f13.net

Article (http://www.betanews.com/article/MTV_Beta_Testing_Virtual_Laguna_Beach/1158787574)

Home page (http://www.vlb.mtv.com/)

Talk about raping my home town. Oh my god. Please save us!!!

>There.com
Did this stop sucking ass while I looking away?

Raph was right.

LF7M 4 LBHS (Laguna Beach High School) 25man, full on skimboarders.

My coworker just downloaded the beta and installed it. It is a pretty good map of Laguna, but the graphics and interface are horrible. Also, this is just what we talked about. In your character profile you can upload images and such. You can also by Laguna Dollars with real money to buy cloths and cars and stuff in the game.

I dont think this will take off cause the interface is so horrible. And why did they have to make it Laguna Beach. *Sigh*

No.

I wonder if they're going to include the Grind in it too. Har.

Signed up.

DID YOU SEE ALL OF THAT LICENSED CLOTHING? HOT.

Is this one of those flash/java games? Maybe 500 polygons per char, and textures made in ms paint.

500 polygons? This isn't WoW.

This is kind of interesting, using There.com and not SL. SL is more popular, isn't it? So why not use it? Weird.

There is actively selling their technology and as far as I know SL is not. I know people who've bought There licenses and don't even use them.

how much for a thong or a codpiece?

That post made my head hurt trying to read it. 

Who's on first, indeed.

Then I wonder if MTV paid anything for There.  Maybe There is hoping MTV will fix their buggy code and gave it to them for free. Plus the free advertising, free maybe not such a bad deal for for There.

I'm sure the There.com stuff can be bought for a pack of neco wafers, while SL is actually popular and making money.

You would rather it be one of our hometowns?  Hate to say it but this is what happens when you live somewhere popular.  I wouldn't want to play Virtual Atlanta, or Virtual Hiram.

On a semi-related note, I saw on the Discovery Science Channel that someone or other are making a 'virtual world' of historically acurate ancient Rome.  You can even set the period you want to see, then wander around Rome looking at it.   I don't think they are adding NPCs or PCs, but I don't know, they only showed a camera view moving around inside of buildings.

It does happen from time to time. Even a broken clock, as they say.

I love the culture clash element, though. Highly amusing.

I'll sign up if you promise to PL me.

heello  i  am  a player  of  MTV  lagunabeech    online
u   need PL??? pm   me ID   verry vheap   OK

++24/7 deliver  laguna  dolar

Betcha this ends up with more forty-year old perverts than sixteen-year old girls in terms of regular users.

betcha you're right and betcha they don't care

Didn't There.com stop the development of their crap long time ago? Or did the rise of SL reverse that decision?

If so, they probably stopped development because they figured they get could more money selling it to some sucker company who wanted to tap into the MySpace angsty teen demo.

Hey that angsty teen demo drops some phawt lewts man, dont knock em...lol

Thong thong tha thong thong thong.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the story:

There.com split into two entities, one that dealt solely with military contracts and the like, and the other that kept There.com the consumer service alive -- at the time, it was doing poorly. The original founder, Will Harvey, left a bit before this split.

As I understand it, the military contractor one has had, for some time now, a project to build a scale model of all of Afghanistan or something, for training purposes. After all, the platform has solid simulated physics, sophisticated AI (not used much except for the pet dogs), a true spherical world model capable of doing the actual whole world, and so on. It's not a bad platform by any means.

The consumer service clicked at some point with teens, and its audience shifted dramatically. It's regained popularity, and now it's the one doing VLB with MTV.

Meanwhile, Will Harvey quietly launched something else, called IMVU, which is a rather popular form of avatar chat.

That's quite an expensive 3D chat.

they'll recoup in thongs and bling

(http://www.chesapeake.net/patpress/patpress%20images/sisqo.gif)

Holy shit, they even want people to pay 20 real bucks for the priviledge to test stuff 20 seconds long before paying for it. Well, I guess there are enough retarded people that'll pay this. Nice business model.

Actually, this doesn't seem so stupid. Social space tied to a popular TV show whose demographic is into... well, socializing. It's not for us, but there's a market there.

I think WuA is right, though. Since they're obviously pitching to teen girls, the biggest challenge for them will be keeping the pervs out.

There, fixed that for you. A perv's money is as good as the tweeners, just bad for PR.