Areae's Metaplace announced

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

This isn't Raph Koster I guess?

It is not not Raph Koster I wouldn't not guess if I didn't not have to.

Raph Koster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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As for the whole Metaplace -- Badgers with chainsaws, Tentacle rape and legal issues aside -- looking at the SS and articles it seems much more appropriate for a 3D chatroom/social networking site than true 3D worlds (barring the odd no-life guy(s) in a basement who's willing to work on his/their Tentacles with Chainsaws game sans pay for 1-2 years).

Nothing particularly wrong with that -- social networking sites are money I guess -- but I think we're a long way for the average MMO fan to be able to make a full on MMO with these tools -- as noted not in alpha just going off the press release/SS and various game articles -- for all I know it could have a voice interface backed by an emergent AI that'll have your Koalas that Krump game going in notime.

[Quineloe]

I'm curious, could RK run this one into the ground as badly as he did SWG?
This project appears to have far less hype and disappointment-possibility.

[QforQ]

Hey guys I'm a bit late on this..just by a few days, but check out this great interview with Raph Koster about Metaplace. It is very indepth, about 4 pages I believe, and answers a lot of questions!

The MMO Gamer » » Interview: Areae’s Raph Koster Talks Metaplace

[Zehn - Vhex]

So yeah....an MMO created entirely out of flash sites. Albino Blacksheep the MMO.

[Duppin]

Screw you, man. Lobster Magnet the MMO ftw.

[Himeo]

Cuppy: I will shill for you like no other. Front the cash and I'll spread the word. I'm viral.

[copernic]

I'm going to quote the legal stuff because that's what interests me.

The MMO Gamer: What is your stance on the “ownership” of virtual property?

Raph Koster: We are the network, we are not the world operator, we don’t run your world, customer service is your job. Similarly, we’re not claiming ownership of your stuff. It would be kind of silly considering that you may have links to it from some place else. It probably isn’t on our site, even.

The MMO Gamer: So if someone has a popular world, gets sick of running it, and decides to sell it on eBay for a few grand, the company wouldn’t have a problem with that?

Raph Koster: That’s essentially selling the account to access it, from an admin point of view.

The only thing about that is at that point I would have to check with lawyers to find out if there are any weird privacy questions where we could end up liable because you transferred your account with your credit card information to somebody else. So there’s weird things like that, I think the way to put it is actually we’re kind of like a hosting company.

You’re uploading a copy of information, you’re using our tools to create information. When something is created you get the copyright, so the IP is going to remain yours, whether or not it literally makes sense for you to transfer your account, or whether we need to set up a mechanism maybe for you to give your world to another active account, maybe we have to do that, I don’t know. I mean, the core of the thing is if you make a kick-ass game idea, we don’t own it, that’s your kick-ass game idea.

I’m sure there’s all kinds of legalese around that, where we have to have licenses to display it, and all kinds of crap like that, but…

"Kind of like a hosting company."

Well, actually, this could work. Hosting companies do not claim to own the material you place on them. While they have to give in to takedown notices and obey local laws, as Raph notes, that doesn't really effect the legality of it all.

You pay Metaplace to host your little MMO, just like Blizzard could hypothetically pay a server farm to host their game. Included in that package is a proprietary coding language, which you are licensing, much like video game developers license graphic engines or something.

In all, the complicated legal questions stemming from managing an economy and a social network don't really come up, because Areae doesn't get into them.

Open Questions:

1. Raph was kind of vague about how you PAY for this thing. There's some sort of virtual currency system. How will that work? It's simple if the equation is simply Dollar In, Areaeoleans out. But that doesn't seem to be how it works. In fact, Raph is only all that specific about Metaplace taking in Areaeoleans and paying OUT real money(!)

This is a pretty big deal. We can only interact with other people online in so many ways. Talking. Shared Activities (incl. sex). Exchange. Exchange usually takes a shared currency. In Warcraft, you get gold by slaying monsters. In Second Life, you get a small stipend per week plus you can directly buy the stuff. Virtual dollars drain out of the economy through various implemented, carefully considered means. Still too early to say how that'll work in this context. I mean, can players create their OWN shared currency systems that's entirely particular to their little world?

2. Raph talks about Metaplace's relationship with its endusers, where the endusers are the quasi-Developers who build with the tools. But that's only half the story. The other bit are the people who don't build but use the worlds. What's their role with the company? Do they have to sign anything with Metaplace? How do they pay for it?


In Copernic-only news, I got sick of reading starry-eyed Technology and Law types who get wet when someone proposes extending property rights to my +3 Sword of Catassing. After consulting with my Professor, my essay has been retitled "Leave the Orcs Alone" and is now about why extending legal rights to the online world is retarded. I hope to include the following footnote:

"147. Overly utopian commentators should consider that it was the Virtual World community that coined the term "poopsocking" to refer to going to the bathroom where they sit rather then leave the computer to use a toilet."

[Horse]

Originally Posted by copernic

In Copernic-only news, I got sick of reading starry-eyed Technology and Law types who get wet when someone proposes extending property rights to my +3 Sword of Catassing. After consulting with my Professor, my essay has been retitled "Leave the Orcs Alone" and is now about why extending legal rights to the online world is retarded.

