Interesting conversation in the Sansar Reddit group titled, appropriately enough, "Share Your Experience", which like anything on Reddit, deserves a grain of salt. But from my quick read, the basic gist is Sansar seriously seems like Blue Mars, a virtual world with extremely high-end graphics launched 6-8 years ago which I did some consulting for back around 2010. For instance, someone in the /Sansar group writes:
"Just like the SL client, if you want access to Sansar you'll use the Sansar client. The difference is there is no 'mainland'. Regions aren't connected. Going from one place to the other means you exit and load up a new 'experience'."
Which seems a lot like the Blue Mars client (see above, and here), which first launched as PC-only and wasn't a contiguous world. Like I said, grain of salt in all this before anything's announced, but Linden Lab staff have suggested this very kind of interface and experience during Sansar previews. (Sansar is also first launching as a PC-only product, with Mac and mobile said to come later.)
The comparison isn't necessarily a bad one, by the way -- Blue Mars had a lot of great ideas and ambition, especially for third party developers, which was why I wanted to help launch them:
I think Blue Mars could have been a lot bigger with better market timing -- but the thing is, the market for PC-centric, 3D online worlds with high-end graphics is still about the same size now as it was in 2010 (i.e. not very big)... and back then, we weren't pushing Blue Mars as a VR-centric product.
Anyway, go read the whole /Sansar thread with some skepticism.
Blue Mars looked great for anyone with a decent gaming computer, but I missed the ability to wander around like you can in SL.
Hey Hamlet, how is IMVU doing these days in comparison with SL, I've not seen any adverts for them lately.
Posted by: Fred | Thursday, March 30, 2017 at 01:34 PM
Went into Space yesterday. It is about the same as Blue Mars. You sit there, you wait, you wait for the download to finish. Then you come to a very well done 3D landscape. You think why am i here? I this a game? No to small for that. What am i supposed to do? You look at the beautiful graphics and log off.
Thinking about buying some new land in Second life again. Maybe it will be big again. There are a lot to do in SL and a lot to explore.
Posted by: cyberserenity | Friday, March 31, 2017 at 12:35 AM
Seems not too bad a comparison so - doomed to fail then? =^^= Well World has moved on a bit, even I would be willing to give sansar a serious try, whereas blue mars left me going - erm come back when its ready vibe.
Posted by: sirhc deSantis | Friday, March 31, 2017 at 05:16 AM
I don't mind this model - really most places in SL you have to TP to anyway (not a contiguous space) , which would be a similar experience. The main difference is that Sansar will be a longer delay as the mesh and all assets will have to download first (I assume) unlike SL where you TP to the destination then everything starts loading to screen. Sanasar will presumedly allow a much larger virtual area per region compared to SL, so there may be lots to explore in a single location. The big win with Sansar will be the frame rate, improved graphics, VR compatibility, lower 'land' costs compared to SL.
Posted by: Mac | Friday, March 31, 2017 at 09:38 AM
Blue Mars, Cloud Party, High Fidelity, take your pick. As Mac points out, a lot of Second Life isn't a contiguous land mass, you have to teleport.
Sansar sounds to me like there will be experiences running on Sansar technology that are completely isolated from those who don't register with that experience, which educators may like.
Posted by: Ciaran Laval | Friday, March 31, 2017 at 09:54 AM
I've been saying this for months, Hamlet! Ever since we learned that Sansar isn't a contiguous world. Again, "Sansar is like Blue Mars before they went mobile-dumb or like Playstation Home for the PS3, or like those Unity based Home-ish things on the PS4...but for the PC"
And need I remind everyone, that Blue Mars is "near dead" (they've closed their forum and haven't had a blog update in 4 years, their official twitter accounts for mobile and desktop news haven't tweeted since 2014) and Home IS dead.
Hey LL, that PS3 Home clone for the PC you have? Good luck with it, I mean it, but don't be surprised when it doesn't have universal appeal...just like SL didn't. (rollseyes) And I LIKED Home, I'm probably the perfect target market for Sansar, though I haven't been invited to the Beta. Heck I even paid money to "Subscribe" for a year to the PS4 version of Atom Universe (which hasn't been mentioned on NWN):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsdWY4cl2Eo
Posted by: CronoCloud Creeggan | Friday, March 31, 2017 at 11:15 AM