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Games Entertainment

There.com's Virtual World & Economy 231

Posted by michael from the his-love-is-real-but-he-is-not dept.
I)ruid writes "Unlike the virtual economies that have sprung forth from EverQuest, other MMORPG's, and sites such as eBay, this virtual world's economy is actually supported by its creators. Is it possible to make a real life living in a virtual economy? Only time will tell..." We did a previous story on There (a terrible name for a game since you can't search on it).
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There.com's Virtual World & Economy More

There.com's Virtual World & Economy

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  • I tried it and liked it. any one else? just downloaded the "dev" kits last week . . . .

  • As opposed to? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Telastyn ( 206146 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:24PM (#5598350)
    The "normal" economy is based on perception of wealth and value rather than accumulation of rare metals. Why should this be any less viable? [beyond the fact that it's perception will be weaker because it's "new"]

  • I dunno ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by B3ryllium ( 571199 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:24PM (#5598351) Homepage
    I think I might prefer The Hollywood Stock Exchange [hsx.com].
    • Try Celebdaq [bbc.co.uk]. Its run by the BBC and it actually has its own TV show on BBC3...

      Entertaining for a while - like a month or two. Still - I made a killing from Cilla and Jacko :-)

    • http://www.neopets.com

      has a virtual world where you use a virtual currency to buy items for your pets & fairy quests.

      Years ago ('99) it had an auction system comparable to ebay (in both volume and sophistication), a store-builder comparable to yahoo stores; etc. Hundreds of thousands of kids play regularly. It's an amazing unknown success of the .com world, which spread entirely by word-of-mouth.

      Interestingly, 10-15 year old kids started createing consulting services in their chat rooms to build t

  • Can't search for it, but you could link to it (Score:5, Informative)

    by JUSTONEMORELATTE ( 584508 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:25PM (#5598354) Homepage
    From the previous story, you can find There here [there.com].
    --

    • No search? BS. (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by GeckoX ( 259575 )
      Poster of the article is a moron.
      Can't search on there? wtf.
      First hit on google is, go figure, there.com.
      Nope, doesn't work, can't do it.

      • Re:No search? BS. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Carbonite ( 183181 )
        Before you start calling people morons, consider these points:

        - It's usually wise to read reviews of a product before you purchase it.

        - There.com is not the ideal site to find an unbiased review.

        - It's difficult to search for reviews of "There" because of the huge number of matches.

        - Most reviews will not call the service "There.com" if the actual name is "There".

        - Therefore, it will be difficult to locate reviews and other information on "There" using Google or other search engines.

        I don't believe th
        • Um, I'm not disputing Michaels 'probable' intent, but he did say, and I quote, 'a terrible name for a game since you can't search on it'.

          No qualification whatsoever, and besides, it's more BS editorializing.

          Michael is an idiot, plain and simple. Nobody cares what his point of view is, mostly because he has no business giving it to us in the first place. His job is to post articles. If he wants to continue commenting on articles he posts, he should join the party.

          And, FYI, time may very well prove you a m
          • Look, if you hate Michael so much, why not just filter out his stories in your prefs? Or would you rather just complain?
            • Look, if you don't care so much, why bother replying? Or would you rather just complain?

              I said nothing at all about the story BTW, which is why lots around here get annoyed by Michael's BS, because it deters from the stories that he did not write, find OR submit. Sure, I could filter out his stories in my prefs, but what good would that do? I'd be helping the problem by ignoring it AND I'd miss the stories.

              Besides, it's been so nice chatting with you :p
          • And, FYI, time may very well prove you a moron too. Ever heard of the Who? Who you say? The Who to you too. Gee, that would have made a bad website name though, can't search on that, that would never work blah blah piss off.

            The Who had no knowledge of search engines or web sites when they created their name. I'm sure there were problems when people first tried to buy Who albums. Exchanges in records stores between customers and clerks probably turned into Abbott and Costello routines quite often.

            "There"
            • Wow.

              Dude, you said your point, I said mine, somebody else even said we're both right in differing ways, I thought we'd already agreed to disagree.

              Now you post more BS and then as me to stop being so difficult? Piss off eh?

              Besides, are you a marketing research analyst? No? Then what makes you so right about the name? Maybe it will make a go of it simply because of the strange name.

