Raph's Happy Metaplace

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Raph\'s Happy Metaplace

It's something of a tradition here at F13 for us to sit down with Raph Koster of Areae.net at least once a year and accost him with all manner of exotically-themed questions. This year is no different; while we weren't able to meet up at the recent Austin Game Developers Conference, we did manage to get a few minutes of Raph's time before he jetted off to London.

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[schild]

Also, from the tail end:

Also, information about a key giveaway is available in our Metaplace forum, information will go live at 10AM EST.

-
There will be a thread there at 10AM EST sharp with information on getting in. There will be 50 keys available. So if you're interested, f5 at 10AM EST.

[schild]

Details available here: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=14861.0

[Cyrrex]

A bot, responding to a post made by a bot.  The rest of us are officially no longer needed here.

[Raph]

It was odd to see this pop up as new.

[Trippy]

Cyrrex replied to a spammer whose posts were deleted but Cyrrex's post still bumped the thread.

[Signe]

We really have to do something about Cyrrex.  He's a trouble maker.   

[Cyrrex]

Meanies. 

[Pennilenko]

What ever happened to metaplace?

[Ironwood]

Stolen and shipped to Romania, where it was stripped down for spare parts for elder hairdressers.

[Raph]

Let's see, what happened to Metaplace. :)

- we made truly amazing groundbreaking technology
- we didn't raise enough on our second round to have insulation when the crash happened.
- we ended up choosing "tool for everyone" over "tool for devs" which was a mistake in hindsight (though we may not have gotten funded the other way)
- we kept trying to get revenue from end-user-built virtual worlds but only succeeded in attracting a lot of kids, who didn't pay
- we never made enough content internally, because of internal conflicts
- we ended up having to switch over to making Facebook games with the tech

...whereupon we put out three FB games in about four months, astonishing the larger players with the caliber of visuals and speed of development. There was immediately a bidding war to buy us, and we ended up selling to Playdom/Disney.

Today Metaplace is the backend for Club Penguin, and the reason why it's doing so well on mobile.

[Rasix]

So, your Porsche got that performance upgrade after all. 

[Raph]

I drive a Camry instead of a Saturn, how's that?

But more seriously, I did make out dramatically better out of it than I did from UO and SWG combined. Which is a sad commentary on how the world works, I suppose.

[Paelos]

I drive a Camry instead of a Saturn, how's that?

But more seriously, I did make out dramatically better out of it than I did from UO and SWG combined. Which is a sad commentary on how the world works, I suppose.

Sad I suppose in a way, but success is success. I think you put that one in the W column and count it.

[Raph]

Oh, I do, mostly. I also get told pretty regularly these days that it was ahead of its time, so who knows.

[Ironwood]

I drive a Camry instead of a Saturn, how's that?

But more seriously, I did make out dramatically better out of it than I did from UO and SWG combined. Which is a sad commentary on how the world works, I suppose.

I don't even understand why you're sad.

[Pennilenko]

He is sad because it was supposed to make him Scrooge McDuck money.

[UnSub]

I drive a Camry instead of a Saturn, how's that?

But more seriously, I did make out dramatically better out of it than I did from UO and SWG combined. Which is a sad commentary on how the world works, I suppose.

I don't even understand why you're sad.

Because some people still have dreams of touching peoples' hearts over cold hard cash, Ironwood.

On the other hand, better it turned out with some kind of success than none at all, which is where I thought Metaplace had ended up.

[Ironwood]

Er, as far as I can tell, he did.  While also making cash.

I mean, Club Penguin dude.  That's not just a hobby for animal cruelty people.

[Raph]

The part I was referencing as a sad commentary is "you can make more money from a failure than from a massive success and a moderate success combined."

It was sad-making in non-commentary ways. The community at Metaplace was GREAT, really. They bought into the dream and we let them down.

The technology, even though it is being used for something very cool, is still vastly underutilized; I mean, I've said this before, but we basically built an OS for the Matrix or Ready Player One. It's really, really powerful. But there aren't even very many people even working on it today who get how powerful it is (mostly leftover folks from the old days).

