I went to a 2001 There beta launch party in Palo Alto. The founders wanted far more user generated content than they ended up with, which I believe might have been why they left. The investors wanted ad deals with corporate brand sponsors. There were almost no coders who actually understood the details of the platform.
Oh my God. I miss There! I remember the early betas and played it quite a bit. But watching this i realize i probably only liked it because it was the first online social game i played.
Strasz, I'm a vr world 'oldbie'. My first MUD experience was in the late 70's. In 1979 I tried to make a vr world on a pdp-11when I was 8. I was then in Habitat in 1988. I was a very well known citizen in AW from beta onward. I was also in There and dozens upon dozens of other vr worlds from the mid 90's onward, even working at Linden Lab for 6 years. I've been friends with Ventrella and Rosedale (among many other vr pioneers like Lanier) for decades. I could write several books on this topic. I'm saying all of this, because your coverage of these spaces is informed and top tier & I want you to hear this from someone 'in the know'. You earned a sub today. I genuinely look forward to your future efforts. Exceptional stuff. P.S. Linden Lab has always maintained a profit, and their inworld economy is thriving. P.P.S. Activeworlds holds a truly special place in my heart. The fact that it still exists is a treasure beyond words.
Hello! Thanks for watching! As is tradition, I will be streaming on Thursday (3/16) at 10PM EDT @ twitch.tv/straszgaming -- I'll be talking about the video, as well as many other things. It's been awhile, after all! Thanks for sticking with me. Hopefully it won't be another year before the next one. :)
There feels like a twinkle in the night sky,. The far off distant galaxy light years away from our own. Only observable through The lenses of a telescope pointed at its direction. Second Life feels more local, like it's right here as a planet in our solar system. That you can see it with the naked eye from ground level. And in some element that you feel connected with it because it doesn't appear as far away. Then there's VRChat, which has cat girls. This is home.
2003: There (nobody knows it) 2014: VRChat (everybody thinks it looks similar to either There or Second Life) 2016: Rec Room (everybody thinks it's a child version of VRChat) 2021: Horizon Worlds (everybody thinks it's a sotisficated and plagiarized version of Rec Room)
I still use Second Life today and I always come back when looking for a similar experience because of the creative freedom and the community. The lesser any kind of corporation gets to intervene the better.
Hi Strasz, your videos are always a refreshing change from a lot of the other content I see. This is obviously well researched and you seem to avoid the stereotype narratives that are prevalent on this topic. I'm sure these are a lot of work to make. Thank you for all that you do.
@@Chatmans Exactly. It does not look like developers would be listened as well in such money-driven projects (If you know better than customers, you probably also know better than your employees).
Fellow old person (almost 40 now) and virtual worlds enthusiast here! I'm still active on Second Life to this day. I've watched as things have evolved from prim to sculpty to mesh to the bento project and animesh. I still own multiple parcels of land, rent a homestead, and enjoy working on a lot of creative projects or just screwing around with my friends and playing games. I take breaks from SL from time to time to focus on real life or MMORPGs but always return and have never become bored. Even when I'm on a break, I still log in at least once a week to pay my homestead rent, maybe hit up the weekend sales, and see what's new. But There? It was super boring. I tried it a few times and each time I didn't last more than a couple hours. Second Life won that war for a very, very good reason.
Also, should note that I'm super anti-social when it comes to virtual worlds and that might be a huge factor. I don't want a 3D chat room. When I say I mess around with friends in SL, I mean my REAL LIFE friends. Second Life has always been a place where we can hang out together from the comfort of our own physical homes and play games or go exploring on the grid, and then we can split up and work on creative things separately in our virtual homes while maybe still chatting in voice. The way scripting and content creation works in SL means there have always been new things to do and learn and discover. And yes, Second Life can also be a place where you can blow a lot of cash on retail therapy but the things you buy can allow you to really express yourself and shape your environment. I mean, I can actually shape my environment. I can spend as much money on ground textures and cliff pieces and plants that I'm using together with terraforming to completely reshape my land as I am on clothing for my avatar. And with both, I can think of a concept and really go crazy to fully realize my ideas. There didn't have any of what I needed as a user to get me to come back and spend my time (and money) on that platform. And I see the same issues with all the proposed "metaverse" projects now. Boring and uninspired. I mean, hell, look at Linden's own Sansar project. They screwed it up royally and sold it off to another company who thought it would be enough to just host virtual concerts. Boring, boring, boring. I'm convinced that unless you give users a robust set of tools for content creation and scripting and an (at least seemingly) open world none of these places will survive. Even when you look at traditional games that some try to claim are Metaverse models like GTA Online, it becomes clear that it is the modding community keeping them alive.
