While there are a number of browser-based metaverse platforms suitable as social hangouts, it seems to me that the MP diaspora is faced with a hard truth that at the moment there probably isn't a true MP replacement.
There have been many valuable suggestions as to substitutes, all with their own rox/sux bullet points.
Just for the heck of it I'd like to suggest that salient aspects of any user-driven metaverse platform should include:- Full user ownership of user-created content. Look carefully at those densely-obfuscated TOS pages. Few are really equitable.
- Open standards for content models, images, sounds, videos, etc. Work should be at least mostly reusable in other mediums.
- Support of UCG capabilities and variant display modes (2D, 2.5D, 3D, etc).
- Ability for legal, unrestricted archiving/backups of user-owned content, along with freely-available tools needed to make them.
- Open, configurable, evolvable platform, not tied to a single vendor, ISP, grid, company or private organization. Businesses can die, 'nuff said.
- Support of fast and powerful user-scripting languages such as Lua.
- Minimal client system requirements, in order to facilitate a wide range of client venues. Preferably browser (Flash) based. Preferably without client app downloads.
- A marketplace of user-created (and other) content, with minimal vig, integration or security issues. Should offer real-world payments and/or currency exchange.
- Should have a somewhat efficient and and at least horizontally scalable server architecture.
- Must have a robust and comprehensive meep system. (OK, maybe not this one)
Well yeah, I think that excludes pretty much everyone!
Jokes aside, MP made a big niche and it's gone. Personally I'd like to avoid another traumatic platform evaporation, so I'll probably be avoiding walled-garden services whenever possible.
And so with that said, I'd like to suggest that the MP community take a hard look at the biggest and most active open metaverse platform currently available, OpenSim.
A quick rundown:OpenSim is usually described as a kind of reverse-engineered clone of the Second Life® virtual world, but is in fact designed to be a general purpose metaverse platform, of which the clone mode is only one use case.
The term "OpenSim" refers not to a grid or community or service, but rather to just the server system used to render the worlds. To visit an OpenSim world you can use the actual Second Life® viewer, or one of several open-source clones (the Hippo viewer is very popular). Unfortunately browser-based clients are not yet really viable.
There are many grids in operation, representing hundreds (thousands?) of regions. These
grids are clusters of worlds and can be run as basic ad-hoc federations of independent worlds (OSGrid) or commercial operations which sell and/or rent connected worlds/regions and services (ReactionGrid). Costs range upwards from $0.
A note: I'm using the terms "world" (MP-centric) and "region" (OpenSim-centric) interchangably here, even though they are not exactly equivalent
A growing number of companies offer OpenSim hosting and are the vanguard of the Metaverse Service Provider industry. Some rent you space for your worlds and handle the server management while others sell you hosting for your own OpenSim setups.
You can also run your own server software, on your own computer, either as a private or public (yes, people can visit) world.
So, a few caveats:- Relatively fat, downloaded client.
- 3D environment, and the content creation toolchain thus implied.
- Scriptable, but primarily via LSL. Lua support primordial at this time.
- It's still an alpha-level server system.
- No cross-grid currency system.
And a few pluses:- You can build, test and use worlds privately, even locally.
- Your world content is archivable and transferable to another OpenSim server if desired or required.
- You can connect your worlds to one of many different free or commercial 'grids' .
- It's not necessary that you be 'connected' to a grid in order for other people to visit your worlds.
- There are various server and world hosting options.
- Furiously-advancing and surprisingly stable
- This is a really good era to be involved with UCG-oriented contributions to the OpenSim community!
Yeah, this is a lot of information/advocacy. Sorry about that.
As usual the best thing is just to explore, so I'd recommend grabbing the Hippo viewer (or the Second Life® viewer, if you are a resident there) and cruising over to OSGrid. Or you can visit ReactionGrid (the slickest and probably the biggest commercial OpenSim-based grid right now) and wander around. And if you want to go the full monty, you can download the server package as fire up your very own world sim*.
* There are a couple of server packages available. All require a bit of configuration. The "Diva distro" package simplifies much of the configuration but requires the (free) mySQL database. The generic OpenSim distro includes it's own database, but requires a bit more configuration. D'oh!
Links:
OpenSim:
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_PageOpenSim downloads:
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Download#BinariesHippo viewer:
http://mjm-labs.com/viewer/OSGrid:
http://www.osgrid.org/elgg/ReactionGrid:
http://reactiongrid.com/While OpenSim
is a very different platform, I think that a symbiosis of the OpenSim and Metaplace creator communities could be a fortuitous outcome in the wake of the MP site closure.
-jme
