Reader Submission: Moving About the Metaverse

 
By DrFran Babcock

INTRODUCTION

Greetings, everyone. Since I left Second Life for Philip Rosedale’s VR-inspired High Fidelity, I have not been around Second Life much. Sadly, High Fidelity, as a 3-D virtual world, died a little over two years ago. If you ask Philip Rosedale, co-creator of both Second Life and the subsequent High Fidelity, why this happened, he attributes much of it to the slow adoption of virtual reality hardware and some other reasons that have to do with how people choose to interact.

I love virtual worlds. I have never left virtual worlds since I left full-time Second Life in 2014, moving to the aforementioned High Fidelity. Since then, I have spent most of my time in Vircadia (the open-source world based on High Fidelity’s architecture), Sansar: The virtual world created by Linden Lab as the successor to Second Life; and even Horizon Worlds—Meta’s foray into virtual worlds.

What I plan to do, in writing a sporadic column for the Newser, is to share some news and tidbits from the rest of the Metaverse. It’s important to understand that my view of the Metaverse is colored much by the work of Tony Parisi and Avi-Bar Zeev. Thus, many worlds and One Metaverse.

Last, I want to thank Bixyl Shuftan and Gemma Cleanslate for nudging me back to writing again. I am in Second Life, but only for brief periods of time.

NEWS FROM SANSAR

It is sad to report that Sansar is on life support. At the time of this writing, all of the employees have been furloughed, and many have gone on to other jobs. They are still open, and are still filled with the most beautiful worlds bar none. The remaining community of about 50 avatars are fiercely loyal, and continue to function as if things are without problems.

I would recommend that you go in there, and look around, because I fear that it might evaporate. Sansar was sold to Wookey Technologies a while ago, and at that point, all communication with the owners ceased. There were no more Product Update meetings, and each time the Umbra License (a tool that helps the graphics to run better)  was not repurchased it took a while for it to be repurchased. I believe, at this writing, that the license has lapsed.

It would be a tragedy if Sansar was lost, because I still believe it’s the best looking virtual world. It has drawbacks, chief among them that you cannot build collaboratively, but how many people know you can have 20 worlds completely free?

NEWS FROM HORIZON WORLDS

I was lucky (?) to score a closed Beta invite to Meta’s Horizon Worlds. I have no love for Facebook, but I was curious to see what they had to offer. I will discuss the positives and the negatives here:

Positive:

Building, while rudimentary, is easy, and you can do some creative and different things.

You can build in collaboration. It’s very cool to make your avatar huge, and look down on your build, manipulating objects as if they were a diorama.

The scripting language, proprietary, is visual. This means that hopeless coders like me can manage to script some life into the worlds I build. This is a big plus, in my opinion.

At present, the developers were accessible and willing to answer questions. Since they have opened Horizon Worlds to all USA and Canada adults, it seems to have change.

Negative:

Well, it’s Facebook/Meta, so they want our data.

The avatars have a lot of variety, but I want legs. Come on, Meta.

Children are running rampant in Horizon Worlds. I attended a scripting question and answer meeting, and children kept disrupting the meeting with profanities and racial slurs. The lone developer was unable to manage the number of trolls, and the session was ruined for me. If Meta wants their world to succeed, they will have to deal with this. I think it’s a problem of children “borrowing” their parents’ Quest 2s.

I will leave it at that, and promise more to come.

NEWS FROM VIRCADIA

This is the world where I spend most of my time. It is most definitely not for everyone, because it is not easy to download, easy to use, nor easy to create.

Vircadia is developed by a small, dedicated, committed, and productive group of content creators and residents. There is one event every night except Tuesday, and the folks in their Discord server are helpful, and not fatigued by answering the same questions over and over.

Currently, we are working on a live-action play based very loosely on A Christmas Carol, but with a dark satirical bent, and a focus on virtual worlds. It will take place on Tuesday, December 28, at 2PM Pacific Time.

IN CLOSING

I also attend other virtual worlds, and I am glad to talk about what I do, but I would love to hear from you. If this is content you want, let me know and I will continue to share what I see as I move about the Metaverse.
 
