New answers and more questions regarding the upcoming virtual world Blue Mars

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

I learned considerably more about Blue Mars last night, which is not named after the science fiction classic by Kim Stanley Robinson, despite the fact that its founder, Henk Rogers, is a big sci-fi fan.

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By the time he left his secure job where he’d been managing business development for the division, nearly 28 million units of Microsoft’s X-Box 360 had sold worldwide in just over three years. The global economy was imploding, and still Jim Sink packed his belongings in rainy Redmond, WA and hopped on a flight to Honolulu where he would become vice president of business development for Avatar Reality, the company that has been developing Blue Mars since December of 2006.

There, he joined interactive game luminaries Henk Rogers (creator of Tetris, Blue Lava Wireless and founder of the Blue Planet Foundation, among other things), Kazuyui Hashimoto (formerly vice president of technology at Electronic Arts) and 21 others, all working at breakneck-speed towards the Beta launch this June of a new virtual world.



Until recently, not much has been known about Blue Mars except that it will be significantly different from both Second Life® and OpenSim in that it will be powered by the bleeding-edge game engine CryEngine 2 that boasts unparalleled and nearly photorealistic graphics, and that end-users will not be able to create content in-world.

Many Second Life die-hards consider this last point to be a deal-breaker since user creativity is at the very core of Second Life’s raison d'être.

More information became available last week regarding the free-to-play and free-to-download “massively multiplayer virtual world”:

* The world was built for Vista-based machines.

* The company is confident that many thousands of users will be able to simultaneously log into a single “city.” If a particular server gets so popular that it reaches its limit and performance begins to suffer, they can “shard” the server. (More on this later)

* Software Development Kits (SDK) are available for download to registered developers for free so that they could begin creating Blue Mars-compatible content offline. Both the development kit and the preview editor are WYSIWYG.

* Despite rumors to the contrary and in regards to performance, the company stated that most 3D cards on the market today will be able to run Blue Mars, and that even ATI 4850 cards that go for about $120 after rebates can “deliver a strong performance.”

* There is no geographic continuity between places in Blue Mars. Each place or city is a node in the Blue Mars network. Each place is usually around 2x2k. Places can link to one another but you can't fly across a contiguous space above a certain size. When you move from place to place, there is a loading screen.

* “Easy to program” artificial intelligence will be offered to developers who are interested in having conversational NPCs (non-player characters/bots). Avatar-Reality has created an AI gateway to allow third parties to link to their own AI servers. They hope to catalyze the development of game AI by “providing a platform for people to integrate their AIs in an affordable high fidelity real time online environment.”

* The Blue Mars Dollar (pegged to a fixed rate against the US dollar) is a single integrated currency system that “lets developers easily and securely charge for items and subscriptions.” End users can buy packs of currency through the Blue Mars client or through a web site. They can use a credit card, Paypal, or retail Paybycash cards to buy Blue Mars currency. There are no refunds on Blue Mars currency and end users can't cash out. However, if you are registered as a developer or vendor with Avatar Reality, you can charge Blue Mars dollars for goods and services and get paid in US dollars or your local equivalent currency through Paypal.

* Gambling will not be allowed.

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I spoke at length with Jim Sink last night.

Your business model is that of providing a platform to developers so that they can turn around and create their own Cities, RP games, or sublease land to others. What about government? What are your Terms of Service? Will each developer rule his or her fiefdom? Will each developer be responsible for newbie education in that environment?

We’re still working out the ToS, but yes, developers will control and set content rules for their regions. There are two ways that developers can get started: they can manage their own City/game server in the Blue Mars network or they may choose to sub-lease land from an existing City developer, which could be a City block, for example. Avatar Reality charges a setup fee and monthly fees to keep your place online, but rather than set our fees based on land size, we charge based on concurrent user capacity (CCU.) It works like the minutes plan on a mobile phone. Our promotional pricing is available under NDA and our public pricing will be available later in the summer.



In August 2008, Avatar-Reality announced that Virtual Space Entertainment, Inc. (VSE), led by the much celebrated artist and concept designer Syd Mead for films such as Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron had become a third-party developer.

Will users have access to voice at launch?

No. We’re working on that and realize that it is important. When rolling out a complicated platform like this, we need to first make sure that it is stable and secure.

I understand that Blue Mars was built for Vista based machines. I’m working off of Windows XP. Will I be able to run it? And what about Mac users?

Yes, no problem for XP, but Cryengine doesn't run on OS X, so no support for Macs. Boot Camp works if you want to dual boot, and server-side rendering services like Online should help expand our market to netbooks and Macs.

