text: When Virtual Worlds Collide 228."
  Yawn... (Score:3, Funny)
  Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
  I fell off the Edge of the World today (Score:2)
  More "realistically", the Game Designers could, at the boundaries of each of their virtual worlds, offer "portals", which are of course technomagical devices that you walk through, to enter some other virtual world of your choice.
  Re:Yawn... (Score:2)
  Short-sighted. (Score:2)
  It's all waiting for the client and server programs of significant power and ease of us
  Re:Short-sighted. (Score:2)
  Sounds like a clunky complicated interface for a system that is already more efficient in 2D. Other than the "wow" factor that would wear off after the first time someone uses the system, what is the benefit of moving to 3D?
  Re:Yawn... (Score:2)
  Games too? (Score:5, Insightful)
  Re:Games too? (Score:3, Insightful)
  Although, "who needs more than 64k of RAM?" was uttered several times, so I could be completely wrong. I just don't see for-profit companies, who use and abuse every law on the books to protect their systems and intellectual property allowing th
  Re:Games too? (Score:3, Insightful)
  Basically, you'll pay for the service and be given unlimited access to all realms (verses) that the service hosts. MS will come up with some nifty lauch titles to m
  Re:Games too? (Score:2)
  And why not? (Score:5, Funny)
  Re:And why not? (Score:2, Funny)
  And why would you say that? At my last Sims BBQ party, we had headcrabs with drawn butter, and they were a big hit!
  The trick to preparing headcrabs is proper tenderizing. A crowbar works best (thanks for the top, Gordon).
  The party would have been a total success, except for two things. Tommy Vercetti got drunk (again) and started mouthing off about how he 'owns this city' (again), and Sam Fisher refused to be sociable at all, instead insisting on hiding in dark corners of the yard, blowing out my tiki to
  Sims and GTA (Score:5, Funny)
  When I pictured this in my head, it was one of the funniest damn concepts I'd seen in awhile. I wonder if somebody could make such a similar game, where various groups work happily at creating little people and families and others play as the carjackers and dealers. Imagine that you log on onto to find that your car has been jacked by local online-gaming hoodlums, or perhaps your wife abducted, and you could persue a form of quest in which you have to hunt them down a-la hollywood style. This could be fun for both those playing the 'criminals' and those playing the 'citizens'.
  Perhaps one could through legitimate playing work up to the level of mayor or congressman, making you a target of the darker elements but also allowing you to hire bodyguards and/or accept bribes. Interesting ide.
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  They have that game. (Score:5, Funny)
  There's a lot of time spent mindlessly earning gold though, and the biggest problem with it is the lack of a save feature.
  Re:They have that game. (Score:4, Funny)
  actually, there IS a save feature, it's just that no one in the US knows how to use it..... [about.com]
  Re:They have that game. (Score:2)
  Who in their right minds saves money? Once you have $10k in an account, the best thing to do is invest that money. Of course, that means you won't show up on the US savings rate, but who really cares?
  Re:They have that game. (Score:3, Informative)
  The main point is permadeath. If you die, you lose the character.
  Re:They have that game. (Score:2)
  > The main point is permadeath. If you die, you lose the character.
  Um, no. You've never played an MMORPG, have you? Permadeath is just about unheard of. If you die, you reappear at your bind point (save point, local hospital, clone location, whatever the MMORPG uses for that concept). You generally take some sort of penalty, often lost experience (in WoW, you don't even lose that, just some damage to your equipment, and not always that).
  Chris Mattern
  Re:They have that game. (Score:2)
  "Save" means that the whole world state is saved and "loading" means returning to THAT point.
  Resurrecting is completely different, as the rest of the world keeps going.
  You've never played an MMORPG, have you?
  Re:They have that game. (Score:2)
  Except it's a little low on consequence-free shooting sprees, dungeon-raids and sword fights.
  Re:They have that game. (Score:2)
  Re:They have that game. (Score:2)
  The main problem, though would be the fact that, after I died in this life, I'd have to go back to my "real" life, which must be a lot worse than this one since I spend all my waking hours playing this one. Man, that's gonna suck.
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  Hope they have the KillSoldiers Gold Badge.
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  Chris Mattern
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  It's almost an axiom that nobody wants to roleplay the victim, unless it's a plot device to facilitate an eventual victory. And 'evil' roleplayers are rare. It's more likely the thieves are just griefers who won't continue playing when their characters are eventually caught, thus denying the victims a reward (justice).
