Squidly, check out Second Life.

[Widowmaker]

I've been readin up on it on the WWIIOL board, it's beta right now but seems to have few restrictions for testers. You create an online avitar, build houses and such but can also have weapons of some kind. Not sure how it works but the WWIIOL guys had a house going and dressed themselves up in fatigues. The neighbors got mad because they had a sort of The Sims neighborhood going where they would just meet and chat. The WWIIOL guys started shooting, they attacked back, etc...

They say it is The Sims with guns.

Made me think of you just becaue you expressed an interest in having a virtual avatar type game. This game may be worth a look to you.

http://secondlife.com/

[[AK]Squidly]

Looks pretty cool...

There's also "there."

[[AK]The Beast]

I checked out Second Life, and was all set to sign up...and they want my credit card info for a free beta? No thanks--reminds me of the so-called free AOL trial I tried back 7 or 8 years ago--when you don't call them to cancel, they automatically charge you as though you asked to keep and pay for your subscription.

I saw "There" on TechTV--I might give that one a look tomorrow.

[Widowmaker]

There looks better to me that Second Life.

[[AK]StitchJones]

Leo from the screen savers is really a big "There" person. He has mentioned it several times over the past six months on the show. It does look pretty neat. But I don't really see a desire to play a game that is sort of based on something real allready. I need a escape, not a branch. :-)

[[AK]Squidly]

It would really be cool if they started to merge the "virtual" with reality. I'm talking about the ability to take your avatar into a store and shop for goods in the real world...sort of a 3d virtual Amazon.com.

The possibilities are endless. Make the thing free (or very cheap - 4.99 a month) and have the vendors subsidize the rest with a percentage of their sales.

Then of course they need a *real* adult district where you can get your naughty on...lol.

Oh yeah.

[[AK]StitchJones]

I think your on to something Squidly. Now you just need to copyright what you just said and start pitching it to game developers and e-commerce sites.

[[AK]Squidly]

Way back in the day (Quake 1) I sent an email to Carmack at id Software,
where I laid out such a scheme. Never got a response, but interestingly in a recent interview with him in Wired magazine, he says that the sort of virtual world I've described is a "dream of his" and that he plans to work on it after they finish Doom III. Something like 5-6 years have elapsed...think he got the idea from my email?

Wewp.