The Alphaville Herald

Metaplace Founder Raph Koster Chats Up Linden Lab Co-Founder Cory Ondrejka

by Alphaville Herald on 01/07/09 at 8:15 am

The hairy edge of augmented reality colliding with virtual worlds

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

At a much anticipated game god gabfest yesterday, Raph Koster and Cory Ondrejka neatly avoided the controversy over Metaplace male's second-class sit animations – possibly the most vital issue facing the metaverse today – by standing throughout the event. Rather than focusing on avatar emotes and poses, the Raph and Cory chose to discuss smaller issues – presence in new media, how virtual worlds are affecting the web, user generated content, the role of economies in sorting the gold from a sea of user created dross, and music in the virtual realm.

As predicted, a touching Linden Lab alumni scene was played out with Sunchaser – Robin Linden Harper – in attendance. A full transcript of the event (courtesy of Cuppycake) is reproduced below, and the Herald's own Urizenus Sklar was pressed into duty as a photographer.

(left to right – Raph Koster, Cory Ondrekja, Sunchaser )

Raph: Well, Cory, I'm glad to have you here today…
Raph: Seems like several years since I first told you about this crazy Metaplace idea!
CoryOndrejka: Great to "see" you after catching up at state of play
CoryOndrejka: Austin Game Conference, 06 right?
Raph: Yup… a long time ago
Raph: So our goal back then was to build a next generation virtual world platform, something that worked mor elike the web
Raph: It is fitting that you are the first guest at an event in the remote embed
CoryOndrejka: I think being able to toss up not only a pointer to the event and the event itself on my blog is great
Raph: It seems like a lot of the discussion around VWs is about "pleateaus
CoryOndrejka: Kudos to your team for getting this working so smoothly
Raph: lately.er, plateaus. What do you think about that?
CoryOndrejka: I'm just glad I don't have to spell plateau
Raph: Yeah, kinda tricky
CoryOndrejka: Interesting choice, given the explosion of interest in "real time"
CoryOndrejka: and "presence" on the web
CoryOndrejka: we've seen some key elements of VWs and games coopted by Twitter, FB, et al
CoryOndrejka: so I'm not sure that Plateau is accurate at all
Raph: It does seem like many previously asynch experiences are becoming synchronous or at least a lot faster
CoryOndrejka: How about "a lot less asynchronous"?

Raph: Like, Twitter seems to be used almost in real time
CoryOndrejka: since they aren't real-time by any rational definition (yet)
Raph: Facebook ha added chat
Raph: On days when I am moving slow, I wonder if real time is in real time
Raph: Is the Net co-opting some of the elements that made VWs special?
CoryOndrejka:sure, IM is real time, but it I think the cross site and corss serviceexperiences — which is what happens when people coopt twitter foreverything from music sales to payment to presence — is veryinteresting (and more so than IM)
CoryOndrejka: For me it is when I don'tknow what timezone I'm in
CoryOndrejka: but, just looking at people builing on twitter
CoryOndrejka:we're seeing an explosion of experimentation because the new "real-timeish" service is available (most of the time)
CoryOndrejka: in a lot of ways, it feels like the explorations we seeon the Linden scripting language, where tons of people play withprogramming
CoryOndrejka: and we see all over Metaplace as well
CoryOndrejka: give new capabilities that are easy to play with and we see an impressive level of enagement
Raph: It seems like there is a real split between open and closed virtual worlds looming
CoryOndrejka: and most of the energy seems to be in areas that feel VW-ish, so again, doesn't feel like a plateau to me at all
Raph: it has always been there, of course, but we are seeing even the UGC style worlds splitting a bit it seems
Raph: With things like Blue Mars aiming more at "prosumer" content creators…
CoryOndrejka: there's sort of always been these splits, right? games v. vws, MMO v. multipleplayer, etc etc