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  Those were good times... good times... sigh...
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  And I know what you're thinking. Yes, some of those Strip Poker chicks might be a little past their prime. But let me tell you, once you get past the stretch marks and wrinkles, they're still not bad. And if you give them a little meth they'll do a lot
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  I was thinking, though, that you're in the middle of your Lord of the Rings style quest to get to Elfendale or wherever when, suddenly, an Imperial Storm Trooper and a Halo Master Chief show up in their 4x4 Evolution 2 SUVs and offer to give you a lift. Of course, during the trip, these Carmageddon guys show up...
  Of course, I have weird taste in comics [geocities.com], too, so that probably explains these thoughts...
  Re:Sims and GTA (Score:2)
  Personally I'd love to see a turf war between the Crips and an army of several hundred Korean power-gamers from a clan I can't pronounce.
  Come to think of i
  no it won't (Score:5, Insightful)
  This is stupid, different people have different ways of escaping, and just because it COULD happen (which would require a level of industry cohesion that will likely never exist) doesn't mean it will.
  1/10 for being a bad idea and not even being funny.
  Re:Maybe not the avatar... (Score:2)
  Downsides (Score:2)
  Just broken up with your girlfriend and she's busy spreading rumours about your supposed sexual inadequacy to anyone who will listen to preserve her pride? Guess what, you can't contain this to a single community now...
  There are definite downsides!
  "There is reason to believe..." (Score:5, Insightful)
  I've made up a few reasons while ignoring all the reasons it won't happen. By not giving you a source of the reasons, you might buy this as being anything other than attention whoring.
  Re:"There is reason to believe..." (Score:2)
  Someone get out the anti-aircraft rockets and shoot that pie out of the sky.
  Re:"There is reason to believe..." (Score:3, Interesting)
  I used to work at Wired, and the ways in which these types of stories come to light are highly suspect. In this case, somebody probably has a friend who used to play Everquest and now plays World of Warcraft. The author finds out that half of this guy's Everquest guild migrated to WoW, and suddenly we have a feature-length article about how walls between virtual worlds are bound to dissolve.
  Yet another reason I stopped reading the mag. Their neato factor is in slow decline, and their releva
  hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
  I think the closest we'll get to this is the kind of thing MS does with the Xbox gamertag. Maybe you have the same gamer id for all games, but that doesn't mean the game universes will all intertwine.
  Re:hmm (Score:2)
  It's along the same lines as the Xbox gamertag but for PCs. Will show what game you are currently playing, allowing your friends to join you in game, IM you in-game, voice chat, share files, etc.
  More accurate title... (Score:5, Funny)
  Ah, that's better.
  The Open Source Virtual World Platform (Score:2, Insightful)
  Project Interreality - Virtual Object System (VOS) [interreality.org]
  Too much Snowcrash (Score:5, Informative)
  Re:Too much Snowcrash (Score:2)
  Hi, my examples disprove my theory! (Score:3, Funny)
  Anybody freely moving software from their Amiga or Commodore to their PC?
  Yea, didn't think so. MMORPG's won't converge - at best many will simply die and one will "win".
  This article is nothing but "Need to write something for this issue to keep my job. Hrm, how about baseless random future predictions?"
  Re:Hi, my examples disprove my theory! (Score:2)
  Re:Hi, my examples disprove my theory! (Score:2)
  I could easily see a MMORPG system based around G.U.R.P.S [sjgames.com]. Yes, it could technically be multiple "play worlds" each devoted to a specific genre (magic and sorcery, cyberpunk, space fantasy), but the underlying mechanics could be set up so that a character COULD transfer between them (although it might be painful as prized skills might now be useless due to technology
  Yes, it would require co-ordination (perhaps at an unprecedented level), but its
  Where do they get these writers? (Score:3, Insightful)
  Re:Where do they get these writers? (Score:2)
  Re:Where do they get these writers? (Score:2, Funny)
  Re:Where do they get these writers? (Score:2, Funny)
  Step away from the crack pipe. (Score:4, Insightful)
  Apparently the author has no understanding of why these games appeal and why the differences between how they appeal to different segments of the gaming populace is what stands between what is now and what he is dreaming of.
  First players would want to have some kind of convergence and I doubt only a few do. If people want to communicate between games its not hard to IRC/AIM now with other applications. Trading between games? As in skills, items, etc, - he is smoking way to much crack. First most game companies probably could not get their own products to talk to each other let alone find a viable means of exchanging persona or items between the two. Can't imagine the hell that would be there for communication between two different companies. Like they would really want their customers playing a competitors game.