I wonder if God has legal rights to the universe, or if he's just playing some game on a server. lulz?

Are there really ANY legal rights arguments for actually owning items in a game? It seems very cut and dry. I can make a game right now, and you pay me $5 for me to make "sword of you're a shithead" or even pay me to play my game.

Or, you come over to my house and pay me $5 to play monopoly. Sorry, you can't keep my "you win $10 in a beauty contest" card.

If someone hacks the planet and steals your get out of jail card you can't "sue" them or me because your gameplay experience was ruined as long as I say "hi i'm not responsible if anything happens that makes the game suck or not happen."

I hope to include the following footnote:

"147. Overly utopian commentators should consider that it was the Virtual World community that coined the term "poopsocking" to refer to going to the bathroom where they sit rather then leave the computer to use a toilet."

I hope that makes someone laugh - your implications are nearly 5 logical fallacies rolled up into one.

[copernic]

Originally Posted by Horse

Are there really ANY legal rights arguments for actually owning items in a game? It seems very cut and dry. I can make a game right now, and you pay me $5 for me to make "sword of you're a shithead" or even pay me to play my game.

Sure, why not? We can create legal rights for anything we want to. ALL legal rights are the creation of a society. You even only "own" land because the legislature has enacted laws saying that you can and do. A lot of people have tried to come up with "natural rights" theories for property ownership, but they've had a tough time of it.

This doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do so.

What fallacies...?

[Raph]

Originally Posted by copernic

1. Raph was kind of vague about how you PAY for this thing. There's some sort of virtual currency system. How will that work? It's simple if the equation is simply Dollar In, Areaeoleans out. But that doesn't seem to be how it works. In fact, Raph is only all that specific about Metaplace taking in Areaeoleans and paying OUT real money(!)

We have a business blog post coming this Friday which will cover more of this, but in short:

Small worlds are free. Big worlds, you incur hosting fees. You might want to buy added services (better metrics, modules, whatever). We bill in the virtual currency. You buy the currency, and apply it to network costs. You can provide services to other users (modules, stylesheets, game access) for a fee in virtual currency. If an approved partner, you can cash out virtual currency.

I mean, can players create their OWN shared currency systems that's entirely particular to their little world?

Yes. Our currency is for network level stuff.

Raph talks about Metaplace's relationship with its endusers, where the endusers are the quasi-Developers who build with the tools. But that's only half the story. The other bit are the people who don't build but use the worlds. What's their role with the company? Do they have to sign anything with Metaplace? How do they pay for it?

We think 90% of people will just play.

Playing is free, as far as we are concerned (tho individual worlds might charge as above).

[Raph]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

So yeah....an MMO created entirely out of flash sites. Albino Blacksheep the MMO.

Our *default* client is Flash (we picked it based on ubiquity). But anyone can write a client in whatever format they choose.

[Tyen]

Seems like all the legal stances are extremely vague. I would hate to be in the middle of a legal dispute with a game I developed using Metaplace.

[Gecko]

So essentially it's for people to run their own Travian type worlds?

I'm not sure why people are so fixated on the EULA/Legal issues. They really aren't that major and have been covered ad nauseum in other games/venues.

I'm just curious in regards to how metaplace will sell itself to joe gamer. Joe basement developer will be interested if it becomes a 'Field of Dreams' setup, where you can get more access and people for your worlds.

It sounds neat, but I'm not sure if the sandbox approach will work, but kudos on an interesting idea.

[copernic]

Originally Posted by Gecko

I'm not sure why people are so fixated on the EULA/Legal issues. They really aren't that major and have been covered ad nauseum in other games/venues.

True true. It really seems like Metaplace has neatly sidestepped all of that stuff. Which is pretty darn impressive & pretty attractive for wee world developers.

[Torrid]

Originally Posted by Raph

I've been lurking for years. Just never got approved for posting before.

Been a bit scared to post, honestly. You all seem to hate me.

If it makes you feel any better, I enjoyed the two months I played SWG. I thought the game had some interesting ideas, but in some cases were poorly executed. The fact that some people are trying to reverse engineer the server and recreate the old version of the game says something. At least you had the balls to try something different than an EQ or WoW clone, which is more than I can say for most.

As for metaplace, I'm an amateur programmer myself and always wanted to create my own game. Of course writing an MMO from scratch by yourself would just take way too much time, and be an exercise in reinventing the wheel many times over. I've looked into several APIs/libraries/kits and whatnot, but none really impressed me or cost a million dollars. So I certainly wish you the best of luck with metaplace.

Actually I seriously considered writing a flash game myself. I certainly wouldn't expect a WoW killer to be a .swf, but the platform has the advantages of being in 99% of browsers, and much more suited for solo developers. These are the games you'd play at work or school where you can't play WoW. The tricky part with multiplayer flash apps is the server end, so I'd be interested in hearing the details about your server tech. Any serious MMO server would require a significant amount of processing power for example, and I never see hosting services mention any kind of limit in that regard.