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Has anyone actually met anyone who has visited the metaverse? Admittedly, I don’t live in SV (or CA), but I do know a lot of developers, tech people, nerds, etc

Has anyone actually met anyone who has visited the metaverse? Admittedly, I don’t live in SV (or CA), but I do know a lot of developers, tech people, nerds, etc. and none of them have visited the metaverse. I keep assuming it doesn’t actually exist yet. It’s like a story of this far off land that people have heard of, but nobody has actually visited.

Delento 4y ago
I watched a few discovery videos about it and the only positive was a comedy club people liked to go to. Everything spontaneous was empty. So more like event based like cinema than a hang out space
Ylmaz 4y ago
My employer bought a few VR headsets (from meta). I see them lying around in the office but no one ever used them.
hot_gril 4y ago
You're correct, nobody has. It's so dumb. I saw ads for the Metaverse in SJC today... there is no product to show. It's not even a scam or pyramid scheme, they're just burning money selling nothing for no money. It's like those oil company ads showing random stock video with voiceover about synergy and sustainability, except at least they sell oil.
lithos 4y ago
Closest is VRChat, the most excessive users are there from their morning workout, maybe a work meeting, to their evening socialization. Though everyone pretends the game doesn't exist, especially Facebook (too embarrassing to not match such a small team) Thankfully it's not the dystopian warning of being a "browser" with unlockable ads, tracking (including new stuff like always on cameras, eye tracking, and everything you fit in a fitness watch/ tracker), and all wrapped up by like a proprietary walled garden.
explaininjs 4y ago
There is no the metaverse currently, but there are many metaverses. The definition itself is shaky and contradictory across sources. But to summarize, a metaverse is a "set of digital spaces that you can move seamlessly between", it will include "familiar 2D experiences, as well as ones projected into the physical world and fully immersive 3D ones too". It can be accessed via your phone or computer, or a VR reset for "full immersion". Fortnite is a metaverse, but some say Roblox and Minecraft aren't. I couldn't tell you how that distinction was drawn. My favorite metaverse is RuneScape, but I unfortunately haven't visited in a decade or more. Steam might also be considered a metaverse. Which would imply Xbox Online and all that are too. [1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meaning-of-metaverse https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meaning-of-met... [2]: https://about.meta.com/what-is-the-metaverse/ https://about.meta.com/what-is-the-metaverse/ [3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/09/23/fortnites-epic-games-makes-a-metaverse-investment-to-scale-up-even-further/?sh=3a9105d2cfd0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/09/23/fortnites-...
- waboremo 4y ago
  Not sure the Roblox and Minecraft exclusions make sense. Maybe they used to in the past but they act as all other current forms of metaverses do, like VR Chat or Second Life or GTA Online. The consideration of Steam and Xbox Online as a metaverse is one I'm not too fond of. It kind of messes the entire idea up as you're not really using 3D avatars to communicate with others in a way that sort of replicates reality. If Steam and Xbox get considered as metaverses, we're now suddenly calling Twitter and HN also metaverses which is a bit absurd when we have perfectly reasonable names for them. Also while the current implementations of metaverses are quite limited and mostly game related, people are setting their sights on future goals. Mainly interoperability. Right now you can't go from Runescape to VR Chat in any seamless way, you lose your friends lists, items, accounts, expectations and standards, etc. There is some work being done here, for example Epic created EOS as a layer of interoperability between any games without the usual restrictions, however the project is still very much in early stages and acts as nothing more than a universal friends list/account for now.
  - explaininjs 4y ago
JohnFen 4y ago
For all meaningful definitions of "the metaverse" that I've seen, the internet fully qualifies.
- meheleventyone 4y ago
  Yeah came here to say the same. We’ve had the metaverse for ages in a much better and broader form factor than fiction portrayed. Most “metaverse” projects want to build something more limited which seems backward.
erikerikson 4y ago
I have. They gave me a link to decentral land or something. I clicked briefly, looked like Sims, went away. They claimed to spend time in it.
dmarchand90 4y ago
Vrchat has a stable and vibrant underground clubbing/ rave scene that's a lot of cyberpunk fun. If that counts as metaverse
tfandango 4y ago