Given how small the group of people playing Jedi Academy felt at the time, it feels likely that we have gamed together. I spent so much time in the multiplayer there, mostly screwing around.
so, I'm late to the party but given the forced implementation of easy anti cheat and the devs obviously not grasping the effects it will have on Vr Chat, would anyone still recommand trying it out? I've put it off due to not having any vr gear, and desktop mode seemed unfitting in my opinion. Is it still worth checking out or has that ship sailed? thanks if anyone answers :)
I was just talking about There. When it was in heavy rotation before launch, it was hailed as being a better looking Second Life. I remember it's coverage on Tech TV. It was optimistic, but often mentioned about how it was more limited in scope. The video demos looked good. I think it was on the Screen Savers that they showed the demo where they were driving a dune buggy around. Which got my attention. But outside of that, it looked so "meh." I don't recall everything about it, exactly, but I do remember, from way back when, you could definitely make real world money from There. I just remember the articles of people being surprised
I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about these kind of games/platforms/worlds, knowing some pretty obscure social network games, my favourite being Papermint. But I have somehow never heard of There, or maybe the name just didn't stick in my memory. Anyway, great video! :D
This was really fascinating for me to watch personally because I actually played this game a lot back when it first came out, but I was never exposed to *any* marketing or media about the game. I actually stumbled upon it independently while actively seeking out a 3D virtual social game to play. I was also tens years old at the time, and clearly not the target demographic. So my experience of this game is viewed through a completely different lens, maybe a more innocent one, since I played it at such an impressionable age and lacked the larger context of what There was and why it existed. To little kid me, it was just this amazing virtual world I discovered where I could make friends to race dune buggies and hoverboards with. Basically like a much simpler version of what Roblox or Fortnite is to kids today. I had no idea about any of the press and media attention the game was getting, or anything about the company behind the game. I was just naively playing and enjoying the game, blissfully ignorant of the corporate forces pulling the strings behind the curtain. I'm not really going anywhere with this. I just thought it was amusing to contrast your thoughtful and analytical commentary with the uncritical whimsy of a kid on the internet in the early 2000s. Awesome video as always, thanks for sharing!
Very well done! A great look at a part of the history of Social Spaces on the Internet. The whole demise of AltspaceVR would make for a fantastic video essay. Many of us have come over to VRChat as a refuge. So if you are hanging out in VRChat don't be surprised to run into us. Thanks again for a wonderful video.
Nice vid strasz love watching your video essays ! I waited 45 minutes to see what your final there pun would be and I was not disappointed... There there there will be another there somewhere out there there
I've really enjoyed your videos, thanks Strasz! I'd be curious to know if you've had much experience / done much research on communities rising from old internet chat rooms. The ones I grew up with were stuff like Habbo Hotel, Coke Studios, Club Penguin, etc, though I know there were older vibrant virtual spaces as well. also cultured shirt 👌
Hey Strasz. If you are looking for something to maybe investigate, maybe look into Neos VR? It's a sorta merging of concepts between VRChat and secondlife; allowing you to make whatever you like in world but with the added benefit of VR immersion. I only ask maybe look into it bc it's floundering from lack of press and a bit of internal discourse. But i honestly feel (As a Neos user) that if it can pick up some attention it'll help the devs and the company motivate to resolve their issues, and further develop something that could be an amazing platform of it's own.
I went to a 2001 There beta launch party in Palo Alto. The founders wanted far more user generated content than they ended up with, which I believe might have been why they left. The investors wanted ad deals with corporate brand sponsors. There were almost no coders who actually understood the details of the platform.
Oh my God. I miss There! I remember the early betas and played it quite a bit. But watching this i realize i probably only liked it because it was the first online social game i played.
There are 131 there's in the video there!
you're doing the lord's work
Nice to see you back
Strasz, I'm a vr world 'oldbie'. My first MUD experience was in the late 70's. In 1979 I tried to make a vr world on a pdp-11when I was 8. I was then in Habitat in 1988. I was a very well known citizen in AW from beta onward. I was also in There and dozens upon dozens of other vr worlds from the mid 90's onward, even working at Linden Lab for 6 years. I've been friends with Ventrella and Rosedale (among many other vr pioneers like Lanier) for decades. I could write several books on this topic.
I'm saying all of this, because your coverage of these spaces is informed and top tier & I want you to hear this from someone 'in the know'.
You earned a sub today. I genuinely look forward to your future efforts. Exceptional stuff.
P.S. Linden Lab has always maintained a profit, and their inworld economy is thriving.
P.P.S. Activeworlds holds a truly special place in my heart. The fact that it still exists is a treasure beyond words.
Hello!
