Metaplace Opens Beta Starts Now
by Alphaville Herald on 14/05/09 at 6:45 pm
Raph Koster opens the doors after avatars run wild at closed beta party Wednesday
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
"We are opening the beta TOMORROW MORNING" shouted Raph, and I prayed that my screen grab was going to be fast enough – held my breath – and immediately saved the historic picture to disk (click on the image above for the full-sized version). Now with the Herald money shot in hand, I could enjoy the party – the rest of the story would be easy. The short version: you can now go to metaplace.com and join the web browser-based virtual world building platform without any special invites.
The party was in full swing when I joined the crush of around 90 Metaplace beta testers celebrating the end of the closed beta in Metaplace Central. Raph Koster and the rest of the MP staff thanked everyone with a short address, set off some fireworks, then prepared to open the gates to the Internet at large today — but quietly.
The open beta is designed to be a soft launch without major publicity efforts. When asked, Raph was not willing to state exactly what time the open beta would begin Thursday, and also said he had requested that Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing to not blog about the opening – all efforts aimed at avoiding a crippling synchronized launch click storm.
no BoingBoing for now – if Cory cooperates
With the closed beta over, non-disclosure agreements for beta testers are no longer in force. Expect to see more coverage of Metaplace, with partisan virtual world fanboy press outlets going into overdrive to reassure their readers that MP does not pose an immediate threat based on whatever strength the writer perceives in their favorite platform – graphics, existing world population, or in-world economy.
Much of this analysis will be valid in the short term – Metaplace is still very much under development and does not have a real money trade at this time — the in-world currency was only recently introduced so monetizing creations will have to wait a bit.
In this early state, MP will appeal most to those interested in getting in on the ground floor of a platform for building games and worlds for the web-based mass market, in contrast to existing niche market worlds such as Second Life. But in the long run, for those trying to monetize their gameplay, a web-based world would seem to provide a much larger potential market than worlds requiring custom downloads and high end graphics.
Raph thanks the beta testers
Beyond market size, performance is another consideration. By Second Life standards the lag at the party was nearly non-existent and I could move about easily – something that has never been my experience when over 40 avatars inhabit a single SL sim.
After the party ended, one of the Metaplace stafftold me that the servers were not even breaking a sweatsupporting the 90 avatars in Metaplace Central. According to my source, most of theperformance issues are now centered on memory use in the clients andfurther tuning over the the next few weeks is expected to improve this.
Dawntreader didn't miss the party and Tizzers Foxchase was spotted wearing a revealing black outfit
I lost track of how many friends I saw at the party and gave up trying to greet everyone. MsVikki looked stunning, as always. Last year's third place finisher in the Herald's avatar of the year awards – noted community organizer/SLebrity Tizzers Foxchase made an appearance and said the scene was "intense".
do I know you from somewhere?
A bit after the party ended I chatted with another SLebrity – the blue-skinned gollum-like figure of the Mullah of Ravenglass – who was gracious enough to take a break from collecting coins in a Metaplace Central medal game to offer me the same sort of friendly greetings I have grown to expect over the last few years. My questions about extending the Ravenglass Rental franchise to Metaplace were not directly addressed, but I thought I heard "my precious… my preciousss…" being muttered as coins disappeared – but I may have been mistaken on the last point.
While it might be interesting to see if a virtual land arbitrage business can flourish in Metaplace, it will be far more interesting to see what sort of unique culture evolves in this world, and how many Second Lifers make the jump. If one blue skinned avatar does more than play tourist and collect coins, MP will not lack for an outspoken player to blog fatwas on individuals in the form of whinescrapers without any second thoughts. Despite this, Metaplace will not be defined by Second Life players – but by its own population.
Now – let the games begin!
545S.01
May 14th, 2009
Some relevant bits of chat:
Kitty: if you cross your eyes the name tags make a picture of a manatee
Zimzam: I only see a sea of nametags, should ther be fireworks too?
joecastille: anybody else think metaplace mary is kinda hot?