One day in the middle of the day I visited the "Soapstone comedy club" world in Horizon Worlds. People were actually taking turns going on stage and telling jokes. Then in the course of general conversation, one person said she wrote and sang songs and someone asked her to get on the stage and sing. She did, and it was beautiful, almost a magic moment of discovery. Afterward she told us that she was a twin who recently met her brother and both were into music so they formed a band. The band is called Cave Twins and the song was "A Little Longer". It's the one redeeming moment in Horizon Worlds that I have had. I continue to check in once a month or so but have had no other meaningful interactions since.
- michaelteter 4y ago
  What you describe also happens periodically in the real world :). It doesn't require any technology; it just requires getting out and going places (and a city/environment with a lot of different things happening).
  - tfandango 4y ago
    oh yes, of course it does. I just wanted to mention the one instance where I had a good experience in "The Metaverse". Something like this could be nice if the experiences could be repeatable and you happen to live in a place where you don't have such venues like you mention.
    - michaelteter 4y ago
      > you happen to live in a place where you don't have such venues like you mention This is a topic which I am currently experiencing and thinking a lot about. For those who truly cannot be in lively areas, technology can provide at least some level of connection to the rest of humanity. But I realize now that living location choice can make an enormous difference on quality of life just based on the availability of good social options. And as a techie who has lived most of my life behind a computer, I have recently discovered that real life is much, much more rewarding - if you're in an area where people are not just boxed up in their own homes every night from 6pm+.
Macha 4y ago
Facebook's metaverse project? No. VRChat, I think everyone with a VR headset has at least tried it, plus plenty of people using the desktop client. Rec Room was also a popular early "metaverse" type setup in VR, though VRChat has mostly supplanted it. And of course, if VR is not a requirement for your metaverse, basically every mmorpg is also a metaverse.
madeofpalk 4y ago
Any time someone describes 'metaverse' they just end up describing Minecraft, which I've played for quite a while and I really enjoy it. I don't think Minecraft is the future of all human interaction, but that hasn't detracted from Minecraft being successful. Unless 'metaverse' is supposed to only mean 'VR platform sold by Facebook'.
- steveylang 4y ago
  >Unless 'metaverse' is supposed to only mean 'VR platform sold by Facebook'. That is exactly what Zuckerberg is shooting for, and why he is failing on an epic scale. He doesn't really care about VR and virtual universes so much as he cares about ownership of the 'one true metaverse'.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Facebook should pivot to making Minecraft mods. That'd make a better Metaverse.
    - em500 4y ago
      I realize this is in jest, but Minecraft is owned by Microsoft, and the prime directive of FB/Meta in the last 10-15 years is to own their own platform instead of building on top of platforms owned by other tech giants.
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        Yeah, maybe they could have beaten MSFT to the purchase.
bradneuberg 4y ago
I’m a tech nerd and developer who enjoys social VR, whether Horizons, VR Chat, or Rec Room. One issue is that the public rooms are usually full of annoying griefers, all the nice interesting people have retreated out of the public areas and into private rooms and parties. This means if you just drop in to one of these systems casually you don’t get to see all the interesting private events happening, like lots of private DJ and music concerts in VR Chat for example.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Just like real life
- djtango 4y ago
  Unpopular take but maybe FB were onto something when trying to enforce you using your FB account and real identity...
  - Macha 4y ago
    Nah, this is the nymwars argument and Facebook comments on news articles + the period of real names on YouTube shows that does not help as much as you think it does.
oneil 4y ago
Actually, yes. Outside of my regular group of friends, I've met people who were regulars within AltSpaceVR which has now closed. They've now shifted to Horizon and avoid VRChat which is full of kids or people pretending to be a mouse in a race car. Horizon has given me the ability to make friends from other parts of the country and the world. People that are actual friends, not just people I talk to online.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  I do think Horizon would fare better with the same tech (features/capabilities) but a different look to it. I've hung out in it a bit and certain spaces kind of evoke the old feeling back when I was in college and hanging out at an apartment or around a campfire and just quietly listening or chatting with other people bullshitting with each other. And I also got to go to a 'club' where people were dancing around a DJ another time. I'm a bit too old to feel comfortable doing that in person anymore. So it was nice to have that feeling again, as fleeting as it was. Too bad it has to be in an environment that looks like it came out of the PS1 era with the blandest art direction possible.
