Update: New Chinese Virtual World, novoKing Enters Beta

novoKing, a new Chinese virtual world in the making for 23 months will enter a private beta this coming September. According to the post at Mobinode, the company was founded by Patrick Zha in Oct 2005, and the world should be open to the public within six months. It looks like it's more in tune with vSide or There than Second Life and HiPiHi. Most of the content and entertainment will be provided by the company, allowing users to simply interact and engage with the existing entertainment. It says its target user group is 16-35 with a focus on women, but worlds without user-created content tend to skewer younger than that range. The site's a bit of a mess, but it should be interesting to follow.  [via Mobinode]

Update: Apparently there will be user-created content with support for programs like Photoshop, 3DMax, and Maya.  Users can that work with script to add animation and interactivity. Novoking will simply provide a fully built world to begin with, allowing users to go to the existing night club wearing a shirt that they designed. [via China Web 2.0 Review]

Comments

[Big A]

I have been using http://www.citypixel.com lately for my Virtual World fix but this new site, novoKing looks pretty cool too. I just might check it out!

[SuezanneC Baskerville (SuezanneCB)]

This looks promising. I'd like to give it a try. The Chinese registration page, run through the Google translation function, is still a bit confusing to me. Anyone bilingual in Chinese and English willing to help out?

The registration page is at http://www.novoking.com/DemoUserInfoReg.asp

[SuezanneC Baskeville]

I did make it in to Novoking since that last comment.

Now what I'd like to know is what I have to do to "level up" in order to be able to fly.

(Note to virtual world makers: don't make it where people can't fly when the enter a virtual world.)