Koster's Areae Unveils Metaplace 84
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by
Zonk
from the mega-pocket-sized-mmogs dept.
from the mega-pocket-sized-mmogs dept.
Some nine months ago veteran MMOG designer Raph Koster announced his new game company, called Areae ... but not what they were making. To go along with the TechCrunch40 Conference, the company has finally taken the wraps off of their project: Metaplace. Essentially, Metaplace is going to be a virtual world toolkit. The whole thing is built on open standards, and attempt to 'bring virtual worlds to the web', instead of keeping them boxed away in a separate little garden. As the site puts it: "We knew it was all coming together when one of our team made a game in a day and a half. And then stuck that game on a private MySpace profile. You can inherit someone else's world (if they let you) and use it as a starting point. You can slurp whole directories of art and use them as building blocks. Cut and paste a movement system or a health bar from one world to another. Use an RSS feed for your NPCs. We made puzzle games, RPGs, action games... and set up doorways from one to the other." Virtual World News and GigaOM have writeups of the presentation at the TechCrunch Conference, while Areae's Community Manager Tami Baribeau writes in a post why gamers should care. Over at his site Areae President Raph Koster just breaths a sigh of relief.
Re:Ewwww (Score:3, Funny)
Then it'll be... (Score:2, Funny)
I hope that this will allow people to focus on the story, not just the glitter - that'd be an improvement. Not to say that I don't like snazzy-looking games and VR worlds, but rather I'm saying that if it became trivial for them to look good then game creation could focus on the story and interactions between players. That's part of the longevity of a story world.
Sounds like it would also give a leg up to those who are good writers, and we might see their works more easily put in front of people.
I just hope we don't get people and/or corporations trying to treat any of this like it's IP, and potentially ruin it for everyone.
I remember when VRML first came out. I played with it and could do fun things with it... but I can't write a game story to save my life. Well, when compared against a real writer.
Oh no... a 3D version of MySpace?! (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't it lame enough in 2D?
Re:Oh no... a 3D version of MySpace?! (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah.. and SO last week. They should've put it on facebook.
It had better be in bad taste! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ewwww (Score:3, Funny)
Two words: Vanguard.
Oh, wait....