DrFran Babcock
 

Sansar Update: A New Direction, Torley, And Account Issues

The Newser hasn't written much about Sansar, the "next generation virtual world" since Linden Lab sold it to Wookey in March. For most Second Life users, only a handful such as Draxtor Despres expressed enthusiasm about it. So most reactions of it's sale were along the lines of "good riddance" and "why did it tale so long?" While many of it's personnel stayed with Linden Lab and went back to Second Life, some such as Torley Linden stayed and left the Lab. Torley is still with Sansar as it's Production Director. Another former Linden, Sheri Bryant, also stayed, continuing as it's General Manager.

Under Linden Lab, the original concept of Sansar appeared to be as Second Life's successor. But as it's development went on, the Lab began to realize most of it's residents would be reluctant to do more than casual visits. But it went on and to it's credit stuck with Sansar for some years, but didn't seem to have much of a plan other than "if you build it, they will come," and not many came. Exactly what Linden Lab could have done to make it work, and why it didn't do more has been debated numerous times. Perhaps it was simply beyond the Lab's ability to make Sansar thrive while operating Second Life.

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So how has Sansar been doing under Wookey? According to an article in New World Notes, lately it's been looking less like an open-ended virtual world where users can create their own experiences and more of a "virtual venue platform" for live events.

It's a smart move to target the live music/concert market in the COVID age. And I do like a lot of the functionality they are showing off in the video, especially avatar-to-avatar VR meet-and-greets for artists.

 Going to the website, https://www.sansar.com/ , there's a clear emphasis on live events, right down to the title: "Sansar - A New Live Events Destination." There's nothing on the front page about being able to make your own content or create your own place, just a link to the old atlas of user-generated places on the bottom.

This isn't necessarily a better approach as if a person has time to hang around once the event is over, unlike Second Life where someone with even a small amount of experience knows they can explore around. But it seems Wookey's Sansar has come to the conclusion this is their best course of action to get users, and money.

However, there is one customer service problem that former Newser writer Cyfir informed me about. From his point of view, it's "almost impossible" for Sansar users to erase their accounts, "I requested to be removed back in may out of concerns that the new company would not handle my personal information in the right way. And four months later, I get an email, which just happened to be during my three day vacation, requesting information and proof that I am part of the European Union (Cyfir is in the US) ... and they gave me three days to reply before closing the request."

And as Cyfir wasn't in a position to check his email until after his vacation, the company sent him another email saying "as we have not heard back from you, our support system has automatically marked your ticket as resolved." As Cyfir put it, "So if I still want to close my account, I would have to send another request, wait another four months, and all the while they still have my personal information and my account is still active on a platform I don't want to be on."

 Coming across this thread in the Sansar "Bug Reports" forum, there were others whom found themselves in similar positions, including when the world was owned by Linden Lab. While some tried to assure them it shouldn't be much trouble, the response was that deleting accounts was a lot more difficult than it ought to be, "I've not bothered to repeat the request because every answer has made it clear no one is interested in helping.  Not wanting an account here is not a protest,  its simply a matter or personal privacy-  which in this case is being handled poorly to say the least.  being able to delete an account should be a very basic function of the system.  what reason could there be to not allow it? Maybe to hold onto personal data that the person does not wish them to have- like name and e-mail." It seems those whom have yet to visit Sansar and are considering giving it a look may need to keep this in mind.

So under Wooley, Sansar has found itself a new direction with a few of Linden Lab's talent keeping it going, such as Torley. But it appears not unlike the "Hotel California," those trying to check out may find they can't truly leave.

Source: New World Notes, Modem World  , Ryan Schultz

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: Sansar, One Year Later

By Bixyl Shuftan

It was a little more than a year ago that Linden Lab officially opened Sansar, it's "next-generation virtual world which had been in development for over three years, experienced a number of delays, and was the subject of no shortage of speculation by Second Life's residents. My initial impression was that while interesting it's best feature was it's, potential for improvement. Others had a firm thumbs down to the point it couldn't be mentioned in the Second Life Friends Facebook group.