p0pcult 4y ago
Both of my kids play Fortnite, as do I on occasion. During COVID, they had concerts (Marshmallow), movie nights, and BLM-adjancent lectures. Anyone who had an account could fire up their rig, jack in, and attend--even with friends. This is one of the many metaverses. Minecraft is a pretty readily available one too. Neither required VR gear, either.
VLM 4y ago
Could an old timer help me out? I was involved in Second Life around the turn of the century. I've been ignoring the metaverse since giving up on SL a long time ago. Obviously the resolution, frame rate, and software integration in metaverse will be somewhat better than SL; aside from that, can anyone tell me the difference between modern metaverse and SL, also how does that difference translate into profitable sales? The new hype wave for SL sounds like someone hyping up the "new" idea of a CLI, and me feeling, uh, I think I've seen this before...
- pastdiscovery 4y ago
  VRChat is less LARP-heavy than SL. VRChat is more proprietary than SL. VRChat is more custom than SL in some ways and less in others. The SL people tried to make a VRChat clone. They sold it off, and now an EDM label uses it for virtual raves. VRChat is significantly more voice-heavy than SL, which is better or worse depending on your use-case. The best thing about VRChat is that you get to wear a toaster on your face and get physical interaction with people. If you want to take a dancing course in VRChat, you can. Buy a few gadgets to track your limbs, and it'll be shown accurately. VRChat is essentially the next step in the user-programmable social video game, and the community seems more ambitious. The platform is so open that they've ran emulated Linux on user avatars.
- Animats 4y ago
  > Obviously the resolution, frame rate, and software integration in metaverse will be somewhat better than SL; aside from that, can anyone tell me the difference between modern metaverse and SL, also how does that difference translate into profitable sales? Most of the modern metaverses are worse than Second Life. Their big advantages were VR, browser and mobile clients. Second Life is getting most of those features now. Their dev team finally got out of "can't do" mode. (That's client side. Server side, they still have trouble fixing long-standing bugs.) They hired some good game devs, and graphics started to get better. * Frame rates have increased substantially. There's more multi-threading in the clients now, and the servers have been upgraded to better AWS instances. Still OpenGL, but work is going on to use Vulkan. * Graphics realism has increased, again. Physically based rendering with high dynamic range lighting is in test. Not subsurface scattering, though, so skin still looks plastic under some lighting. Graphics realism is becoming comparable to GTA-V, but not Red Dead Redemption. * There's a mobile viewer in test. Uses Unity as the graphics engine.[1] * Full body tracking is in test, and being demoed. It's striking to see how someone rigged for full tracking dominates a meeting. Second Life may end up being the metaverse, after everybody else fails. It's one of the very few systems with a large, continuous world, one about the size of greater Los Angeles. Facebook failed to deliver much, the NFT guys delivered even less, and the people who announced and didn't ship probably never will. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tjRlVwlAXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tjRlVwlAXA
Semaphor 4y ago
A few months ago during the height of the metaverse craze, I mentioned that it seems forced by some companies. I was told by HN that I live in a bubble ;) So there are probably tons of people who care a lot!
Melatonic 4y ago
I live in California and most of my friends are fairly nerdy. Some work in tech, some do not. Most have not even tried VR period. The Metaverse I am convinced is pretty dumb unless we can make it significantly more immersive - as in adding sense of touch or other senses.
baby 4y ago
I have, it was quite insane. I played Catan, a board game, with people online. Most immersive social experience I’ve ever went through. I also went into a cinema, thought I was alone but when I turned my head to the room realized that people were staring at me lol. I screamed of surprise, they heard it and laughed, it was too real so I disconnected. I did VR chat a bit but in general the feeling of presence was too strong when I wanted to chill so didn’t experience as many things as I could. I’ve had friends visit my space and play chess with me there as well. But at the time our headsets would only last for like 30min and they would overheat easily. I got the Quest later and every problem had been fixed. Perfect headset. Can’t imagine what the quest 2 feels like. Wrote about some of it here: https://p1x3l.com/story/239/social-virtual-reality-and-the-oculus-go https://p1x3l.com/story/239/social-virtual-reality-and-the-o...

