7 ms·

>What people want is an escape from reality. I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. Like it's on mobile? That's all? Peak W

>What people want is an escape from reality. I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. Like it's on mobile? That's all? Peak WoW _was_ a social network something Zuck is dreaming about (and that's while you also have to pay a monthly sub). I've read around and some people say that the difference people can _create content_ in Metaverse but... sandbox MMOs are also a thing for a long time (or just look at Minecraft/Roblox/Fortnite). Or the whole point just to attach your persona to your real name + Meta can monetize everything? But that still just sounds like some F2P korean MMO or a japanese gacha game. Maybe there is more to that but to me at least 1, the Metaverse sounds more like a "vision" than an actual product (yet VR Chat already exist too if the main selling point is AR/VR) 2, if it's an actual product then it's an MMO reimagined for non-gaming "normal" people

shakes_mcjunkie 4y ago
WoW but more boring and with more microtransactions.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  Final Fantasy XIV is at least fun
  - bozhark 4y ago
    Maybe if it had auto-path
  - haunter 4y ago
    Imagine the mandatory MSQ in the Metaverse
    - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      Cut substantially all of the Seventh Astral Era line and maybe we can talk.
      - Macha 4y ago
        If you're not aware, they did this in one of the final Shadowbringers patches. Most of the fluff that used to be part of the MSQ is now moved to optional sidequests.
        maxfurman 4y ago
        They only cut 20% the 2.x MSQ. Significant, but not "most"
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Second Life but with hardware requirements with less general-purpose utility.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    AOL but with avatar solicitors coming to your virtual door to try and interest you in "security deals from Ali Express".
seattle_spring 4y ago
This is how I've felt since the beginning. Especially lately with all of this NFT -> "virtual land" selling in some cases for millions of dollars. Like... What? Why wouldn't you play a game where virtual land is, get this, free, and provides the exact same value.
oliwary 4y ago
As far as I can tell from the material Meta has released, they have an incredibly ambitious vision for the metaverse. Essentially, I believe they want to create glasses that you wear, that allow you to see other people in your space, wherever they are. So you could have a conversation with three friends in your living room, as if they were there, while they could be on different continents, making physical location irrelevant. Now, I am not sure if they will get there, but they are investing heavily in the tech required (AR screen tech, SLAM, 3d body reconstruction etc), and even partial success could be enormous. Having spent a lot of time in VRChat, seeing people and interacting with them up close has something very powerful, even if if is just the beginning of the technology. I am very excited to see where it goes in any case.
- hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
  One thing I don't get is why there is a such high regard of visual input. I mean, we can speak to our friends since the telephone age, and we can see them on screen too since maybe the 90s. Is there a huge demand to actually see them IN THE SAME ROOM? I really don't think so. But maybe future generations have different ideas. I think VR can make a lot of difference in training (e.g. medical training) but it's not consumer stuff.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    A lot of people find asynchronous and text-based communication to be unpleasant. This maybe isn’t the most common sentiment on a tech news discussion forum, but probably describes much of the population. I think the internet’s potential to help people socialize is really hobbled by the text form factor of social media, chat, and discussion forums. Video and voice calls are richer, but they aren’t good a good way to meet people. I’ve found that VRChat makes for a more pleasant, natural, deeper experience than phone calls or video chat. For me, it really replicates the experience of hanging out with people in real life. Part of it is that it has the thing where you stand next to the people you are talking to and you can move around and talk to someone else when the conversation ebbs and flows. You can go to smaller spaces where you know everyone, or bigger places with friends of friends. This mitigates the problem with video or phone calls where you have to sort of mutually agree with the other party that you want to talk and when you are done talking. Instead, you can more naturally flow between different conversations. You can go to a crowd and meet new people, you can go on adventure with your close friend, or go hang out at your regular haunt. There are a lot of problems with the service, though. One of the big ones is that the onboarding experience is shitty for new players. If you don’t already have friends who play, you’ll just end up with 14 year olds screaming obscenities at you in a public world.
chaostheory 4y ago
> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. You actually have to try VR to better understand. Google Cardboard doesn’t count Rec Room and VR chat are good places to start
- Macha 4y ago
  Rec Room and VRChat are like earlier social MMOs, but with the inherent appeal leaving them attractive enough to cut out the pretense of gameplay (e.g. OSRS, MUDs, were not that dissimilar in being mostly about chatting with a distraction present) It also raises the question of what Facebook's metaverse could do that VRChat and Rec Room haven't. VRChat is the more successful of the two and has achieved the level of success of "video game more popular than you might realise", which for the small dev team is enough for a profitable business. How do you make it profitable at meta scale? NFTs, loot boxes and cosmetic microtransactions seem to be the prospects raised by people promoting such ideas. But then how is VRChat + microtransactions - your local modder's blatant copyright infringement more appealing than VRChat?
