , But its a game ... You need to run around shooting stuff to gain cash ... and to do this you need to buy supplys .. that costs you in real $

Avatars are limited on clothing ..and imo are ugly as sin

If your a run around shooting type .. you will love it .... if your not ... don't bother trying to download the massive file .

As i said ... looks awesome ..... but after that has wore off ... its pant's

In Entropia are you limited to sci-fi environments? All this talk about spaceships, asteroids, and planets on its website suggests that perhaps you have to stay within "theme". Can you buy a plot of land and build a 15th century castle with period costumes and such?

Don't get me wrong, Sci-Fi stuff is cool and a lot of fun--its just when you get bored of it are there alternative environments there?

Red Light Districts are broadly offensive. I'm reporting both of you.

I posted a thread a while back about Red Light at /280/1f/167943/1.html .

I think Red Light uses Active Worlds technology.

It does have flying and combat.

Red Light is at http://www.redlightcenter.com

/me is Trading in her unarmed Huey for a Gunship and is going Zaphod hunting......

What Hipihi needs is a built-in translator. I would love to talk with some people living in mainland China.

the encampments are very sci-fi, but the outback (so to speak) feels very prehistoric. some pretty unusual plant-life out there (I recall three storey mushrooms most vividly), and although most animals seem to be base on dinosaurs, i did see one herd of threatening creatures with three heads. pretty sure we've never head things like that on earth.

the whole ecosystem is interesting to observe really (plants growing, animals feeding from them and other species) and the lanscape is staggeringly beautiful in places .. so exploring is great .. but it does get old quickly.

i only ever saw spaceships on the ground. i never left the planet. it was difficult enough finding teleporters just so i could get from A to B again in the future without running more marathons.

you can buy land but you can't build your own home (i think the home comes with it but don't quote me on that). Mindark design everything. Photoshop is of no use to you. There are no building tools. Everything is manufactured from elements obtainable in-world.

well there's a lot to do and plenty to explore but it's all within a predetermined theme .. and it's very expensive. you can't create your own themes. don't be fooled into thinking it's a profitable place like SL because it's not.

the only way to obtain cash without depositing is through "sweating" (obtaining sweat from animals), unless you have goods to sell - which of course you must have paid cash for in the first place.

see my ten points about EU earlier in this thread for more details.

chinas sl coming up, sl turning the way of a police state... they'll probably meet somewhere in the middle.

SL Korea?

that's been an alternative welcome area for a while hasn't it?

i know i was sent there a few times in my early days anyway. it's like a city that's been abandoned by its residents. hmm. sounds ominous.

Considering this, EU is worthless to me. I would consider it just another video game, although perhaps a rather advanced one.

I've been around enough to know what proprietary content does to you in the longterm. I've never spent more time in any one "game" than SL. The only exception would be Morrowind, but I extended it's life with gigs upon gigs of user mods and also created my own stuff for it.

Essentially, I don't really care so about making money, but being able to contribute and add to a large world. EU seems to attract based off of making money and some light interest in sci-fi, but you can't add your own content. I can understand how this would be fun, I had similar enjoyment crafting in Horizons before it died. The difference with Horizons was that the economy was contained within the game, aside from the unavoidable gold selling on ebay. People who pumped more money into the game weren't really at an advantage.

Basicly, if I have to deal with a huge economy that heavily converts currency back and forth, I'm not going to be much interested in it unless I can create my own content in it from scratch. Otherwise, I'll be content making free mods for Elder Scrolls games or the whatnot.