The Grid Safari group, which travels virtual worlds and other networked virtual environments got the Kaneva grand tour this week, courtesy of the new community director, Corelli. We learn't alot about the upcoming 2D/3D social world and came away thoroughly impressed with what we saw.
Here are a few of the takeaways from that visit:
1. Kaneva is Hot
Not only is Kaneva a lot more interesting than I had imagined, or indeed experienced in my previous brief visits, but the creativity and community building going on inworld is just far more advanced than you may think. Kaneva isn't Second Life, but it doesn't have to be either, it's a whole new world, literally.
2. Over 500,000 Registered Users
Though most of them are not active in the 3D world of course, Kaneva have still managed to rack up 500,000 registered users in the 6mts or so that they've been in beta.
3. Peak Concurrency is Over 500 Users
You can generally find a bunch of people in Kaneva at any time of the day, hanging out at the mall, or in one of the many clubs and hangouts available via the 'go places' menu. At peaks times, Kaneva has a peak concurrency of over 500.
4. 12,000 Communities
Members can create a community on the 2D side of the site, which gives them a standard 'hangout' consisting of a couple of long corridors and an L shaped room with a half moon conference table. Most residents purchase building blocks using their Kaneva credits and cover up the table to form a dance floor, then embed video's in the walls along with their own textures to form a dance club. There is currently a limit of 50 avatars in a hangout.
5. Creativity Thrives Despite Limited Tools
There are no inworld modeling tools, you can't even make objects outside of Kaneva and import them. This hasn't stopped residents creating fantastic spaces inworld, such as the pizza hangout you see in the picture above, and a complete recreation of the I Love Lucy set in black and white though. Content creation tools are in the works, and the idea will be to let members showcase their creations inworld at their own businesses and handle the transaction side of the process on the 2D site.
6. Two Types of Money
Awards and credits are the currency types in Kanava. Awards you get for things like participating in stress tests, credits are purchased with real money and used to buy clothes, building blocks and other simple products. With the addition of the creative features mentioned above, Kaneva hope to build upon the fledgling economy, which constitutes a major part of the business model.
7. You Can't Sit Down!
That's right. Standing room only. The ability to do simple things like sit on a chair are coming, and more complex features such as voice integration or on the horizon, though no time frame is being given. An hour in Kaneva will reveal other missing features, such as the ability to manipulate camera position and zoom, but it seems like development of the platform is moving along at a good clip. In fact, we lost a few of our tour group due to an unexpected 177mb patch needing to be installed before we could meet inworld.
For right now, Kaneva is limited, as I've mentioned above. If you're looking for what may be the next big virtual world though, I'd say it's a serious contender. It's easier than Second Life, but less game like than Entropia Universe for example, and though the client only runs on windows, being .NET based, what I saw impressed me, and has made me want to set up a Metaversed hangout permenantly in this young world. My advice for those interested in virtual environments is to give Kanava a serious look, I think you'll find it worth the minimal effort required to learn the interface.
I learned the interface, and found Kaneva basically full of folks who might be labeled "blingtards" on SL.
The graphics are crude, the authoring tools are minimal, the avatar customization is pathetic, and if you *don't* have a sales person giving you a guided tour, finding anywhere interesting can be a challenge.
The model is that you pay for credits -- you need credits to buy anything -- clothes, furniture, media toys, posters,... As far as I could tell, it was like going back to There in beta, but with fewer fun things to do, and less creative stuff to buy and customize.
It's pretty much a minimum of $45 to get decently started. It really feels, much more than SL or Entropia, like a vacuum waiting for cookie cutter consumers. Which is why I am in SL and not There, personally -- I am more interested in collaboration and creation and social networking than taking some cute avatar in my spendy dune buggy (a scenario from There that I don't think Kaneva has achieved yet -- is there *any* outdoor space in the world? I didn't find it in the couple days I explored).
Needless to say, I was hardly sold. I think you'd have a problem running the geek meets there, or finding Things To Do for more than a month.
Then again, it is beta.
I got no further than the tech pages.... kaneva is PC-only! Not even any mention I could find of when they plan to port to Macs. Guess they're not aware of the dominance of Macs amongst creative sorts...
Trying Kaneva on my own was disappointing, so it turned me off even trying with a group. Hey I've got problems walking next to someone in Second Life, not to mention a new place.
But sharing the experience, the tricks and tips, is what this new explorers group, Grid Safari, is set up to do. So if there ever were a reason to visit Kaneva, or other parts of the Metaverse, I'd rather be led by Nick and the other more tech-savvy folks than walk into new walls without learning something.
Thanks Nick and other explorers for sharing your experiences. For now I'm up to my armpits in other things, but I'm paying close attention.
Tynan Clary pretends to be Susan Reynolds in real life and blogs at http://www.artsyasylum.com
First… great article, thanks for taking the time to visit Kaneva and write your impressions. A few things I'd like to point out though:
Sitting and lying down are actually going in world in 2 weeks! We're also working on a pretty big client update that includes camera control and zooming, in addition to a bunch of other things. It's in the final phases of internal testing and it should be live within a month. In addition, we just released a huge open outdoor space area for players to build anything they want on. It’s a lot more flexible than the current hangout space and we're already seeing some amazing creativity from our players in those spaces!
The vast majority of items can be bought with rewards (money you start with when you create your avatar and that we give away for free for participating in events). Certainly there are premium items that you buy using credits, but you'll always be able to buy items with rewards and we'll continually update the game with both premium items and items that can be purchased with rewards.
And of course, remember it is Beta. We have a TON of new features and upgrades in the works.
