Can U Kaneva?
by prokofy on 12/03/07 at 11:24 pm
At the mall in Kaneva, this is about as risque as the public content gets in the WA.
By Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Worlds, Planets, Universes, Metaverses, and Virtual Estate Galaxies with NPC Land Barons
So I finally get an invite to this much-anticipated Kaneva beta virtual world, even though I had only like a 32 in ratings. I spent perhaps an hour farming raves, which is something like what we used to do 2 years ago in SL, go to clubs and plus each other up to raise our stipend rating deltas and get Lindens for free. That didn’t last. And you wonder what it means to lay the groundwork of a world and permeate it with rave-farming and gaming up of points — except many of the people doing the raving are carrying on with such enthusiastic bonhomie that it doesn’t seem fake — the way people in malls down South come up to you and say “Hi, how are you, have a nice day” even if a stranger.
Firefox didn’t seem to work with Kaneva, and finally on IE I waited for the game download to upload for ages — but hey, I was in the mood after having the absolute worst week I’ve ever had in SL. I could literally not move, fly, teleport, see Linden dollars in my box, even click on myself for 3 days. Something in a patch or something somewhere suddenly made it not work. I tried EVERYTHING and finally hit on the combination of my secret weapon (update your mouse drivers!) plus disabling my keylog finder (after finding 2, you know who you are!). Just as I finally could see green earth and fly again WHOOPs about 100 regions or more went down and “teleport issues” were rampant with colo outages and whatnot. So here I was hoping that this flatter, leaner, web-based world would at least spare me all that crap.
Queuing up to try to buy something from Soviet clerk Veronika Prokofievna. Devochka! Devochka!
Like the early days after immigrating from TSO, in Kaneva the SL habits die hard. You keep clicking and clicking on stuff — it just isn’t clickable. At least, not in any way they explain. They must have borrowed a page from the Lindens’ manual because clicking on HELP tugs you out of the game into a webpage where a very sprightly girl gives you a tutorial that explains exactly nothing, i.e. not how to click and buy, but from which you helpfully learn that Kaneva is pronounced something like “cannabis” — Ka-NE-va.
That’s the single most frustrating thing — no instructions or signs or stuff — but we should be hardened for that from SL, no? There isn’t “room chat” that I could find, only a big IM chat channel with the usual sludge of mindless drivel and people showing off, and a strange saying in yellow every once in awhile: THERE IS NOTHING OF INTEREST HERE (huh?).
In vain, I tried to get somebody to help me figure out how you just *buy stuff* here. I had it in mind to buy a lamp. Clicking, right- and left-, dragging, touching, opening inventory, etc. etc. — all in vain. I saw a line queueing up Soviet-style to what turned out to be an NPC clerk — and thought, oh, we have to like role-play? But clicking on her led nowhere, exactly like the old GUM experience.
I decided to go see what my “Home” would like like — the Kaneva people promise you “your own home” to decorate with media — and sure enough, it’s free, and “right there on the game panel” without any evil land barons or finicky first-land experiences. But just as they warned in the instructions, the place was as dark as a pocket (without that lamp from the mall) and I walked into a corner — like Project Entropia, it’s just hard to get used to using the W etc keys instead of the num pad to move.
There is no flying.
Did I mention that there is no flying? There’s not even any jumping!
You can access a bunch of rote movements for fun like “head banger’s dance” something like TSO, but not as smooth as TSO, and not as interactive. See, all these people making games now, they look down on TSO, but you know, TSO had a lot of things it did really well, including making people be nicer to each other because it had them dance smooth jitterbugs together to up their points!
I had $50,000 in my stash here in Kaneva, and all I could do was stare at my faux-Manhattan skyline in my empty dark pad, which I already have in RL, so I was ready to go find some elf forest or garage grunge or whatever there was to be had.
I pushed on an icon of the world to travel (SL should have something like that; the icons here at least do stuff and they *are there for you at the top of the screen* unlike certain clunky UI’s we know *cough*).
I landed at some sort of sports bar where I picked up on the fact that Kaneva would mean having one channel on the parcel…and no way to change it. Well, “parcel” isn’t the right term to use. Venue? Place? I looked around at the other silent avatars who weren’t talking anywhere that I could see, poked a bit to see if it would let me upload anything anywhere, which it didn’t, then went forging ahead to other places — the game lets you buy larger spaces for more game money, which I guess you’ll buy with a credit card.
