Does Anyone Like the Metaverse? 

Thanks Jack - great idea! I will look at making that a video. If anyone has any suggestions of their own, please add them to this thread.

I think the first clip captures that concern really well.

Meta banned minors just last month if my sources are correct

Also the fact that it’s a complete waste of time is keeping adults out.

They should just send all the kids off their own servers to annoy each other while the verified adults could be left in peace. But i think banning them is easier from a legal point of view. If a kid gets in then blame the parents. But to many parents the Quest is no different than a nintendo or mobile phone, and they're going to let the kids have a go regardless. One obvious filter would be a spoken captcha. AI should be able to roughly estimate the age based on voice alone.

How does this work guys? Are parents letting their kids on verified accounts that are 18+? Bc then they risk to get banned no? I think kids should definitely be allowed but we really need places where they aren't allowed as well.

Exactly. People are judging it on how it is now, which is ridiculous.. it’s a working progress..

I look forward to seeing what 2023 holds!

Yes! I think people judged it as a finished product on release

This is a great comment. Thank you for sharing your experience. How do you define "the metaverse" and which platforms have you been using?

​@@jbradley Thanks. I'm pretty passionate about the subject. (Which is probably why this reply got so long... Please excuse. ^ ^; ) The reason I prefer to put metaverse in quotation marks is down to how loose and variable the definition always is. The problem with it, is that it's a lot like the promise of a flying car. It's something that is easy to imagine, but difficult to nail down the details on. It feels like we're almost there in terms of technological capability, but the reality is a lot more complex than people realise. And it's something that gets endless hype as being poised to both change the world, and make it's investors crazy rich, but in practice, is failing to genuinely materialise. I'd probably try to define it as the end goal for the increasing interconnection between our physical and digital lives, where highly immersive VR/AR technologies will allow us to blur the difference and remove much of the divide between interacting with one or the other. Something that will make the idea of needing to fly across the world just to interact in a human manner, feel outdated and inefficient. I generally don't believe it's something that any one company can just make or control. It's more a gradual shift in lifestyles that will come from a variety of new developments. Despite the branding attempts from Meta, I wouldn't say it exists yet, and is generally just being exploited as a buzzword by many different parties. Outside of talking about Horizon Worlds, which has kind of forced the name upon itself, I normally prefer to stick to real terms such as "Social VR". Social VR is easy to define and understand, exists right now and is used by millions. There's no ambiguity or hypothetical future talk, just real people having profound new experiences that they can't have anywhere else. It's probably the biggest leap we've made to reaching "the metaverse", but not there yet. As for which platforms I've used, I have tried in this order... RecRoom, VRChat, Neos, Chillout VR, and Horizon Worlds. Of those however, 99% of my time was spent in VRChat. The rest have just been a series of visits to try and keep a perspective of what else is going on in VR. It's clearly a biased sample, but not because I've refused to try alternatives. I suppose I'll try to sum up my thoughts on each. *RecRoom* was the first VR app I ever tried, and is a fun, accessible and polished platform, but not really what I'm looking for. Features decent tools for world builders, but avatar freedom is limited, and very locked down in terms of ability to animate, data input/output, or use custom assets. I could recommend it for new comers to VR, or as the relatively safest option for younger users. (Although social VR is always a gamble regarding that) *Neos* would probably be my second choice, but takes a certain degree of time invested to properly learn. It's also somewhat clunky/rough around the edges in general. It's theoretically one of the most technically capable platforms out there, if you can code. It's creative tools are extensive, allowing you almost full access to it's game engines capabilities entirely whilst still in app, in VR. The catch is that this is the only way you can build content for it. Beyond importing assets, there's no ability to externally develop and upload content whatsoever, which is a major limitation. It also made the mistake of getting involved with Crypto, which resulted in a scandal where a lead team member effectively stole the entire platforms funding, putting it on life support with the rest of the devs working unpaid for months to try and keep it alive. Hopefully it will survive. *ChilloutVR* is a tiny but overall capable platform, that has most of the features and overall design elements that I value, but this is only because it's effectively a dirrect clone of VRChat, made by ex VRChat users. Given that it's dev team was only three people up until summer, it's still impressive what they've been able to pull off, but ultimately it's always been several steps behind VRChat, spare for a few very minor differences. The biggest difference CVR offers compared to VRChat, is that it openly allows modding of the client application itself, which allows for more potential user freedom in customising how they use the platform, but at the significant expense of security, stability, and the potential for dangerous malicious mods. It unfortunately also tends to have a more toxic userbase, due to the steady flow of users who get banned from VRChat, but aren't patient enough to handle Neos. *VRChat* . I'm not sure what to say now. My decision to get into VRChat basically ended a 10 year long depression. It's been my home ever since, and where the majority of my social life takes place. It's the weird unspoken giant among all the "metaverse" conversation. By user hours it's the most used VR app currently on the market, and yet seemingly ignored by the wider world. It's key attractions for me, are the freedom it offers to create and express yourself, as well as features such as full body tracking, or eye and facial tracking, that allow you to fully immerse and interact with other people the same way you would in person. An avatar can be literally anything you can upload, and worlds can be as simple or as complex as the creator has the skills for, from simple hang out spaces to full games (basically anything that can be built in Unity). I know a lot of people are put off by the cartoony outward appearance, and probably more by the typical new user experience seeing the chaotic nature of public instances. But once past that exterior it's full of vibrant and organised communities, doing things that just aren't happening elsewhere. As for *Horizon Worlds*, I already said my piece on it in my initial comment, but the reason I can't consider using it beyond brief visits for curiosity sake, is generally easier to cover a few example things it doesn't offer, than what it does. In VRChat my avatar is a cyclops with one large eye. HW simply doesn't allow even simple freedoms of avatar like that (and far more unique avatars than that exist. Extra limbs, non-human shape, complex special features etc). HW despite it's marketing, doesn't allow fullbody tracking, or even IK animated legs yet. It doesn't allow custom shaders, it doesn't allow custom animators, it doesn't allow true custom scripting in worlds. It doesn't allow import of almost any custom assets, period. Ironically, despite Meta creating the hardware and finger tracking technology, HW doesn't yet support it, whilst VRChat does. I had actually always expected Horizon Worlds to quickly surpass VRChat in terms of user count and mainstream appeal, due to the massive public exposure Meta can give it, and things like being able to create a basic human avatar in app for example (something VRC, CVR and NEOs don't offer). That certainly hasn't occurred yet, and I'm starting to wonder if it's simply too locked down to maintain peoples interest. Ahem. Sorry for the wall of text. Thanks for reading my Ted-Talk... ^ ^;