It was also literally a decade-long dream in the making, so to stumble on execution -- in large part because of management fails on my part -- is painful.

[schild]

Making more money from failure is precisely what the vast majority of management and executives in the gaming industry has been doing since the 90s. I don't know why that's a sad  commentary. It's reality.

[ezrast]

When has reality ever not been sad?

[Ironwood]

The part I was referencing as a sad commentary is "you can make more money from a failure than from a massive success and a moderate success combined."

It was sad-making in non-commentary ways. The community at Metaplace was GREAT, really. They bought into the dream and we let them down.

The technology, even though it is being used for something very cool, is still vastly underutilized; I mean, I've said this before, but we basically built an OS for the Matrix or Ready Player One. It's really, really powerful. But there aren't even very many people even working on it today who get how powerful it is (mostly leftover folks from the old days).

It was also literally a decade-long dream in the making, so to stumble on execution -- in large part because of management fails on my part -- is painful.

I think that's a demon in your head talking mate.  You know the one.

[Merusk]

You made a tool rather than an end product. Tools have a longer shelf life than products so it shouldn't be too surprising.  You pay thousands for software up front but it works for years and creates more products than the cost if you're doing it right.



ed: produces products is terrible grammar.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, exactly that.  And not only was it a GOOD tool by all accounts, it's getting USE.

I'd put a wee virtual plaque up to yourself and just move on to the next one.  Let me know if you need help with it.   

[Raph]

I don't need a virtual plaque. I have a real one. 

[HaemishM]

If you're having moral trouble spending the dosh you got from the sale, I have no such moral qualms.

[Ironwood]

I don't need a virtual plaque. I have a real one. 

See ?  All's well.

[Paelos]

Yeah if you get a plaque you definitely put it in the W column.

[Fordel]

To this very day, I still have no fucking idea what Metaplace is/was/supposed to be.

Matrix, Power, Words, Worlds, Penguins, worlds, promise, potential, Worlds. This is what every conversation about whatever this thing is (or was) sounds like to me.

[Cyrrex]

To this very day, I still have no fucking idea what Metaplace is/was/supposed to be.

I am pretty sure it had something to do with the HAM system.

[Raph]

To this very day, I still have no fucking idea what Metaplace is/was/supposed to be.

Matrix, Power, Words, Worlds, Penguins, worlds, promise, potential, Worlds. This is what every conversation about whatever this thing is (or was) sounds like to me.

Metaplace was an architecture for virtual worlds designed to integrate it fully with the web.

- A generic server, so you could make any sort of game on it.
- Open client standards and network protocol, so you could connect on any device.
- All assets of all sorts (art, sounds, maps, even code) fetched via web or streaming, so assets could be anything online
- Full in/out to the web. For example, tie a real world place to a given world. Or have a world feed data to gradekeeping systems. Etc.
- Interoperable, so you could move stuff from world to world.
- Metadata on all of it so that it was searchable, rateable, etc.

Now, WITH that we built a product that was more or less "a network of worlds built by whoever wanted to sign up."

[KallDrexx]

That really doesn't make it any clearer, and as a software developer myself that sounds like you spent a ton of money and time to reinvent the web.....

[Raph]

The web (more specifically, the typical servers used, and for that matter, the horrendous technical nightmare that is everything within a browser) are neither designed for game or virtual spaces, nor very good at delivering them. For example, web servers aren't stateful. Back when MP was created (2006), there weren't WebSockets, not that they work all that well today still. Web rendering is still a complete mess. Even JSON is still too heavy for real-time protocols. And so on.

It was very directly MODELED on the web, though.

Which is not to say I would do it all the same way today...

Um, how's "a generic engine for online games that could handle anything from single player games like Tetris up through an MMORPG, and even link them all together" sound as a shorter description?

[Fordel]

Why would I want to link my Tetris with my MMORPG?