Since then, there have been some improvements to Sansar. Last month, the Lab allowed content creators to sell custom avatars on Sansar's Marketplace. And less than two days later some appeared. As of the writing of this article, there were a total of 43 avatars either available for free or up for sale (some better than others). Among those you can get for free now is the "Draxacoon." The Lab also expanded the number of areas, or "experiences" that residents could have from three to twenty.

There are some visually stunning locations in Sansar. One of the more recent ones is the "Roddenberry Nexus," which according to Inara Pey was launched in August 1. Done by Linden Lab in cooperation with Roddenberry Entertainment, which is run by Eugene Roddenberry, the son of the man who created "Star Trek." Giving it a look, I found it offers more interactivity than previous Sansarbuilds I've seen with a lift that can move you between levels and buttons that when pressed will play recordings, such as one describing the transporter visual effects or the Star Trek Animated Series.

There was also another cooperative build done by the Lab with the help of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Among the most interesting stories I've seen was a video by Draxtor Despress, showing a number of people holding a "Hoverderby" game. These people weren't just looking at Sansar, but interacting.

But there's still plenty to complain about Sansar. Sansar is also a more restrictive place than Second Life. It was widely expected from the begining there would be more restrictions on adult content than Second Life. While I read somewhere at least one builder tinkered with such builds, the most recent set of content guidelines have pretty much stated "no nudity and sex."

Content featuring sexually explicit content and activities, such as pornography, sexual acts, nudity and sexual services, including solicitation and offers for such content, are prohibited.

The Lab does say, "However, in limited educational or scientific contexts, we may make exceptions to these policies in our sole discretion." One example might be the piece of nude artwork Ryan Schultz saw at the Smithsonian art exhibition. But this wasn't the only problem Schultz saw. Even mentioning the names "Sansar," Linden Lab," or "Second Life," on a build could get you in trouble.

Any content or Sansar store listings that contain any references to Linden Lab, Sansar, Second Life, or any other Linden Lab-related terminology that may imply a relationship with, sponsorship, endorsement, or employment by Linden Lab is prohibited. 

So even making a "Sansar" t-shirt would get you a takedown notice from the Lab. And it's not just inworld content as in January, Schultz was asked to remove some pictures, and there appeared to be a problem with the name he was using for his blog at the time, "Sansar Newsblog." Hassling a major source of news about a virtual world you want to get word out about, especially a friendly voice, (and a big source of information for this article) isn't exactly the best of business tactics. And then there's the following line.

Do not upload Content that promotes or could be construed as primarily intended to evade limitations on Prohibited Content.

This line of the Terms of Service certainly leaves a lot to interpretation. Considering the Lab's past behavior, some content creators might decide not to take chances with a certain idea and instead make and sell it on another virtual world. In addition to the lack of a fashion market, this is probably one reason why Sansar has attracted little attention from more than a few bloggers. Though Schultz would say this was a common case of most newer virtual worlds.

For those frustrated by the long time it can take details to rezz in Second Life sims, Sansar can be just as bad or even worse. And there are apparently some problems with buying Sansar dollars in bulk using the "bundle" option.

And of course, while Sansar looks good, it still lacks the interactivity of Second Life and OpsnSim worlds. As it's been stated before, it's like comparing a theme park to a residential area, a nice place to visit, but not one you can virtually live. The examples I've stated are Sansar at it's best. The majority of other "experiences" aren't as good.

For these reasons, the userbase of Sansar remains tiny compared to Second Life. In April, the Newser reported the next-generation virtual world was averaging less than fifty users a day. Schultz went further, saying that the average was never higher than twenty. In fact, the graph he gave showed it was sometimes less than ten per day. For now, it seems stuck at a tiny userbase.

So why has Linden Lab persisted in sticking with Sansar? The question has been raised on whether the Lab has a "cultural shift" away from it's established virtual world to this unpopular newcomer, numbers remained small. Yes, it's normal for a company to want to show off it's latest product. But why leave out it's tried and true moneymaker? Perhaps with the stories about cyber-affairs, incidents like the "flying penis attack" on live TV, being banned from the "Twitch" streaming service due to some of it's sims allowing explicit content, maybe the Lab is feeling it can't really mention Second Life much to a mainstream audience. Another possible reason, with the talk about "safe spaces" at colleges where controversial speech is prohibited, perhaps the Lab is wondering if the next generation is looking less for the ability to express oneself and more about security from what might offend them.