@@UnknownSquid I personally liked your Ted talk! I've been wanting to try all of these and you helped out immensely. I'm currently playing around with altspacevr.

@@UnknownSquid Terrific write up/ summary for someone time constrained like me. Thanks!

How do people earn a living in the Metaverse as you say?

Yes, I will try that next time. Probably about 10/11pm for me

You raise two very valid points. I agree that there needs to be a better solution to A) make spaces that adults feel are for them, and B) protect children. The metaverse also needs really compelling reasons for the average person to get involved. Someone suggested in another comments section that high-profile, exclusive events would help with that.

@@jbradley yes having more events would be good. I think Meta with all its money could do a better job of advertising. I don’t know if this exist but I would love a space where I could move around and see both AI art and human generated Art in high quality. Also I would like to see higher quality models I know bandwidth then becomes an issue. But streaming is very popular on RU-vid and Twitch. Imagine a VR twitch session where you can watch your favourite streamer on a big screen while chatting to others experience fully interactive Game Characters from the game. Have mini games if you want to stop watching the main event. There is a lot of VR potential just needs more compelling content. Then this would hopefully engage more players and allow headsets to become cheaper etc.. Anyway thanks I look forward to more of your content.

But these kids aren't allowed in Horizon right? Like they use their parents accounts that are 18+ or something and they risk being banned if they let their kids use it no?

Hopefully it will get rolled out to more countries soon

Yeah, I had a few hours of footage, but overall there are not as many people as you would hope to see. I do think part of the problem is the time I access it because it's early in the morning for users in the US.

Thanks Jhona. I might take you up on that. How long have you been using Horizon Worlds?

@@jbradley almost a year

Yeah. I doesn't help if we call this the metaverse. This is just multiplayer vr.

This is an interesting point. How would you define "the metaverse"? Or do you think it's a useless term?

@@jbradley Well, at least there should be an interconnected experience between worlds / vr apps. If I meet you in Horizon Worlds and we party up ... If we could then take our avatars and start a Walkabout Minigolf course and then the same for a Demeo adventure and then back to the place we started ...That would be a metaverse. Horizon Worlds is currently just a VR app that is not even available to most VR users.

I admit that it was a bit of a struggle to find people who would share their feelings about the metaverse, but maybe I should have given it more time and shot over several days. I appreciate the support and I'm open to any feedback on how I can provide better videos 🙂

It was informative for people wondering what a general experience is like in Horizon Worlds... you don't even make videos but call this low effort? It did exactly what it set out to do? Its chaotic in HorizonWorlds, and it's not easy to be trying to film it to put together a coherent and concise video. He did well and I am learning a lot from his content.