4 ms·

I thought the article was a bit brief. A better one that was recently posted on HN [1] describes exploring university campuses that were built in Second Life an

I thought the article was a bit brief. A better one that was recently posted on HN [1] describes exploring university campuses that were built in Second Life and subsequently abandoned. Some thoughts: Looking at the pictures in [1], I was reminded that people designed and built all this stuff. Spent months of their lives and used their creativity. I wonder how they feel? Maybe like the designers of the Athens [2] and Sochi [3] Olympic sites. Also, back in 2003 Cyan Worlds (the developers of Myst) created an online world called Uru Live [4]. They closed it due to lack of demand and (IIRC) scaling problems, but at some point it seems to have been brought back to life by a community effort [5]. So, abandoned worlds don't have to stay that way and the work of their designers doesn't have to be wasted. The first time I recall encountering the concept of virtual world architecture was in Greg Egan's book Permutation City [6]. Anyone know of anything earlier? Finally, it would be cool if virtual worlds could be linked by gateways, with some way for player metadata to migrate across the gateways. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079400 [2] http://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandoned-athens-olympic-2004-venues-10-years-on-in-pictures http://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandon... [3] http://weburbanist.com/2014/09/09/post-olympic-abandonment-sochi-already-on-the-road-to-ruin/ http://weburbanist.com/2014/09/09/post-olympic-abandonment-s... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst_Online:_Uru_Live https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst_Online:_Uru_Live [5] http://mystonline.com/ http://mystonline.com/ [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City

trhway 11y ago
> people designed and built all this stuff. Spent months of their lives and used their creativity. I wonder how they feel? Maybe like the designers of the Athens [2] and Sochi [3] Olympic sites. i think it depends on what was actually spent - time of the lives and creativity or corporate/government money. Don't know about universities or Athens, while the recipients of $50B spent on Sochi do seem to feel very good.
zrail 11y ago
An abandoned virtual Myst world is rather poetic, don't you think?
sp332 11y ago
Sure, William Gibson's Neuromancer was written a decade earlier and popularized the term "cyberspace". His trilogies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy have descriptions of virtual spaces designed for various reasons. Snow Crash was published in 1992 and popularized the term "avatar". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash Its virtual spaces were pretty elaborate.
- andyjohnson0 11y ago
  I wasn't being very clear, but by "virtual architecture" I meant something like a design practice that extends conventional built architecture to exploit the novel properties of virtual spaces. Like physically or topologically impossible buildings. Gibson's cyberspace (at least in Neuromancer) is just a 3D grid containing basic shapes. His later works do describe more elaborate worlds, but as far as I remember they are copies of the real world (eg. Chia's virtual copy of Venice in Idoru or the world inside the Aleph in Mona Lisa Overdrive). The Street in Snow Crash is nearer to what I was thinking of. Edid: The Virtual Venice belonged to Chia in Idoru [1], not Marly in Count Zero as I originally said. [1] http://www.procolharum.com/awsop_novel3.htm http://www.procolharum.com/awsop_novel3.htm
  - sp332 11y ago
    There is a beach at the end of Neromancer that seems to have a city in the distance, but if you walk toward it, you just end up where you started. It's a bit sparse though, I see your point.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pierrec 11y ago
It's difficult to pinpoint the earliest description of virtual architecture. Maybe in Stanley G. Weinbaum's wonderfully foresighted Pygmalion's Spectacles (1935). Then there's also The Trouble with Bubbles (1953) by Philip K. Dick. http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=4543 http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=4543
- andyjohnson0 11y ago
  Thank you! I wasn't familiar with either work. Have saved Pygmalion's Spectacles for holiday reading.

trhway 11y ago

> people designed and built all this stuff. Spent months of their lives and used their creativity. I wonder how they feel? Maybe like the designers of the Athens [2] and Sochi [3] Olympic sites. i think it depends on what was actually spent - time of the lives and creativity or corporate/government money. Don't know about universities or Athens, while the recipients of $50B spent on Sochi do seem to feel very good.

zrail 11y ago

An abandoned virtual Myst world is rather poetic, don't you think?

sp332 11y ago

Sure, William Gibson's Neuromancer was written a decade earlier and popularized the term "cyberspace". His trilogies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy have descriptions of virtual spaces designed for various reasons. Snow Crash was published in 1992 and popularized the term "avatar". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash Its virtual spaces were pretty elaborate.

andyjohnson0 11y ago
I wasn't being very clear, but by "virtual architecture" I meant something like a design practice that extends conventional built architecture to exploit the novel properties of virtual spaces. Like physically or topologically impossible buildings. Gibson's cyberspace (at least in Neuromancer) is just a 3D grid containing basic shapes. His later works do describe more elaborate worlds, but as far as I remember they are copies of the real world (eg. Chia's virtual copy of Venice in Idoru or the world inside the Aleph in Mona Lisa Overdrive). The Street in Snow Crash is nearer to what I was thinking of. Edid: The Virtual Venice belonged to Chia in Idoru [1], not Marly in Count Zero as I originally said. [1] http://www.procolharum.com/awsop_novel3.htm http://www.procolharum.com/awsop_novel3.htm
- sp332 11y ago
  There is a beach at the end of Neromancer that seems to have a city in the distance, but if you walk toward it, you just end up where you started. It's a bit sparse though, I see your point.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

pierrec 11y ago

It's difficult to pinpoint the earliest description of virtual architecture. Maybe in Stanley G. Weinbaum's wonderfully foresighted Pygmalion's Spectacles (1935). Then there's also The Trouble with Bubbles (1953) by Philip K. Dick. http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=4543 http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=4543

andyjohnson0 11y ago
Thank you! I wasn't familiar with either work. Have saved Pygmalion's Spectacles for holiday reading.