As for the possibility of Linden Lab closing down Second Life anything soon to force it's population to Sansar: not a chance. Near the start of it's development before it even had a name, Will Burns once commented if Linden Lab made such a move, about a third would move onto the new grid, a third to smaller virtual worlds, and a third would give up on virtual worlds altogether. Today, I'd have to say if Linden Lab made such a suicidal move, in my opinion less than five percent would be inclined to move on to Sansar as their primary virtual world. While Linden Lab might survive thanks to it's Blocksworld income, it would be a much smaller company. Of the rest of Second Life's residents, it's my guess about three-fifths would move on to the various smaller virtual worlds, perhaps some moving between two or three to continue to meet up with friends. And the rest would likely give up on anything more than a passing interest in virtual worlds. Even for those who moved, they would most likely not spend as much money. It's one thing to invest money in virtual land and property if you believe the grid will be around for years. But if you're not sure how things will be six months down the road, you may not be so eager to put down that money.

In any event, Sansar is very much a work in progress compared to Second Life, and even the more established Opensim worlds. It still needs at least a year, probably longer, before it can truly stand on it's own. For those who insist Linden Lab should get rid of it, such as one person I talked to who called it "the Edsel of virtual worlds," keep in mind the Edsel was in production for three years before it's makers finally gave up on it. Most likely, it will take longer than that before the Lab decides it's efforts are best spent elsewhere.

Sources: Ryan Schultz (formerly the Sansar Newsblog), Modem World, Sansar , Draxtor Despres, venturebeat.com  

Bixyl Shuftan

More on Sansar

 By Bixyl Shuftan

On Monday July 31, Linden Lab finally opened it's new virtual world of Sansar. After visiting two of it's locations, my initial impression was the place had promise, but still needed a lot of work. Afterwards, I decided to look a little more for a better overall impression.

I would visit several more locations. One was highlighted in the Sansar Atlas: "Orgin Cinema 360." A second I had heard about in preview articles, "NASA  Apollo Museum" by LOOT Interactive. Two were from Maxwell Graf, "Respite" and "Rustica," the latter which was part of a preview video. Another was "Chess" by Lillani. Two more looked like places by less experienced builders, "Driveable UFO Bumper Cars" and the "Freebies Museum." And I decided to check the place done by SL video maker Draxtor Despress, "114 Harvest," and check Luskwood once again.

Of these four, the NASA  Apollo Museum I found to be the most impressive. There was a video screen with footage about the Apollo program, a display of a Saturn V rocket lying on the floor on it's side, and a display showing the path of the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission took. For a someone interested in the space program, this would be very cool. Another detailed place was the "Orgin Cinema 360," which was described as a former arch-villain's lair now converted to more peaceful use. The center area was a 3-D panorama movie view, and stepping out, there was a detailed circular walkway. There was one moving object, a camera, that panned around. Below me were fans that whirled around.

They looked good. But as a Second Life resident, I couldn't help but notice what they didn't have. There was no interactivity. There were seats at the Orgin Cinema, but you could not sit down. You were limited to inside the movie area and the walkway, and that was it. While there were objects in the distance, you could not get to them. Orgin Cinema also took quite a bit of time to load, much more than a normal teleport in Second Life. And while the Apollo area looked great, unlike Second Life, you couldn't click on something for more information.

Maxwell Graf's "Respite" and "Rustica" had more room to walk around, and "Respite" had a very detailed,building, with a "rustic" look, the sound of a crackling fireplace. But you couldn't get up the stairs, and the sound of the fire was constant until you got some distance away from the dwelling, and then it was completely gone. I was about to walk around a while, but eventually I came to the end of the island. But once I got too far into the water, I "fell" down into some gray abyss. Rustica was a huge area of mountains and valleys. It looked less  like a detailed build and more about demonstrating how big an area in Sansar could get.