              Really, if somebody is going online and wants to find out about this 'there' thing, what will they find? Well...there.com rig
    • you can find There here

      Funny thing, when you get there, it is suddenly here, and the here you started from is there. And never shall the two meet. ;)
    • there's no "there" there.
    • There and Back Again: A slashdotters tail

  • An answer to your question (Score:4, Insightful)

    by krog ( 25663 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:27PM (#5598368) Homepage
    Is it possible to make a real life living in a virtual economy?

    As long as there enough miserable bastards to dump all their cash into their online "life", sure. Just don't count on too many well-adjusted patrons.
    • Is it possible to make a real life living in a virtual economy?

      There was a good Wired article [wired.com] on this- the minimum wage averages out to be $3.42/hour, though for a different game (UO and/or EQ) than There.com.
    • What if there were more practical applications in the virtual environment? The one idea that springs to mind is how hard virtual meetings are to have sometimes. Sure you can have those video conferencing units that Polycomm makes but you don't really see the other person, hard to see a white board and stuff like that.

      If many more developers and other business people are working from home and telecommuting, one would think that providing a virtual office environment might be a wonderful idea. I mean, rig
  • Riddled with bugs, a ridiculously bad interface implementation, and a lagging user-base, Project Entropia [project-entropia.com] is otherwise the first MMOG where you can make money playing a game like this. Of course, I've yet to hear of anyone actually succeeding in that gambit -- as I'd imagine that they all quit playing in disgust long before then.
  • I lost my job playing that stupid game! It's the reason the real economy is doing so badly! :)
  • I think the real catch would be exchanging the virtual items for real dollar-value items in the physical world. If you could sell the "ring of zelda" (or what have you) for 500 real dollars, then people could most certainly make money... also, that would probably bring about a huge hacking effort to obtain said items for free, then sell them.
    • But why would someone buy such a thing from you? The point of a game (even an online one) is to have fun and relax. At least, that's the way I treat games and that's the way I think people should treat them. So if there exists a person, let's name him Richard, - well if Richard wants to pay five-hundred dollars for an item in a game, then Richard is living a very sad life. The items within the game are only of interest to players in the game so rather than play the game and pursue the item he wants, Richard
      • But why would someone buy such a thing from you? The point of a game (even an online one) is to have fun and relax. At least, that's the way I treat games and that's the way I think people should treat them.

        You obviously haven't kept up on the last several years of mmorpg's then if you have to ask that question.
      • So if there exists a person, let's name him Richard, - well if Richard wants to pay five-hundred dollars for an item in a game, then Richard is living a very sad life.

        I object! And how exactly did you know about this? Are you watching me?

  • Business 2.0 would just go away. Suits read this garbage and believe every word in this rag. These and the people like them are responsible for the 'New Economy' stock market bubble and all of the BS that went along with it.

    Besides, Business 2.0 is so '1999' :)
    • So I take it you didn't believe their article on the XFL and how it was set to "take off"...

      Business 2.0 is no WSJ. It's like skepticism flew out the door and it took journalistic integrity with it.

  • This google search returns the proper link as the first one. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF -8&q=%22There%22 [google.com]

  • Fake Money ---- Real Money? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MarvinMouse ( 323641 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:30PM (#5598391) Homepage Journal
    The biggest problem with this system is it just makes it so much easier to do fraud.

    Look at everquest, when that bug was found that gave you millions of dollars. The inflation became absolutely rampant, and many people who didn't have the millions to survive the inflation were screwed.

    And now these guys are offering way to convert your real money to and from fake money so you can buy nonexistant products? I so see this being a major economical security risk. Especially since there is no guarantees anywhere on the money, and all it would take is a simple bug and the entire economy of "There" would basically become meaningless.
    • U.S. money is fake anyway. It's not backed by precious metals anymore. If the government collapses, you're left with paper. Hell, banks are allowed to loan out nine times the actual money that they have in physical form. The excess money only exists on computers. The banks trust there's not going to be a huge run on currency. The only way currencies that aren't backed by anything have value is if the users of the currency trust that they can get something of value with the currency. If "There" stays trustwo
      • Precious metals are fake money too -- they are only valuable because people say they're valuable (some industrial uses for gold and platinum notwithstanding). The diamond trade is an even better example; if you've ever tried to privately sell a diamond you'll realize the value is far less than what you paid for it -- even if it's in the same condition as when you bought it? Why? Because the cartels keep prices high by controlling the supply and the brokerage of the gems. My point here is only that the "g
        • The thing with gold is that you just can't print it up and loan it out. The fed does this all the time, and the only reason why the dollar is proped up is because no matter how you provide your means (eg thru barter) you are still required to convert to dollars and pay taxes. That creates an artificial demand for dollars - without that leverage, watch how quickly things fall apart. In fact, they did fall apart a few years ago in some asian countries who were artifically proping up their currency in relat
          • "...better, because they have an intrinsic value."

