Watch Dynamic Collaborative 3D Creation in Blockland

When I wrote about Blockland, the Torque-powered 3D sandbox building game, I asked co-creator Ben Garney if it was possible to dynamically and collaboratively create 3D content with other players, a la Second Life, and he just sent this video to show yes indeed, yes indeed:

Like he told me yesterday, up to 40 players can inhabit the same server and build together. But how many folks collaboratively create content like this?

"Almost all of the hundred or so active servers focus on letting players freely build," Ben tells me. "High quality focused builds like that are rarer, but themed collaborative builds are not uncommon. (Badspot's Block Party is a server which is usually of this variety, you can find it in the server browser.)"

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Comments

[Vanessa]

Interesting, if you are interested in legoland style building, a la Linden World circa 2002.

Just goes to show that despite all the grumblings, no other platform yet comes close to Secondlife.

[Jon Brouchoud]

That's awesome!

I often assume Second Life is too graphically outdated, or simple and daffy in a world of photorealistic and highly complex MMO and console games.

But that's probably niche. In fact, with so much mainstream interest in these super-simplified programs- Blockland, Minecraft, even Farmville, etc. I'm starting to wonder if SL is ahead of its time - perhaps too much for most. I know the people I'm often trying to convince are almost never put off by its simplicity, but intimidated by its complexity.

Maybe mainstream adoption needs these simpler bridges, and more time.

What if it takes 3 more years? Where will SL be then? Where will OpenSim be then?

Fun to think about, anyway.