Metaplace gone. Where to go now?

[Crwth]

Has anyone got any experience with Blue Mars?

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Crwth

[AthSkytower]

I looked at it, briefly. WIthout any interesting prospects for UGC short of an expensive developer program, I didn't stay long.

[Sandfish]

I came from Secondlife to Metaplace late in its life and was immediately struck by the friendliness and helpfulness of its residents so it is with great sadness that I have heard the latest news.
Unless someone can come up with a viable alternative I will return to SL and am wondering how many folk may be prepared to pay the monthly fee to own a bit of land there.
It's all very well the site being free but building in public sandboxes is never much fun.
The basic fee is $9.95 per month for a 'premium' account which entitles you to own 512 sq m of land.

The next tier is 1024 sq m at a cost of $8.00 p m ......+ your account fee of $9.95 p m. makes a total of $17.95 p m ...(£11.25 UK)

As I said, I was greatly struck by the sense of community I found on MP and it would be a great pity if that dissolved back into the ether so how's this for a possibility?
A parcel of 1024 sq m is 1/64th of a region or 'Sim' in SL which sits in its own dedicated server. It is perfectly possible to own an entire Sim. The rent for which is $195.00 p m.
One trusted member of the MP community could rent this Sim and sub-let 1024 plots to 63 other residents. The Sim can be set with codes of conduct similar to those on MP and would be a self contained world if you like. The cost of that 1024 would then be reduced from $8 to only $3.5 p m and we would have a huge parcel of MP land to have fun in. ... just a suggestion.....show me another viable and I'll be there ... Mind you, jme has a point. OpenSim needs us more than SL and we could do the same there. Just lets not let this die

[kae]

It's about UGC. We used MP in 2 of our classes this semester and were planning on expanding to 5 in the spring. So Hellflame and I looked up the Blue Book A Consumer Guide to Virtual http://www.associationofvirtualworlds.c ... 202008.pdf from the Association of Virtual Worlds. (This needs alot of revising.) We're working through the alphabet. Haven't found anything like MP. We do play in SL - in just haven't seen the ease of use with it comes to content creation for the new user. But would be interested in continuing with any MP community activites in whatever virtual world. As previously stated, Open Sim may need us more and welcome us more.

[Strachan]

I'm not familiar with Blue Mars (yet) but it has had some interesting updates recently: http://www.bluemarsonline.com/blog/index.html

Platform overview: http://www.bluemarsonline.com/Platform/ ... About.html
Dev wiki: http://dev.bluemars.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Asset creation: via 3D programs such as 3DSMax, Maya, Blender, SketchUp
Scripting: LUA.

[Otherworld]

I've seen this opensimulator thing and bluemars thing(I think you have to pay to get a world), and I wanted to share platform I've found.
It's called Multiverse and allows you to make your own 3d world. You don't have to pay a thing as long as your game is free.
The only setback is you have to put up your on server, but there are good tutorials to do that on the site.
I would've used the platform long time ago, but I have to connect through a router and with vista, which is a hard thing to do.
The website is: http://www.multiverse.net/

[Soccer24]

I like Unity and http://www.multiverse.net/ however, Multiverse does not yet support Mac OSX which is what I'm currently using The good news is that support for other platforms is on their roadmap

[LunarRaid]

I have been looking into Blue Mars more seriously lately. There doesn't seem to be any server-side scripting available; the only scripting you can do is lua scripts that execute client-side. However, UGC doesn't seem to be as out of reach as I initially suspected; I've seen tutorials using only Google Sketchup, and a city built with assets from it. You seem to be able to rent shops, blocks, or entire cities, and current pioneer pricing on cities (if you feel like risking your money early) is relatively inexpensive. $30 a month will get you an entire city of your own any size you want within reason, with the only downside being a complete lack of user concurrency (5 users at the $30 plan).

I don't know if this is a good platform or not, or what they will offer in the future, but I'll keep an eye on it.

[yezoma]

Well if the choice ends up at SL then I have reopened my membership there, and perhaps some who are in the know can help me with with the tools there
Damn I am so going to miss the simple tools that we had in Metaplace.

But saying that, metaplace.com is finishing, but what is metaplace.inc aiming for, and should we be keeping our ears open in that direction?

[Sgeo]

My computer isn't good enough for Blue Mars, so that's not an option for me . I have a lot of experience with Active Worlds and Second Life (actually making a game in Active Worlds right now), so if anyone wants advice on those...

Active Worlds allows a lot of flexibility in what worlds can do (more than Second Life (which technically has islands as the closest thing to worlds), but a bit less than MP). However, licenses to run worlds are not free. Also, they have to be hosted (AWI can do that, but again, not free). Any server-side um, programs (it actually uses bots, which are special clients that can listen to events in the world and modify the world based on those) also need to be hosted. The game I'm working on actually got a lot of that stuff for free, since it's a project intended to boost the community.

Another possible option is BYOND.com, although it's by default 2d, and a bit difficult to get isometric stuff working in it. It's been a long while since I last used it.