Thanks for watching! As is tradition, I will be streaming on Thursday (3/16) at 10PM EDT @ twitch.tv/straszgaming -- I'll be talking about the video, as well as many other things. It's been awhile, after all!
Thanks for sticking with me. Hopefully it won't be another year before the next one. :)
Great to see you back again!
Strasz is back! Another banger, really enjoyed watching this over my lunch today. Your self burn at 25:16 gave me a chuckle. 😆
i dont think ive ever seen someone so casually drop the word "grok" in a sentence before
There feels like a twinkle in the night sky,. The far off distant galaxy light years away from our own. Only observable through The lenses of a telescope pointed at its direction.
Second Life feels more local, like it's right here as a planet in our solar system. That you can see it with the naked eye from ground level. And in some element that you feel connected with it because it doesn't appear as far away.
Then there's VRChat, which has cat girls. This is home.
2003: There (nobody knows it)
2014: VRChat (everybody thinks it looks similar to either There or Second Life)
2016: Rec Room (everybody thinks it's a child version of VRChat)
2021: Horizon Worlds (everybody thinks it's a sotisficated and plagiarized version of Rec Room)
SPAM COMMENT BOTS ARE NOT ALLOWED
I find it funny that the graphics for these terrible metaverses have not improved since There in 2003.
I still use Second Life today and I always come back when looking for a similar experience because of the creative freedom and the community. The lesser any kind of corporation gets to intervene the better.
we missed u bb
great video. Had no idea 'There' ever/even existed.
Sorry to say it feels like there was an audio sync issue in the first half.
I love this so much. As someone trying to help individuals be discovered for the sake of their creativity this all resonates so hard.
Man this was kinda rough as a former heavy user of There but the more I think on it the more you are extremely correct.
omg, i had There when i was 14, and actually where i had my "first kiss."
Hi Strasz, your videos are always a refreshing change from a lot of the other content I see. This is obviously well researched and you seem to avoid the stereotype narratives that are prevalent on this topic. I'm sure these are a lot of work to make. Thank you for all that you do.
Time to buy some cool pants 💪
21:35 missed opportunity from the devs to write "You are there"
Thinking about it... they probably didn't want to make you feel that this is YOUR (the people's) platform.
Buy it first.
@@Chatmans Exactly. It does not look like developers would be listened as well in such money-driven projects (If you know better than customers, you probably also know better than your employees).
New subscriber here.
Shamus Young sent me.
Stoked to see You upload again!
Fellow old person (almost 40 now) and virtual worlds enthusiast here! I'm still active on Second Life to this day. I've watched as things have evolved from prim to sculpty to mesh to the bento project and animesh. I still own multiple parcels of land, rent a homestead, and enjoy working on a lot of creative projects or just screwing around with my friends and playing games. I take breaks from SL from time to time to focus on real life or MMORPGs but always return and have never become bored. Even when I'm on a break, I still log in at least once a week to pay my homestead rent, maybe hit up the weekend sales, and see what's new.
But There? It was super boring. I tried it a few times and each time I didn't last more than a couple hours. Second Life won that war for a very, very good reason.
Also, should note that I'm super anti-social when it comes to virtual worlds and that might be a huge factor. I don't want a 3D chat room. When I say I mess around with friends in SL, I mean my REAL LIFE friends. Second Life has always been a place where we can hang out together from the comfort of our own physical homes and play games or go exploring on the grid, and then we can split up and work on creative things separately in our virtual homes while maybe still chatting in voice. The way scripting and content creation works in SL means there have always been new things to do and learn and discover. And yes, Second Life can also be a place where you can blow a lot of cash on retail therapy but the things you buy can allow you to really express yourself and shape your environment. I mean, I can actually shape my environment. I can spend as much money on ground textures and cliff pieces and plants that I'm using together with terraforming to completely reshape my land as I am on clothing for my avatar. And with both, I can think of a concept and really go crazy to fully realize my ideas.
There didn't have any of what I needed as a user to get me to come back and spend my time (and money) on that platform. And I see the same issues with all the proposed "metaverse" projects now. Boring and uninspired. I mean, hell, look at Linden's own Sansar project. They screwed it up royally and sold it off to another company who thought it would be enough to just host virtual concerts. Boring, boring, boring. I'm convinced that unless you give users a robust set of tools for content creation and scripting and an (at least seemingly) open world none of these places will survive. Even when you look at traditional games that some try to claim are Metaverse models like GTA Online, it becomes clear that it is the modding community keeping them alive.
Always love a new vid from you!
horay, nice to see you create again!
Club penguin is better
Given how small the group of people playing Jedi Academy felt at the time, it feels likely that we have gamed together.