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    Facebook’s metaverse is just marketing. It’s akin to AOL commercials implying that AOL is the whole internet. What meta is providing is a gateway to the metaverse and maybe a portion of it called Horizon. The metaverse is built on the internet. No single entity can own or control all of it despite what any marketing implies. (Ready Player One is fantasy masquerading as sci-fi imo)
unity1001 4y ago
> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse Lack of mundane grinding for exp, rep and mats?
- haunter 4y ago
  >Lack of mundane grinding Auto/afk [anything] is a staple in lot of mobile MMOs. Like auto-battle, auto-questing etc. Yeah I don't know why would you even "play" at that point but then again those games are insanely popular. Kinda like "gamifying a game" if that make sense.
madrox 4y ago
Silicon Valley is great at rebranding things that already exist. Everyone talking a big game about the metaverse never played an MMO.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Exactly this. I read a great quote from Gabe Newell talking to PC Gamer[1]: "Most of the people who are talking about metaverse have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. And they've apparently never played an MMO. They're like, 'Oh, you'll have this customizable avatar.' And it's like, well... go into La Noscea in Final Fantasy 14 and tell me that this isn't a solved problem from a decade ago, not some fabulous thing that you're, you know, inventing." [1] https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-metaverse/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-metaverse/
bcrosby95 4y ago
From what I can tell, metaverse is just an attempt to make MMOs for "normal" people. So instead of a few million people spending 6+ hours per day in your "game", you have a few billion people spending 6+ hours per day in your "game".
- gowld 4y ago
  So, Second Life?
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    but for normal people
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      If by "normal" you mean corporate chatbots everywhere.
jjfoooo5 4y ago
> Minecraft/Roblox/Fortnite These MMO's are the real absolute ceiling of whatever Meta is trying to do, but that's insufficiently gigantic to justify a pivot of Meta. So they are pitching it as something that will extend past niche audiences (in absolute numbers they are huge but niche in terms of FB scale). The incoherency of why non-gamers would be interested in this is revealed in their advertising. For example, a fitness buff talking about how swinging around a foam stick with a headset strapped to her face is the best workout of her life.
elorant 4y ago
The difference is that you play with your whole body, not just your fingers. You can duck for cover, or run, or kick and punch someone, or construct an item with your hands. It’s immersive and it could take gaming to a whole other level. This is what AR and games are all about. Not necessarily what Meta wants to build.
- Benjammer 4y ago
  I've never been convinced that physical immersion will ever be as compelling to the human brain as mental immersion through good story-telling. Having my real-life body and physical attributes thrust directly into a story/game just seems like the most non-immersive thing possible to me unless the game is entirely designed around moving the body, like DDR or Beat Saber or whatever.
  - eludwig 4y ago
    This is what the makers of text adventures said about graphic adventures, just in a different dimensional context. And we all know how that turned out... :-/
    - failTide 4y ago
      True, although I still feel more immersed in a good text adventure than some of the best AAA games out there. I played 'Lost Pig' [1] about a year ago and the 'visuals' are still fresh in my mind. https://pr-if.org/play/lostpig/ https://pr-if.org/play/lostpig/
  - lovich 4y ago
    I don’t understand this comment. Isn’t having your real life body put into the story/game like a textbook definition of being more immersive than just engaging with sight and sound?
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      "The last rays of sunlight disappear leaving a cold darkness in the Uncanny Valley before you."
eastbayjake 4y ago
> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse Metaverse demos have felt super underwhelming compared to e.g. playing Grand Theft Auto 5 for a few hours
JKCalhoun 4y ago
> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. I think it's ads.
- claytongulick 4y ago
  You made me snort beer out of my nose.
luckydata 4y ago
nobody knows because it's not a real thing. It's one of those "there's something there and we need to be a part of it when it gets big" kind of things. I don't believe that VR will ever become mainstream btw, but AR has huge applicability starting from business but also for people involved in all kinds of sports, especially anything to do with bikes / skis / motorcycles etc... I strongly suspect Facebook will not be the winner of either use case. Apple / Disney are much better positioned to capture the "virtual amusement park / mall" space than Meta. Google / Microsoft are better positioned for the work / leisure time use case. Conclusion: Meta is screwed.
JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
This is my response every time someone mentions metaverse as a new idea. Metaverses are awesome. I play one every time I play a video game, especially WoW back in the day. I don’t need some crap strapped to my face. A tv or monitor and the human sensory system works just fine. When I played Elden Ring recently for 300+ hours I was in that world, just as deeply as someone with annoying crap strapped to their head. It’s just easier to get gullible investors to invest in your metaverse VR idea due to Gartner hype cycle rules, which are currently at Peak of Inflated Expectations. > “the metaverse” can include virtual reality—characterized by persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you're not playing—as well as augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds.