What about integrating the web to your world, such as HTML access? Any unique offerings in that area as compared to Second Life?

We can’t render HTML pages natively, but there are multiple ways to work with the web. You can display Flash-based content and the data can go in both directions, so you can update a page out world with content that is going on in-world and vice-versa. When people want to draw from a database, in other virtual worlds it has to go through the hosting service. In Blue Mars, the client can connect directly to the data source and doesn’t have to go through our servers. For example, a movie that is screening in-world is not streamed by Blue Mars; that movie is pointed to an external server. Video will be handled using Scaleform, a flash compatible middleware package that we use for all our UI.

What about scripted objects? What language will you use? Can developers introduce their own scripts?

Yes. LUA-based scripting and our own Casual Games API to give developers a head start.

You say that Blue Mars will be scalable for thousands of simultaneous users per region, and that you have the option to shard a server if it gets too popular. Please describe, in lay terms, what “sharding the server” means?

If it got to the point where 10,000 simultaneous users got to be too much for that region - and we won’t know until we get there - we will probably want to mirror that region (make a duplicate of the region).

How easily will people be able to rejoin their friends if a region gets sharded? What if people are having sex or giving a presentation, teaching a class, or waiting for a purchased item to be delivered? Will they be separated from their friends? And while we are on the topic, will you allow sex in Blue Mars?

We haven’t decided yet on the sex question. As for sharding, it wouldn’t work like that. The developer could instance the entire server and call it “New Honolulu.” You would add that server to a list of several Honolulus. We would never split it and take half the users one way and half the other way. We will also integrate messaging tools so you can join your friends in the different shards of the single server.

We’ve heard about developers, RP gamers, and shoppers from you, but are you also targeting business?

Businesses tend to be excited about Blue Mars for a few reasons. A lot of people in real estate have all these terabytes that are stuck on their hard drives. Instead of creating a new way to build 3D assets, we’ve created import tools. Using a CAD program, they can bring those terabytes into Blue Mars with very little effort and then show off model homes and model communities in an interactive environment. As for advertisers, much depends on building a critical mass of active users.

How about educators?

We will be providing a safe and controlled environment with deep scripting and monitoring support that will give developers the ability to test and track actions and choices made in their region.



You tout robust security and content management. How will you protect developers? Content theft is a significant issue in Second Life and OpenSim.

Anyone who would say you never have to worry about content theft doesn’t know about history. What you do is build methods for the eventuality of dealing with it. Everything is encrypted in our world, and we’ve made it very difficult for people to reverse engineer the system. Say you create a new dress that you want to offer at your store. Every item, when it is uploaded into the system, gets a unique registration stamp and a time stamp. Even if someone just copied an item “visually,” the original creator can submit their code and comparing it against the time stamp, we can determine if it is in violation of the system.

Will there be an approval system for each piece of content before it can make it into the system?

No approval process.

What, in your view, is the special allure for Second Life content creators, assuming of course that they are already competent with the Blue Mars-compatible software and not just working with prims? Will they have to cozy up to the game developers to adhere to their planned environments? Let’s say you make a living creating furniture in Second Life. How might this translate to Blue Mars?

By the end of this week, there will be two editors that Blue Mars provides: A full-development environment that is completely free, though we are limiting the number of people we’re offering it to at this time. We are also releasing a streamlined sort of “sandbox” that would be ideal for a furniture creator. They can take the model that they created in 3ds Max or Maya, for instance, import it into the sandbox editor, and see exactly what it will look like in Blue Mars.

From the get out, the platform has been created with an ear to content creators and artists. “Why can’t we just continue to use the tools we normally use? I don’t want my stuff copied.” They want a reliable system to monetize their work and a universal payment system. Most digital content creators don’t work in prims. They didn’t want to create proprietary content with creation tools like prims or have to relearn how to create content.

After June, we will be providing templatized shops. Developers will sub-divide land and sublease it. Create a space, fill it with your furniture and offer things for sale. Most people will want to set up shops somewhere that is popular. We will probably be offering a limited number of sub-divided parcels to give to developers and operate a test “Demo” City in the beginning where we can roll out new features and offer a limited number of spaces in that city for people to experiment.

Will you have a web-based sales model like Second Life’s Xstreet?

Not at this time.

What about artists? How will they benefit from creating sculptures, for example?