Delento 4y ago

I watched a few discovery videos about it and the only positive was a comedy club people liked to go to. Everything spontaneous was empty. So more like event based like cinema than a hang out space

Ylmaz 4y ago

My employer bought a few VR headsets (from meta). I see them lying around in the office but no one ever used them.

hot_gril 4y ago

You're correct, nobody has. It's so dumb. I saw ads for the Metaverse in SJC today... there is no product to show. It's not even a scam or pyramid scheme, they're just burning money selling nothing for no money. It's like those oil company ads showing random stock video with voiceover about synergy and sustainability, except at least they sell oil.

lithos 4y ago

Closest is VRChat, the most excessive users are there from their morning workout, maybe a work meeting, to their evening socialization. Though everyone pretends the game doesn't exist, especially Facebook (too embarrassing to not match such a small team) Thankfully it's not the dystopian warning of being a "browser" with unlockable ads, tracking (including new stuff like always on cameras, eye tracking, and everything you fit in a fitness watch/ tracker), and all wrapped up by like a proprietary walled garden.

explaininjs 4y ago

There is no the metaverse currently, but there are many metaverses. The definition itself is shaky and contradictory across sources. But to summarize, a metaverse is a "set of digital spaces that you can move seamlessly between", it will include "familiar 2D experiences, as well as ones projected into the physical world and fully immersive 3D ones too". It can be accessed via your phone or computer, or a VR reset for "full immersion". Fortnite is a metaverse, but some say Roblox and Minecraft aren't. I couldn't tell you how that distinction was drawn. My favorite metaverse is RuneScape, but I unfortunately haven't visited in a decade or more. Steam might also be considered a metaverse. Which would imply Xbox Online and all that are too. [1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meaning-of-metaverse https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meaning-of-met... [2]: https://about.meta.com/what-is-the-metaverse/ https://about.meta.com/what-is-the-metaverse/ [3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/09/23/fortnites-epic-games-makes-a-metaverse-investment-to-scale-up-even-further/?sh=3a9105d2cfd0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/09/23/fortnites-...

waboremo 4y ago
Not sure the Roblox and Minecraft exclusions make sense. Maybe they used to in the past but they act as all other current forms of metaverses do, like VR Chat or Second Life or GTA Online. The consideration of Steam and Xbox Online as a metaverse is one I'm not too fond of. It kind of messes the entire idea up as you're not really using 3D avatars to communicate with others in a way that sort of replicates reality. If Steam and Xbox get considered as metaverses, we're now suddenly calling Twitter and HN also metaverses which is a bit absurd when we have perfectly reasonable names for them. Also while the current implementations of metaverses are quite limited and mostly game related, people are setting their sights on future goals. Mainly interoperability. Right now you can't go from Runescape to VR Chat in any seamless way, you lose your friends lists, items, accounts, expectations and standards, etc. There is some work being done here, for example Epic created EOS as a layer of interoperability between any games without the usual restrictions, however the project is still very much in early stages and acts as nothing more than a universal friends list/account for now.
- explaininjs 4y ago

JohnFen 4y ago

For all meaningful definitions of "the metaverse" that I've seen, the internet fully qualifies.

meheleventyone 4y ago
Yeah came here to say the same. We’ve had the metaverse for ages in a much better and broader form factor than fiction portrayed. Most “metaverse” projects want to build something more limited which seems backward.

erikerikson 4y ago

I have. They gave me a link to decentral land or something. I clicked briefly, looked like Sims, went away. They claimed to spend time in it.

dmarchand90 4y ago

Vrchat has a stable and vibrant underground clubbing/ rave scene that's a lot of cyberpunk fun. If that counts as metaverse

tfandango 4y ago

One day in the middle of the day I visited the "Soapstone comedy club" world in Horizon Worlds. People were actually taking turns going on stage and telling jokes. Then in the course of general conversation, one person said she wrote and sang songs and someone asked her to get on the stage and sing. She did, and it was beautiful, almost a magic moment of discovery. Afterward she told us that she was a twin who recently met her brother and both were into music so they formed a band. The band is called Cave Twins and the song was "A Little Longer". It's the one redeeming moment in Horizon Worlds that I have had. I continue to check in once a month or so but have had no other meaningful interactions since.