Raph: And thigns like Metaplace aiming more at end users
CoryOndrejka: lots of commons technologies, with different application layers on top
CoryOndrejka: good part being that the tech is racing forward
CoryOndrejka: and being driven by web, mmo, online fps, etc
Raph: Yes — a few years ago when ineroprability was the hot topic, I made the argument
Raph: that this was the worst time to settle o nstandards
Raph: because it was such a rich perido of innovation
Raph: and settling on standards prematurely could be very stunting
CoryOndrejka: *and* all of it happening alongside incredible increase in javascript vm performance
Raph: Where do you see standards going? Towards the web standards, like JS?
CoryOndrejka:valid point, I think, although much like the rest of the web, there islikely value in standardizing on IM protocols, identity, etc
CoryOndrejka: the web sure seems to be winning, but with Wave jumpingon XMPP, there's an infection path for more real time approaches, right
Raph:Should VWs be the source of those standards, or should we be looking tothings like OpenID and other web-driven initiatives?
CoryOndrejka: I like playing to strengths, so borrow from the web when it makes sense
CoryOndrejka: and as the web does more and more that was formally domain of games, there is more to steal
CoryOndrejka: I mean leverage
CoryOndrejka:
Raph: Seems like so much of the standards discussion is around avatars and inventory…
CoryOndrejka: meh
CoryOndrejka: file systems have been inveted a few times I think
Raph: which to me closes off a huge amount of the scope of the discussion
CoryOndrejka: agreed
Raph: One of the things I love about MP is that I might turn into a fish when I go through a gate
CoryOndrejka:appearance is interesting of course, and the ideas of smooth path fromphoto through 2d avatar throught 3d animation is sexy and tempting
CoryOndrejka: I wonder about that
CoryOndrejka: (not that you like it
Raph: heh

CoryOndrejka: but whether or not persistent visual representation has value
CoryOndrejka: we know from Jeremey Bailenson's work that we are hyper responsive to mixing in images of "us" into other faces
CoryOndrejka: so I wonder if the killer version would be a fish that still looked like you a bit
Raph: It might be!
CoryOndrejka: you could standardize on morph targets and blend
CoryOndrejka: sort of disney rules of character creation
Raph: I suppose all I am getting at is that the diversity of possible envuironments is curtailed if you limit avatar apearance
CoryOndrejka: all avatars have eyes, mouths, etc
CoryOndrejka: I generally agree
Raph: We are importing a lot of the psychology of real worlds when we do that
Raph: which can be a good thing, but also can cause us to import things we didn't intend
CoryOndrejka: but I wonder if varialbe representations will make it less approachable in general, so how to mitigate that risk
CoryOndrejka: absolutely, it is very easy to miss what rules come with simple decisions
Raph: My favorite example is adding avatar height
Raph: Research at Stanford showed that shorter avatars, like shorter people, get treated differently
CoryOndrejka: otoh, we ask a lot of residents in open virtual worlds, so providing some expected context may ease the path in
Raph: they lose out more often in negotiations, for example
CoryOndrejka: ditto unattractive
Raph: exactly
CoryOndrejka: yeah Jeremey and Nick do the coolest work !
Raph: Are we losing that "no one knows you're a dog" quality the Internet had?
CoryOndrejka: hmmm
CoryOndrejka: thinking
CoryOndrejka: I don't think so
CoryOndrejka: but I wonder if that is a bit of a trick question
CoryOndrejka: lots of evidence that we don't shiled who we really are nearly as well as we think
CoryOndrejka: from gender differentiation in chat styles to racial biases imported right on in
Raph: There's an audience questionthat seems relevant…
CoryOndrejka: in fact, the more channels we give the users, the harder pretending to be someone else becomes
epredator: do you think we will evolve past avatars in this form, i.e. can I be the room
CoryOndrejka: I hope so!

