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The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft

clivethompson.medium.com

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

#201

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#202

Post by t0mbstone »

meta (adjective)

pertaining to or noting a story, conversation, character, etc., that consciously references or comments upon its own subject or features, often in the form of parody

-------------

It's obvious to me that the real reason they called it "Meta" is because the entire goal is to collect information about YOU, the user. It's an entire platform and suite of products designed to extract as much "meta" information about its users as possible, and then monetize that information.

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

#203

Post by micromacrofoot »

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,…

lol don't worry, zuck wants us to work in the metaverse too

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

#204

Post by micromacrofoot »

randomsearch wrote: post #200

“What is so hard for people to understand” says HN commenter: “the metaverse clearly means [my definition of the metaverse] why can’t people see this?!!” Well, Zuckerberg didn’t give a clear definition, the term itself is made up, and it doesn’t currently exist (otherwise, what would we be building?). So no you don’t know what it means or how it will turn out, and neither does Zuckerberg. He might have a vision of wh…

>It’s obvious a deeply immersive experience will eventually arrive

This is like "self driving car" obvious. It seems like we're close, but we're really really not.

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

#205

Post by Ono-Sendai »

Something with only voxels (blocks) can never be a great metaverse in my opinion. You need more general geometry - such as triangles. Have you ever tried to model a sphere or a smoothly curved surface in voxels?

Allowing arbitrary triangle meshes is technically harder to implement for various reasons (more data, harder physics, harder for artists to create).

But I think it's worth it. I allow arbitrary user geometry in my metaverse - https://substrata.info/

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

#206

Post by tialaramex »

dandotway wrote: post #165
tialaramex wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modded players already are decoupled from the current version. For a while everything interesting was stuck on 1.7 so while Microsoft may have shipped 1.8, and 1.9 nobody of consequence played those in the modded scene. Even today, the newer Minecraft versions are only used for very experimental packs. Something mainstream is on 1.12 while Microsoft have already begun shipping 1.19 Because of this, you have for many…

This freedom to use old versions sounds good. But of Minecraft's 100M+ users, what percentage know this? What percentage just automatically update to the newest version and don't explore the mod scene? I just read that Mojang added no opt-out telemetry to version 21w38a.[1] How many Minecrafters are savvy enough to understand that this happened, and the long-term implications? I initially tried to follow guides and "…

I mean, I don't know what fraction of that 100M users are Java Minecraft. Obviously Bedrock is entirely up to Microsoft, they can do whatever they want in their sandbox and I'm sure most 5 year olds don't care either way.

On Java Minecraft, which is the only way you can seriously modify the game - I haven't actually run the out-of-box experience for many years, but unless it changed you just pick the version you want from a GUI.

If you play modded more than a tiny "dip my toe in it" amount you run dedicated "launcher" software (I run MultiMC) and that takes responsibility for managing a whole bunch of exciting problems, each of your Mod packs probably expects to live in a separate Minecraft environment, with a specific version of the game, it needs to track whether the Java parameters are special (e.g. more heap, different garbage collection prefs) some people prefer to play some packs in a different screen resolution.

One of the very strange things for a few years was that Twitch (yes, that one) managed this stuff for a lot of players. You've got the Twitch.tv app, which people use to watch say, Ninja playing Fortnite, and there's a tab in there for mods, and then a tab inside that for Minecraft, and that's a valid modded Minecraft launcher. It made some sort of sense because one of the few long term audiences on Twitch is Minecraft, so while there may never be more Minecraft audiences than there are people watching this week's hot new game, by next year that game is irrelevant and the same audience is still watching Minecraft. The tie-in deal that caused this eventually went away though.

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

#207

Post by pitched »

Sunspark wrote: post #193
pitched wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most office work that I’ve seen requires text entry (email, spreadsheets, proposals, etc) and that’s always today done through a keyboard. Doing that work in VR where you can’t see the keyboard is surprisingly tough, even if you can touch type! I’ve switched out my keycaps for blanks recently to try to force myself to get better at working in VR but I’m still struggling a bit with all the symbols.

Why can't you have printed keycaps in VR?

I switched out keycaps IRL, not in VR. The idea was that, not being able to cheat by looking down would help improve my typing faster by forcing me to memorize the keys better. I’ve only gone from mid-50s wpm to now about 60ish but it’s helped more with the uncommon keys that don’t move the average as much. It’s those uncommon keys that kill me in VR though so it feels like a bigger bump.

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

#209

Post by SLWW »

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,…

tbf I think that there's something special about games like MC, I still like it even well into my twenties.

I don't play much but I do like spending a few hours on occasion spending time with friends, playing a game we started to when we were teens.

My recommendation to anyone who wants to play something creative, get on a voice call and get with your friends.

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

#210

Post by chiefalchemist »

True but of minor importance. The idea of a social network wasn't invented by FB, and it worked out well - so far - for it and its shareholders.

The metaverse doesn't have to be Zuck's. He only needs to time the wave, with a pinch of wave self-creation obviously.

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