_notizen aus der provinz

Wanne try a New virtual world? 50 Beta Invitations for Twinity

Twinity is probably one of the most interesting contenders in the realm of "full immersion" 3D worlds. At least it is certainly the most ambitious German project in this market. Metaversum, the company behind Twinity, is a firm believer in the mirror worlds idea (i.e. replicating real world locations in a virtual 3D space). They intend to reproduce some of the best know urban areas of the world first, starting with Berlin - not a huge surprise with a company based in the German capital. (Its fairly interesting to compare their ideas with the concepts behind newcomer Near btw.)

The platform is still in a closed beta currently. Client and servers are relatively stable, already, though. It can be loads of fun exploring the virtual Berlin - especially if you know Berlin in physical reality.

If you want to give it a try, just click HERE (the link is good for 50 sign ups; so please don't be disappointed if it won't work anymore in a few days).

Technorati Tags: 3d web, metaverse, second life, twinity, virtual worlds, web 3.d

The importance of having shadows Or: realism in virtual worlds

What is the difference between the two pictures above? Realism? Immersion? Fun? Success? Both are rendered from Virtual worlds. The left one is from Gaia a low end (and extremely successful) 2.5D world. The right picture is taking from Playstation Home, probably the most realistic virtual word of today, only accessible with a Sony Playstation 3.

Hamlet Au, one of the most famous authors in the Second Life Blogospere recently posted an arcticle about a new experimental version of Second Life, which provoked a lot of comments immediately. He questioned if it was really desireble to have more graphics effects, more realism in Second Life - especially if this leads to different user experiences among the users - and quoted some interesting numbers:

Top virtual worlds/MMOs by use, as of 2008:
- World of Warcraft, 10 million subscribers
- Habbo Hotel, 8 million monthly active users
- RuneScape, 5 million monthly active users
- Club Penguin, 4 million monthly active users
- Webkinz, 4 million monthly active users

He concludes, that people probably don't want realistic 3D worlds, as 4 of 5 of the most successful virtual worlds are 2.5D and the only 3D one is certainly not "high end" or "realistic". 

I can't follow his line of reasoning though.  While I won't argue his numbers (showing that a lot of 2.5D worlds are vastly more popular than next gen 3D ones), it is tough to draw conclusions from such a fact. When two factors are correlated this just means that they are ... correlated, NOT that one is the result of the other in a cause-and-effect relationship. :) Assuming cause-and-effect when there is correlation is one of the most popular mistakes in logic.