shakes_mcjunkie 4y ago

WoW but more boring and with more microtransactions.

radicaldreamer 4y ago
Final Fantasy XIV is at least fun
- bozhark 4y ago
  Maybe if it had auto-path
- haunter 4y ago
  Imagine the mandatory MSQ in the Metaverse
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    Cut substantially all of the Seventh Astral Era line and maybe we can talk.
    - Macha 4y ago
      If you're not aware, they did this in one of the final Shadowbringers patches. Most of the fluff that used to be part of the MSQ is now moved to optional sidequests.
      - maxfurman 4y ago
        They only cut 20% the 2.x MSQ. Significant, but not "most"
dragonwriter 4y ago
Second Life but with hardware requirements with less general-purpose utility.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  AOL but with avatar solicitors coming to your virtual door to try and interest you in "security deals from Ali Express".

seattle_spring 4y ago

This is how I've felt since the beginning. Especially lately with all of this NFT -> "virtual land" selling in some cases for millions of dollars. Like... What? Why wouldn't you play a game where virtual land is, get this, free, and provides the exact same value.

oliwary 4y ago

As far as I can tell from the material Meta has released, they have an incredibly ambitious vision for the metaverse. Essentially, I believe they want to create glasses that you wear, that allow you to see other people in your space, wherever they are. So you could have a conversation with three friends in your living room, as if they were there, while they could be on different continents, making physical location irrelevant. Now, I am not sure if they will get there, but they are investing heavily in the tech required (AR screen tech, SLAM, 3d body reconstruction etc), and even partial success could be enormous. Having spent a lot of time in VRChat, seeing people and interacting with them up close has something very powerful, even if if is just the beginning of the technology. I am very excited to see where it goes in any case.

hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
One thing I don't get is why there is a such high regard of visual input. I mean, we can speak to our friends since the telephone age, and we can see them on screen too since maybe the 90s. Is there a huge demand to actually see them IN THE SAME ROOM? I really don't think so. But maybe future generations have different ideas. I think VR can make a lot of difference in training (e.g. medical training) but it's not consumer stuff.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  A lot of people find asynchronous and text-based communication to be unpleasant. This maybe isn’t the most common sentiment on a tech news discussion forum, but probably describes much of the population. I think the internet’s potential to help people socialize is really hobbled by the text form factor of social media, chat, and discussion forums. Video and voice calls are richer, but they aren’t good a good way to meet people. I’ve found that VRChat makes for a more pleasant, natural, deeper experience than phone calls or video chat. For me, it really replicates the experience of hanging out with people in real life. Part of it is that it has the thing where you stand next to the people you are talking to and you can move around and talk to someone else when the conversation ebbs and flows. You can go to smaller spaces where you know everyone, or bigger places with friends of friends. This mitigates the problem with video or phone calls where you have to sort of mutually agree with the other party that you want to talk and when you are done talking. Instead, you can more naturally flow between different conversations. You can go to a crowd and meet new people, you can go on adventure with your close friend, or go hang out at your regular haunt. There are a lot of problems with the service, though. One of the big ones is that the onboarding experience is shitty for new players. If you don’t already have friends who play, you’ll just end up with 14 year olds screaming obscenities at you in a public world.

chaostheory 4y ago

> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. You actually have to try VR to better understand. Google Cardboard doesn’t count Rec Room and VR chat are good places to start

Macha 4y ago
Rec Room and VRChat are like earlier social MMOs, but with the inherent appeal leaving them attractive enough to cut out the pretense of gameplay (e.g. OSRS, MUDs, were not that dissimilar in being mostly about chatting with a distraction present) It also raises the question of what Facebook's metaverse could do that VRChat and Rec Room haven't. VRChat is the more successful of the two and has achieved the level of success of "video game more popular than you might realise", which for the small dev team is enough for a profitable business. How do you make it profitable at meta scale? NFTs, loot boxes and cosmetic microtransactions seem to be the prospects raised by people promoting such ideas. But then how is VRChat + microtransactions - your local modder's blatant copyright infringement more appealing than VRChat?
- chaostheory 4y ago
  Facebook’s metaverse is just marketing. It’s akin to AOL commercials implying that AOL is the whole internet. What meta is providing is a gateway to the metaverse and maybe a portion of it called Horizon. The metaverse is built on the internet. No single entity can own or control all of it despite what any marketing implies. (Ready Player One is fantasy masquerading as sci-fi imo)

unity1001 4y ago

> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse Lack of mundane grinding for exp, rep and mats?