I picked a coffee shop that had me land in water. Landing point needs adjusting! Erm…there isn’t one. Clicking around on stuff, I finally got a menu with prices and descriptions on an object — a rug as it happened where the water in the fountain was — and almost expected that chirpy 1950s ad music to kick up like in offline Sims. Interestingly, the fountain seemed to be made up of building blocks of other inventory objects — perhaps you can make “user-made content” in this piled-up way — just as we took the inventory objects in TSO and recombined them in various ways, sometimes naughty (combine two people one with “pee” and the other with “vomit”) or inspiring (remember my orchid garden?)
Screenshots were a bear — each one has to be individually print-screened, saved, labeled.
The “teleport” experience is probably one of the ones that the beta people really should review. It just has an ugly screen saying KANEVA LOADING and no whoosh sound or black tunnel like our favourite metaversal intersticer.
Bored and trying to figure out whether to land in another fountain or go back and listen to the same channel at the sports bar, and not having a lamp for my dark-as-a-pocket home, I TP’d — er “loaded” back to the storesl, and strolled down the mall.
Suddenly, I espied a sign dear to my heart: REAL ESTATE! I scurried forward in this sideways, run, walk slide motion that W-keying does to you, and talked to the guy I saw standing in there. And talked…and…then I realized he was an NPC. Bleh. Words appeared in the air, which I think probably were sent to me by some game-god watching and having a good laugh. USE TAB TO INTERACT it said, and I tried tabbing, tabbing…and suddenly lost the connection — but not before turning over $1000 to the real estate dude for a big loft apartment, which I’m happy to rent corners of to anybody who wants to hang at my house and not buy their own big house yet : ) I’m thinking $50 for my introductory offer?
Erm…but maybe you won’t be able to put down prims. Never mind! Send me your photos and whatnot, I’ll upload it for you in your little corners that you’ll be renting, mkay?
Maria LaVeaux
Mar 12th, 2007
What a completely Dreary sounding environment, and by your description Prok, even less permitted creativity than TSO. I think i’ll stay with the Freedom of SL. Bugs and all it’s Better than just rearranging someone elses Building Blocks.
Maria.
NobodyImportant
Mar 13th, 2007
So, what exactly is “tough” about using WASD as a movement interface?
I can’t think of anything that’s tough about using WASD.
Prokofy Neva
Mar 13th, 2007
When I used to play TSO, I got more used to WASD, but now I find WASD tough to get used to after having the buttons on the interface and the num pad in SL — anybody used to one thing will find it tough. It’s the left hand, and the majority are right-handed.
People don’t cross over the right-hand to WASD when they need it to click the mouse. Aside from that, due to a hand injury, for me, that hand just doesn’t work as well and it’s annoying.
NobodyImportant
Mar 13th, 2007
I have absolutely no problems with WASD in SL, as that’s default-implemented as a control scheme.
In fact, the first thing I check in any multi”player” online thing is for WASD interface; but that’s probably just because I’m a gamer.
I suppose if your left hand’s got a bad enough injury, that makes it all the harder, though.
But I will emphasize that a gamer’s life is so much easier once you have learned WASD. I never used it in the past before I got UTGold from a friend, and once I learned it… it just comes as second nature.
redhead
Mar 13th, 2007
Here is a short movie about Can U Kaneva?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrAHBk4ZAeQ
Khamon
Mar 13th, 2007
But what do you dooooo in Kaneva? What’s it fooooor?
Prokofy Neva
Mar 13th, 2007
The same stuff that SL is for? I dunno. You tell me.
nigradamus
Mar 13th, 2007
LOL WTF
wheres the news about Patriotic Nigras raiding the SL Herald building in SL?
Thats worth seeing, not this stupid shit
Urizenus
Mar 13th, 2007
We have an HQ? If so you’ve been there more than I have.
Prokofy Neva
Mar 13th, 2007
There’s a Headquarters? Where? Oh it was bombed? Who knew? That’s like…different than something that happened yesterday and the day before? I think it’s bombed all the time. But ask Pix.
carbonel
Mar 13th, 2007
Did you mention that there is no flying?!
Explored for about an hour last night, and was very disappointed with the current state of the platform. The thing that bugged me the most — in addition to the absence of flying, the inability to click on anything, and the complete lack of content — was the absence of any overarching sense of place.
In SL, even though most people teleport from spot to spot, there is the knowledge that you could choose to fly throughout the world if you wanted to do so. It’s more of an analog experience. In Kaneva, it just feels like you’re teleporting into another completely disconnected instance. Also, perhaps it was just me, but I couldn’t figure out how to take control of the camera.
