By Jim Rossignol on July 9th, 2008 at 9:03 am.
Google’s social world thinger, Lively, has gone live. It’s an environment-building 3D web browser thing of the “Second Life Lite” variety. I’ve not had time to have a good look at it, but judging by the sheer number of rooms being created by people the content tools must be fairly easy to use. It all seems a bit laggy though, so I guess the most popular rooms are getting battered by too much traffic. It also wants your Gmail login every 30 seconds, which is rather irritating. Still, let us know in the comments if you end up making something interesting from it.
09/07/2008 at 10:49 Theory says:
Are you supposed to be able to walk around? All I can do is spin/zoom an orbiting camera.
09/07/2008 at 11:18 roBurky says:
I think that’s cos we’re not actually getting to log in. Overloaded servers, I guess.
09/07/2008 at 11:32 Yhancik says:
I haven’t played much with it because it was lagging as hell
(although.. is Hell lagging, actually ?)
But it looks much much more like IMVU than Second Life, even aesthetically, doesn’t it ?
09/07/2008 at 11:59 Andrew Wills says:
I’m just rather confused by the whole thing. The interface feels incomplete (I know, it’s beta!). I guess I’m just spoiled by FPS games and their intuitive interfaces, but I had a really hard time trying to get the camera to point the right way, and to understand how my avatar moves.
09/07/2008 at 14:30 AbyssUK says:
Google Home ?
09/07/2008 at 15:28 yns88 says:
I would try it out, but apparently Lively is not “ready” for Linux yet.
09/07/2008 at 15:36 K says:
I’ll be interested to see where Google go with it, if anywhere. We could have developer tools released allowing people to create a kind of game engine within the online environment. So, say you want to play an online FPS, you pull out your gun and can run around the virtual world shooting other people who did the same. Want to race online? Magic up your superbike into the world and exploit the racing engine that was made. Like the virtual world of Snow Crash, or something.
09/07/2008 at 16:51 Ginger Yellow says:
If they manage to integrate it with other Google tools it could be pretty cool, but if it’s just Second Life by another name then meh.
09/07/2008 at 20:09 James Brophy says:
It’s excellent. Once it’s loaded it’s apparent that this is not meant for gaming by using your avatar. The levels are too small and the click and drag controls, While excellent for talking are completely unsuitable for games.
the ability to nest the same room on many websites is an excellent way for multiple groups who share interests to use the same space. Like traditional IRC but far more accessible to the technology noob.
RPS should get one. Maybe one with the updates from the rps steam community on the walls?
09/07/2008 at 21:30 Scandalon says:
K, I think what you want is http://metaplace.com/
09/07/2008 at 21:45 K says:
Ahhh, could be interesting, thanks.
10/07/2008 at 01:47 drew says:
Google Bob?
10/07/2008 at 11:29 Gnarf says:
Apparently one of the rooms is a “hot sex island”.
13/07/2008 at 18:51 Al3xand3r says:
Reminds of the good ol free MSN chat days with “rooms” about interracial, bored wives, latino, etc popping up on the front page because they added !!!!!!!!!!! in front of their name. Oh right, they were horrible HORRIBLE days, not good ones.
20/12/2008 at 15:01 Optimaximal says:
And now it’s dead!