haunter 4y ago
>Lack of mundane grinding Auto/afk [anything] is a staple in lot of mobile MMOs. Like auto-battle, auto-questing etc. Yeah I don't know why would you even "play" at that point but then again those games are insanely popular. Kinda like "gamifying a game" if that make sense.

madrox 4y ago

Silicon Valley is great at rebranding things that already exist. Everyone talking a big game about the metaverse never played an MMO.

seanhunter 4y ago
Exactly this. I read a great quote from Gabe Newell talking to PC Gamer[1]: "Most of the people who are talking about metaverse have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. And they've apparently never played an MMO. They're like, 'Oh, you'll have this customizable avatar.' And it's like, well... go into La Noscea in Final Fantasy 14 and tell me that this isn't a solved problem from a decade ago, not some fabulous thing that you're, you know, inventing." [1] https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-metaverse/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-metaverse/

bcrosby95 4y ago

From what I can tell, metaverse is just an attempt to make MMOs for "normal" people. So instead of a few million people spending 6+ hours per day in your "game", you have a few billion people spending 6+ hours per day in your "game".

gowld 4y ago
So, Second Life?
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  but for normal people
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    If by "normal" you mean corporate chatbots everywhere.

jjfoooo5 4y ago

> Minecraft/Roblox/Fortnite These MMO's are the real absolute ceiling of whatever Meta is trying to do, but that's insufficiently gigantic to justify a pivot of Meta. So they are pitching it as something that will extend past niche audiences (in absolute numbers they are huge but niche in terms of FB scale). The incoherency of why non-gamers would be interested in this is revealed in their advertising. For example, a fitness buff talking about how swinging around a foam stick with a headset strapped to her face is the best workout of her life.

elorant 4y ago

The difference is that you play with your whole body, not just your fingers. You can duck for cover, or run, or kick and punch someone, or construct an item with your hands. It’s immersive and it could take gaming to a whole other level. This is what AR and games are all about. Not necessarily what Meta wants to build.

Benjammer 4y ago
I've never been convinced that physical immersion will ever be as compelling to the human brain as mental immersion through good story-telling. Having my real-life body and physical attributes thrust directly into a story/game just seems like the most non-immersive thing possible to me unless the game is entirely designed around moving the body, like DDR or Beat Saber or whatever.
- eludwig 4y ago
  This is what the makers of text adventures said about graphic adventures, just in a different dimensional context. And we all know how that turned out... :-/
  - failTide 4y ago
    True, although I still feel more immersed in a good text adventure than some of the best AAA games out there. I played 'Lost Pig' [1] about a year ago and the 'visuals' are still fresh in my mind. https://pr-if.org/play/lostpig/ https://pr-if.org/play/lostpig/
- lovich 4y ago
  I don’t understand this comment. Isn’t having your real life body put into the story/game like a textbook definition of being more immersive than just engaging with sight and sound?
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    "The last rays of sunlight disappear leaving a cold darkness in the Uncanny Valley before you."

eastbayjake 4y ago

> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse Metaverse demos have felt super underwhelming compared to e.g. playing Grand Theft Auto 5 for a few hours

JKCalhoun 4y ago

> I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. I think it's ads.

claytongulick 4y ago
You made me snort beer out of my nose.

luckydata 4y ago

nobody knows because it's not a real thing. It's one of those "there's something there and we need to be a part of it when it gets big" kind of things. I don't believe that VR will ever become mainstream btw, but AR has huge applicability starting from business but also for people involved in all kinds of sports, especially anything to do with bikes / skis / motorcycles etc... I strongly suspect Facebook will not be the winner of either use case. Apple / Disney are much better positioned to capture the "virtual amusement park / mall" space than Meta. Google / Microsoft are better positioned for the work / leisure time use case. Conclusion: Meta is screwed.

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago

This is my response every time someone mentions metaverse as a new idea. Metaverses are awesome. I play one every time I play a video game, especially WoW back in the day. I don’t need some crap strapped to my face. A tv or monitor and the human sensory system works just fine. When I played Elden Ring recently for 300+ hours I was in that world, just as deeply as someone with annoying crap strapped to their head. It’s just easier to get gullible investors to invest in your metaverse VR idea due to Gartner hype cycle rules, which are currently at Peak of Inflated Expectations. > “the metaverse” can include virtual reality—characterized by persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you're not playing—as well as augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds.