Did you read the latest Sony announcement about “Home” ? (If not, you can read it here.)
So it seems that we can add another Metaverse to the list.
Apart from Second Life that is the most famous virtual world there are a bunch of other systems available today. You can have a look at Outbackonline, Eve Online, Artificial Life and go down to World Of Warcraft and so on. There are some custom implementations of the Second Life grid that are gaining news space in geek blogs as well.
The proliferation of these virtual worlds is quite interesting and poses some interesting questions.
Let’s leave away any technical consideration on how will these worlds may interact between each other, if they will ever do ?
If the Second Life paradigm was to let you create a new life in the metaverse this concept may now be expanded to multi-worlds. Your metaverse alter ego may live in several different worlds at the same time.
Will I be able to use my own avatar in each single virtual world?
The interesting thing here is that we may end up finding negotiations between virtual worlds very similar to the early diplomatic negotiations in real life. These negotiation will have to cover pretty much everything just like it happens in real world diplomatic conversations.
This looks to me as an interesting evolution of the metaverse world.
- Who will be the ambassadors of these worlds?
- Will each community negotiate their own issues with communities in other worlds?
- How will the economy evolve in a multi world environment?
- There will be a common framework for a sustainable virtual economy?
Actually I dot not have the answer to these questions but this may be an interesting area of research.
Many of these virtual worlds are so different between each other. It is just impossible to compare Second Life with World of Warcraft, but similar worlds may exist in the space. Just look at Second Life and Sony Home. They do not seem so far away.
Why do I blog this ? It really seems that the number of virtual worlds is increasing every day. These worlds may really become connected in some way and I am very curious about this evolution.
With the latest finding that each and every universe has a supermassive black hole, I wonder whether these virtual worlds will each have a virtual black hole, that will virtually link at least one other virtual world to another….
You may find that when you go back to one of your virtual worlds one day, it has been dragged into the virtual black hole and is now somewhere else.
Now that’s scary…..
I have been playing wow more than a 6 month and it’s amazing. Unlike many other games it has unique, friendly atmosphere =))
I have watched BBC film about parallel universes. It might be that these virtual worlds are parallel universes =))
2008 is going to see many more virtual worlds come to light – I personally welcome it. Anything to escape reality! 😀
I think that there are so many different virtual worlds and people should concentrate on their real life. It is better to level up in real life then level up in virtual =)
The thought of there being many different virtual worlds is one that really boggles the mind. Here’s a thought for ya. Ever consider that other virtual worlds may be interlinked together and that they can be traveled by shifting the space time continuum….Craziness!