"Driveable UFO Bumper Cars" and "Chess" were small demonstations of what limited capacity for interactivity Sansar has at the moment. The first place was a gridlike driving area with several saucer shaped simple vehicles one could hop in by walking up to them, and pressing the "1" button. One could then "drive" the saucer by walking/pushing at it from the inside. I did notice it was possible to flip over the edge if you hit it hard enough, and pushing further, you would fall off into the abyss. After a few moments, you would respawn back to where you first appeared. With "Chess" it was possible to push against the pieces and move them. But when I tried to move one, I ended up moving a few, knocking over one. And there was no way to pick it back up.

Two places I haven't seeing on the Sansar viewer atlas after the first day were it's Luskwood area and "114 Harvest" by Draxtor Despres. I contacted Tengu Yamabushi in Second Life about the area that had seemed little more than a simple rocky savana. He told me Linden Lab had taken it down temporarily, "Seems you're not supposed to use a logo for the thumbnai. Who knew? ... Supposedly there's a policy, somewhere, that says the thumbnail has to be an in-experience screenshot, and no logos. Of course, not knowing that, I created a bog-standard-template world. And since it had no unique content, then, (I) just slapped a LW logo on it.  My bad."

And why couldn't I see it in the atlas if it was back up? Tengu told me about one big problem with the viewer atlas, "It's very easy to miss in the Atlas. There's new stuff accumulating in there and there seems no way to filter/search for anything." Still, he had been doing a little more work on the place, "We have a tree now! : It's not much of a tree, but it's a tree. It's a 'Charlie Brown Christmas' (style) 'Luskwood' tree." When I was able to take a look later, there was a larger tree with stone stairs leading to a platform on it.

Draxtor has emerged as a supporter of Sansar, helping Linden Lab with recent promition videos. So I was interested to see what his place was like. But I couldn't see "114 Harvest" on the viewer atlas. Then I saw on the Moni's World blog an address to the place. Taking a look at the Sansar website, there was a search bar on it's atlas that was missing in the viewer. So I was able to locate a location that I had heard the location of.

Checking "114 Harvest," I found myself in front of a house in the suburbs a car having the license place "DRAXTOR."  The front door was open, so I went in, and the only door inside open was the one to the basement which had a sign "First Lifers Keep Out." Downstairs was a couch in front of a TV playing one of his "Fluffee" videos from a few years ago, with a small radio room connecting. Back out of the house, I decided to look around, and fell through a hole of come kind, falling into the gray underneath. Down there was a rubber ball I could push around. The only form of interaction I had at the place.

In short, Sansar has a lot of potential, but there's not much to attract your run of the mill Second Life user. One big disadvantage is it's not that easy to hold events there. Tengu felt it's appeal would be limited among his fellow Luskwooders, "I'm not really sure how it will turn out.  We at Luskwood aren't really interested in 'experiences', we're first and foremost a community.  And I'm not sure how well the Sansar platform fits an online community. Two particulars: live music and collaborative builds, Primtionary, specifically. No way to do either right now in Sansar."

It should be noted Second Life was much different from how it is now to how it was on day one, or even how it was when it was a few years old from day one. It used to be everyone had to pay just to have an account or even to rezz a prim. Teleporting was once possible only through teleport hubs, and when you did it could be a mess with everything up your backside. It would be a long time before there was anything other than human avatars available. Second Life, while good, needed to be better. And eventually it was.

As for how many will use it? That's a question only time will answer. But when Second Life came around, there were only a handful of other virtual worlds that were unknown to most. Today, it's fair to say the majority with computers have at least heard of Second Life. So why aren't more using it? Perhaps it's bad publicity or it's not the kind of virtual experience they want, which Linden Lab seems to be thinking. Or maybe most computer users aren't that interested in virtual worlds that don't involve blowing something up.

So Sansar may just end up a much smaller alternative grid like InWorldz, with a few people and making it's owners a little money, but not much. Time will tell.

Sources: Moni's World 

Bixyl Shuftan