You have tested Google Earth, Second Life and maybe Metaverse, but you have probably never heard of Geosim Philadelphia.
I’ve tested a bunch of virtual worlds and all are certainly interesting, but Geosim Philly beta, which just launched 2 days ago was the first virtual world that got me engaged.
Geosim created an amazing virtual world (in Philly) that is qualitywise far better than what I’ve ever seen before. The best part is that the virtual world is actually the rendered real world (so far only Philly).
And better: There are no strange islands like in Second Life, no flat cars as you’ve seen in MS Virtual 3D, no black walls and people like you’ve seen in Google Earth.
After having seen the demo and having installed the client I finally see what the power of virtual worlds are. We are just at the beginning of an incredible interesting industry.
Not sure why, but I feel like someone took my Atari (=Second Life) away and hooked me up with a 6 GHz (=Geosim) machine. Whoever counted Virtual Worlds out just doesn’t understand what’s possible with high-def 3-d worlds. Telling your kids that you used a search engine without a graphical interface will probably make you smile the same way that you smiled at your parents, who climbed on the ladder in the university library.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Geosim definitely has more detailed features for its audience complete with seemingly hi-res renders of structures and skins throughout Philly.
However… you knew there would be a however.. do to the nature of the detail and development time it took to launch such a client, Geosim would be faced with a plethora of on and offline problems were they to look to develop more dynamic major cities like New York City or Los Angeles.
Second Life had a choice to make. They opted for a lower res world with more features and possibilities. Its presumably easier to add new features to Second Life within the parameters they’ve set for allowing low res submissions to be added to their world. Geosim’s quality requirements for its virtual world will only slow its growth. They’ve built themselves into a bit of a corner.
Its still really cool and really sick!!
October 1st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Looks like Geo sim didn’t really succeeded so far since you posted this.