  Uh, this guy saw the Matrix and believed it. Some people just buy into the idea of Virtual Reality and then seek to apply it to anything that they don't understand or any group that is managed/organized via a computer. Throw the word internet in their for good measure too.
  Author of article is correct. (Score:2)
  Here is what I think he was trying to say: Given that MMORPG games have become an established genere onto themselves, and their basic design archetecture is very similar, when will the developers get together and design a basic MMORPG API to aleviate the need to reinvent the wheel for each game? While the game mechani
  wishful thinking (Score:3, Insightful)
  The only way this works is by boiling everything down to the lowest common denominator, and taking out the unique worldmaking which makes each game spcial.
  Like someone else said, this might be an XboxLive-ish "gamer tag" across games, or maybe even some kind of shared standard UI for First Person games, but beyond that, it's just too many nights spent reading "Snow Crash"
  I don't see this happening any time soon (Score:2)
  If it's going to happen, I think it will first happen between games made by the same company.
  Take the blue pill, Neo! (Score:2)
  This is a ridiculous idea (Score:2)
  Anyway, after RTFA, it seems more like someone had a pot induced idea than anything serious.
  It won't happen for a number of reasons. (Score:5, Insightful)
  First, it assumes that companies are willing to share their gaming technology and infrastructure. That alone cancels it out. Do people really think that EA is going to make the server and game specifications, possibly the source code itself, for Battlefield 2020 available to be licensed by competing gaming companies so that Diablo VII can interact with it - and vice versa? After all, if you're going to cross into another games' realm, that realm would have to look as though you were playing it through the other game for it to be convincing.
  Also, would all of the worlds in this "common architecture" and their graphical components (models, textures, and so forth) have to be loaded on my system or will I have to wait while several hundreds of GB are downloaded? I personally don't want to see "Now integrated with Common Architecture(TM)! Comes on seven BluRay discs with all of the components of other Common Architecture(TM) games right on your system!" This would of course require the necessary system requirements of 400 GB of hard drive space.
  Then comes the corporate politics of who will be responsible for connectivity between the various games. "Well, it's not our problem that our game servers are not communicating. Contact the other company." "No, our network is running fine! It's a connectivity problem on their end."
  Of course, the cost of development must come into play. Does it make sense to have to disparate games that communicate together and effectively end up looking and playing the game and risk the inter-corporate political BS that will undoubtedly ensue?
  But on a more practical level, if I want to play a Star Wars game, I obviously want that kind of environment! To even suggest that I'd want to take a Star Wars character and interact with an EverQuest character is nonsense! If I want EverQuest, I'll load EverQuest.
  And shall we guess how a bug in one developer's coding might disrupt the gameplay of the other developers' products?
  I can understand perhaps bridging the gap between play systems, such as allowing players of the same game on the PS3, Xbox, and PC game together. In fact, EA is already exploring that possibility based on a few customer surveys I've received from them. I can even understand different games from different developers under the same publisher, but only as a fun, side benefit that does not encompass the entire game.
  But bridging the gap between games and companies in order to form a "common architecture"? I'd rather just have a "common artchitecture" under one game company with the inherent benefits (and drawbacks) of only having to deal with that company instead of the massive potential for the blame game to kick in. Otherwise, how is this "common architecture" going to be nothing more than the same damned game from different publishers?
  No, thanks. I'll pass. I don't know what the author of the article was smoking, but that must be some really good shit.
  Re:It won't happen for a number of reasons. (Score:3, Funny)
  Re:It won't happen for a number of reasons. (Score:2)
  Guy A walks into virtual ebay world to buy a stick of memory.
  Just as the auction runs out Guy B outbids him and wins the auction.
  Guy A walks over to guy B and says "WTF man, that's messed up!"
  Guy B replies "Wtf u gonna do noob."
  Guy A kicks Guy B's ebay-avatar in the nuts.
  Guy B pulls out a Desert Eagle and caps guy A.
  As guy B starts walking away, an undead preist rides in from WoW resurrects Guy A.
  Guy A spawns as a light infantry and takes down guy B with his M-16.
  Guy B is on vent and cal
  Re:It won't happen for a number of reasons. (Score:2)
  Machines take over the world and use humans as batteries.
  All Die, oh the embarrassment.