If it is just a matter of a public space where they can share their work, they can lease the space from a City developer and put their content directly into that City. They deliver their data file to the City director and it will be up to the City developer to determine how frequently the content updates will take place, which will not be as frequent as they are in Second Life (real-time). Some might do it every day, while others might update every two weeks. Each city is condensed into a pack file that includes all the geometry and textures. The file they deliver comes in a single pack.

I realized then that we were thinking about two entirely different things. Jim talked about a coming Art Competition that will launch on April 20th. He spoke of fashion, furniture and other practical items that might be exhibited - in addition to paintings, sculpture and particles - with each participating artist receiving a 3m x 3m x 3m exhibition space in a shared virtual gallery to display their work. I described how the mixed-realities Brooklyn is Watching gallery/art-critique space in Second Life had begun with a small land parcel, thinking that all of the art would be rezzed directly on the ground, only to learn that the artists would ingeniously go underground or have their art pieces begin at ground-level and soar as far up as 3,500m in the sky. I told him about ZeroG SkyDancers and how the choreographed dancers wear cascading costumes that are many times larger in size than the avatars wearing them as they move about the sky. (More on art later).

Oh, you won’t be able to fly for the most part.

Won’t be able to fly!?

If a developer wants it, their avatars will be able to fly, but the standard locomotion is not flying. You can get into a vehicle and fly but the framework for people to locomote isn’t flying.

So each developer would have to introduce the animations and fiddle with the physics? What about teleporting?

Teleporting is a balancing act for us. Teleportation to any place at any time is a mistake for a developer. It reduces the potential for the social fabric of a place. You don’t want to make people walk everywhere though. If I want to get from point A to B there are several options beyond walking or running. If I need to move two kilometers away, it is silly to have to wait for a bus. If you have a home, you will be able get there. People will experiment with a lot of different methods.

What news have you for musicians?

People will be excited to use Blue Mars for music, a place for self-expression and community. You want to be able to create events that will draw a crowd and not have the appeal of the event be diminished by the crowd itself. The Blue Mars platform scales to support thousands of simultaneous users per region, so if you are spinning music or creating a place for people to congregate, this won’t be a concern.

Will real-time jams between musicians from all over the world be possible?

They will.

Any advantages for virtual architects?

CAD will be importable, but of course, the further you are away from 3ds Max and Maya, the more steps you will have to take. Keep in mind that you don’t need the plumbing geometry for a real-time rendering. The bottleneck isn’t the polyganol count, but the textures that are the problem. The rendering will be perfectly accurate.

I understand that you will have real-time analyses of player activity. How will marketers be able to use this excellent information?

Each City developer will set some policies. We’re not sure yet how the implementation will run out but we do know this: If it happens in world, it can be tracked and reported on in real time. How many people sat down in Toyota’s new car, for instance, along with any demographic information the users are willing to share.

That raises a number of questions regarding user privacy. Can we assume that you will protect each user’s personal information?

Yes.

Speaking of demographics, what about men playing as women, or folks who prefer not to be gender-specific? How will that play out?

It will be a matter of how they registered. We aren’t going to verify gender.

What about alts (alternative accounts)? Will you allow that?

We haven’t decided yet.

Will developers be able to limit what users can take from their City to another, or what can be introduced to their City?

You can limit what can be introduced. If you are Sony Pictures and creating a virtual Monaco and it is a black tie-only space, when a user gets there, the system can prompt that user to let them know that this is a black tie-only area and provide information about the only costumes that will be available in that region. You don’t want people running around in Speedos in your James Bond world.

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UPDATE: Soon as you're done here, you might want to skedaddle over to Dusan Writer's blog where he has an interesting discussion going and his initial analysis on Blue Mars... plus he called me a Goddess! Well, he can't be right all the time. :)

Tooter Claxton sounds off on justice with his "Free world - the fenced edition"

Tooter Claxton is no stranger to these pages. This Dutch, punk-rocking, avatar-making, Second Life Hobo is an articulate and informed, somewhat mad/ingenious graphic designer and art director in Real Life, and a favorite personality of mine.

In my dealings with him, I have come to recognize another quality in Tooter that I so admire: integrity. Tooter shoots straight and he's true to himself. And he's funny while he's doing it. Can't say that about too many people.



I didn't thoughtfully consider this unique combination of attributes before I invited him to participate in the "Visions of Global Justice" group art exhibition in Second Life. I just knew it in a flash. Ah, what a good kind of flash that turned out to be! The even better news is that he accepted, and his installation joined those of over a dozen artists who came together for the opening of the International Justice Center.

Tooter's piece is called "Free world - the fenced edition." Walk up to it (teleport directly from here), wait a few seconds... and you are in for a surprise.



