Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

spot.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 103 posts

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#51

Post by kull »

GordonS wrote: post #10
ghempton wrote: post #2

One of authors here. As a kid, some of my most meaningful relationships and experiences were forged through online gaming (UO anyone?). A big part of this wasn’t necessarily the game itself, but was instead the sense of place and community afforded through the shared environment. As an adult, many of my most meaningful relationships have come from my work environment. When working remotely or in a distributed setting…

I'd like to try this, but the "Try Now for Free!" button wants me to create an account - I don't want to create an account just to have a quick look. I'd much rather have a quick look, then maybe create an account later if I wanted to try it more meaningfully. If you're an HN regular, I guess you were expecting a comment like this - is there an open URL we can use just to get a feel for it?

^ this. I was excited to try it out, but there is no wayI create an account just to take a quick look. I am 99% sure this will not work for me and my team, but I wanted to just check, maybe show it to my team. This needs no registration demo.

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#52

Post by zucked »

egypturnash wrote: post #12
GordonS wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to try this, but the "Try Now for Free!" button wants me to create an account - I don't want to create an account just to have a quick look. I'd much rather have a quick look, then maybe create an account later if I wanted to try it more meaningfully. If you're an HN regular, I guess you were expecting a comment like this - is there an open URL we can use just to get a feel for it?

Account creation doesn't require clicking a link in the email, I just used 'buttmonkey' as the username and 'buttmonkey@mailinator.com' as the email. And now I am stuck in the tutorial because it wants me to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel or the track pad, and I am at my desk with my computer closed and plugged into my monitor and my Wacom tablet and it doesn't recognize using the touch ring set to 'scroll'. It…

I think they shut down Mailinator emails (tried Mailismagic and mailinator and both times I was "unauthorized")

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#54

Post by idiotsecant »

boobsbr wrote: post #13
ghempton wrote: post #2

One of authors here. As a kid, some of my most meaningful relationships and experiences were forged through online gaming (UO anyone?). A big part of this wasn’t necessarily the game itself, but was instead the sense of place and community afforded through the shared environment. As an adult, many of my most meaningful relationships have come from my work environment. When working remotely or in a distributed setting…

Yes, UO. Catskills shard.

Sonoma!

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#55

Post by frijole »

ghempton wrote: post #2

One of authors here. As a kid, some of my most meaningful relationships and experiences were forged through online gaming (UO anyone?). A big part of this wasn’t necessarily the game itself, but was instead the sense of place and community afforded through the shared environment. As an adult, many of my most meaningful relationships have come from my work environment. When working remotely or in a distributed setting…

Curious of your thoughts on Topia, similar but geared for office work, community building, and commercial worlds.

https://topia.io/

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#56

Post by remram »

fundamental wrote: post #8

Feel free to call me cynical, but do low level employees want systems like this? I've seen a few spacial chat systems pass through HN in the past few months. From a pure social application standpoint both spot and other options seem to be reasonably well executed, though it seems at odds with the natural flow of workplace interactions. I guess it might be a perceived lack of privacy in conversations? When talking to…

That is my feeling as well. The whole point of having colleagues in your physical space is so that you are in the same physical space. Having a virtual space in a background window does nothing for me.

I cannot see my teammates walking to the water cooler, I cannot see some teammates grouping up to discuss, I cannot give a sense of whether I'm interruptible or not. Because what we see are those avatars that do not reflect our current state at all.

3D spaces are fun and I'm very fond of games where I can pretend to do work. However I do not actually exist or work in there, and the moment I start doing actual work I stop role-playing my character around the game.

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#57

Post by tommoor »

fundamental wrote: post #8

Feel free to call me cynical, but do low level employees want systems like this? I've seen a few spacial chat systems pass through HN in the past few months. From a pure social application standpoint both spot and other options seem to be reasonably well executed, though it seems at odds with the natural flow of workplace interactions. I guess it might be a perceived lack of privacy in conversations? When talking to…

> Feel free to call me cynical, but do low level employees want systems like this?

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this – I previously founded an always-on video presence startup[1]. We were building for our own problem as founders, as is often the advice you get given! – However I think this is a case where founders are actually unique and what works for a group of 2-3 founding folks really does not scale well to a broader team at all. This is also what we saw with our product, it worked well for small tight-knit groups but rarely did teams above 10 adopt in a meaningful way.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/sqwiggle-makes-working-rem...

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#58

Post by whather »

avsteele wrote: post #25

Use something similar to this (gather.town) just this week for a virtual conference. You can walk right up to people in the expo and start video chatting etc... Seems like a good use-case for this. Not quite like being there, but pretty fun.

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah we have plans to add "nearby conversations" in larger rooms, built around furniture. So walking over to a couch in the room would start a nearby conversation that wouldn't disturb the rest of the room.

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#59

Post by brylie »

astlouis44 wrote: post #23
ghempton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. 3D is definitely a differentiator, but we consider it more of an implementation detail. It does come with some really cool stuff like the ability to have a first-person view (really neat to be able to give a presentation in FP). A 3D interface affords a lot of really fun ways to interact with emotes and things and we have beta support for things like wearables. 2. We are investing a lot in asynchronous modes of co…

1. Many of them are 3D, that is not a differentiator in the slightest. 2. Again, these features are already prevalent or under active development by many of your competitors. 3.Also not novel.

In fairness, would you mind referencing some of the similar services?

Re: Show HN: Free 3D virtual office in the browser

#60

Post by dliebeskind »

frijole wrote: post #55
ghempton wrote: post #2

One of authors here. As a kid, some of my most meaningful relationships and experiences were forged through online gaming (UO anyone?). A big part of this wasn’t necessarily the game itself, but was instead the sense of place and community afforded through the shared environment. As an adult, many of my most meaningful relationships have come from my work environment. When working remotely or in a distributed setting…

Curious of your thoughts on Topia, similar but geared for office work, community building, and commercial worlds. https://topia.io/

CEO of Topia here - hi!

We're 100% focused on communities and human connection, not on office work or commercial tools :). But work employees can be a community as well and strengthening the bonds you have with your coworkers is a great use of Topia!

Topia is all about creating real relationships built upon shared experiences and memories. We have tons of fun features to help world builders create unique, connective experiences.

Post reply on HN