SL can be incredibly clunky and frustrating at times, but there is so much more freedom to create and explore. Warts and all, it is still without peer.
I was really hoping for a new platform that would offer even a fraction of the creative potential offered by SL. IMHO, Kaneva is not that platform.
Wayfinder Wishbringer
Mar 13th, 2007
Prok, you’ve made some valid observations. I tried Kaneva… and after quickly figuring out that the whole board was based on a social structure similar to the old SL “ratings system”… I stopped wasting my time.
However, to be considered is that people use Kaneva for a totally different reason than SL. Kaneva appears to be designed as a griefer-free social board. Their ratings system membership requirement means it’s not easy to just sign up and enter the world. It’s a lengthy, time-consuming process that griefers won’t bother with. If they do bother, the first time they grief they’ll be busted from the board so quickly it’ll make their gramma gasp. Then are they going to go through all that process again? How many times until they get tired of it? Not more than twice, I’d bet, if they even get that far (I’d think it possible that Kaneva might have a pretty accurate origin-point tracing system and low tolerance for jerks).
So my guess is that they want people to be able to enjoy Kaneva without the inherent sociological flaws of Second Life (and face it, there are severe flaws there, to be sure). Kaneva may not be as versatile. But I think it might end up being very well supported. Why?
Because Kaneva features a slice of Real Life that is just the opposite of Second Life. They encourage people to post RL pictures, information, likes, dislikes. Every person has an EXTENSIVE profile web/blog page. It is definitely a highly-social environment. And there are a LOT of people who use Second Life just for socializing.
Who might use Kaneva? Every person who spends all day on Second Life in dance clubs, that’s who. Not everyone on Second Life builds, or scripts, or races cars etc etc. A lot of people just stand around and chat, or furnish their home, or whatever. Kaneva appears to be specifically tailored for that. If all someone wants to do is buld a home and furnish it, join groups of RL similar interests, and chat without having to worry about trolls and griefers and antisocial sociopathic kiddies… Kaneva might be exactly what they’re wanting.
One of the things I did notice is that there is a “report abuse” button on each person’s profile, right there for the pushing. I’d bet dimes to doughnuts they won’t have near the griefer problems that SL has had.
So do I see Kaneva swiping some of SL’s market share? Yup. It’s just starting out, but I would at least give them a “possibly viable” score on the VR chart.
Khamon
Mar 14th, 2007
Well Wayfinder this kind of [insert derogatory adjective] response is to be expected from someone that believes [insert itemized belief structure] and I know you do because you’re [insert rigidly dictated category]. You don’t know why people use SL; you have no idea; but I do. I’m out there, [begin epic theme music] in the trenchs, in real life as well, uphill, both ways, analyzing and strictly categorizing everything and everybody to the nth degree. [switch to fast-paced action music] People use SL to do more than socialize, of course the vast majority of most of the people use SL to fight political battles and have sex (can’t do that in Kaneva) and fight the use of 3D media for sexploitation and socialize. In fact most of the main part of the majority of people just want to put up a prefab and get undressed and socialize lol [insert a random chapter of dickens].
Gosh this is tiring already. Most of what I see people doing in Second Life is just as you say, putting up a prefab (there are loads of really nice ones now), shopping for clothing and attachments and hanging out socializing. Their main problems, at least most of what I see in Live Help, are the software not working properly and griefers attacking them. If Kavena provides an working, griefless, bling haven, I expect we’ll lose a few people to it. More impotantly, I expect word will spread and the influx of new residents will slow to a crawl over a short period of time. If that happens, land prices will never decrease.
YHelloThar
Mar 14th, 2007
“There’s a Headquarters? Where? Oh it was bombed? Who knew? That’s like…different than something that happened yesterday and the day before? I think it’s bombed all the time. But ask Pix.”
Pix were emailed to SL Herald, incase they missed the raid, but they decided to deny it like the holocaust
WARNING: pix arent child friendly
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t114/YHelloThar/Snapshot_026.jpg
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t114/YHelloThar/Snapshot_024.jpg
http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t114/YHelloThar/Snapshot_021.jpg
FlipperPA Peregrine
Mar 14th, 2007
I’m thinking Kaneva also fails the “naked yardstick test.” While I rarely worry about getting naked in Second Life, whether or not your avatar can be naked is a fairly good yardstick of how much freedom the company making the virtual world is really giving to the people to build the community.
