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The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

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Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#11

Post by tehbeard »

minikomi wrote: post #6

Does anyone remember something about a minecraft server which is never reset.. and turned into a desolate stripmined wasteland around the spawn point, where you have to hope to luck into a food cache just to survive.. Edit: it appears the server is called "2b2t" .. searching for it brings up a ton of interesting stuff: https://imgur.com/a/bt3zi

It's a shame they didn't show the inside of the spawn "cube".

Last time I went on there, you spawned atop an uneven cobble floor, those huge cobble walls surrounding you.

Exiting the cube is hazardous. It's dark, twisty, and full of deep pits that open up just around corners as you try to escape.

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#12

Post by z3t4 »

minikomi wrote: post #6

Does anyone remember something about a minecraft server which is never reset.. and turned into a desolate stripmined wasteland around the spawn point, where you have to hope to luck into a food cache just to survive.. Edit: it appears the server is called "2b2t" .. searching for it brings up a ton of interesting stuff: https://imgur.com/a/bt3zi

This server reminds me of when I first tried dayZ (arma2 mod). You spawn with nothing, have no idea what to do and there are zombies and bandits everywhere that wants to kill you.

It took me a few tries before I managed to sneak out of the "spawn zone" without getting killed or starving to death. Then I traveled for hours until I finally found and area where no-one had built. And made a nice base there.

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#13

Post by sp332 »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #7

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] an…

Sure, William Gibson's Neuromancer was written a decade earlier and popularized the term "cyberspace". His trilogies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy and 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 Its virtual spaces were pretty elaborate.

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#14

Post by pierrec »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #7

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] an…

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

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#15

Post by sanoli »

paublyrne wrote: post #5

I signed up for Second Life, and jogged around it for an hour or two. An Oculus Rift version would be intriguing. I found my original experience to be aimless. I wandered off and found a sort of castle or something, and enjoyed rambling around it, but ultimately felt there was nothing to do.

An Oculus Rift version would be more exciting, but I have no doubts that the only thing that would be left after a while would be the video-game like stuff (flying, diving, roller coasters, etc), and since you would have that as standalone games elsewhere, probably better executed, I see the same fate as regular Second Life.

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#16

Post by [deleted] »

WalterGR wrote: post #4
sotoer wrote: post #3

Reminds me of this http://www.avclub.com/article/theres-hidden-beauty-abandoned...

I remember another similar article, which wasn't specific to a particular service. I probably found the link on HN, but I can't find anything. There's this, which I don't think is what I was thinking of: The abandoned college campuses of Second Life http://fusion.net/story/181901/we-took-a-tour-of-the-abandon... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079400

[deleted]

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#17

Post by zrail »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #7

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] an…

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

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#19

Post by fennecfoxen »

You can see lots more if you're willing to go text-based. Like LambdaMOO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LambdaMOO (telnet: lambda.moo.mud.org 8888) - not the oldest but one of the oldest that's substantially community-built (it doesn't take much to get permission to make things) and still running.

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#20

Post by andyjohnson0 »

sp332 wrote: post #13
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #7

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] an…

Sure, William Gibson's Neuromancer was written a decade earlier and popularized the term "cyberspace". His trilogies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprawl_trilogy and 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 Its virtual spaces were pretty ela…

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

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