I spent so much time in the multiplayer there, mostly screwing around.
so, I'm late to the party but given the forced implementation of easy anti cheat and the devs obviously not grasping the effects it will have on Vr Chat, would anyone still recommand trying it out? I've put it off due to not having any vr gear, and desktop mode seemed unfitting in my opinion. Is it still worth checking out or has that ship sailed? thanks if anyone answers :)
God tier video
I really enjoy your videos dude :)
Was pleasantly surprised to see another upload, glad i have the bell for notifications
"a real interaction or experience is one where you exchange money for goods or services". Holy Hyper Capitalism!
Mad respect for further research updates!
Always appreciate your videos, thanks for putting this together!
Eyy welcome back! I look forward to binging this.
All the best RUclipsrs only upload once every six months
Not gonna lie, the kronii shirt took me by surprise at first (glad to know that strasz is a vtuber fan too tho!)
As a fellow virtual world nerd, I love your video essays, Strasz! I will be writing up a blogpost about this latest one. Thanks!
Hey, I was watching a lot of your blogs in your page and ended up here. I wasn't expecting to see you here too
ayyy love the hololive shirt lmao
gonna finish the vid now
Idk if it's just me but it seems like all the audio is slightly off
A bit too hard on the noise gate in the audio but very interesting video nonetheless!
I was just talking about There. When it was in heavy rotation before launch, it was hailed as being a better looking Second Life. I remember it's coverage on Tech TV. It was optimistic, but often mentioned about how it was more limited in scope. The video demos looked good. I think it was on the Screen Savers that they showed the demo where they were driving a dune buggy around. Which got my attention. But outside of that, it looked so "meh."
I don't recall everything about it, exactly, but I do remember, from way back when, you could definitely make real world money from There. I just remember the articles of people being surprised
I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about these kind of games/platforms/worlds, knowing some pretty obscure social network games, my favourite being Papermint. But I have somehow never heard of There, or maybe the name just didn't stick in my memory. Anyway, great video! :D
OMG Strasz is finally back
This was really fascinating for me to watch personally because I actually played this game a lot back when it first came out, but I was never exposed to *any* marketing or media about the game. I actually stumbled upon it independently while actively seeking out a 3D virtual social game to play. I was also tens years old at the time, and clearly not the target demographic. So my experience of this game is viewed through a completely different lens, maybe a more innocent one, since I played it at such an impressionable age and lacked the larger context of what There was and why it existed.
To little kid me, it was just this amazing virtual world I discovered where I could make friends to race dune buggies and hoverboards with. Basically like a much simpler version of what Roblox or Fortnite is to kids today. I had no idea about any of the press and media attention the game was getting, or anything about the company behind the game. I was just naively playing and enjoying the game, blissfully ignorant of the corporate forces pulling the strings behind the curtain.
I'm not really going anywhere with this. I just thought it was amusing to contrast your thoughtful and analytical commentary with the uncritical whimsy of a kid on the internet in the early 2000s. Awesome video as always, thanks for sharing!
Miss ur channel 😪
Very well done! A great look at a part of the history of Social Spaces on the Internet. The whole demise of AltspaceVR would make for a fantastic video essay. Many of us have come over to VRChat as a refuge. So if you are hanging out in VRChat don't be surprised to run into us. Thanks again for a wonderful video.
Nice vid strasz love watching your video essays ! I waited 45 minutes to see what your final there pun would be and I was not disappointed... There there there will be another there somewhere out there there
repping the Kronii merch!
thank you for producing more content... I find your insights about the social internet extremely interesting and can't wait to hear more
Glad to see you back, your videos are always super interesting to watch!
oi, still there?
Otimo de assistir👏🏽
Owwww my good
Like
❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
strasz video lets GOOOO
Return of the strasz!!
Great video!
Whoooo
I've really enjoyed your videos, thanks Strasz! I'd be curious to know if you've had much experience / done much research on communities rising from old internet chat rooms. The ones I grew up with were stuff like Habbo Hotel, Coke Studios, Club Penguin, etc, though I know there were older vibrant virtual spaces as well.
also cultured shirt 👌
A very good summary of what the platform was, and how it died 👍
Hey Strasz. If you are looking for something to maybe investigate, maybe look into Neos VR? It's a sorta merging of concepts between VRChat and secondlife; allowing you to make whatever you like in world but with the added benefit of VR immersion. I only ask maybe look into it bc it's floundering from lack of press and a bit of internal discourse. But i honestly feel (As a Neos user) that if it can pick up some attention it'll help the devs and the company motivate to resolve their issues, and further develop something that could be an amazing platform of it's own.
Strasz works for VRChat so he may not be able to
Man, this unlocked a core memory of me just roaming around the place with a borrowed buggy as dumb teen.