Google Lively
polycounter
http://www.lively.com/html/landing.html
Anyone else see the insane potential in this?
According to Gamasutra:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19333
It's embedded into Facebook!
Does anyone know someone at Google, that can find out the possibility for 3D content creation?
Anyone else see the insane potential in this?
According to Gamasutra:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19333
It's embedded into Facebook!
Does anyone know someone at Google, that can find out the possibility for 3D content creation?
Replies
http://www.lively.com/help/bin/answer.py?answer=98535&topic=13370
At first glance it seems like that.
But being linked more closely to social networking, I can see it being more like a 3D Facebook or Myspace.
Rather than play silly flash based facebook Texas Holdem with your friends, you'll actually play 3D Texas Holdem with your friends, sitting at a virtual table, smoking a virtual cigar at a virtual casino.
Rather than that food fight application on facebook, you can have a virtual food fight with FPS mechanics.
Looking at photo's of your friends, could actually entail sitting on a couch, opening up a photo album and flipping through the pages?
I dunno, seems like a LOT Of possibility. I don't see it as am MMO at all (notably the lack of trolls and racial remarks).
Something like the FUN-Wall in facebook, could just be a giant wall of grafitti you have in your pad, where people can write or tag something really fast.
Those were all things that Second Life had in the early betas, if I remember correctly. But when I played a release of SL, it was horrible and missing most of those features that I liked the idea of (or maybe they were buried too deep in the rest of the garbage).
awwww
Well, I hope google gets it right.
I'm hoping I could become a Google Lively Bxjillionaire, by doing something silly like selling crappy virtual shirts, and making zombie avatars.
second life... heh, some people lost their "first life"
In all fairness, some of the people didn't have much of a "first life" to begin with.
You're semi-correct, those weren't features of the early beta rather the user base was making various game types. When the game went live it got flooded with people more interested in clothes and sex. I quit playing when my gun shop stopped making money > I guess I made about $400 out of it back in 04-05?
I had a chat with one of the creative directors I work with regarding interactive worlds, and how Video Games seem to be moving into a direction less about a linear controlled story, and into more of an open experience.
I used this video kind of as a guage to what CAN be done with real-time interactive mediums (not so much about games):
This is a recreation of Frank Lloyd Wrights Falling water in the Half Life 2 engine.
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(Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most historically influential american architects, and Falling Water is considered his masterpiece).
The recreation of this architectural masterpiece in a videogame engine shook a lot of circles with possibilities of what else game engines could possibly do. With realtime shaders being able to mimic surface properties, higher quality lighting, higher quality textures, what ELSE could be created as a virtual experience?
Why stop at Falling Water? Why not recreate the Louvre? Why not take a virtual field trip to the Mayan pyramids? Why not amalgamate a 3D engine into Google Earth, and take a walk around a virtual Chichen Itza? or Egyptian Pyramids? or a restored Rome (I'm sure nothing beats seeing these in person, but it's a palatable substitute for people who have neither the time nor money to go)?
Some real-time non-game idea's could be sprung out of this as well?
As we ALL know what Nintendogs is. Why not a downloadable aquarium on Xbox Live arcade?
Feed the fishes once a day, put in whatever aquarium decor you want, and whatever fishes you want, turning your TV into an aquarium (with options to setup the lighting similar to how you have it in your room) Not necissarily a game, but something that could be cool to take a look at.
Andy Warhol once filmed 8 hours of the Empire State Building (as a reference to the 8-hour work day). Warhols film was NOT meant to be a linear story that you were meant to experience in a movie theatre for 8-hours watching it as you do any other movie. He wanted to recreate an experience... which was unfortunately limited greatly by the limitations of the film medium. I think something like THIS would be much more richer as an interactive environment in a real time world. We can (in essence) create interesting virtual aquariums.
I kind of envisioned Google to do what they always do. Start somewhere, and if it has enough internal popularity, they add onto it, polish it, and continue to refine it, while keeping it completely free and web-based.
But who knows what else could come out of all of this?
I could see this being a first step into something bigger and crazier. It's obviously difficult to see past the Second Life comparisons, and who knows, it might end up in the trash bin. But I could also see a LOT of other opportunities this could spawn if it becomes a wildly successful replacement/addon to Facebook.
Polycount would have an AWESOME chat room, if we could all walk around as our Dominance War entries, and play poker.
However, you might think I am weird (as a game art professional who happen to have an architecture degree...) but I would rather watch a filmed walkthrough/documentary about the house rather than WASD my way through it.
I really love the beginning of the game flythrough tho - since it gave me a great impression of the 'architectural promenade' this house features (as opposed to photographic stills). However I'd rather be guided by a talented filmmaker or architecture critic, than being let free in a space I might miss important details of.
I imagine this could be enhanced with flashing/rotating commentary hotspot to click for details, ala TF2. But in the end I dunno, it still feels a bit cheap doesn't it?
Is the map available for download?
awww, I was looking for it everywhere, but I couldn't find it (it used to be hosted on planethalflife).
I really enjoy a good documentary as well, but I find interacting with something is a much different experience.
The difference is almost like MGS4 to Half Life 2. One is the cinematic Magnum Opus, and the other immerses you in a way that makes you feel like you're actually escaping City 17.
They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I kinda feel like games (and interactive mediums in general) are really starting to discover what those are.
But then again, these are games, hence fun exploration and interaction. I don't think the Louvre would be a fun map to run around in TPV. (better select chapters on a DVD hehe, that thing is BIG
Also, about Lively :
Did you guys notice that the characters are 100% self lit? From a game artist point of view that's nice. No crappy harsh gouraud ala Second Life.
User created content is cool - having a 3D world built by the player/user base is a "nice idea." But all of it needs to be built on something that is either USEFUL, or FUN (and fun requires gameplay).
They need to fill it with mingames, wrap it with a metagame, enable deep connectivity to web content, and the bring unique, useful applications that thrive in 3D.
Until then, I'm going to just keep ignoring them.
keep your eyes out for some of the mermaid statues, some new feature called sculpt maps so you can go from zbrush > secondlife now
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