Raph Koster's Areae finally pulls back the wraps

For what has seemed like nearly an eternity, online game god Raph Koster has been mum about Areae, the company he formed after leaving his previous job as chief creative officer at EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies publisher, Sony Online Entertainment.

At conference after conference, Koster has spoken, representing Areae, but really never revealing even the slimmest of morsels, beyond an initial statement that the company was gong to "reinvent virtual worlds," about what the San Diego startup was up to.

On Tuesday, however, that finally changed when Areae unveiled some details about its product, Metaplace, at the TechCrunch 40 conference in San Francisco.

For those of us that weren't able to attend, we were left to sitting in front of a computer, hitting refresh on a browser, waiting for the Metaplace Web site to be updated to reflect the product's details.

In my case, that also meant IMing with my colleague, Rafe Needleman, who is at the conference, and who is sending me details as they emerge.

"We are re-inventing virtual worlds that stop working like AOL," Koster said, "and start working the way the Web does....You can build a massive multiplayer game in minutes there are style sheets to make building easier.

Koster said that Metaplace would allow users to employ Web 2.0 tools like tags, wikis and forums in the pursuit of quickly and easily making usable, fun virtual worlds.

"Virtual worlds have enormous potential," Koster said, "but they are obsolete, built on 20-year-old technology. We don't know what you'll do with [this], but that's the power of this new medium and that's why we're so excited."

And then he walked off the stage.

So, what we know is that Metaplace is likely some sort of virtual world construction set, that will allow people to build online games "from Tetris up to role-playing games," though without Koster telling us exactly what it is, we're still only guessing.

If that's what it is, it's not the first to come along. The Multiverse Network has already staked out a pretty impressive position in that field.

But with Koster behind the wheel, Areae is certainly going to have to be taken seriously.

On its Web site, which is now live, it says, "Build a virtual apartment and put it on your website. Work with friends to make a huge MMORPG. Share your puzzle game with friends. We have a vision: to let you build anything, and play everything, from anywhere. Eventually, anyway. We have to finish first."

It also says, "Metaplace is a next-generation virtual worlds platform designed to work the way the Web does. Instead of giant custom clients and huge downloads, Metaplace lets you play the same game on any platform that reads our open client standard. We supply a suite of tools so you can make worlds, and we host servers for you so that anyone can connect and play. And the client could be anywhere on the Web."

Now if only they would tell us what's really going on.

[Cameron Siguenza]

Reality Check

Ralph did not do so well in SWG...The game's design was completely revamped. He is a visionary which can be a curse or blessing when trying to understand the user experience.

Areae sounds like an interesting idea and I hope its better than Second life. Ever wonder why there are so many articles fawning about Second Life that never show more than closeups of character shots? Hint: Second Life is not a great looking game. I still have yet to meet any gamers who use second life.

[Len Bullard]

Middle Tier Tools, Yes. Standard? No.

This part tells the tale: "any platform that reads our open client standard".

Koster is quoted everywhere for dissing all existing standard formats for 3D on the Web while promising he will write the next one. He might publish an open specification for his technology and it might succeed in taking x percentage of the market mindshare, but it won't be a standard by any loose definition of the word. It will be yet another specification for which one will have to hire attorneys to look at the intellectual property clauses to ensure it is what he says it is.

Is the concept of world building toolkits the Next Big Thing? In the same was MS Visual Studio is the first big thing and DotNetNuke is there for the non-programmers, yes it is. Virtual worlds are hard to build when one has programming chops and some graphics design chops, and reducing the labor costs or opening it to the amateurs the way VRML tried to do is a good idea. Will it work?

Not very well.

It doesn't matter 'how the web works'. It matters that deftness of design is in the details and the details are always handcraft. As long as DotNetNuke has a ready supply of professionally cheap components that can be dragged and dropped on the design space, it creates professional looking performant portals. For most businesses, that is what they need. The question is, is this really what games or virtual worlds need?

Some do and they are mostly as with the DNN apps, the business worlds. Koster needs IBM's attention. But for entertainment applications, it may not be the best approach. Koster knows this: performance and innovation in games are still down at the metal. He is reaching for the middle tier. There is plenty of room there so much success is hoped for.

But standards? Pay attention here: standards are not simply specifications for technology. They are an intersection of specification, implementation, editing/review processes and the participation agreements among all parties submitting and commenting. This is NOT something one company or one visionary provides.

Caveat emptor.