  Re:It won't happen for a number of reasons. (Score:2)
  Of course you don't want to have the same character in every MMORPG, that would suffer from all the problems you've pointed out. But the character in any given game is one of the trees, the "metaverse" they're talking about will end up being the forest.
  As it is right now, I'm an XBox Live subscriber. Which means I'm "Control Group" when I play CoD2, I'm Control Group when I play PGR3, I'm Contro
  Don't think we want this... (Score:2)
  My level 60 mage does not want to steal cars in GTA!
  Maybe it could happen (Score:2)
  It could be done... (Score:2)
  As a kind of an online version of GURPS [sjgames.com], but the problem is that it would be a complete rewrite of the existing MMORPG's we all know and love to fit a more universal playing system, and very unlikely to happen.
  I think the closest we're going to get to a "pervasive avatar" is a unified website where everyone can see how Jim Bob is doing in WoW, Vendetta Online, and GTA, at least until quantum computing and AI creates a computer that is able to be the electronic equivalent of the Uber-GM - but maybe witho
  Re:It could be done... (Score:2)
  I think the closest we're going to get to a "pervasive avatar" is a unified website where everyone can see how Jim Bob is doing in WoW, Vendetta Online, and GTA
  I'd like to see the ability to design your own character model, within limits (height requirements, opacity, grab points for hanging stuff off of it). You'd see people running around as a giant penis, but dammit, that's what some people want!
  I'm having serious difficulty imagining this. (Score:3, Insightful)
  I don't understand how you can mix together such differing genres as Star Wars, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto and The Sims all together in such a way that does not completely wreck any sense of immersion the player might hope to achieve, for one thing.
  Game mechanics and balance produce another problem. Unless all of the unified games utitlize an extremely similar set of game mechanics, interplay and competition between avatars from different "realms" would seem impossible, or at very least, potentially massively unbalanced.
  Sorry, I'm just having a horrible time wrapping my head around this one. I'd like to think this is a cool idea, but I'm not really grasping what the advantage to doing this even is. Having an open standard for e-mail works because if there were not a standard, as communications tool it would be a lot less useful. Do games need to be part of a standard to be fun? Do standards make them more fun? Doesn't this present a danger of further homogenizing the already somewhat redundant MMO space?
  I'd love to understand why people think this is so inevitable, and why it's a good thing. I think I want to be able to escape to discrete worlds, different worlds for different moods, experiences and challenges, and I don't see the big deal in not necessarily having to create a new avatar for each world (which I've always considered to be part of the fun in playing a new game).
  Re:I'm having serious difficulty imagining this. (Score:2)
  It's taken us ten years to get from "web as extended text document" to "web as a unique presentation model", and we're not really realizing the fullness of it yet, but we're at least getting t
  Article written by a barrel of monkeys (Score:2)
  Only in the virtual world he lives in.
  Diverse and incompatible standards - CompuServe members could only email other CompuServe members - gave way to a common platform that allowed everyone to connect.
  I fail see this as an example or an indication of how gaming worlds will or should interoperate in any way. There is no standard way for games to communicate or operate, and unlike other forms of communication, there is hardly a *need*.
  The different rules are part of the fun (Score:2)
  People play games as much for the rules as for the worlds or the characters they create. Games are not just stories, they are systems. For example, even though the d20 System in the pencil and paper game world has been successful, there are still many other game systems. In business computing, figuring out new rules (how does this damned app work? Why is this OS different?) present annoyances. In the world of games, these challenges are part of the exploration and fun.
  I don't know about this (Score:2)
  I don't know what kind of parties this guy throws but at my house the crack dealer is a manditory attendee.
  This subject, no verb (Score:2)
  Heads up: Sometimes people don't want convergence (Score:2)
  Games produce worlds. World's have certain rules and bounds. Different worlds have different systems. Converging these worlds kind of wrecks the individuality and specificity people want out of them. Starting over? That's part of the fun. Different personas? The same thing - we don't always want ot be the same person.
  Sure, there will be conv
  World colliding theory (Score:3, Funny)
  Relationship George versus Independent George. Who will win?
  Relationship George is George when he is with Susan.
  Independent George is George when he is with his friends: liar George, for example.
  If the two meet...Relationship George will destroy Independent George.
