Let us imagine the "perfect" virtual world.

[Elaini]

Within the 10 years I have been in IMVU I can't really count the times when I have wanted to properly learn coding and learn from their mistakes in features and customer service and create my own virtual 3D world. I would apply the wanted, extended features and fixes from the very start since IMVU just doesn't seem to get to it but keeps hoarding the broken features instead while creating new pointless shinies.

I have already tried to imagine acronyms of my own – the ones that actually mean something of course.

I was thinking of a metaverse which would have several character names under one login name, so login name shouldn't be told to anyone. The login name could be a second password to access all those alts. They would share the inventory, wallet and inbox, though some items would be bound to a character. One character is free, more will cost.

It falls in the line with IMVU and Second Life, with an up to date graphics and engine. It would also have a MMO region that can actually be played like a game, but with a unified leveling and combat system (with PvP). It could also be a way to win free currency. All the rest of the areas would be just for socializing, building homes, recreational areas, clubs, etc.

There wouldn't be secluded public rooms, rather secluded free roaming realms with their own grid systems and communities. Maybe it could be a tree hierarchy. The further you go in a branch the more specific interest that is.

I wouldn't mind enabling walking in the free roaming concept. When in IMVU, do as IMVUers do... but to face the reality, most players usually expect walking in every game with controllable humanoid avatars for it being a basic, natural action. For IMVU, it's just too late to apply it. If there's walking, it should be there from the start.

The groups features would be incorporated into the client, including group chat, forums and calendar with a link and countdown. Some areas would only be accessed by a group. They would have a visible role in the social actions.

ABC music system with various instruments also exists but it's not very widespread within games. It's still very popular where it is and never fails to bring people together (case in point). It allows users to compose, and so it could make a great addition to a virtual catalog. Maybe call it "sheet music". One band member creates or buys it and and he's able to share it with his entire band. I think it would have less copyright issues at least, since all such music would be considered as cover arrangements or originals. There could be competitions and marching bands.

Perhaps the ABC files could have some timed lyrics in the comments, and the singer would be allowed to have the mic.

Sure all of it would be ambitious to say the least, but I know that all of this has sort of been done already. But bringing all this together in one world would be highly addictive. So far I have only played with such an idea.

But bring your ideas of a "perfect" virtual world and see where we can agree. Not that we have to actually do it after brainstorming, but wow, if a new virtual world gem arises from this place, would that be a story!

[SqkyC]

Sounds good to me, when can I sign up?

I like the idea of multiple characters being able to share inventory, with assignments. And to have a separate MMO region for game play as opposed to just socializing or wandering around, shopping and whatnot. I do like places that have a free, private space also as opposed to plonking you down in the middle of everything at log on. I like time to prepare/dress/read stuff without distraction. A free house space is nice too and encourages buying furniture and later a larger space.

It should also have some sort of a backwards compatibility with older systems/machines so us older folks that cannot upgrade their computers to the latest and greatest can still participate - if in limited mode. Some way to set resolution, text size, cpu usage etc. (my graphics card once state of the art is now so old I *must* use open GL with anti-aliasing or text is blurry in certain games)

........

I've thought about some sort of a history game environment too, with historical characters and events based on information found on the web. Sort of like... 'what would so and so say (say... Plato) about... fill in the blank?' and a search engine scours the web as a database on this person (Plato) and formulates an answer in conversational form. Imagine that in an interactive historical setting with all the various surroundings.

You could log in and 'see' various battle scenarios that historians have come up with (as no one is really sure exactly where it was for instance) and decide for yourself what is most plausible.

You could ask questions of long dead historical figures and receive answers in period language, with modern translation.

You could interact with npc's (so and so's extended family/neighbors for instance) and other players in an historical setting and get a sense of what life was really like back then. But that's something different, more like a world history game really. (I'm not sure how to handle the difficult topics though, I suppose there could be a filter setting for the sensitive and the very young - I don't think history should be filtered as facts are important - and some facts of life are just plain shocking. But neither should anyone have to have terrible scenes thrown in their face unexpectedly.)

