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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

#301

Post by skerit »

mastazi wrote: post #166
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'm 43, I don't play regularly because of work/kids/etc. but every now and then I log into one of my favourite servers and spend some time there. Two years ago I have built a base on 2b2t[1], located millions of blocks away from spawn, it took many hours of travelling through nether highways to get there. Before starting the journey, I had to escape spawn (a very dangerous area since 2b2t is an anarchy server) and I…

2b2t is amazing, you just keep on discovering things everywhere you go. It's just a shame the chat is so toxic. MinecraftOnline isn't much better just because there's no griefing, they really stick to their "100% free speech" rule.

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

#302

Post by BiteCode_dev »

nightowl_games wrote: post #267
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the metaverse we wish for, yet it's not the metaverse FB wants to build. It is the metaverse only in name, but it's just another proprietary sillowed plateform built to milk users. A metaverse should have an HTTP-like protocol, with the goal to interconnect, to give power to the client, while allowing an ecosystem to build, because it would be defined as an open standard. We need a 2021 Tim Berners Lee, not a…

Agreed. This is the linuxy open source metaverse that nerds like us will promote on forums like this. The general public will use the walled garden capitalistic metaverse because it will be better.

You mean like facebook is better than the freaking entire _internet_ ?

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

#303

Post by nottorp »

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,…

You make time for the things that interest you.

Also it does sound like you're mixing your run of the mill grindy MMO with Minecraft. Your MC world will still be there if you don't touch it for a week. Even on a server.

Okay, it may depend on the culture of said server, but that's exactly the point of the article.

I play MC on an 18+ server that's building oriented. That means everyone has a job and other interests. We just show up and place our blocks when we feel like it. I just logged in yesterday after a 2 week break. People disappear for months. Nobody sees a problem with it.

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

#304

Post by gauchojs »

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,…

As a parent of a 2 year old, I think I'll play again when he plays!

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

#305

Post by nottorp »

gauchojs wrote: post #304
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,…

As a parent of a 2 year old, I think I'll play again when he plays!

Haha guess how I got into MC. I bought it for myself about 2 years after the kid wanted it for herself.

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

#306

Post by jgilias »

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 feel the same. The other day there was a video submit to HN that I didn't watch because I wasn't in a situation where I could watch a video. Basically making pancakes for kids, having an IRL conversation in the background, and checking HN while waiting to turn the pancake.

If HN was on metaverse where I have to get an immersive headset on to use it... Yeah, I wouldn't be using it nearly as often as I do.

As you get older, the best feature of our existing 'metaverse' is its ability to integrate with the 'meat-a-verse' seamlessly. The higher the barrier of moving between the *verses, the harder it is to use the one in which we can't actually keep our meat fit and fed.

But what do I know (old man yelling at clouds).

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

#307

Post by jagermo »

vidarh wrote: post #274
mbesto wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the definition of the "metaverse" is stipulating so much disagreement and discussion is itself the problem. When smartphones were launched there was a simple description - "oh cool, it's a traditional phone but it has a computer running inside of it? makes sense"

Not a problem. An opportunity. It took a decade from the first smartphones until iPhone/Android like devices with a mostly uniform appearance and UI had decisively won, though. There was a lot of rapid exploration of design space first. As for VR/metaverse, there's been constant exploration of this space for decades. The VR boom in the 90s was killed by cost and primitive hardware, but we still have surviving persist…

This here. How kids use roblox is fantastic to see, they play in worlds they build themselves and share them.

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

#308

Post by nottorp »

FooHentai wrote: post #224
nightpool wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft is actually a great example here—the client and server ecosystem is extremely, extremely diverse, with lots of different choices for users. Almost everyone who uses Minecraft on desktop is running some mod, if only Optifine, and the server landscape is even more diverse, with dozens of competing reimplementations, all communicating over a shared protocol. I think Minecraft is a great example in the current…

Agree with everything you said, but to me one key piece of the minecraft ecosystem rules it out as a meta verse contender - every one of those permutations you mentioned drops players into their own isolated environment which does not interact with any others. At best you can pop a few hundred people into a server specially configured for that, or use a discord/irc shim to bridge chat across a few instances. I get th…

Check out the large scale MMOs. No one interacts with everyone else. They find a guild and play with those people.

It's not that hard to find a different minecraft server, there are bazillions of server lists. That would be the equivalent of changing guild or being in several guilds at the same time.

I don't think we humans want to be part of a large crowd. More like part of one or more small groups. Before the internet it was mostly one. Now you can easily do several.

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

#309

Post by simonh »

darkerside wrote: post #228
er4hn wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that this is closer to when "the cloud" came about. No one was quite sure what it was, but everyone wanted in. To quote (some) of Larry Ellisons famous statements about it: "The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. … The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion." "Maybe I’m an id…

It's funny, all I hear now is, "I don't understand it, so it must be useless"

I think that's unfair in the context of the time. There really was a lot of crap talked about cloud this and cloud that back then.

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

#310

Post by ZephyrBlu »

meheleventyone wrote: post #284
randomsearch wrote: post #279

A little OT but related and want to bounce this off HN. I think we’ve reached a turning point in history and society, aided by lockdowns, where young people spend more time interacting online than IRL. This has major consequences for society and tech. Young people present themselves to the world primarily through their online persona. The physical world is secondary. To reiterate, what happens online, what is shown a…

It’s not either or. These are complementary things. I’ve been extremely online since the mid-90s for example. There’s nothing sinister or world changing here. Online isn’t a separate universe it’s just a part of IRL.

I think you're proving his point beautifully. You've been online since the mid-90s, so you're ~40 or older?

I don't mean to be derogatory, but you sound exactly like an "oldie" who is out of touch as described by the GP.

Zoomers are absolutely spending more time online and less time IRL than previous generations.

I'm only 23 and the difference between my childhood and my younger siblings is massive. They generally prefer to socialize by playing online games with their friends rather than hanging out with them in person, and they do so for hours at a time. I used to go to friends houses to play games. That doesn't seem to happen anymore.

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