Chinese Second Life?

Just happened upon this on YouTube.

Called: hipihi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wpF0VmhWL4

Obviously a bit primitive in comparison to
Second Life, but if it takes off it'll evolve...

According to this article it's in closed-beta at the moment:

Link

And another article which goes into more detail....

Article Link 2

And the hipihi site:

http://www.hipihi.com/index_english.html

- Infrared

No Doubt about it, itsw totally inspired by SL, and isnt afraid in billing itself as chinese second life, could be serious legal interests in there....


I wonder, if a certain SL resident may have a hand in this somewhere, of course her hand would be well hidden, to protect her SL interests. hmmm

Damn, it looks tight though. I can see that SL has a lot of things it doesn't, SL being a lot more versatile in the user-generated/created things, but that game still looked pretty sweet.

I don't know what sort of legal issues LL would have with it. Really, there are a lot of games out there that are just like SL, that just happens to be one of the better looking ones.

EDIT; After reading some of the slides, it doesn't really sound like they are necessarily competing, but maybe trying to work with Linden Labs. It was really vague, but in the first slide on the english site it made a comment about being one of the world leaders along with early participants such as LL. Maybe friendly rivals.

Interesting, reading thier web site sounds like a copy of SL.
Those of you that have run the game how does the running compare with SL?
How do you think security is for a country like China, if they want CC details etc.?
Is there "adult" content?
Regards
June

Hey it looks cool! The UI looks easier to use too.



OMG you mean Mr ***'s Greater Hong Kong might be behind this? I wondered about all the signs all over the place.

Take Care,
Lorna.

EDIT: Removed the name of a possible SL resident, to avoid pointing fingers, its just that this:

made me think of the only famous possibly Chinese resident I know.

EDIT: Found the name of another SL resident in my post, overtyped with Xs to hide him

Reported











Joking!

It looks like its midway between SL and There. From what I saw in the promo video on YouTube, its obvious that Hipihi borrows much from SL. If they put out an international version, Linden Lab will have a reason to worry. Give people most of the flexibility of SL with an easier to use interface and somehow pull it off with less lag, and people will flock to it.

BTW, did anyone notice in the promo clip that during the scene where they bring out the bed (about 4:35), the music was looping a bit of that song Fast Car by Tracy Chapman?

Well, what if its damn close, provides Customer Support in English and other International Languages, Vehicles that work, 5 times more prim limits, well stated rules & policing of the Grid, and a block of land doesn't cost 20% of the purchase price per month to keep?

Then again what if it's being set up to be compatible and join/buy SL later?

Somehow I suspect Electric Sheep will be using search/copybot to reproduce items from here to there and vice versa, can you say cheap chinese vitual import market flooding?

Landbots might just get kicked though.

And it seems to be a world entirely made up of female Avs too! Not a purple penis in sight.

But a world without furries, robots, dragons and weirdness is not the world for me.

When this finally launches i hope it will be multi-lingual. I really want to try it. The english version of their website has no download so i either assume it isn't ready for that part yet or the entire thing is still in testing stages. if it is still in testing, i'd like to test it.

I dont think there are going to be many legal issues as the browser is now open sourced and they are not using the second life name or insignias, also the sims software will eventually be going open sourced as well. The entire purpose of open source is to allow others to create things with it that are not necessarily a part of second life. As long as they obeyed the open source license I dont see how anyone is going to say anything hehe.


Second life gave up the uniqueness to its platform the minute they went open sourced in fact I thought the entire idea was for a 3d version of the internet if this is so there will be other providers around one of them being this chinese company

Yes, Wilhelm, but what about our security with a country like China?
SL is very free and easy with sexual issues, being American and Europeon ways but what about China again.

You know all western things vs eastern.

Regards
June

As I remember, the web site timeline display shows it coming up available for public beta in August, and is just in beta by the company and its lucky friends now.

Can you imagine, though, if HiPiHi and the others to come could connect with the SL world? What if it just looked like just another continent? I think that's the future of virtual reality. Linden Labs, as the pioneers, has the opportunity to help define how virtual worlds can work for coming generations of software.

yippee!!!!!

Well you dont have to use their version of the 3D internet

Also china is in on the internet already so I dont get it really dont surf their sites dont play their games etc and you will be safe. Just pick what you want and dont use the rest.

