bitsifter
friday, september 27

[sift this] Virtual Reality was defined for me in James Patrick Kelly's story Mr. Boy. The short fiction piece is set far enough in the future that Kelly has a high degree technological artistic license, but Kelly responsibly keeps his fiction comfortably realistic.

Kelly writes as his main character immerses himself in VR, "... Just ahead Satan was chatting with a forklift and a rhinoceros. Beyond some blue cartoons were teasing Johnny America ... Everyone in the Red Room was standing on the ceiling."

I've always worked in software, so the hardware which will bring VR to life isn't that interesting to me -- it will be cheap, adopting a similar pricing structure to cellular phones - but I don't bother much with it's design, I think about the content.

We can pretty much trash most of the Internet-based chat rooms, they're either two dimensional or sporting technology that was current for about three seconds. There are still two technologies which, by themselves are awkward, but combined will move us closer to a true virtual environment.

Quake. The most talked about topic on the Digest,but justly so. Anyone who has played a deathmatch in Quake is familiar with the head bobs and dodges that accompany running down a hall, hopping over a rocket, and diving for the kill. The 3-D engine is simply spectacular, often nauseating. Quake's most serious problem is it's lack of culture. It is a world where the currency is weapons and conversation is hindered by the fact that in the time you attempting to type a sentence, you're liable to die. What Quake really needs is...

Ultima Online. The folks who brought you Britannia and Lord British have been hard at work on transforming the entire world of Ultima into real-time Internet game. By logging into Origin's network, a user can go on quests, form relationships, run a business, live a life. In it's FAQ, Origin states they want to leave as much control to their users as possible and that is where is culture begins. While not even in BETA yet, Ultima Online sticks with the same overhead isometric view of the player which, while useful, means that players can not only see behind them, but also through walls.

The virtual reality that we're looking for is a combination of these two technologies -- providing us the reality of a 3D perspective and culture of a world filled with entities with unknown motivations.

[rant] I was perusing the FAQ for an on-line Internet game when I arrived upon the question, "Why isn�t this game free?" The FAQ writers response was "What, are you a communist?"

The roots of the Internet are in the land of UNIX, a place where when someone designs a slick hack, they share it with the entire world and don�t charge a penny. The idea works well for academic communities, but gives the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies nightmares.

The astounding success of the web hinged on the realization that corporations found out they will sell product via the Internet. Now, my the Dad is registering the domain for his last name and the Mom has stopped making dinner, waiting for the latest installment of The Spot to arrive.

Still, the freebie crowd asks, "Why isn�t this free like Netscape?"

Fact of the matter is that if you�re using Netscape at work, chances are that your company paid a site license for the product. With all eyes of Netscape drooling at the estimated $10 billion dollar Internet market forecasted for the year 2000, nobody is concerned with the fact that, while at home, you�re hopping from version to version without ever paying a cent.

It was a brilliant end-run by the early team at Netscape to offer free access to their early BETA browsers, in the matter of a year, they created a name brand that even Microsoft is jealous of. Folks don�t ask you if you�ve got a browser, they ask "Do you have Netscape?"