            And gold doesn't have an instrinsic value? It is a critical component in the manufacture of electronics and telecommunications - it is used for medical purposes because it is non-reactive and hypo-allergenic. It is an integral part of many catalysts. It could be argued that the intrinsic value of gold is much more than oil - it certainly will retain its value long after the petroleum economy is gone...

            "...required to convert to dollars and pay taxes..."

            • And gold doesn't have an instrinsic value? It is a critical component in the manufacture of electronics and telecommunications - it is used for medical purposes because it is non-reactive and hypo-allergenic.

              Silly, and perhaps a bit disingenuous. Gold formed the cornerstone of every Western monetary system far before thre were electronics, communications, chemistry, or anything even resembling modern medicine. Gold may have an "intrinsic" (read: practical) value, but it's negligable in terms of its mone

              • Not the point. I was refuting the suggestion that somehow oil certificates made more sense as money than gold, because oil has an 'intrinsic value'. Ridiculous.

                My point is that there are equal (if not superior) intrinsic practical values for gold beyond its monetary uses, regardless of its historical role.

            • ...The dollar is 'proped up' by the fact that it is the generally accepted medium of exchange throughout the world - and it is considered to be a safer way to hold fiat wealth than any other medium. US tax receipts are a miniscule percentage of the total US $ transactions recorded every day and have little effect on the desirability of the currency. If you are looking for a Federal culprit, maybe you should consider that the overwhelming majority of debt and equity securities are dollar denominated (Federa

              • This is like having a conversation with the insane. Or Rush Limbaugh. Maybe both. Yes, I pay taxes - I live in what is generally considered a 'high-tax' area - but taxes have absolutely NO bearing on dollar demand. The concept is ludicrous.

                OF COURSE the federal government pays debt with taxpayer money! What else would they use? The debt incurred by the Federal government - good or bad - is on the taxpayer's behalf. It's not some third-party 'Federal' debt - it is your debt, incurred on your behalf by your

                • Look, it's not me that made this up. Infact, it was the #1 argument used by people who opposed Regan's tax cuts in 82 - they said lowering taxes would drive down the demmand for the dollar and INCREASE inflation. (even though just the opposite happened, because lowering taxes caused the economey to grow relative to the same ammount of dollars in circulation) If I earn my income in euro's - I half to pay taxes in dollars, if I earn them trade $$ from itex the barter company - I also half to convert and pa

        • My boss has nearly 100oz of gold in a bank vault. You can buy gold or most other precious metals by dealing with coin dealers.

          As for the value of the dollar, everyone in this thead is correct that it's based on the idea of what we think it is worth. Nothing more, nothing less.
          Ditto for the Euro, Yen, and any other major currency.
      • Well tell you what, if that's the way you feel, I'll trade you $5 in Monopoly money for every "fake" US dollar you've got. Act now, and I'll even toss the race car and thimble in for free!
    • Ultima Online had the money dupe bug that made almost everyone millionaries. EQ has a decpreciating ecomony.
    • You're forgetting that there is no such thing as money. I can issue a million dave-o dollars tomorrow and if people are willing to accept them in exchange for goods and services, it is money. Same thing happens with MMORPG's - since there's virtual dollars can be exchanged for the real thing, and people are willing to do so, it is money.

      Much more interesting is EQ's buying/selling of currency on ebay since this effectively gives EQ a floating exchange rate.

      Once again, like it or not, this *is* real money
  • I beta tested there and really dug it but I did have a problem. The game is more than willing to take your money, but there is no way to transfer "there-bucks" into hard cash. I wanted to set up shop and sell virtual wares using the dev kit but all it does is give my avatar money, not me.

    I think that is the biggest problem.

    • I beta tested there and really dug it but I did have a problem. The game is more than willing to take your money, but there is no way to transfer "there-bucks" into hard cash. I wanted to set up shop and sell virtual wares using the dev kit but all it does is give my avatar money, not me.