michaelteter 4y ago
What you describe also happens periodically in the real world :). It doesn't require any technology; it just requires getting out and going places (and a city/environment with a lot of different things happening).
- tfandango 4y ago
  oh yes, of course it does. I just wanted to mention the one instance where I had a good experience in "The Metaverse". Something like this could be nice if the experiences could be repeatable and you happen to live in a place where you don't have such venues like you mention.
  - michaelteter 4y ago
    > you happen to live in a place where you don't have such venues like you mention This is a topic which I am currently experiencing and thinking a lot about. For those who truly cannot be in lively areas, technology can provide at least some level of connection to the rest of humanity. But I realize now that living location choice can make an enormous difference on quality of life just based on the availability of good social options. And as a techie who has lived most of my life behind a computer, I have recently discovered that real life is much, much more rewarding - if you're in an area where people are not just boxed up in their own homes every night from 6pm+.

Macha 4y ago

Facebook's metaverse project? No. VRChat, I think everyone with a VR headset has at least tried it, plus plenty of people using the desktop client. Rec Room was also a popular early "metaverse" type setup in VR, though VRChat has mostly supplanted it. And of course, if VR is not a requirement for your metaverse, basically every mmorpg is also a metaverse.

madeofpalk 4y ago

Any time someone describes 'metaverse' they just end up describing Minecraft, which I've played for quite a while and I really enjoy it. I don't think Minecraft is the future of all human interaction, but that hasn't detracted from Minecraft being successful. Unless 'metaverse' is supposed to only mean 'VR platform sold by Facebook'.

steveylang 4y ago
>Unless 'metaverse' is supposed to only mean 'VR platform sold by Facebook'. That is exactly what Zuckerberg is shooting for, and why he is failing on an epic scale. He doesn't really care about VR and virtual universes so much as he cares about ownership of the 'one true metaverse'.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Facebook should pivot to making Minecraft mods. That'd make a better Metaverse.
  - em500 4y ago
    I realize this is in jest, but Minecraft is owned by Microsoft, and the prime directive of FB/Meta in the last 10-15 years is to own their own platform instead of building on top of platforms owned by other tech giants.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      Yeah, maybe they could have beaten MSFT to the purchase.

bradneuberg 4y ago

I’m a tech nerd and developer who enjoys social VR, whether Horizons, VR Chat, or Rec Room. One issue is that the public rooms are usually full of annoying griefers, all the nice interesting people have retreated out of the public areas and into private rooms and parties. This means if you just drop in to one of these systems casually you don’t get to see all the interesting private events happening, like lots of private DJ and music concerts in VR Chat for example.

hot_gril 4y ago
Just like real life
djtango 4y ago
Unpopular take but maybe FB were onto something when trying to enforce you using your FB account and real identity...
- Macha 4y ago
  Nah, this is the nymwars argument and Facebook comments on news articles + the period of real names on YouTube shows that does not help as much as you think it does.

oneil 4y ago

Actually, yes. Outside of my regular group of friends, I've met people who were regulars within AltSpaceVR which has now closed. They've now shifted to Horizon and avoid VRChat which is full of kids or people pretending to be a mouse in a race car. Horizon has given me the ability to make friends from other parts of the country and the world. People that are actual friends, not just people I talk to online.

cableshaft 4y ago
I do think Horizon would fare better with the same tech (features/capabilities) but a different look to it. I've hung out in it a bit and certain spaces kind of evoke the old feeling back when I was in college and hanging out at an apartment or around a campfire and just quietly listening or chatting with other people bullshitting with each other. And I also got to go to a 'club' where people were dancing around a DJ another time. I'm a bit too old to feel comfortable doing that in person anymore. So it was nice to have that feeling again, as fleeting as it was. Too bad it has to be in an environment that looks like it came out of the PS1 era with the blandest art direction possible.

p0pcult 4y ago

Both of my kids play Fortnite, as do I on occasion. During COVID, they had concerts (Marshmallow), movie nights, and BLM-adjancent lectures. Anyone who had an account could fire up their rig, jack in, and attend--even with friends. This is one of the many metaverses. Minecraft is a pretty readily available one too. Neither required VR gear, either.