Tooter explains it this way:

Tooter Claxton: Justice and law are based on agreements between people of what is right and what is wrong. Sometimes the difference between right and wrong is evident to everyone, but it isn't always that clear (that's why we need to write the agreements down in books of law, treaties and such) and the line between them can get fuzzy or even disappear. The two sides can even flip, depending on the perspective or interpretation of the viewer. When is someone a freedom fighter? A patriot? A terrorist or an enemy of the state?



A small, high walled structure, fenced off thoroughly with barbed wire and thick walls. Inside is some grass and flowers on the ground and a door with a lock and a key. The outside walls are textured with 'jail graffiti' and surrounded by a forest of cctv camera's moving around like meerkats, eyeing the visitor.

There are scanners, lights, lots of beeping and humming and scripted checks of the visitor. Security is over the top. Way over the top. Even their trash is sifted through.



Tooter Claxton: In other words: we punish criminals by putting them in confined spaces, so we can watch and control everything they do. The criminals obviously experience this control and lack of freedom and privacy as punishment. But we, who have committed no crimes, have not been convicted of anything, are increasingly being watched and controlled in the same way: our emails and Internet history can be stored and read, our phone calls are being scanned by the NSA a.s., we get bio-metric passports, all your trips and purchases can be traced through air miles and credit cards, and the cities are full of cctv's watching our every move... Is there still a free world? Are we still innocent until proven guilty?



WARNING: SPOILER! READ NO FURTHER IF YOU THINK YOU'D LIKE TO EXPERIENCE THIS PIECE - BUT GO NOW... EXHIBIT WILL END IN ONE DAY! Impressively scripted by Paladin Pinion, text by Tooter Claxton

I walked up to the structure, and a few seconds later, it started talking to me:

[22:26] ::: Initializing. Please remain stationary, Bettina Tizzy
[22:26] ::: Please stand in the designated area. You have received your location 2008-03-20. Check your inventory Bettina Tizzy.
[22:26] ::: Free World Access Scanner Hub (FWASH) activated, please wait.
[22:27] ::: ::: :::
[22:27] ::: We are strongly committed to your right to privacy, Bettina Tizzy. Please read the privacy disclaimer provided by FWASH, available to all Free Citizens.
[22:27] ::: FWASH error: unable to deliver privacy disclaimer. Free World group membership detection not available at this time.
[22:27] ::: Please enable scan and temporary deactivation of Data Protection Act by typing 'I agree' in chat within the set time.
[22:27] ::: Please note that except as otherwise expressly provided, whenever in this Act an amendment or repeal is expressed
[22:27] ::: in terms of a section or other provision of the Data Protection Act of 1984 (47 U.S.C. 151 et seq.), Section 3 (47 U.S.C. 153) is amended: in section 332(d), by striking `section 3(n)' each place it appears and inserting `section 3'.
[22:27] ::: ::: :::
[22:27] ::: ::: :::
[22:27] ::: No response from agent Bettina Tizzy detected within set time. Scanner status: suspicion of possible concealment of identity by agent. Agent status set to 4-B: suspect. Initializing full scan. Please wait.
[22:27] ::: ::: :::
[22:27] ::: FWASH identity confirmed: Bettina Tizzy. Retrieving data. Please wait.
[22:27] ::: ::: :::
[22:27] ::: Your Universally Unique Identifier: cb84ba5a-70bb-4ba7-85c7-a29992d42382 Status unverified.
[22:28] ::: UUID Confirmed suspicion rate 4.7. Restrictive violence acceptable. Subsequent action classified to agent.
[22:28] ::: Facial recognition unit initializing... FRU ready.
[22:28] ::: User Bettina Tizzy born: 2007-01-26. No history of active membership of Free World group detected.
[22:28] ::: Possible membership of non governmental organizations detected.
[22:28] ::: Your Payment info on file: Status: 3-PAYMENT INFO ON FILE Scanning for other payment methods and potential fraudulent transactions.
[22:28] ::: Repetitive purchase of foreign comestibles tracked on loyalty cards: Pizza.
[22:28] ::: Repetitive purchase of foreign comestibles tracked on credit cards: Pizza.
[22:28] ::: Domestic comestibles purchase rate: 5 – average. Probable polynationalism or lack of patriotism detected. Xenoscan Tracking permanently enabled on Bettina Tizzy.
[22:28] ::: FRU scan result: Undetermined moisture detected, probability cold sweat: 87.472%, probability wallpaper adhesive: 12.528%.
[22:28] ::: Retrieving your energy invoices and air miles statistics to determine Fuel Consumption Level for Bettina Tizzy with mass 1.822263. Ratio of mass to energy utilization is not within projected economic stability range.
[22:29] ::: FWASH FCL 3.2 Category Treehugger
[22:29] ::: Avatar clothing changes: over 256 since 2007-01-26. Possible ID concealment. Avatar clothing changes: less than 512 since 2007-01-26. Possible use of alternative accounts.
[22:29] ::: Liquidity in Linden Dollars per day: < 565. You are extremely poor. Enabling financial tranquilizer for Bettina Tizzy.
[22:29] ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
[22:29] ::: Financial Tranquilizer: -start message- Welcome Bettina Tizzy. Money isn't everything. Keep in mind that over 3.8 billion people have less than 565 Linden dollars a day to spend. In the real world. Count your blessings.
[22:29] ::: Financial tranquilizer: Poverty is a choice, Bettina Tizzy. Obey and prosper. -end message-
[22:29] ::: Financial Tranquilizer is offline.
[22:29] ::: ::: :::
[22:29] ::: ::: :::
[22:29] ::: Engaging Waste Analyzer
[22:29] ::: ::: :::
[22:30] ::: Waste Analyzer engaged. Connecting to Department of Sanitation.
[22:30] ::: ::: :::
[22:30] ::: Connected. Scanning garbage bag 00567 through 02441 - Bettina Tizzy. Please wait.
[22:30] ::: Thank you for your patience.
[22:30] ::: ::: :::
[22:30] ::: Traces of addictive substances found. Coffee. Possible tofu. Notifying Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force.
[22:30] ::: Scan finished. Please wait for results.
[22:30] ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::
[22:30] ::: No criminal record for user Bettina Tizzy. Suspicion level 7. Estimated loyalty rating index at 2.1
[22:30] ::: Preemptive safety measures will be taken. Please wait.
[22:31] ::: Bettina Tizzy taken into custody by FWASH on suspicion of planning potentially subversive acts.
[22:31] ::: Bettina Tizzy will remain detained.
[22:31] ::: Entrance to Free World denied.
[22:31] ::: Thank you for you for keeping the Free World safe, Bettina Tizzy. Have a nice day.

