T w e n t y S i d e d
Second Life and The Sims get used for a lot of machinima, but not Activeworlds. (There are reasons for this – which, as part of my policy of not talking too much about my job – I won’t go into.) So I was thrilled when one of our users let me know about this one. It’s a music video made with our software.
Link (YouTube) |
I admit this probably interests me more than most. I’m just sort of sharing the moment here.
EDIT: Shoulda followed my own policy and not talked about my job. Comments closed.
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I’m very fond of the song. Was surprised to hear it. Interesting vid.
Maybe she really jumped off the bridge cos the game is so dull!
Btw, have you guys considered investing in DirectX 8? It might be time to upgrade! :P
(Don’t worry man, i’m not tryin to be mean, i’m just takin the piss a little, all in good humour! Honest!)
Still, good music video, not my cup of tea, but i can appreciate effort and good directing when i see it.
Something I’ve always been curious about: if a game like this was updated to DX10, would it look any better?
Oh, come on! It’s at least on par with WoW.
Besides, we already have enough games that sacrifice gameplay and story for graphics.
no offence to shamus, his workplace or his game, but that is closer to everquest than WoW…
mark,
You’re right, you’re right. I never played Activeworlds, so I was judging based off the video.
Still, to the best of my knowledge, at least the Activeworlds userbase isn’t griefers who hit servers with self-replicating genitalia! (Not to name any names.)
@midget0nstilts – I tried WoW one time, i can honestly say… yes, i would rather play this than WoW. At least Activeworlds doesn’t have a community that raids peoples real actual funerals for poops n giggles.
@mark – nothin wrong with looking like Everquest, it’s a pretty game… in terms of settings etc, obviously ;)
I’ve been coming to this site for over a year now and never has Shamus mentioned his day job except in the most passing and vague ways. Now within two weeks we have two posts mentioning it specifically. No real point to make here. Just an observation of something that seems fairly odd.
Gandaug: I think one led to the other. Once I mentioned where I work, someone forwarded me the movie.
That’s a big car.
@UtopiaV1 I hope no one holds funerals in Activeworlds. I find the presence of a funeral in a game about as inappropriate as the raid on the funeral.
If that’s your software, then your software is ugly as shit.
Tiki Tok: If you are serious, then your personality is shit.
Seriously. I made it clear that:
1) I was just sharing the moment
2) I can’t talk about my work
What would posses you to make such an offensive and hostile comment with no constructive merit, particularly in a case where I’ve made it clear I can’t discuss the subject? Do you act like that in real life?
@11 glassdirigible:
I can understand what you’re saying, but some games are “genuine” communities, and even in games with limited social interaction, who you see and talk to has a massive impact on your opinion of the game as a whole. When a person dies, there’s still an attachment to that person in their internet community, even if it’s weaker than real world interaction (due to the nature of the thing.) Some years back, there was a member of Newgrounds (flash site, haven’t been there in years, but I’m guessing it hasn’t died) who died; there was a main page post about his death, and lamenting the loss, with hundreds of responses even though I’m sure not everybody who posted felt a personal connection to him.
Anyways, the video was interesting, and doesn’t seem that off from half-life 2 level of graphics, which was only 5 (6 technically) years ago. Enjoyed it, thanks Shamus.
Shamus, while you are leaking details of your work life, what do you do for them? Coding, Art, UI Design, management? What on that system can we blame you for… :-)
Also, I downloaded it and wandered around a bit, but didn’t see anything I wanted to do. (I have the same problem with Second Life.) Anything you’d recommend?
“Besides, we already have enough games that sacrifice gameplay and story for graphics.”
Well, with virtual worlds, there typically isn’t gameplay and story. This isn’t an exaggerated means of criticizing what is present, either, those two things simply do not exist in usual virtual worlds except that which is created by players of their own volition.
So… in virtual worlds, graphics is actually one of the fairly important things to improve, along with stability and scalability (the two fronts on which Second Life, by contrast, brutally fails while their graphics have been notably improved over the years).
New features are also important, as well as just retrofitting the underlying engine as time goes by. Again Second Life serves as a good example. Their character models were fairly flawed in their design, mapping, and animation even by the standards of the world when they were new, and haven’t been improved since.
These are the sort of things virtual worlds focus on, freed of the need to provide any gameplay or story.
Cool video, and a touching story, but her ‘half-lidded blinking’ REALLY bugged me. :P