Raph: Hmm, Crwth, there's a coding project for you…
Raph: (Crwth is one of our most programmery users)
CoryOndrejka:Think of it as the dungeon master role, right? You could imagine lotsof possiblities for being embodied differently that helps the fictionof a room, a location, a game, etc
Raph: What about with the Internet of streams? Is an avatar a stream?
Raph: We have something called the Metastream
CoryOndrejka: lots of SL scripts sort of do this, where LSL is reaching out to the web to act as another embodiment of the owner
CoryOndrejka: Something that you guys have done very well is to make sure Metaplace plays well with the web
CoryOndrejka: and given how many places streams make sense
CoryOndrejka: from activity streams (ie FB)
CoryOndrejka: to content streams (what the participants are watching now)
CoryOndrejka: being able to share all of those easily from MP to the web is the right decision, imho
Raph: In Metaplace, both users and worlds can generate streams as equal participants
Raph: Do you think that we will see a blurring of world versus user?
CoryOndrejka: throttling problems of course if scripts can createstreams, but that makes sense to have both user-centric andspace-centric
CoryOndrejka: goes back to eprador's question
Raph: I guess I mean more in terms of identity
CoryOndrejka: What about the way that virtualworlds are being used? Do youthink there's a "killer app" that will finally bring virtual worlds tothe everyday web user?
Raph: Well, I hope it's Metaplace!
CoryOndrejka: if you can setup controls where *you* are represented bythe experience of a space, that could be as important a representaitonof you as your flickr stream
CoryOndrejka:
CoryOndrejka: we know that music has been a killer app in virtual worlds — both in SL and MP
CoryOndrejka: which makes a ton of sense
Raph:I am not sure we have wrapped our heads around what all the usecasesare. I tend to think they lie around the notion of co-presence
CoryOndrejka: music has long been a great infection vector for new technology
CoryOndrejka: plus, as you just said
Raph: Music is a great case where co-presence just makes the experience richer
CoryOndrejka: being able to coexperience music makes for a much more enjoyable experience
Raph: Last night I sat in the lobby of this theater and played guitar for people for two hours
Raph: It is a surprisingly intimate experience
Raph: even when all I was doing was playing MP3s, not even live
CoryOndrejka: we hear that from SL musicians as well
CoryOndrejka: we're seeing that on iPhone music games as well
Raph: Is the music industry going to jum into this space then?
Raph: I mean, you can MAKE it jump now, right?
CoryOndrejka: well, labels, musicians, and fans have all been jumping in for a while
CoryOndrejka:the challenge, like much of online, is balancing when awareness is thechallenge (ie audience building) versus monetizing the audience you have
CoryOndrejka: what makes VWs cool is that we see explorations of all kinds
Raph: The variety of worlds users make always blows me away
CoryOndrejka:The experience of music, as we all know, extends well beyond atransaction around a little plastic disk, so virtual worlds offer somegreat options for extending that experience, through interaction withother fans, richer content, connecting to the web, etc
CoryOndrejka: how many worlds in MP at this point?
Raph: Well, every user gets one when they join
Raph: so over 30,000
Raph: many many users make more tha none
Raph: there are a few users who have made over 100
CoryOndrejka: that was going to be the next question — what that curve looks like
Raph: most of them are small and simpe, hardly changed
Raph: But that is the classic UGC curve
CoryOndrejka: right, but subtle changes in that curve make for big differences
Raph: Oh yes indeed
CoryOndrejka:Wikipedia has 0.2-2% participation (depending on how you count) whichis *way* more participation than ever before and enough to create thelargest repository of knowledge in history
Raph: as does the issue of surfacing interesting content
CoryOndrejka: absolutely
CoryOndrejka: one of the strongest reasons to create real economies within VWs is to allow the economy to be your filter
Raph: actually, that to me raises an interesting question
CoryOndrejka: sure you can use voting, attention, time of use, etc etc etc, but money is a useful signal
Raph: It does seem like a lot of the discussion around VWs often comes back to money
CoryOndrejka: you're investors are doing this for fun, right?
CoryOndrejka:
Raph: heh
Raph: What I mean is that it seems like often a lot of the discussion around them gets commercialized
CoryOndrejka: do you mean money as in "in world economy","real world transactions" or "business models"
