Metaverse Part 1: What is it?
Now that I invested some time into paginating posts on this blog, it's about time to put that programming (which totally did not take me a whole day) to use and write more blog posts!! It probably won't work out and I'll just write one every half a year but it's worth a try. Wait why are you leaving? Nonono, come back! I promise, I'll get to the point! *ahem*
What's a "Metaverse"?
Good question; I say to myself; let me tell you what I think. To me, a metaverse describes a collection of inter-connected virtual worlds, similar to what the "world wide web" is in relation to websites, which are connected by links. In the case of a metaverse, you can seamlessly travel from one virtual world, or experience, to another by, for example, walking through or using portals in-world.
When you connect to the Metaverse, you may start in your own personal world. Maybe it's a recreation of your room - which, with a VR headset and full-room tracking could be pretty sweet. It could be a "3D wallpaper" of your favorite movie, anime or game. Sometimes, you may have your friends or family over to share what you've been doing or working on.
From there, you could step through any of the portals you've set up to other virtual worlds. Your friends' places, chatrooms, social meeting places, forums in the original sense, games and other interactive experiences.
You can customize your avatar, your appearance, though some experiences may restrict the ways to do so, to fit into their theme. Wouldn't want a pink Bowser appearing in an Elven MMO now, would we? You may have some items on you that you own, with custom behaviors, and are able to take into other worlds (again, possibly restricted). Maybe you can take the items or clothing you create inside a game and continue to use, or at least show them to to others outside?
Then there's the Wikipedia article on Metaverse, in case you think my explanation sucks or you're interested in the additional info there.
What does it mean to me?
As most of you probably know, I'm an aspiring game developer. What I want to create exactly, I'm not quite sure. And having thought about it for a long time, what I believe I'm looking for is a platform for my friends and me to gradually build an experience for ourselves, and possibly others. Something we can work on together, and share our creations, while still being able to disagree, and do things differently from one another. My vision has led me to start working on my own game engine, which I doubt will see the light of day.
But, thinking about it, the perfect platform for this would be the metaverse. While much bigger in scope, and something I definitely won't be able to tackle myself, I'd love to contribute to its development. Not to mention, with the rise of virtual reality, I doubt it's going to take long before something comes along.
Which brings me to the last point I want to bring up, and continue in the next blog post: The metaverse should be open, similar to the internet. There musn't be a single company controlling all virtual worlds, and neither should there be a single client or server.