Raph cheers for thr fireworks
Kitty: lol 80 second chat lg here
Raph: 80 second?
Raph: Chat for me is going by normally
Raph: Also, if you wander away from the plaza, performance gets better
Pixeleen: its a Metaplace mosh pit
Raph yells, “So, if I could have your attention for a second!”
”
”
”
Raph yells, “Thanks for coming!”
Raph yells, “We wanted to have a party to celebrate all the hard work you have all done testing Metaplace”
Raph yells, “because we could not have gotten this far without your help!”
Raph yells, “I will keep this brief…”
Raph yells, “We are opening the beta TOMORROW MORNING”
triptych: YAYAAYAYAYAYAY
Darkdust yells, “YAY”
Arrakiv: Spiffy.
Cuppycake: woooooooot
KStarfire: wooo hoo!!
Miki: yaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy
joecastille: nice
hyphz: OMG
rorowe: woohoo!!!
Rosedew: Woot!
AthSkytower: Excellent!
KStarfire: wootuni!
Fredriksson: wohooo
Cuppycake cheers
Brit-chan: congrats
gromituk2k: woo!
BenLewis: yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaahhh
Schuyler: cheer
KStarfire: way to go Metaplace dev and staff!!
rboehme cheers
Amethyst squeals
mzo: omg open beta is sccary!!!!
Aveliana cheers
KStarfire claps
Raph yells, “The NDA will lift at the same time, so you can blog, tweet, chat, post, report, gossip, and otherwise comment on Metaplace freely
Raph yells, “Now — just to set some expectations”
Raph yells, “We at Metaplace are NOT going to any real marketing or press around opening the beta”
Raph yells, “that’s because we’re aiming for a soft launch”
Raph yells, “I asked Cory at BoingBoing not to blog it actually
Raph yells, “Also — it will be open BETA for sure… we know we have a long long way to go yet, and lots more to do”
Raph yells, “But thank you for sticking with us on this first step on the journey!”
Raph yells, “So thank you again, and have fun! Go explore! Wheelwright tournament! Zoo Escape tournament! High Seas battle! Go for it!
Raph: Heck a round of applause for the ALPHA TESTERS — if you were in alpha, cheer!
KStarfire: kosumo? form SL?
komuso: that’s ko—mooooo—so
komuso: getting ready to bring the boogie to the metaplace bitstream;-)
Pixeleen: hey Tizzers!
Tizzers: Hiya!
chooseareality: so Raph I could bring this up now to my employers if they ask me to make a game with flash… as a faster alternative
Tizzers: This is intense.
Raph: we do plan on doing SNS intgration and remote embedding over time
Pixeleen: Raph – what time do you go to open beta tomorrow?
Raph: Pix, we’re not going to say… like I said, soft launch… we don’t want a queue clicking refresh at a specific second over and over
Pixeleen: ok – so I’ll just run a generic mention
Raph: We’d prefer it if you ran it after it opens, if you could
Tizzers: Oh baby I like it, grief me more.
Tizzers: There needs to be a FIC badget Raph.
Tizzers: Badge*
Pixeleen: I believe I got a screen shot of the official announcement
Pixeleen: this is why I am the reporter
Pixeleen: the rule is always get the screenshot first
Pixeleen: in case you get banned
IntLibber Brautigan
May 14th, 2009
Can’t wait to see fungible munnies…
Nacon
May 15th, 2009
What you mean by “now”?
The beta has been open to everyone, idiot. They’re yanking you by the balls in PR style.
Connie Sec
May 15th, 2009
Hmmmm..Habbo for “Grownups”?
Frans Charming
May 16th, 2009
Congrats on the screenshot.
Alazarin
May 16th, 2009
I had an early peek at Metaplace and was a bit underwhelmed by the old-school isometric environment. Surely that went out the window long ago? Still, it’s worth noting that someone out there is considering launching a viable competitor to Second Life.