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Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

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Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#131

Post by kasbah »

eambutu wrote: post #82
alixanderwang wrote: post #14

This is awesome! Love the idea of builder mode being integrated with regular game mode, like Minecraft. I'm not sure what you guys are using for the engine, but the primary feedback I have is that it feels too sluggish. For a second-home virtual space, it'd need to feel really good moving around in it. Right now on my 2019 Macbook, in a one person blank room, I have frame rate drops moving around where my character w…

Thanks for the feedback. Do you have a sense for if this could be network related vs. CPU related? (was your computer fan going off, or is your internet connection spotty?). I agree this is a huge hit to user experience.

I've only briefly tried out gather.town vs rambly.app and I can say that I am partial to the later because it feels much more snappy.

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#132

Post by TheRealNGenius »

masterspy7 wrote: post #115
jamessb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Movement: https://www.movement.fm/spaces And MakeSpace: https://makespace.fun/ And GroupRoom: https://grouproom.io/

Shameless plug for my own side project: https://dj3d.io/

Wanted to say that out of all the alternatives, this seems most interesting. Is there an info or about page where I can read your approach?

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#133

Post by klunger »

eambutu wrote: post #127
abcxjeb284 wrote: post #125

Phillip - would you be open to using your platform for a non-profit art project? We don’t have many funds (see: COVID), but we are REALLY excited by the possibilities of the space you designed and the game maker map!! :)

Yup! Feel free to email us at hello@gather.town , and provide these details, and we'll figure something out.

Hi! I am not the OP, but just emailed you about a free online event I am organizing (Flutter Vikings).

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#134

Post by sathorn »

jamessb wrote: post #40
makk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And High Fidelity: https://www.highfidelity.com/

And Movement: https://www.movement.fm/spaces And MakeSpace: https://makespace.fun/ And GroupRoom: https://grouproom.io/

And (shamelessly my own): https://cyberparty.io/

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#135

Post by moritonal »

eambutu wrote: post #46
moritonal wrote: post #37

You've got to implement smooth-movement. I used it for a few minutes and I'm nauseous. Just lerp from one-square to another over 120ms and ... scratch that, if I had implemented as nice a product as yours, I would just implement click-to-move. So your character smoothly moves to where you clicked (with a touch of A* path-finding). Only gamer's understand WASD, everyone understand's clicking.

We actually have that in development! Here is what it looks like, one one of our development branches: https://alex.gather.town/app/nO9uzqf6ZhzsXJ68/Grand%20Centra...

That's a good start. You've got the normal jitter bug where if you double tab you can cause it to start the next lerp early.

As a game-dev I'd recommend storing position as two variables on the client. One where the user is in the server's memory, and one where the user is locally. Smoothly move the player locally to match the server and scale it exponentially the further off the two are. I'm pretty happy to chat through this if you'd like to?

If you get smooth-move right I'll happily sing your app from the roof-tops at work and with family.

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#136

Post by michaelmior »

eambutu wrote: post #53
hwbehrens wrote: post #12

I've used Gather for several conferences, and I've found it to be surprisingly effective at recreating some of the benefits of in-person gatherings. In particular, since there's no formalism around creating or scheduling meetings, it makes it extremely easy to walk up to people you know, chat for a few seconds, and then step away. Or for impromptu meetings to break out, where two people are chatting, and then another…

You bring up a really point here, and it's something we haven't spent nearly enough time on. What are the kinds of body language that you think are really important in real life, that make it easy to break into a conversation?

I had the same thought in my use of Gather and I think there are (at least) two separate scenarios.

One is when someone is alone. Are they actually still physically present? Are they waiting for someone? In person, I can see if someone is actively scanning the room and appear open to a conversation.

The second is when a group of people are already engaged in a conversation. Are they discussing something a bit more private? Are they speaking my language? Do they appear open to having more people join the conversation. In real life, I can hear parts of a conversation from a distance and look at how those in the conversation are positioning their bodies relative to one another to make some judgements on this.

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#137

Post by michaelmior »

tgb wrote: post #16

My boss got excited about this a few weeks back, but none of the rest of the office wanted to really use it (and we had some issues with video/audio feeds). I don't really get the idea: what problem does this solve that Slack/Zoom/etc don't? The whiteboard seems OK but no software can solve the problem that drawing with a touchpad sucks. Am I going to have to schedule meeting rooms again? Forget finding the right Zoo…

Tangenetially related, but check out Kaptivo Solo. It's (currently) free and does a great job of enhancing video of you writing a real physical whiteboard so it can actually be read on video calls. Of course, this requires you to have a physical whiteboard, but since I'm attending a lot of meetings in my office, I am fortunate to have one opposite my desk and it works great.

https://support.kaptivo.com/hc/en-us/categories/360001386698...

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#138

Post by Draiken »

tgb wrote: post #16

My boss got excited about this a few weeks back, but none of the rest of the office wanted to really use it (and we had some issues with video/audio feeds). I don't really get the idea: what problem does this solve that Slack/Zoom/etc don't? The whiteboard seems OK but no software can solve the problem that drawing with a touchpad sucks. Am I going to have to schedule meeting rooms again? Forget finding the right Zoo…

I think this is more geared towards orgs that are not really remote. They're just replicating the office environment online.

In order for this to work I'd have to work all day with a camera on my face, if I understood this correctly. This sounds awful to me.

I do think this would be really cool/fun for events, but for day-to-day work, I'd absolutely hate it.

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#139

Post by afidrya »

akersten wrote: post #111
alexlchen2019 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you on android? Android phones don't allow WebRTC video chat to work on any browser except chrome, so it's unfortunately out of our control :( we support FF on web though!

Can you expand more on "Android phones don't allow WebRTC video chat to work on any browser except Chrome?" My brief research[0] would indicate that WebRTC is indeed supported on FF Mobile and has been supported since 2013[1]. [0]: https://caniuse.com/?search=webrtc [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/09/17/webrtc-now-availabl...

Firefox dropped H264 support 1 year ago because of Google Play Store policies. This codec was required for interacting with iOS devices which did not have VP8. However, VP8 has been added since iOS 12.1, so it might be possible to use it now across all platforms.

- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548679

- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Rel...

Re: Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

#140

Post by nend »

eambutu wrote: post #126
nend wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to think about it a bit, but I think in the end it's probably due to a couple bad experiences at startups. There's a lot of toxic, authoritarian company cultures out there that hide behind the idea that in order to be a good coworker you need to upbeat, peppy, and thrilled to be working at all times. It seems to go hand in hand with the (usually toxic and exploitative) work hard/play hard mentality. If I were r…

Thanks for the really thoughtful feedback. I definitely hear this, and I think it would be crazy for us to think that we can build a single tool that will be useful across all ranges of team dynamics and culture. FWIW, just like how companies can have different cultures around their physical spaces, they could have different practices/expectations set around the virtual space. For example, if there is now an expectat…

>FWIW, just like how companies can have different cultures around their physical spaces, they could have different practices/expectations set around the virtual space.

That's true, and it's not like I would quit my job if my team started using this, so maybe I would come around and appreciate it more. But initial gut reaction brings negative thoughts.

>Another q would be: under the current paradigm, are you enjoying work from home more than physical offices?

There are pros and cons for sure. I actually just transferred to a wfh permanent employee (although last time I was in an office was April), which I see as a net positive mostly due to how much time I save not commuting.

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