Thanks again for taking the time to write this and I’m happy to answer any questions people may have.
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Producer, World of Kaneva
Well...
Think I agree with shava lots here. I probably should have read the punchline on the first page before downloading and trying it out. But, hey that is like reading the TOS. You want to try it out, then decide if you stay.
What it said on that page was: ...modern-day 3D world...
Right. I know it is beta, but.. it really, really lacked diversity. I felt like stuck in a blingtard mall on an island without any possibility of tping out. Diversity? None. I mean real diversity, like the one you find in SL. And the creative freedom, and the openess to create and participate in networks, not just get "raved" a la Myspace friend additions. (BTW, what is it with those people who doesn't even bother to read your profile before they want to get you in to their humongous collection of friends).
Ok, I'm into steampunk.. and pirates.. and European university.. and virtual sailing.. and classical literature.. and building.. and scripting.. and.. and...
I do have jeans in my SL wardrobe. But I have 200 other outfits, to dress according to mood.
That's why I'm heading back to Caledon. Thanks for letting me visit, though and keep up the work. I am sure others will find it calmlingly normal and not a creative anarchy.
I decided to try it again based on the possible presence of an outdoor build area, and it's taking 20 minutes to download.
I suppose I am spoiled by Second Life's and Hipihi's short launch time, but 20 minuts to start the game means that impulse use is not going to being happening.
I suppose the solution to this is to implement streaming, background updating, and or universal fiber optic to the desktop.
Of those three choices I vote for universal fiber optic to the desktop.
Say, maybe some readers would like to join the facebook Kaneva group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17587657728 .
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Suzanne, the long waiting time you experienced is a first time download, of course. And as Kaneva puts a lot more textures and stuff into the client this is a rather huge download. But thats not different from other offerings on the market these days. Some of the new Multiverse worlds send you 200 - 300 Megabyte on the first download. Subsequent updates are much quicker, of course, as Kaneva (and Multiverse) are able to do incremental updates.
What I found disappointing with Kaneva was the relatively low visual quality (you can do much better with current soft- and hardware) and the very "limited-ness" of the world and the things you can do there. On the other hand ... it all depends on what you want or expect. If everything you want a 3D space for, is a place to hangout with a few other people, Kaneva is an elegant and easy to learn solution. And, when we look around in the other social worlds like SL or There, that's what the majority of people is interested in. Still I think, that even for this purpose Keneva would profit from more options for user-generated content
With a peak concurrency of 500 with 500,000 registered users I would not call it a roaring success, though. (Small reminder: a lot of people from the trade press considered a peak concurrency of 40,000 with 5 Million registered users incredibly lame with Second Life.) But it is certainly an interesting platform for a more casual use of 3D space.
Interesting mix of opinions.
What I took away from Kaneva was what this could be, not what it is right now. I saw a potentially bright, creative future and a really interesting startup world..
Yes, there are currently limits on the activities of Kaneva. However, with the provision that those are things to be added between beta and post-beta, I would EASILY choose Kaneva over Second Life. I actually joined Second Life 4 days prior to Kaneva. It was nothing more to me than an excuse for designers to get together and do what they do at work. -Sorry but that is not "fun". To join a virtual world for the opportunity to hear, discuss, and be surrounded with scripting, who's scripting, how they are scripting.....that is not fun lol. Its no more fun than if I had to follow you through your work day and sit through you reading the life-draining report your boss shoved down your throat.
Yeah, I'd MUCH rather run around in my dune buggy. -To refer to a comment earlier made.
These ARE games. They are intended to be recreative. Not learning experiences. Not cerebral outlets. Not even income opportunities. And for my .02 people who need to use it as such are either a) desperate and unable to accomplish whatever it is they are after OFFLINE or b) are dry, vapid, drones, Yes, there are currently limits on the activities of Kaneva. However, with the provision that those are things to be added between beta and post-beta, I would EASILY choose Kaneva over Second Life. I actually joined Second Life 4 days prior to Kaneva. It was nothing more to me than an excuse for designers to get together and do what they do at work. -Sorry but that is not "fun". To join a virtual world for the opportunity to hear, discuss, and be surrounded with scripting, who's scripting, how they are scripting.....that is not fun lol.
Yeah, I'd MUCH rather run around in my dune buggy. -To refer to a comment earlier made. THAT'S the real goal of virtual living isn't it? To be able to live dreams? And if I need a bachelors in information systems and scripting in order to do that then how accessible is it then to the bulk of the populus?
These ARE games. They are intended to be recreative. Not learning experiences. Not cerebral outlets. Not even income opportunities. And for my .02 people who need to use it as such are either a) desperate and unable to accomplish whatever it is they are after OFFLINE or b) are dry, vapid, drones who wouldn't know honest to god fun if it rolled over them :)
i have been on kaneva for 1 month and KANEVA RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yall may be dissapointed in kaneva but now u can sit down and lay down to! its so cool
Hello all! Nice to see people getting active outside Kaneva. I used Kaneva for 3 days now, I met quite a few people, I got reported a few times (but there you go) and got raved a few more ;-)
The problem with this thing is that the developers should seriously think, developing more human expressions on Kaneva. After you meet a person and you want to express yourself there are not so many options. What the use of dancing 30 minutes with a girl (sexy dancing) or even taking her to your flat and not being able to have sex with her! No seriously, I know you all laughing and probably say that there are teens inside the world but so what? You are a pervert if you are 50 and you flirt with a 14 years old girl anyway, so if people do that why not having the sex option as well? Call it a sex education for teens and a normal activity for adults..... Personaly I prefer to see my avatar having a good time with a lady than just jump around like mad everytime!