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The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

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Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#71

Post by ribosometronome »

vineyardmike wrote: post #41
clpm4j wrote: post #18

(Aware of the fact that I'm taking time out of my day to read HN) I really wonder how many adults > 25yrs and < 60yrs have the time to immerse themselves in any type of digital world / metaverse experience. If I was a teenager or in college, then yeah I can see it... but there are so many things to do in the 16hrs we have each day, and I already kick myself for not finishing that book, or getting an extra workout in,…

I read a recent interview from mark zuck about the metaverse and someone asked him a similar question. He had an actually really insightful answer. 1) Most american adults watch several hours of TV per day. alternatively, many play a few hours of video games. (The actual per-person-per-day numbers are very high compared to the average 2hr/week i watch tv but whatever). Most of TV and Video Games are about ignoring re…

Conceptually, a VR workroom sounds like it could be extremely nifty. As someone easily distracted, I'd love to be able to sit in space with only a text editor open and do my thing.

In practice, excluding resolution, wearing a headset for hours on end seems even more straining both for the neck and eyes than the alternative real life workstation.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#72

Post by Zababa »

zemo wrote: post #52

Minecraft is great but to my knowledge you can't make a portal in one Minecraft world to another world, you can't take an object from one Minecraft world to another world, and you can't transit from one simulation to another simulation (all Minecraft worlds run the same simulation: the Minecraft simulation). It's not really a metaverse in that it's not one connected uncoordinated space, it's many separate, instanced…

I feel like taking an object from one simulation to another and having different simulations are oposites. Either you have the same simulations and thus objects share behavior, or the simulations are different and the objects are just 3D things.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#73

Post by zemo »

mfer wrote: post #56
zemo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all Roblox games run on servers owned by the Roblox corporation so not really. Minecraft is totally federated, anyone can create their own Minecraft server if they want to. Roblox doesn't release the server software and doesn't let you run your own server, so you can never really own your own space; they own all of the spaces.

Who said something needs to be federated for it to be the metaverse? That's nowhere in the definition. I'd argue that scifi examples (like Ready Player One) show that it can be proprietary. I'm not saying it's good to be controlled by one org. Just that the number of orgs controlling the infra has nothing to do with being the metaverse or not.

Raph Koster, for one. https://www.raphkoster.com/2021/09/02/online-world-or-metave...

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#74

Post by Zababa »

sweetbitter wrote: post #48
dandotway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Minecraft go down for several days like Roblox does? Does Minecraft ban/cancel people like PewDiePie as Roblox did? Aren't monthly active users (MAU) around 100M for each? I think Roblox is eventually doomed to slowly fizzle like Second Life, etc. Internet history is littered with the corpses of dead closed systems. Remember Compuserve, Prodigy, and AOL? Remember Myspace? Microsoft might eventually, say, install…

Mojang would have a problem trying to control Minecraft because it's written in Java, their developers commonly associate with the players who hack the game, and the only control over the gameservers that they have is their authentication servers- which you can disable the use of by editing one flag in your server config files, allowing anyone to play even if they didn't buy the game.

Mojang can control their Minecraft, one of the strengths of Minecraft is that everyone can have their own.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#75

Post by philjohn »

Zababa wrote: post #69

I've been saying for quite some time that the next big thing (for me) would be some kind of hybrid between a virtual coworking space, VRChat and Minecraft. I feel like being in a 3D space is a completly different experience from being on a Discord server for example. I'd love to go build a house with friends, then code a bit with them inside, and then invite a few people in.

When I started having meetings in Workrooms I was shocked by how much less fatiguing it was than a standard VC, even with the Quest hanging off my face.

