THOUGHT (aka Centric's Blog)

Yuki and I are just back from yet another month-long trip to Asia, and there are a million things to report. I’ll hit just a few of them in this post.

We checked in with our offices in Shanghai and Tokyo, met with HiPiHi and MySpace in Beijing, with Melting Dots, Spiral Growth and many other bright, enjoyable people and companies in Tokyo, and visited partners in Singapore and Hong Kong. I don’t have to tell you that Asia is charging full-speed ahead into new technologies and forms of entertainment. That’s a given. And virtual worlds are a rapidly advancing part of that charge.

Between HiPiHi’s impending fall launch, Shanda Entertainment’s announcement of another upcoming Chinese virtual world, CyWorld’s domination of the Korean virtual space, Entropia Universe’s entrance into the Chinese market, and a variety of virtual worlds in Japan such as Splume appearing, the question isn’t whether Asia will play a key role in the advancement of virtual worlds, rather just how big that role will be.

Which brings me to our new strategic partnership with Metabirds. Naoyoshi Shimaya is the CEO of this company specializing in Second Life development. Based in Tokyo, Shimaya-san’s team has developed a number of corporate builds and a lot of Japanese community builds. Shimokitazawa focuses on community and music, MetaEgg is a new conference center, and Biz Island is a place for Japanese businesspeople to set up their new businesses.

Metabirds shares Centric’s love of science fiction as well as our dedication to bringing international communities together in virtual worlds. We plan to work together on a variety of initiatives, some serious, some wacky, hopefully all interesting and relevant. We will innovate: in strategy, design, building, machinima, and cross-cultural, multi-language projects.

To me, this partnership is exceptionally exciting. Not only do we get to increase our team of dedicated Second Life developers, but we have the pleasure of working with fun, intelligent, talented people halfway around the world.

We think it’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Want to come along?

10. It’s surprisingly fast. Even though it’s served from China, we’re seeing 75-100fps typically on a midline system. Of course, the maximum concurrency is low, so we’ll reserve judgement on heavier use for later.

9. Water effects are quite nice. From the reflections, to the distortion of your avatar when you’re underwater, this is nicely done.

8. You swim!!! Yeah, that’s built right into the system. Take a dunk and you end up swimming through the water, complete with realistic sound effects. No scripts required!

7. There’s weather. There are days when it rains. The water ripples, dulls, and loses reflectivity. The palette of the world slides to gray. It may not be everyone’s, er, cup of tea, but it’s nice to see some variation.

6. On the fly ground retexturing. Yeah, I know, now I’m getting developer-geeky, but it’s neat to be able to pick a tool, set the size, pick a texture, and redo your plot on the fly.

5. It’s a contiguous world. Want to swim from the mainland to the islands? Go right ahead. Want to fly from one side of the world to the other? Sure.

4. The flight engine. Whoever did their helicopter knew their stuff. This is responsive, nicely realistic, and very usable. Also, the helicopter appears to be made of irregular prims, which is neat in and of itself.

3. Inventory preview!!! Yes, you can see what’s in your inventory (and relative size) before you whip it out and surprise yourself. This is a great feature.

2. The distance algorithms. Yeah, it’s clear that fog is covering something up, but again, it’s nicely done. The world melts away rather seamlessly into a fog of brilliant white, like there’s always something just on the edge of your vision, waiting to be discovered.

1. The whole surreality of spending time in a Chinese virtual world. It’s a helluva trip. The very fact we’re wandering around in virtual worlds from every corner of the globe and comparing their relative merits is hugely exciting. And then there are the random people who walk up and start speaking Chinese . . .