~*~

This just in and direct from Tooter when I asked him for the authorized bio:

"I don't get bored easily. I am a graphic designer/ art director by profession but I have done, and still do a lot more. I have been singing and/or playing guitar in bands since 1976; punk rock, bluegrass, country, traditional dutch music, german schlagers and even just plain old rock 'n' roll. I've also hosted a variety of shows, quizzes and contests. I design and illustrate books, magazines, and occasionally write for them too. I draw comics and make animations. I've made hundreds of posters, flyers and record sleeves for the local and international 'underground' music scene. I've spent many holidays making and playing theater shows, I have worked with poets, sculptors and painters, making installations in musea, illustrations, short films, prints, performances. And then there's computers...

I've been working with computers since shortly after I left art school in the early eighties. First I tried programming in Basic, making simple games, but I soon used them to design typefaces and animations. After that computers have become an integral part of my work and life.

For the past year and a half I have also been active in Second Life. I spend most of my time in sandboxes, playing and building. I particularly enjoy the absurd side of Second Life, and I see it as an eclectic artwork made by all it's inhabitants. I learned (and still learn) building from other more skilled builders (mostly from the hobo group) and try to add pieces to the dadaist collage that is already there. I 'make a living' in Second Life selling somewhat 'off' avatars, which makes me enough to pay for rent, tier and a premium account. The more I make, the more land I buy to build my own projects on: usually silly, more than often useless. I try to make as many freebies as I can, and as I am selling more and more avatars, I've been giving away more of my builds free. I've also done -and cooperated in- artworks in SL. Most were themed around (dis-) communication, one of the most interesting parts of Second -and real- Life i.m.o."


Many thanks to the MacArthur Foundation, Global Kids and the Justice Commons for hosting this event, together with the USC Network Culture project. Special thanks, too, to In Kenzo, for giving me the opportunity to serve under her as co-curator, thereby allowing me to learn much about how to curate an art event in virtual worlds. In addition to Tooter Claxton and Pavig Lok, whom I featured in my last blog post, the following artists created original art works for this show: Tuna Oddfellow, AM Radio, Tooter Claxton, Juria Yoshikawa, Dancoyote Antonelli, Filthy Fluno, elros Tuominen, Chance Abattoir, Adam Ramona, Josina Burgess, Velazquez Bonetto, Junivers Stockholm.