Avatar Reality, a relatively new, Honolulu-based developer, will be showing off parts of its massively multiplayer virtual world at the upcoming E for All. Blue Mars will be set on a terraformed Mars, where users can customize their avatars and live out their fantasy/sci-fi lives. One of the things that strikes me as interesting about the world is that it seems like it's targeted at least partly at gamers, but the descriptions fall much more into a social virtual world setting: "stunning graphics, realistic characters and endless social bonding."
The world will be built on CryEngine2--like the planned update for Entropia--and is apparently targeted at the highest end of gaming PCs with quad-core processors and Nvidia GeForce 8800s. Likewise, the world has very much its own theme and basic narrative and there's been no mention of user-generated content. All that makes it sound much more like a
massively multiplayer game than a social sandbox world. And the company advisers certainly have a gaming pedigree: Henk Rogers and Alexy Pajitnov created Tetris, and Minoru Arakawa was the former CEO of Nintendo of America.
But the images provided, which definitely seem to be making the most of the hardware, and the
description
of the world make it seem more like a sci-fi-themed social networking platform. The pictures show opportunities for casual games and virtual shopping, not quests.
In fact, the company has called Blue Mars both a massively multiplayer online game and a massively multiplayer virtual world.
When I covered gaming PCs, there always seemed to be a sort of snobbish attitude from the World of Warcraft players toward Second Life, and that attitude pops up on gaming blogs all over the place. When we spoke with Raph Koster of Areae earlier this month, the subject of "virtual worlds" versus "MMOGs" came up. He argued that they're not that different. It seems like Blue Mars, aiming for a late-2008 beta, could certainly be both.
Hopefully this will be a bridge world that appeals to both gamers and people with Second Lives.
Gamers can't go to war all the time butthey can immerse themselves in graphics ... a lot.
Posted by: mrmr | October 18, 2007 at 04:57 PM
I believe the Entropia CryEngine2 upgrade has already taken effect.
Posted by: SuezanneC Baskerville | October 18, 2007 at 10:36 PM
I'll probably check it out.
BioWare Austin is coming up with an MMO, though, so I can't see this comparing to the amazing quality of BioWare Corp.
Posted by: Zahr Dalsk | February 20, 2008 at 11:47 PM