Party in the Shade

// October 4th, 2009 // Events

Around 15 People at the Beginning

The meet and greet party in Shade City was a relative success, with a lot of people and a lot of talking going on. Most of the conversation was light at first, though it did get quite technical when more people showed up and things started to slow down. Lag was expected, and considering the amount of people and level of detail, we were thoroughly impressed. If something like this were to happen in Second Life, (which we are familiar with) the whole place would be more like a slideshow. We weren’t able to test frame rate ourselves, but even when there were over forty people things were still relatively smooth, whereas on this same computer Second Life slows to a crawl if there are just ten people in as small an area where there were over forty in Blue Mars.

Around 40 People and still Ticking!

Also, the level of detail of the build would need to be done mostly out of sculpted prims in Second Life, which further enhance lag usually and make things more difficult.

One thing that was a major issue, (and it’s already been noted by many people) is the chat bubbles. The chat bubbles are pretty much useless when there are this many people about, and they only add to confusion and clutter.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of having the chat bubbles everywhere is when they obscure the chat window, which is an easier way to keep track of what people are saying.