  Is this really so far-fetched? (Score:3, Interesting)
  One obvious objection is that each online "fiefdom"--let's just call it a "fief"-- currently has its own set of rules, and that these rules are incompatible--you can't mix a high fantasy RPG with Grand Theft Auto--or even Star Wars. That would make about as much sense as mixing chess with baseball. But why couldn't there be a neutral layer that connects all these now-closed universes? You could regard online games as a set of conventions that are adopted by a certain subset of those who inhabit the metaverse. Indeed, the metaverse could provide a meeting place where potential players gather to design and implement games. (I'm making the assumption that game engines and design components will be made accessible enough in the future so that it doesn't take years of heads-down coding to make a game.)
  The metaverse could also provide a forum for the adherents of different fiefs to negotiate a common interface--which could involve agreements about what powers or artifacts can be transferred from one fief to another, how a certain level of achievement can be translated from one fief to another, and so forth. Games could become open-ended, with players moving on from one fief to another without losing everything they gained in the last one. Avatars might be allowed to play in more than one fief at a time, or might even gain status in the metaverse depending on their achievements in fiefs.
  In time, the metaverse itself could become a very interesting place--a place where people meet to talk, plan expansions or vote on changes to the metaverse, or just hang out. Hey, can I call dibs on the lot across from the Black Sun?
  Re:Is this really so far-fetched? (Score:2)
  While I agree the article itself is so much fart gas, I also agree the core concept is sound. It's certainly not going to happen tomorrow, and the winner will likely be the last one standing, but the metaverse concept will even
  Reboot (Score:2)
  Metaverse = Clueless author (Score:2)
  I wonder how many
  This was the original vision for There (Score:2)
  "There" had business model problems. At one point, the big thing was buying real-world designer
  Interesting idea ... already seeing some of it now (Score:2)
  However, for those that play a lot of MMOs and regularly jump from game to game, there often is the notion of having "one on-line persona". Already there are guilds that span multiple games
  Yes yes! (Score:2)
  No, seriously. I think it would be neat to combine some genres. Sniper rifles make any game better -- especially golf.
  And who wouldn't want to do Grand Turisimo Online while Turok Dinosaur Hunters are driving herds of wild brontosauruses across the I-5?
  Could be very fun, but obviously if companies can't even keep their own games debugged (WOW has greatly declined in stablility,
  Yeah. No. (Score:2, Insightful)
  Like email addresses huh... (Score:2)
  Hello sir,
  I am interested in a position in your great organization. Attached is my resume. You can find my contact information at the bottom of this correspondance.
  I hope to hear from you soon.
  Sincerely,
  Moochfish
  Level 28 Night Elf, Hunter
  Lothar Realm
  World of Warcraft
  Hmm... Is someone pining for an... (Score:2)
  There are a bunch of alternative universes, high-tech, high-magic, gothic-horror, techno-horror, pulp-fiction, each one is ruled by a bad guy and all of the bad guys have to listen to a master bad guy.
  The rulers of these universes invade earth, and set up reality zones [wikipedia.org], which mostly conform to the rules of their reality. When someone from a high-tech reality goes to a high-fantasy zone, for instance, h
  Bring it on! (Score:2)
  I can't wait to see drug dealers, drive bys, and ho's in WoW.
  Love the "bullshit" tag. (Score:2)
  Wired fluff (Score:2)
  First, a mistake so common among Wired futurists and theorists: they confuse the relatively tiny group of well-off, young nerds who are in with the latest gadgets with humanity. "People" are by no means living in cyberspace. Humanity is in approximately the same place it was 30 years ago, i.e., a majority of people don't own a telephone. No o
  This will NEVER happen.. (Score:2)
  Aside from obvious "What is a hobbit doing on the deathstar" problem, gamers would never go for it.
  one of the best aspects of a new mmo is that it is new, not just new to me but new period. I'm starting out fresh just like the world is, just like everyone else.. The "level race" starts over, I have the option to be a pioneer in the game.
  By simply moving a c
  Economic Incentive (Score:3, Insightful)
  Tauren Shaman in Counterstrike!!! (Score:2)
  It might be possible (Score:2)
  Border Crossing (Score:2)
  The major problem is probably the avatar's name. Each VR has its own namespace, and sometimes naming prohibitions. There's no guarantee that one's name will be registrable in the new VR. But an interesting case can be made for trad
  EXCELLENT! (Score:3, Funny)
  Ah, don't forget the eternal question (Score:4, Funny)
  Re:Theme (Score:3, Interesting)
  Re:Since we're headed toward 1 avatar (Score:2)
  Re:Since we're headed toward 1 avatar (Score:4, Funny)
  Re:I will not read TFA (Score:2)
  Re:First Contact! (Score:2)