It would be cool to have it as a publicly available database - worldwide - to get different perspectives on events, though in current situations I doubt that would ever come to pass. It would be one huge database for sure.

At any rate, I love your ideas I'm just throwing some more ideas out here in case someone wants to pick them up and run with them.

[Elaini]

About the MMO areas... I also thought that players could create items there as creators, but to avoid any overpowered weapons and armour, perhaps there could be a coveted "Token of ___ Smithing" or something like that. The creator who loots it could be able to create an item with certain MMO qualities with it, comparable to the creator's own level as an MMO player.

Combining metaverse creating abilities and MMO challenges, now would that be fun!

But then again, there's also the question of minimum age, mature content and age verification.

[SqkyC]

There's an older flash based (dunno if it is still flash based, I imagine not or will be changed over soon) MMO/chat called Smallworlds that allows players to use the in-game bought items and add dialogs to them to create "Quests" for other players to earn game currency.

I thought it's be really cool if Imvu could do something like that with their catalog - make some sort of purchasable, invisible, resizable 'add on dialog boxes' to allow various furniture items to be used in "quests', 'puzzles', 'mysteries' (or whatever). It's need to be in its own separate part of Imvu of course as the base client would freak out with that suddenly dumped on it. (oh...wait.. that's what they like to do, isn't it? lol)

I don't know if that's making any sense so let me break it down:

furniture item + dialog box..... + ..... another furniture item + dialog box

add dialogs (search the couch, find key for instance) + (use key on trunk) = plus points that can be redeemed for predits (or credits or some other reward items as designated by whoever creates the 'quest')

These dialogs would only be visible in the designated server rooms that allow for it.

At this point I wouldn't trust Imvu to come up with something like this that a)works and b)is complete, but it's a thought anyway. Maybe in the perfect fantasy MMO world. Random rare items like 'create tokens' (as you say) would be really cool! (and valuable)

[Nums]

I'm fairly certain a popular MMO (or used to be popular?) currently let's its users become content creators for the game. And that's WarFrame.

So it's not like it hasn't been done before. IMVU could look at some of the ideas from those who have already been down that path.

Although, the idea itself would be quite something else. IMVU would have to come up with a way to let its content creators shape the MMO world, because that's what they seem to want us to do already (in the existing IMVU environment). They tried doing the Unity? thing, and that seemed to flop pretty quickly.

[Elaini]

They tried doing the Unity? thing, and that seemed to flop pretty quickly.

Unity is a 3D engine that also allows 3D content to be ran in the browser with a plugin. It looks like this at best, certainly more what IMVU's own engine is capable of, by a mile. That's real time rendering right there though I suspect it needs a very beefy computer.

The thing is, browser based metaverses don't seem to keep their popularity compared to downloadable apps and clients. Cloud Party (bought by Yahoo and never heard from again) and FriendsHangout (bankrupt) were pretty nice looking as such, both are now gone.

What comes to downloadable clients, Blue Mars was once thought as the "Second Life killer" and it was full of users. But it all came tumbling down when a lot of staff changed along with the CEO... and they stopped updating the PC client, starting to favor the mobile app, instead of that! Reminds of something that's happening in IMVU right now, does it not? And some people think that mobile gaming is dying.

In some way the site and servers seems to be still up and running in Blue Mars, but if you try to login to the web client, it's just dead with crickets and tumbleweed. You hardly see anyone and the shops are mostly empty.

IMVU needs to wisen up and learn from these stories. Or just see where the wind is blowing from. Or someone else will.

So it's not like it hasn't been done before.

Nope. But as far as I know, it has not yet been perfected.

I still think the music system could be a huge pro. It's a creative outlet that a lot of MMOs and metaverses don't have. It's a lot of fun, too, at least if it was made simple.