Raph: Mor ethe in world economy aspect
CoryOndrejka: well, commercialization raises its head because these projects are still expensive and risky
CoryOndrejka: (making virtual worlds, that is)
Raph:it is, I guess, intrusive, in a way. I worry sometimes that we may losesome of the interesting qualities of VWs if money is the filter foreverything
CoryOndrejka: eg, see Lively
CoryOndrejka: I agree.One of the great promises of SL and MP is to make the barriers tocreating a world and finding an audience so low that people will try
Raph: Would the twitter Iran protest stuff have been as notable if it cost a penny a tweet?
CoryOndrejka: exactly
CoryOndrejka: that is to say, if it cost a penny and hadn't happened, how worse off would we all have been?
CoryOndrejka: risk, cost, and time (and impact of failure) all impede innovation
Raph: yes, and in many ways, with VWs the biggest barrier there now is time
CoryOndrejka: so, platforms for virtual worlds — especially those with thriving, connected communities — change the game
Raph: The very placeness and co-presence aspects, also make them more time-constrained
Raph: And the process of making one is still time intensive relative to typing a tweet
CoryOndrejka: absolutely, time to understand them, time to use them, needing to coordinate meeting at an event
CoryOndrejka: depends on how complex an idea you're trying to get into 140 characters
Raph: True. A few times I have had to bail on conversations i Twitter bc of that
Raph: So what do you think the future of vws is then?
CoryOndrejka: of course, the time barrier to use is also a search problem
CoryOndrejka: (cause if you can't find what you want quickly you leave)
CoryOndrejka: on the future…
CoryOndrejka:with the myriad "we can do high end 3d in a browser" options combinedwith high performance JS and native code in browsers
CoryOndrejka: we'll see more and more complexity entangled with the web
Raph: Which may work against that time and simplicity factor!
CoryOndrejka: maybe
CoryOndrejka:alternately, the ability to execute complex code can make the clientsmarter, more flexible, and more reactive to the context of the user
Raph: I do look forward to the richer environments in a browser, though I think people tend to forget the distadvantages
CoryOndrejka:we're also on the hairy edge of augmented reality being doable, which Iexpect to collide withvirtual worlds in a "you got your chocolate in mypeanut butter" kind of way
Raph: Have you seen the Google Maps mashup that one of our users did with the remote embed?
Raph: I look forward to seeng that sort of thing mashed up more, with GPS and mobile devices
CoryOndrejka: no, sounds cool
CoryOndrejka: yes!
Raph: Basically, it put a Metaplace world in the pop-up on a Google Maps location marker
CoryOndrejka f course, right now a modern laptop will give you 4-6 hours ofbrowsing but an hour of 3d gaming, so there are challenges to goingreally high end
CoryOndrejka: very cool
Raph: Wow, we have a lot of audience q's piled up
CoryOndrejka: let's have at 'em
Raph: Well, that's a big one
Raph: My take is that everything is going more social and more mobile
CoryOndrejka: sure, a few different pieces here
CoryOndrejka: yeah, agreed
Raph: It does feel like there is a convergence device coming
CoryOndrejka:in detail, I think we'll have to rethink a lot of our interfaces longterm to accomodate gphone/iphone screen size, pointing accuracy
Raph: Yes, it'll be a device that has in some ways less affordances than we are used to from a PC
CoryOndrejka:the problem of your "mouse" (ie finger) obscuring the where you arepointing is a problem poorly understoof by a lot of iphone games
CoryOndrejka: yes
Raph: but also nwe capabilities that reshape the landscape
CoryOndrejka: less oomph
CoryOndrejka: but more connectivity, built in gps and voice, etc
CoryOndrejka: great opportunities to blend real and virtual
CoryOndrejka: pity that right now mobile if fragmented into the flash and not-flash worlds
CoryOndrejka: s/if/is/
Raph: Well, if JS keeps improving, we may see that convergence too
CoryOndrejka: absolutely
Raph: And Flash is onto most smartphones, barring iPhone, by this winter
CoryOndrejka: the delta between actionscript and js is getting much smaller
Raph: crosscompile, gere we come
CoryOndrejka: I'd hate to have to ignore the iphone/touch market
Raph: shall we take the next one?
CoryOndrejka: da
Raph: whoops, we took two
Raph: So streams first?
Raph: I think they give the sense of sitting at the nerve center, the nexus
CoryOndrejka: I wish the questions went into the chat stream o' writer of the moderation code
Raph: they are going into the backchannel