Your also aware anyone from that end of the world can if they want cause havock on your computer right now just like any north american or european does its a matter of personal morals not country of origin to be honest when it comes to the net anyone can send out trojan horses or try to find a whole in your PC's internet connection.

It is true that HiPiHi was inspired by SL, but only by the positive aspects. The mandate at HiPiHi was to generate a new virtual world, with all of the positive aspects of SL (and other virtual worlds), while avoiding the negative aspects.

HiPiHi do not call themselves The Chinese Second Life, that title has been given them by outsiders: reporters, bloggers etc.

The headquarters is in the centre of Haidian District, which as any of you who know Beijing is the University and High-Tech centre of the capital.

HiPiHi is not new. They have been working on this project for nearly two years now, to get the infrastructure in place for a smooth launch, with full scaleability, so any rapid rise will not catch them flat-footed.

Customer support is top of their list of priorities, but not only in words, but in actions too.

Multi-lingual, 24/7 support is planned, with support staff in attendance in the forums too, to answer any questions and help solve any problems.

Some of the features are truly amazing, and have to be seen to believed. I just love the GUI.

I have yet to learn of the payment currency, but what will really thrill European virtual worlders is that Credit Cards and paypal payments are envisaged, but are down the list of payment options. Direct debit and bank to bank transfers are preferred, which eliminates the paying of 2.5% and upwards of everything spent to credit card companies, and will make Europeans smile (Americans still find it astonishing that in Germany for example, most stores do NOT accept credit cards, while Germans find it astonishing that Americans still think that the only way to make payments is via credit cards or Paypal. That's the power of advertising, I guess.)

HiPiHi is still in closed beta right now, but the summer is planned for open beta testing, and autumn for formal launch.

Unlike most Lindens, most HiPiHi staffers DO read the SL forums!

Is it all rosy? Not by any means. The one BIG isuue is the reaction of the Chinese government to HiPiHi. Up to now, the government has tried to keep a tight rein on the internet in China, and has had a measure of success in keeping its population from free, unfiltered, access to the internet. Of course, this position is hard to criticise now, given the US government's decision (via the Pentagon) to ban US servicemen from posting to certain sites, such as YouTube and MySpace.

HiPiHi will need to steer a careful course, and ensure that their servers carry no material offensive to the Chinese government. Sex attitudes in China are fairly liberal, it is political dissent that is curbed. So Ageplay, Furries, Goreans, et al may well be accepted, but discussion groups on Taiwan or Tibet could well face a ban. Not that those issues get discussed much in SL, anyway.

Much more to come. Watch this space...

There's a few Hipihi pictures linked to in this thread: /280/46/177513/1.html .

Can anyone produce a sound file of how an American English only speaker is supposed to pronounce Hipihi?

I'm pretty sure the way I am pronouncing it in my mind, "Hippy Hi" is wrong.

I downloaded their promo video. The Chinese name is pronounced something like "high pee high", all three as very short syllables (but that might just the the hyperactie tone of the speaker).

Thanks for the info I have been watching this for awhile now but can't read most of the info only what little tidbits I can find on the internet.

Sounds like it will be fun to explore and I would love to try out their open beta if you can post somehow when its open I'm so curious to see how well they do and if there is a second playground I can go to.

I am really looking forward to seeing if they ever deliver an english-language version. If so, I would be extremely interested in trying it out.

.

Looks like the standard avatar and animations/skins is far superior to SL. Not that doing that is hard, to be honest.

Will be interesting to see how they handle content creation, in particular creation of content that would violate Chinese law. I also wonder if they'll be picking other countries at random and using their laws to ban people like LL do...

Yes, but could he beat Phil in a street fight?

Linden Lab will have a reason to worry anyway...Resident morale being at an all time low and all. Wouldn't be surprised if someone decided that LL's way of doing business is wrong, and decided to impliment some competition on the open market...

Excuse my ignorance, but can I use Copybot to make copies of my creations which I can then store on my computer and then possibly port into HiPiHi or another similar MMO? Providing they use a similar rendering whatsit engine? That would completely rock! For one, I'd like to port in my range of treehouses and sell them in HiPiHi if that's at all possible. I'm sure plenty of other content creators would jump at the opportunity to port in their work.

I have no intention of leaving SL for the forseeable future. It's my home in Cyberspace, but where's there's a new market to reach it sounds like a great potential and one that's too good to pass up. Now I know some people would use the same technology to attempt to rip off content creators in SL so the only way to beat the cheats would be for the legit content creators to get in there first.