Prokofy Neva
Mar 14th, 2007
Wayfinder, you’ve reminded me of something I completely forgot to include in this review: the grief-proofing. Precisely because it’s a world with more limited clickability and content, it seems that it doesn’t have the grief potential either. As I wandered around for an hour in a public space, I didn’t see anybody griefing. That was almost a kind of relief. I felt insulated from all those other people, but that was actually welcome, given that in SL, I log on usually to experience cage-bombings, forced teleport offers from spamming clubs, etc.
Carbonel, did you notice there wasn’t any flying?! Also, to change the view, what you have to do is go up top the game screen and hunt for an icon that looks like a camera and press it. I think it toggles from a kind of overview to eyelevel view.
Jerry Paffendorf always used to talk about the wish to just walk from room to room, like a big dormitory, not to have to leave applications, or to have to wait for teleports or fly. So this sort of platform may be going in that direction. If you can just migrate right from a My Space to this thing, or if Meez takes off more and its portable avatar concept can go into Kaneva and 10 other things flawlessly, people will go there.
I certainly don’t plan on giving up on it, but hope to continue to explore it and decorate it. I don’t have any compelling desire to go there, however, because the demographics for it don’t promise any interesting friends, and for some inexplicable reason (to me), while it seems to be an English-language site, all the buzz words blown up in the tag cloud all say stuff like ANIME and other Japanese cultural stuff obscure to me. I’d like to learn more about all that, but it would mean a non-busy Sunday afternoon, not a compelling interest to go see on a school night.
I was just noticing today on Twitter that one of the IBM guys was signing up 50 new recruits to try SL…but then the new signs-ups were capped or down, raining on his parade. And I can’t help thinking that if big businesses want to use social media to connect up their globalized workforces, they might start making back-up or redundant or just *other* networks to have that are lighter and more portable and less crashy than SL, and Kaneva might be that. I never let the low and mass culture of a thing put me off to considering how it might be used for wider purposes later.
Wayfinder Wishbringer
Mar 14th, 2007
>You don’t know why people use SL; you have no idea; but I do. I’m out there, [begin epic theme music] in the trenchs, in real life as well, uphill, both ways, analyzing and strictly categorizing everything and everybody to the nth degree. — Khamon<
Yeah Khamon, you’re just so durn informed and intelligent the rest of us pale by comparison. LOL (forgive me while I ignore the rest of that self-centered post)
Prok, yeah, while I have no intent on getting involved in Kaneva (or any other VR world for that matter)… it is an interesting experiment. Are people more interested in socializing or in playing with 3D toys? Even on SL, I noticed that people very often commented, “Oh, I never build or script. I come here to visit my friends”. Seems like the folks at Kaneva are aware of that element and are focusing more on the social structure than in toys and gimmicks.
I haven’t even checked out the 3D part. Doesn’t matter to me really how it functions. I’ve been studying the external social structure. Part of the interesting thing there are the interactive web-page / blogs. Such have been done with amazing success elswhere (MySpace or SL… which is the most popular? LOL). So as a social environment with a bit of 3-D VR thrown in, Kaneva might surprise the SL-tunnel-visioned and come out way ahead of the game. As you pointed out, the total absence of griefers (and the apparent ability of the company to strongly control such antisocial activity) is a big plus in the “online socializing” book. I wonder how many SL residents would be willing to switch to a board like Kaneva just to get away from the griefer element? I’d wager more than LL would believe.
Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog
Mar 14th, 2007
Yes, you can (almost) Kaneva
The folks from Kaneva have tipped me off that they will be moving from private to public beta on Monday. Anyone interested in getting into their virtual world will be able to sign up at their site and presumably other bloggers can start chiming in with…
Amaagariwah Kawabata
Mar 18th, 2007
Yep, I also visited kaneva, as well as my Sl partner. It seems it is the same folks who developed Star Wars. It has the same avatars. Despite all of Sl’s problems in terms of user-created content, it is the best. Let’s see what happens with Sony’s Home, and Areae.
Amaa
LinWo
Jun 3rd, 2010
Kaneva is a chat room with barely animated avatars. you can not do jack crap. there is no mic. you can only dress up your avatars as whores or meatheads. These douchebags that spend their years at Kaneva City live all day to boot you. I thought the Lindens were bad but these are just white trash GMs. Speaking of white trash…the game is only American. When you sign on it wants your zip code…no other country option.
it’s just not worth it. i would rather hang out with pedophiles on Yahoo Chat than sit staring at jackshit on Kanecvevavatgsdfa.
Jerbles
Oct 15th, 2014
KANEVA ROCKS, THE GRAPHICS ARE SOOOOOO MUCH BETTER
!!!!