CoryOndrejka:given that we are used to communication streams fragmenting therealworld *all the time* I'm not sure I understand the question, babbage
CoryOndrejka:real world distance is a problem all communications technology hastried to overcome (hand waving oversimplification)
CoryOndrejka: so while streams break local space, that is a good thing
CoryOndrejka: and, to raph's great point,a lot of folks like being able to juggle all the inputs
Raph: Yeah, though another thing that happens is losing track of it all
Raph:
CoryOndrejka: sorry, what were we talking about ?
Raph: Well, Kliger asked, this
Raph:kliger: Is 2.5-D a feature or a drawback to MP? Or, does the lack ofseparation between agent and camera limit MP to specific content types?
CoryOndrejka: but I'd rather have the choice to turn off streams that are there than not be able to get them
CoryOndrejka: that's a great question, although my biases are clear
Raph: We consider 2.5d a feature, because without that featre, you wouldn't be able to be here via a web embed
Raph: It doesn't mean 2d is the ultimate answer though
Raph: I think you use the right camera, display, etc, for the job
CoryOndrejka: I agree

Raph: There is also the question of user content creation. Most of the web is 2d content
CoryOndrejka: sure, but's its text and 2d because there is a dearth of good 3d and experiential tools
Raph:I don't think it is just that. I think that reading text inside a 3dspace is kind of obnoxious much of the time too. Again, right toolfor the job.
Raph: We tend to prefer our text facing us directly
CoryOndrejka: sure, but wasn't suggesting consumption needed to be 3d
Raph: Yes… as you know, I am a fan of even letting the user choose the display of a virtual space
CoryOndrejka: I think we all agree about the problems of reading — or worse, entering — text in 3d
Raph: see this psace in 3d, 2d or plain text, as you choose
CoryOndrejka: "you are sitting in a twisty row of chairs, all alike"
Raph: haha
Raph: As long as there are no nasty little dwarves with sharp knives
Raph peers out at the audience
CoryOndrejka: or so long as they are *your* nasty little swarves
CoryOndrejka: dwarves
Raph: heh
CoryOndrejka: or dwarfs, I suppose
Raph: shall we take another question?
CoryOndrejka: We have a few more minutes. Any other questions?
web207: Is there anything wrong with real life? Besides the obvious like war, disease, famine, rascism, poverty, etc?
CoryOndrejka: that's a big etc
CoryOndrejka: and who says that virtual worlds aren't part of real life, anyway
Raph: I'm not one of those folks that thinks that VWs replace real life
CoryOndrejka: you wouldn't say "don't use the telephone because it isn't natural"
Raph: I'm interested in how they supplement it, enhance it, embrace it
CoryOndrejka: although people said basically that around the turn of the century
CoryOndrejka: I agree, Raph
CoryOndrejka: virtual worlds are another communication mode, which is what makes them so much fun to work on and with and around
Raph: VWs have a great strength which is their "separate placeness"…but at the same time, if they are just isolated bubbles…
CoryOndrejka: *and* why they will only entangle with the web more
Raph: exactly
CoryOndrejka: and the great opportunity is to give this rich interaction both at a distance and locally
Raph: They are more like rooms in a house… you go there for their purpose
Raph: But the house is our lives
CoryOndrejka: I'm not sure I am ready to go quite that deep but I do think they are another option for how we connect
CoryOndrejka: and how we choose to use the techology around us
Raph: I guess what I was getting at is they should be seen as gathering places, not as isolating bubbles
CoryOndrejka: absolutely!
CoryOndrejka: assumption of loners in basements is wrong and incredibly misleading
CoryOndrejka: Are there any more questions? If not, I want to thank Cory and Raph for taking the time to talk with us today.
CoryOndrejka: of course, since we're talking to an audience that gets that…
CoryOndrejka: Sorry Cory – didn't mean to cut you off
CoryOndrejka:
Raph:I think a big test of VWs is actually the day when the folks in thisaudience have no qualms about asking any of their friends andacquaintances to use one
Raph: I don't think we are there yet, but I think someday we will be
CoryOndrejka: I think we're a lot closer than a decade ago
CoryOndrejka: games in general — and vws in particular — have made enormouse, positive strides
Raph thinks back to our discussions at MUD-Dev conferences years ago… W've come a LONG way
CoryOndrejka: exactly
Raph: Seems like a good note on which to end the chat
CoryOndrejka: works for me, thank you so much for the invitation to chat!
CoryOndrejka:
Raph: Thank you so mch for coming!
CoryOndrejka: anytime
CoryOndrejka: Thanks to you both for taking the time! And thanks Cory, for yoining us
CoryOndrejka: *Joining
Raph: We'll unmoderate the room and let the lively backchannel loose!
chooseareality claps
MacZ: woohoo
CoryOndrejka: you are very welcome and thanks to everyone who came to listen
Johndaman: YAY
MacZ: thx for coming
davidorban: Thanks, Cory!
Ace: thanks
Johndaman: thanks
gracemcdunnough: Thank you!
Bieeanda: Thanks!
babbage: thanks
CivilE: yay!
s3x4_1zz4 claps
babbage claps
Twomix: yey
superbad: Good show !