Avian Gamers Network

Too many Metaplace related topics in one day you'll probably say.... but you can ignore those others.

Recently Metaplace released their first public look (other than a few stress tests) of their platform, in the form of MetaChat.
It was a chat room app (with avatars/pictures in a 2D space) originally released on MySpace, then Metaplace's forums and then Facebook. All of which connected to the same chat world.

They then put out a call for forum communities to test out placing the same type of app on their sites to test out it's features and integrating with other sites. I decided to go ahead and apply for the 'Community Testing', and lo and behold we were picked!

So we are now going to be one of the first forum communities outside of the official forums to test and play around with a Metaplace world. Yay, go us!

This app will pull in your forum logged in username and profile pic (although there is a problem with using the profile pics atm). Speaking of which, remember Metaplace is still alpha. Things might break, but things are changing rapidly.

You can go here to enter the chat.
http://avian-gamers.net/mp_chat.php

If you have any problem please post them below.

If after playing around with it you have some simple ideas you think would add to the room, let me know and I'll have a go at trying to make them and add them in.

You'll notice the background is one of the screenshots uploaded to this site. One things I'm trying to work on is to have the background automatically cycle through the various screenshots on the site (of course trust my luck, the first time I ran it it looked for the one image missing from the list, and so crashed. A 1 in 150 random shot).

It's quite odd, I tried it a little and can't do much inside that room. What can you actually do in there?

_________________
The Cord
Occasional Caretaker of the Horde Maelstrom Guild
Ex-Section 3 Director

Well obviously it is primarily a chat room, so everything else is an added extra.

You can move around by clicking on the screen.

If you move up next to the footballs and then click on them, they will move off away from you, with the speed that they move depending on how close you were to the ball.
If you get the ball into the goal, your avatar will automatically scream "GOOOAALLL!!!" and the ball will return to the middle of the screen.

If you move up to the piano you can play it by clicking on the keys and everyone will be able to hear what you play.

On the top left corner, if you click on the arrow you bring down a menu of throwable emotes, such as snowballs, tomatoes etc.

On the top right corner there are emotes that will appear over your avatar when used (and a dice emote that will throw a 2d6)

Also on the top left, there is a film icon that lets you search for youtube videos and share them with everyone else in the room.

Every behaviour of the "world" is defined on the server and downloaded when the client loads up. All the assets (art/sounds) exist somewhere on the internet. For example, it is cycling through our screenshots for the background.
So the client can connect to whatever types of world there are available on the platform, be it chat rooms like this, or puzzle games, shooters, rpgs, or a big mmo. Anyone would be able to make a clients to render these worlds. The only official one atm just happens to be a flash client.

Obviously chat rooms like this are easier to make than games, so this is the first type of world being publicly shown.

Obo, I just wanted to confirm that if somebody is in the Chat Room they are also shown at the bottom of the forums as online....

_________________
"Loose with Dignity"
Robert
Second President, Avian Gamers

DDO - Cannith - AlistairItor - Rogue/Ranger (5/3) - Main
DDO - Cannith - Guijanitor - Paladin/Rogue (4/1)
DDO - Cannith - RicochetItor - Rogue (5)

Obo,

Can you link the Chat button on the main page to MP chat??

_________________
"Loose with Dignity"
Robert
Second President, Avian Gamers

DDO - Cannith - AlistairItor - Rogue/Ranger (5/3) - Main
DDO - Cannith - Guijanitor - Paladin/Rogue (4/1)
DDO - Cannith - RicochetItor - Rogue (5)

This is just plain weird. No offense.

_________________
"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides." - Thomas Paine, Common Sense

No, they're not.


Weird in what way?
All feedback is useful and would be appreciated, even if you don't think much of it.

Weird in the way that aside from being a chat client that seems stable enough, it's just sort of ... uh... i don't even know how to describe it. It just seems like a bunch of "other" stuff that somebody randomly plugged into a chat client. Interesting... but ... why? At some point I guess I need to come to grips with "Why ask why?" and just go with it.

_________________
"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides." - Thomas Paine, Common Sense

The reason is because it's not simply a Chat Client. It is intended to be used for everything from Chat Rooms to MMORPG's. All the little added doodads are there because they can be.

Obo can probably explain Metaplace much better than I can, however the basic idea is that Metaplace is designed to be a platform for people to create whatever they want, and to be able to link their creations with other Metaplace's. and it's designed to be easy to use, without a need for extensive programming knowledge or skill.

So once it is complete you should be able to go to Metaplace, create an account at no cost, then either create your own game from scratch, or use components other people of created for form your game. You should only have to actually pay if you exceed a set bandwidth. But you will also be able to charge people to play your game, or use your world.

_________________
"Loose with Dignity"
Robert
Second President, Avian Gamers

DDO - Cannith - AlistairItor - Rogue/Ranger (5/3) - Main
DDO - Cannith - Guijanitor - Paladin/Rogue (4/1)
DDO - Cannith - RicochetItor - Rogue (5)

Doesn't seem to work for me. I'm using fully updated IE on an Intel Centrino Duo T7400 @ 2.16GHz/2.16GHz with 2 Gigs of RAM.

Anything else I should update?

_________________
80S - Madson-(450 BS / 450 M)...........80H - Madera-(447 Eng / 412 Enc)...........80K - Madala-(450 Herb / 450 Skin)
65L - Madwyn-(430Ins / 329 Tail)........61M - Madran-(300 M / 250 Enc).............64P - Madmon-(315 M / 347 JC)

Try updating to the current version of Flash.

