Other World Notes: Want To Try Raph Koster's Metaplace? Here's A Special NWN Invite Code!

Metaplace is an upcoming MMO/game platform from Raph Koster, formerly the lead designer of Ultima Online and creative director of Star Wars: Galaxies.  Though web-based, Second Life Residents will find a lot of affinity with Metaplace: for example, a focus on user-created content (which users retain the IP rights over), and eventually, a virtual economy with currency that can be bought and sold for cash.  I first wrote about it for GigaOM last year, and last month in an update.  Raph and team generously gave me a special New World Notes invite code, which the first 50 readers can redeem in the next 24 hours. (Wednesday is the company's "noob invite" day.)

To get a Metaplace invite, go here, and enter these letters into the Invite Key slot:  NWN

A note on this post: "Other World Notes" is an infrequent series on virtual worlds not directly related to Second Life.  However, I have no plans to move New World Notes' focus away from SL/OpenSim.  In any case, as Raph himself told me, it'll eventually be possible to run SL within Metaplace-- and vice versa.

Comments

[rikomatic]

Dude, you are a link whore.

I'm going to start giving away to the first 500 people who go to http://Rikomatic.com a free invite to try out the Second Life (perpetual) beta.

[Storm Thunders]

I'd be glad to, but they screwed up somewhere. My email isn't accepted with the signup code, but they don't seem to have it in their system when I try to get them to mail me a new password. :P

[Ann Otoole]

They apparently don't like free email services and want a real email address. Strike one.

Avatars are slider based. No actual customization. Strike 2.

Hey it is roller coaster tycoon land!! Strike three.

It is out.

SL continues to make all the others look stupid and childish.

[Raph]

Storm Thunders, if you email [email protected] with your email address we can try to debug what is happening. I am sorry you seem to have hit a bug, but it is why we do closed betas, after all! :) Your help would be much appreciated.

Ann, I'm sorry you didn't enjoy Metaplace.

I'll check into the free email services thing -- which one do you use? I know we do accept some because other users have signed up successfully from them.

As far as the avatars -- we're a 2d world, because being instantly accessible is important to us and there aren't any web-embedded solutions for 3d that don't involve a plugin. If you visit other worlds within Metaplace, you will find that many worlds have completely different art, so complete customization is possible. You're just seeing one world out of around 20,000 that have been made to date.

Finally -- yes, the initial building tools are like Rollercoaster Tycoon or The Sims, on purpose. The goal is to allow *anyone* to build, so ease of use is very important to us. However, under that there is a full scripting system that is as powerful as SL's, full ability to import assets, full web integration, and every world is a full massively multiplayer environment that supports hundreds to thousands. The power is there -- it's just that we privilege accessibility over everything else.

[Veeyawn Spoonhammer]

I've been in on the beta for a while and I really like where they're going with it. Now...if only I had 12 more hours in the day to build more stuff!

Keep up the cool work MetaPlace.

[Court]

too late to get my key... Metaplace is the first virtual world that I grew tired of without even experiencing it. I signed up with great interest of metaplace over a year ago being told I'll get invited "soon". Just rejected from this one, again asked to "sign up and get an invite soon".

I've lost interest. If this is the average speed of their development, theyre in trouble.

[Brendan]

The code seems to be used up. Which is a wicked bummer. Anyone who was successful have an invite they'd like to send my way?
My email is falloutbunny{at}gmail{dot}com
-thanks

[Clarrice]

Got my key this morning. (Early riser) I had problems with it using Firefox but no problems with IE.

It looks like something to kill some time with. It is cute. Reminds me a bit of the Yoville app on MySpace.

Thanks for the key. I will play with it a bit.

[Arwyn Quandry]

I got the code early in the day while in English class, and spent a bit of time looking around. It's still in beta, so there's a long way to go before it's really a full universe, but at the moment it looks like more of a Habbo alternative than an SL alternative. I can see myself logging on occasionally in the future when I'm bored with SL, but I can't yet see it getting even near replacing SL for me.

I'd love to see more avatar customization tools included, and a way to modify the default body shape and eyes, as well as create your own clothing. I think this may help attract the fashionista crowd a little more. A world is only as good as the avatars in it! This looks like a project that might have a future, if it is managed smartly and used well. Good luck.

[Tao Takashi]

Damn, of course I am too late.. When do you get the next batch? :-)

I really want to see it!