I also regularly sim race (1-2 hour races on iRacing) in VR and that's a much better experience as it's 3D than just starting at a screen - VR feels like it's reached that critical mass moment where it's not going to fade away as a fad.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#76

Post by derac »

vineyardmike wrote: post #41
clpm4j wrote: post #18

(Aware of the fact that I'm taking time out of my day to read HN) I really wonder how many adults > 25yrs and < 60yrs have the time to immerse themselves in any type of digital world / metaverse experience. If I was a teenager or in college, then yeah I can see it... but there are so many things to do in the 16hrs we have each day, and I already kick myself for not finishing that book, or getting an extra workout in,…

I read a recent interview from mark zuck about the metaverse and someone asked him a similar question. He had an actually really insightful answer. 1) Most american adults watch several hours of TV per day. alternatively, many play a few hours of video games. (The actual per-person-per-day numbers are very high compared to the average 2hr/week i watch tv but whatever). Most of TV and Video Games are about ignoring re…

I'm incredulous that having a screen strapped half an inch from your eyes for 8+ hours is desirable. I have an Oculus Rift, my face is sweaty/red in a couple of hours and there is an indent around my eyes. I'm sure newer tech can be much better, especially with airflow and an AR set that lets in natural light. We're not there yet, though.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#77

Post by xboxnolifes »

To be completely honest, I don't really know what people mean when they talk about a "metaverse".

But if I had to define it one way or the other, I feel like I already have, and interact with, a sort of metaverse. I play various video games with various people, talking and interacting with friends for these games on Discord, interacting with the larger community of these games on Discord/Reddit, engaging with influencer communities on Twitch/Youtube, and follow game news on Reddit/Twitter/Youtube/Forums.

In the same vein, I've learned a tremendous amount about computer science, software engineering, job hunting, smaller hobbies, and plenty of other various things through the same set of things that make up my gaming metaverse (Forums/Discord/Youtube/Reddit/HackerNews/etc). It doesn't overlap with the same people I interact with for gaming, but I wouldn't expect the people to overlap much. The platforms are still the same.

And it doesn't really stop there, these are just the two big things I can think of.

So I guess I'm asking, what is the "Metaverse" trying to do? Take what we currently already have, but make it more cohesive? The only other thing I can think of would be a full-dive VR world experience, but I'm fairly sure we aren't even close to that.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#78

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

kibwen wrote: post #49
vineyardmike wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a recent interview from mark zuck about the metaverse and someone asked him a similar question. He had an actually really insightful answer. 1) Most american adults watch several hours of TV per day. alternatively, many play a few hours of video games. (The actual per-person-per-day numbers are very high compared to the average 2hr/week i watch tv but whatever). Most of TV and Video Games are about ignoring re…

I'm frustrated that everywhere I look I keep seeing "metaverse" and "VR" used interchangeably. All of the things described above are VR, and none of them are the metaverse. Watching TV or playing a game in an immersive, distraction-free VR environment sounds great, and will happen, and it's not the metaverse, it's just VR. Working in a virtual home office has the potential to be extremely productive, ergonomic, and s…

> Not only is it more than just doing things in VR, a metaverse doesn't even require VR.

It does not matter because for the public and the media Zuckerberg is redefining the meaning of the word right in front of our eyes. Give it a few years and everybody will believe VR is an inherent feature of metaverse. Just like those of us who had been using the word "crypto" to mean "cryptography" for decades were trying to explain in vain what the word originally mean - but it made no sense as the new meaning was already popularized.

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#79

Post by derac »

pdog wrote: post #59
clpm4j wrote: post #18

(Aware of the fact that I'm taking time out of my day to read HN) I really wonder how many adults > 25yrs and < 60yrs have the time to immerse themselves in any type of digital world / metaverse experience. If I was a teenager or in college, then yeah I can see it... but there are so many things to do in the 16hrs we have each day, and I already kick myself for not finishing that book, or getting an extra workout in,…

With software improvements, our perception of time will eventually be slowed down in the metaverse to such an extent that one hour in the material world will equate to several days of perceived elapsed time in meta-reality.

Do you have any context which would indicate this is possible?

Re: The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

#80

Post by beepbooptheory »

zemo wrote: post #52

Minecraft is great but to my knowledge you can't make a portal in one Minecraft world to another world, you can't take an object from one Minecraft world to another world, and you can't transit from one simulation to another simulation (all Minecraft worlds run the same simulation: the Minecraft simulation). It's not really a metaverse in that it's not one connected uncoordinated space, it's many separate, instanced…

Maybe, that is just what it should be. Maybe this is the way these things will actually work. The internet itself works, in big part, because it sides with federation over persistence.
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