I just had few hours with Onverse. I was reminded how fun it is to check new worlds, compare and explore, and just have fun.
Here’s what I did and what I think about it (compared to Second Life, and IMVU).
- Getting in — was very easy. Go to the website, select a name, select mini avatar… then loading…
loading took a while (like in both SL and IMVU). I read emails… - Going in — after the program had started I was directed to help the land. Very good and simple design. You walk on “?” on the ground and each reveals more and more instructions — after 10 min I was able to learn it all.
- Into my own home — as with IMVU, and now with SL you can get your own home. I selected an apartment and was able to furnish it with one Sofa. easy.
- Money — like IMVU (unlike SL) there are 2 types of coins. Free and Cash. So there are ways to buy virtual goods.
- People — I did see some of them. Hard a bit to find where they are…
- Web/World integration. Most things are done in the local 3D Onverse Application. But all profile, searches etc. are done on the web. IMVU is moving away from that and putting more into their client. SL is still unclear about their path.. although it seems more webness is wanted.
- Speed & quality — I took the default setting and all worked quite well. Unlike current SL2 I did not see any ghosts. All loaded into the scene with no problems. Speed in worlds was also fine.
- Chat window — there is still much to do there.
- Music — nice 3D sound. No apparent user created content. No scripting.
- Bottom line: interesting between IMVU and SL. (I’m not sure what is their status in terms of the economy) I see some lower traffic in the forum so we have to make sure they survive (and not go and visit metaplace, and there, rip).