VLM 4y ago

Could an old timer help me out? I was involved in Second Life around the turn of the century. I've been ignoring the metaverse since giving up on SL a long time ago. Obviously the resolution, frame rate, and software integration in metaverse will be somewhat better than SL; aside from that, can anyone tell me the difference between modern metaverse and SL, also how does that difference translate into profitable sales? The new hype wave for SL sounds like someone hyping up the "new" idea of a CLI, and me feeling, uh, I think I've seen this before...

pastdiscovery 4y ago
VRChat is less LARP-heavy than SL. VRChat is more proprietary than SL. VRChat is more custom than SL in some ways and less in others. The SL people tried to make a VRChat clone. They sold it off, and now an EDM label uses it for virtual raves. VRChat is significantly more voice-heavy than SL, which is better or worse depending on your use-case. The best thing about VRChat is that you get to wear a toaster on your face and get physical interaction with people. If you want to take a dancing course in VRChat, you can. Buy a few gadgets to track your limbs, and it'll be shown accurately. VRChat is essentially the next step in the user-programmable social video game, and the community seems more ambitious. The platform is so open that they've ran emulated Linux on user avatars.
Animats 4y ago
> Obviously the resolution, frame rate, and software integration in metaverse will be somewhat better than SL; aside from that, can anyone tell me the difference between modern metaverse and SL, also how does that difference translate into profitable sales? Most of the modern metaverses are worse than Second Life. Their big advantages were VR, browser and mobile clients. Second Life is getting most of those features now. Their dev team finally got out of "can't do" mode. (That's client side. Server side, they still have trouble fixing long-standing bugs.) They hired some good game devs, and graphics started to get better. * Frame rates have increased substantially. There's more multi-threading in the clients now, and the servers have been upgraded to better AWS instances. Still OpenGL, but work is going on to use Vulkan. * Graphics realism has increased, again. Physically based rendering with high dynamic range lighting is in test. Not subsurface scattering, though, so skin still looks plastic under some lighting. Graphics realism is becoming comparable to GTA-V, but not Red Dead Redemption. * There's a mobile viewer in test. Uses Unity as the graphics engine.[1] * Full body tracking is in test, and being demoed. It's striking to see how someone rigged for full tracking dominates a meeting. Second Life may end up being the metaverse, after everybody else fails. It's one of the very few systems with a large, continuous world, one about the size of greater Los Angeles. Facebook failed to deliver much, the NFT guys delivered even less, and the people who announced and didn't ship probably never will. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tjRlVwlAXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tjRlVwlAXA

Semaphor 4y ago

A few months ago during the height of the metaverse craze, I mentioned that it seems forced by some companies. I was told by HN that I live in a bubble ;) So there are probably tons of people who care a lot!

Melatonic 4y ago

I live in California and most of my friends are fairly nerdy. Some work in tech, some do not. Most have not even tried VR period. The Metaverse I am convinced is pretty dumb unless we can make it significantly more immersive - as in adding sense of touch or other senses.

baby 4y ago

I have, it was quite insane. I played Catan, a board game, with people online. Most immersive social experience I’ve ever went through. I also went into a cinema, thought I was alone but when I turned my head to the room realized that people were staring at me lol. I screamed of surprise, they heard it and laughed, it was too real so I disconnected. I did VR chat a bit but in general the feeling of presence was too strong when I wanted to chill so didn’t experience as many things as I could. I’ve had friends visit my space and play chess with me there as well. But at the time our headsets would only last for like 30min and they would overheat easily. I got the Quest later and every problem had been fixed. Perfect headset. Can’t imagine what the quest 2 feels like. Wrote about some of it here: https://p1x3l.com/story/239/social-virtual-reality-and-the-oculus-go https://p1x3l.com/story/239/social-virtual-reality-and-the-o...