      I think that is the biggest problem.

      Well yeh, that's kind of how their business model works, you put money in, but you don't get it back out. Hopefully paypal doesn't ever switch over to this model, because then no mat
  • What makes IM and e-mail so useful? The ability to do other things with your computer while chatting. With it's "robust graphical enviroment" I don't see how you could surf the web and talk at the same time.

    Sadly, I think microsoft has the right idea with their next generation IM [threedegrees.com].

    Another draw back of this is it seems to be a huge marketing focus group that you pay to be in. I hope the dot com bust has taught us one thing. People are adverse to experiances that are centered on marketing.

    The only way
    • While I agree that it is probably pointless I would at least like to try it. However according the their specs [there.com] not even Win 2000 is supported. XP or nothing. IE or nothing. Maybe Mac in 2004. Come on people! Okay I can understand only supporting windows. But only one version? And how about supporting standards complient browsers? Even IE 6 almost falls into that category.

      Oh well I guess they didn't read the numbers of people using XP I doubt There will here too long.

  • You can search for words that are normally ignored by quoting them, just like you can rm files with spaces in their names by escaping them :D

    Search for "There" Results 1 - 10 of about 212,000,000
    First match was There.com :P

    You can also use +There instead of "There". Saves a character

    The above result was from Google, but most search engines I've used work this way.

  • Signed up for the Beta test months ago, got "accepted", then not heard a dicky bird since.

  • Then imagine more serious applications coexisting with the shopping and the fun: Architectural firms taking advantage of There's near-real physics to stress-test building designs by coaxing crowds of avatars to visit the virtual structures. Or Army divisions training en masse in virtual replicas of enemy territory.

    Wow. They're off their frickin rockers I do believe. Yeah, we'll all just choose to forgo reality, and while we're at it, choose there.com to replace it for us. Again, wow. Just a wee bit of

    • Hmm.. Maybe (and by no means do I mean 'certainly') they have got their physics that well modelled. After all, it wouldn't be the first time that real things got built after testing in a 'game' [x-plane.com].
      • Uh, yeah, ok.

        It's a freaking blown up chat room, that has no viable market, so they're trying to create markets for it, but all they can come up with is replicating real world markets in their virtual world.

        You gonna buy into it? One born every minute ehh?
        • Me? Buy it? Hehehehe.. Think I'll share a lot of your views on it.. Just didn't want to diss it out of hand, without even looking.. I was trying for a little bit of an optimistic streak. :)
    • Then imagine more serious applications coexisting with the shopping and the fun: Architectural firms taking advantage of There's near-real physics to stress-test building designs by coaxing crowds of avatars to visit the virtual structures. Or Army divisions training en masse in virtual replicas of enemy territory.

      The parent is right, if There is seriously purposing some kind of jack-of-all-trades virtual world, they and their investors (their investors, There investors , very clever...) are completely s
  • This was before the "pindlebot" ever came out.

    I simply used the autoit script and wrote my own "pindlebot" after I saw what could be done by people with bad intensions. My rating on ebay is flawless and i'm sure that many people are enjoying the 3 legitimate windforces I sold them along with the many other things.

    Of course now that all you have to do is download the program, you can't make a dime off diablo2.

    Hopefully the 1.10 patch with fix that if indeed it isn't vaporware.

  • I'm not sure abstracting one's family is a good thing.

    Right now, it's two-income households and daycare, where good family time is essentially non-existant.

    Now, that almost non-existant family time is virtualized. Just wonderful.

    Why do so many people strive for these things?

  • In an actual economy, however (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SolemnDragon ( 593956 ) <solemndragon.gmail@com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:42PM (#5598473) Homepage Journal
    ...members can trade items among each other, sell items to each other, produce goods from material. Wealth is created when someone takes items of lesser relative worth- say, raw materials- and produces something of greater relative worth- say, art, or tools, or food... This makes no mention of whether actual creation or trading capabilities are going to exist. Are we going to be able to resell our 'virtual nikes' (produced in a virtual sweatshop, no doubt) on a virtual black market?

    Are retailers going to be able to set up virutal shops? Are there going to be virtual cyberprostitute rings? And just as importantly... are there going to be virtual cops?

    A virtual economy is a lot more than a virtual mall. It is not a marketplace, it's an environment within which a marketplace gets built.

    Virtual taxes. Virtual income. Do you earn an income in it, or is this a one-way economy, like everquest, with people pouring money in left and right? Because frankly, i can think of better ways to spend my money than on the entrance fee to a virtual playground, where i then get to buy virtual stuff with real money. (Do virtual goods have a depreciation schedule?)

    Another good question would be whether a 'virtual economy' which does not permit free enterprise is an economy at all- can i set up a virtual shop, selling, say, modifications like armor, and make real money? Does money come back out for anyone other than the marketers and the owners?

    In other words- how does this differ from a 'sims you can pay for' model??? In a real online virtual economy, we'd be able to sell each other game mods that let us, say, change our environment (virtual landscapers) or up our quality of life (virtual just about everything else) and it would be the geeks who made the most money. This is not likely to be permitted... this looks more like a toy than anything else. We're not there yet, put down the mouse and go back to the Gibson novels... *sigh*

    • Testify brother!

      They are asking users to subscribe to an online mall, thus becoming unwitting members of a massive corporate focus group. A real economy should be based on the creation of value - not hanging out and buying virtual Levi's with actual money.

      If you want to see an economy in an online world where the users build, texture, script, and sell each other objects, check out Second Life [secondlife.com].

    • There hasn't even hit version 1 yet. Some of the questions you're asking are answered in the article despite your implication (things like virtual storefronts, for instance, and the potential for users to make radical environment changes down the road). The other questions--depreciation and taxes, and indeed the whole question of what free enterprise entails in such a market--are worthwhile to ask, but unrealistic to expect answers to yet. The data simply isn't available.

      A lot of people seem to think that

  • flawed. period. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by klocwerk ( 48514 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:42PM (#5598474) Homepage
    I was in on the beta test for There. (yeah, who wasn't.) The entire premise of the 'game' is that you pay the company a monthy fee to play, and then you put real money into the company's bank account in exchange for a certain amount of "ThereBucks" which you can use to buy crap in their fake world.
    The engine is crappy, the interface is worse, the premise is flawed and expensive, and the game is based around trying to look cool.
    You can't edit anything in the world, you can't create anything, you can just buy stuff. it's like a virtual mall.

    Then again, maybe I'm just bitter because i heard it was going to be like the Metaverse in Snowcrash.

  • The Money is Real .... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ReidMaynard ( 161608 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:50PM (#5598532) Homepage
    "And we sit there, around the bar, just talking," I was saying. The talk floats up over their heads in chat balloons. "I get $1000 for the night" her voice rings out through computer speakers. Other sounds drift in from the street, where the drugs aren't quite the same as in the real world, but, thanks to the physics programmed into the system, it's convincing enough ...
  • Can't wait to get my avatar to hook up with some girls in a hot tub. All I have to do is...

    Excuse me, real girls are around, bbl.

  • EQ conspiracy theory. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron AT thcnet DOT net> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @01:53PM (#5598559) Homepage
    This is mildly off-topic, but interesting none-the-less.

    When it comes to making real life money through EQ, I think I've come across a scam that's gotta have one hell of a profit margin. I can't be the first guy to ever think of this, but I've yet to find any information about it online.

    On playerauctions.com, you can buy in game money for RL money. I've had a friend do this and much to my surprise after he completed the transaction, he alt-tabbed back into the game and the guy was handing him the money.

    At any given time their is about 3 million platinum pieces being sold, per server, in amounts ranging from 10k to 100k. To those that don't play, this is an astrinomical amount of money. Most of the end game uber guilds don't have this much in their treasury. It's a mind-blowing amount of money. Now as someone that has played EQ for 2 years, I can tell you their is no way that you could put together 3 mil in a day. The uber guilds MIGHT be able to liquidate all their droppable gear plus their collective amount of money and squeeze out 3 mil, but after that it would probably take them a month or 2 to scrape together that amount of cash again.

    Their are macro programs that basically use a script to walk your avatar between a weapons/armor forge and the metal dealer where your guy makes something that sells back to the merchant for a few bucks more than the materials cost, showing a slight profit each time. This idea is out as well because it would take weeks to do this, and the same guy working a forge for 2 weeks straight MIGHT arouse suspicion.

    My friends and I have given serious thought to how
    someone is able to put together this much cash day in and day out. The ONLY explanation that makes ANY sense is that GM's are using their power to summon money but the boatloads, giving it to anonymous alt characters, and raking in the fat cash. The money on playerauctions.com is ALWAYS being bid on, and I estimate that they're pulling about 1k-1.5k real money EVERYDAY from this practice. That's 100% profit as well.

    Sorry for the rant, but I wanted to see if anyone /. that plays EQ ever thought of this. I'd love to hear another explantion, but this is the only thing I can come up with. I also can't believe they haven't been caught yet..which almost gives credit to the theory that Sony is actually behind these auction...something to think about.
    • I believe that the GMs and the techs operate in different ways. The GM will have a lot of 'in game' power. But just about everything they do will be logged to a game logged.
      This log can be perused by the techs and other admin.
      If a GM summons loads of gold/respawns expensive things, it'll show up like a lightbulb.
      That's just the way I understand things to be happening there..
    • I play UO, not EQ, but the same system exists there.

      As I understand it, there are two sources for this money, the first is plain buying it. The people who run the site know the "exchange rate" on their different servers, and simple offer a lesser amount to sell to them directly, and/or watch eBay auctions for profitable trades.

      The other source, and an interesting side benefit, is cross-server transactions. If you have 20 plat on Ballhae, and want to move it to your character on Yahona, then you contact

  • EverQuest and its brethren have railed against the virtual marketplace, usually because it creates support issues ("he robbed me, the check bounced, give me my character back!"). It also creates major gameplay imbalances, some complain; however, the whole idea of an ever-expanding micro-economy has major inflation issues, so get over it.

    I've always assumed the better model would be for EverQuest to design in an escrow facility. Mark your account (or property) as escrowed, and the game system will lock a

  • Naming (Score:2)

    by skroz ( 7870 )
    There there, Michael. There shouldn't be any reason that There wouldn't be searchable. There are PLENTY of different ways on that there search engine that There could be found. There might be a way to find There using other attributes of There. Though you have to watch out for spelling problems; there might be difficulties with their they're and their, for example. So THERE!
  • ... Imagine architects using There's near-real physics to stress-test building designs

    Oh, yeah. That's just what we need. Architectual stress-testing using "near-real" physics...

  • This will develop a meaningful economy until everyone realizes there is no real value and the bottom drops out.

    Previous examples:

    1. Tulip Bulbs
    2. Beanie Babies
    3. Internet Stocks
  • Funny I tried both "there" and there in google and it was the first entry found.

  • I went There, and went home (Score:3, Informative)

    by Obiwan Kenobi ( 32807 ) <(evan) (at) (misterorange.com)> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @02:25PM (#5598788) Homepage
    I signed up for the There beta because I'm the type of guy who signs up for betas. Not because I'll play them extensively, looking for bugs and providing detailed reviews for the developers, no, I just like Using Stuff That Not Just Anyone Has Access To. Kinda like the Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne beta. Got in, haven't played it in weeks. Life goes on.

    Anyway, There ain't that bad. As long as you don't go shelling your cash into it, it's a neat chat room (the bubbles are kinda cool), and the gestures actually make your avatar do them. Laugh and they laugh, put a few ''' in from of Laugh and the avatar laughs harder, etc. The gestures work from Wave to Kiss, and so those desperate few who struggle for acceptance can get their kicks in there too. Though there isn't a "Shag" gesture, let's just remember its still in beta.

    And the vehicles are cool. The engine is sub-par, but on a high-end system you can ride the dune buggy and use the rocket pack to its fullest. I know it sounds silly, but I couldn't help but laugh out loud (and hell, be amazed) at the feeling you get by chatting it up with someone and then just taking off into the clear blue sky.

    Also, a high-speed connection is needed for these events. The engine needs a sweet vid card and processor, and the data needs a fat pipe to bring it to you. Only those meeting that criteria need to apply in order to get any sort of "fun" out of There.

    I played There for about 3 days. I met a few people, and some were very cool. You can play with animals (play Fetch w/ the dog, etc), be a part of races using the dune buggies, all kinds of stuff. This isn't to say I was enthralled by it, but its enough to keep you interested.

    Interesting story: the first time I visited There, I entered a conversation with a girl and a guy. The guy was a college student, the girl didn't reveal her occupation. Nevertheless, we talked about movies and tv and music, the usual getting-to-know-you barometer as to how cool your company is. The girl suggested we go find Rocket Packs and Dune Buggies, which we did. Everything was cool, but then, when I had to leave, the girl said "Page me when you want to continue the tour."

    The lesson is, be wary of cool females who pretend to be normal users but are probably payrolled by There to get you familiar with the place.

    • The lesson is, be wary of cool females who pretend to be normal users but are probably payrolled by There to get you familiar with the place.

      Do you think she was a There employee or an AI?
      • Do you think she was a There employee or an AI?

        Oh, definitely not AI. We had a conversation for about twenty minutes, then came the rocket pack and dune buggy. Then we went our seperate ways.

        As for the employee part, I'm still unsure, even after all this time. Who knows, maybe she was just doing the tour guide thing for Therebucks.
  • In many ways, the dollar [metafilter.com] is the basis of a (shaky) virtual economy.

    • Oh boy, I made the mistake of reading the link which suggests that Iraq only accepting euros in payment for oil would take value away from the dollar - which was the motive for war. But, since I already went thru the troubble to read it, I minus well respond....

      I hate to tell you this, but the US economey isn't proped up by oil, but manufacturing and technology. No matter what they accepted as currency, exchange rates would work out the difference. The WTC attacks did more to harm our dollar/economey th

  • There (a terrible name for a game since you can't search on it).

    Michael, with all due respect, if you're looking for a game named There perhaps you'd ask Google for "game there" [google.com] ?

    Or if you knew it was a virtual world you could ask instead for "there virtual world" [google.com] .

    Both these searches return relevant results.

  • 1)I don't want to sound like a kill-joy, but There's plan for world domination is a bunch of crap. Who would want to join an authoritarian virtual world that does nothing but milk you dry? Who would want their every conversation & personal experience logged and probably recorded? Not me. I'm not paying to join a virtual police-state.

    Personally I'd like to see an open-source collaboration to create such a world, with virtual civic duties and councils. By its very nature, it would be immensely democ

  • You can't eat virtual food, sleep in a virtual bed, live in a virtual house. Your virtual personas may be able to, but you can't. Thus, I tend to view the point at which virtual items enter the real world economy as the sale of entertainment value. You are, through your effort of 'producing' a virtual item, creating an entertainment value, which you can sell in the real world.

    It's a bit arbitrary, since by making this distinction, I'm saying, "It's not 'real' because if everyone produced virtual things, we
  • The ambition of the There people is evidently much grander than simply being a game. I think that there is a place for creating a virtual space which will draw in people looking for a good way to communicate and engage in meetings that would otherwise have to take place in meat space.

    I've played text-based muds and online games, and the potential for other apps has always made me interested -- rules for interaction and "laws" are really the primary problems, as the many posts here indicate already.

    A few y
  • How long until...

    The first money hack...
    The first money hack that gets prosecuted outside of the game
    The first mafia/gang/organized crime ring entirely within the game
    The first prosecuted money laundering scheme involving the game
    The first lawsuit brought against the company
    The first information hack (CC, Name, address, etc)
    The first murder attempt inside the game (are they going to ban guns? What happens with kitchen knives?)
    The first murder hack inside the game, after they dull kitchen knives
    T
  • Unless there is something akin to free trade available, wouldn't the virtual economy fail for similar reasons as government or business based central planning, in the style of the Soviet Union or a capitalist system permeated by monopolies? Or does There think that those systems could work (in their reality, at least) and they can do better?

    Sure, essential goods are nonexistent and everything else can be replicated endlessly (by the 'government'), but the bottom line has to be that roleplaying in an open
  • ... in P2P and open source, creating a gift economy,
    not with one monopolistic company wanting to extend an exchange economy*, no matter how good and benevolent they are.
    The world is for all to create.

    * and during this time, GWB is trying to transform USoA in a command economy...
  • Actualy, the "real-virtual economy" has already been done.

    http://www.project-entropia.com [project-entropia.com]
    Project Entropia will have a real economy system that allows you as a user to exchange real life money into PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and then back into a real currency again.

    The game was release last month (or so), but the company (MindArk) is pretty much a joke ... they were raided in 2002 with the help of M$ for having pirated software:

    http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53534,00 .html [wired.com]

    The wh
  • My wife got into the There beta, and was all set to install the software, when it informed her that Internet Explorer was required to play the game. She let them know (in an email sent from Mozilla) that she had no intention of installing using IE just to play a game.
  • Looked at the article, copied-pasted the first bit into Google, and wooha! It works.

    Google search: "There Inc."

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