_________________
"Loose with Dignity"
Robert
Second President, Avian Gamers

DDO - Cannith - AlistairItor - Rogue/Ranger (5/3) - Main
DDO - Cannith - Guijanitor - Paladin/Rogue (4/1)
DDO - Cannith - RicochetItor - Rogue (5)

Ahhhh.. ok, NOW it makes sense. It just needed a dash of capitalism and it all makes sense now.

_________________
"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides." - Thomas Paine, Common Sense

If I was allowed to show a game I would. But I can show this screenshot from one of the public tests.

Could you describe in what way it doesn't work? Does it just not start? Does it load up but then do nothing? etc..

Got it to work on Ubuntu Feisty with FF2. Had to update Flash though.

_________________
X2-PB

Pathfinder Kingmaker Campaign:
Gednan Malithanar - Wizard (1)
Dukin Thunderstrike - Ranger (1)

Star Citizen: - https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
AntanKarmola on their forums

Star Wars: The Old Republic: - Not really playing
Antare Karmola - Jedi Guardian (32)
Antan Karmola - Jedi Shadow (21)
Arianae Karmola - Gunslinger (20)

Yeah, it needs at least 9.0.115.0 for flash. Sometimes even if you have it already installed it thinks it's not. That sometimes requires either emptying your cache or reinstalling flash from adobes site (maybe not the auto plugin install?). But then I'm not 100% sure as I've never had that problem.

They are wondering if there is any feedback so far. I know we're not that active at the moment and it hasn't been used much at all, especially for any sort of actual community chat, but some people have been in to have a look so I was wondering if there were any thoughts?

Even if it is just "Why?"

General impressions, etc?
Is there any features you'd like to see?

I feel like I'm staring at a peice of paper and being asked to comment on what kind of literature I prefer.

Just because I like a mystery doesn't mean if you write one on that sheet I'll like it.

I recall many years ago I had my first experience with a chat room that had 3D avatars. It was basically identical to every other chat room except that you could waste your time moving some selected 3D image around a 3D space. No sound, no avatar animation to speak of, not much of anything really. It wasn't until I saw Everquest that I really understood the potential to reflect a plausible construct to participate in.

So I suppose at this point the purpose of metaplace is a still a mystery to me.

_________________
Dr. Golga Bolg
SWTOR - Golga
Rift - Gnarlwood: Golgar Golgantua Golgate - Retired
WoW - Dalaran: Bolg Golga Virrok All Retired
SWG - Golga Bolg - Doctor (Resident) Retired
Eve - Edge Finn - Limbo
Section 2 - (Former) Director
What am I playing now?: The waiting game

I guess the questions you all could try to answer are:

• Is there anything about the MetaChat that you specifically like or don't like?
• Do you see anything buggy about the functionality?
• Is there any funtionality you believe is missing from MetaChat?

Obo,
I haven't had any problems with it on Avian. Although I do have a suggestion you can use if you just need something to give them:

Have a Central Chatroom that all MetaChat clients can connect to as an additional Room aside from thier default room.

[edit] Ok, just realized that although it does allow you to create rooms and go to them, it doesn't have a Room List button to see what rooms are available.

_________________
"Loose with Dignity"
Robert
Second President, Avian Gamers

DDO - Cannith - AlistairItor - Rogue/Ranger (5/3) - Main
DDO - Cannith - Guijanitor - Paladin/Rogue (4/1)
DDO - Cannith - RicochetItor - Rogue (5)

Okay,

The piano is really laggy and could do with being mapped to keyboard keys if it were to serve any sensible purpose. One octave is also very limiting. In general it just seems like a gimmick.

The footballs and throwy things are also rather gimmicky. Although, if you got enough people in there, I suppose you could get an interesting football game going.

I have not real issue with the chat interface itself.

I can see the possibilities of metaplace and, on reflection, with my interest in programming, I probably should have signed up for alpha. I've actually sort of gone the other way with my programming. I started of trying to make a working game in a web browser and have now gone on to try and make it using C++. If metaplace works out in the way in which it seems to be trying to, I my go back again.

_________________
X2-PB

Pathfinder Kingmaker Campaign:
Gednan Malithanar - Wizard (1)
Dukin Thunderstrike - Ranger (1)

Star Citizen: - https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
AntanKarmola on their forums

Star Wars: The Old Republic: - Not really playing
Antare Karmola - Jedi Guardian (32)
Antan Karmola - Jedi Shadow (21)
Arianae Karmola - Gunslinger (20)

Everything worked fine for me. No bugs

X2 and I had a go at it. He beat me at football. Wish there was a way to move the unused ball and objects off the playing field when a game is underway. X2 said it woudl be nice if it kept score.

The screenshots cycled well.

The box to "please enter name" was behind the chat window even though I was already named Cyrus. This caused the chat window to be hard to read.

The avatar list showed X2 as guest100002. He said that may have been because he was not logged into Avian when he entered the chat.





What roll do chat rooms have now and in the future? I guess Gogla's EQ statement does show a chat room - MMO evolution. I never thought of an MMO as a chat room, even when I played them.

While I was on, I found myself missing the Messenger-ish sound and visual notification when the other party posted. I had to flip in-between aps to make sure I was not missing anything new.

You should be able to get rid of that by clicking in the Text Field, and then hitting Enter while there is no text in the field.

_________________
"Loose with Dignity"
Robert
Second President, Avian Gamers

DDO - Cannith - AlistairItor - Rogue/Ranger (5/3) - Main
DDO - Cannith - Guijanitor - Paladin/Rogue (4/1)
DDO - Cannith - RicochetItor - Rogue (5)