N
Netsmith
nwn.blogs.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Netsmith (New World Notes) covers virtual worlds, Second Life, VR, the metaverse and online games, with some attention to AI in games.
What HN saysHN links it for news on Meta's metaverse retreat, an MMO's ChatGPT NPC experiment, and Richard Bartle's free book on designing virtual worlds.
34HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
474stories submitted
3.3Kstory points
1 year agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Richard Bartle releases his classic “Designing Virtual Worlds” book for free3 people · 424 points · first shared 2021 · 57 comments on HN
- 2More People Own Items in Second Life Than Own NFTs3 people · 54 points · first shared 2022 · 23 comments on HN
- 3In Biden vs. Trump survey, tech company staff less liberal than often assumed2 people · 12 points · first shared 2020 · 5 comments on HN
- 4Lensa/Stability AI scrape artists' work without consent, including signatures2 people · 8 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 5Meta's new vision of the future doesn't mention “the metaverse” even once2 people · 4 points · first shared 2022 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Core Launches Attack on Roblox's 25/75 Revenue Split for Creators2 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 7Dev connects ChatGPT to NPC chat in Aetolia, a live MMO2 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 8Carmack: Quest2 Price Raised B/C VRChat/RecRoom More Popular Than Quest's Games2 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · 2 comments on HN
- 9Facebook Use Has Been Dropping Since the 2016 Election, According to SimilarWeb1 people · 370 points · first shared 2018 · 188 comments on HN
- 10Facebook monthly visits down 5% in April1 people · 250 points · first shared 2018 · 96 comments on HN
- 11Things We Lost in the Flood: A Massively Multiplayer Loneliness Simulator1 people · 202 points · first shared 2019 · 46 comments on HN
- 12“Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers1 people · 195 points · first shared 2019 · 119 comments on HN
- 13Facebook Blocks Internet Pioneer “R.U. Sirius”1 people · 193 points · first shared 2015 · 169 comments on HN
- 14Real world location virtually recreated to scale in minutes [video]1 people · 106 points · first shared 2019 · 58 comments on HN
- 15Blizzard employees strongly support punishing HK advocate, censorship – survey1 people · 87 points · first shared 2019 · 60 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
echelon · 2025-03-11
HN has outlasted Slashdot by a wide margin at this point.
IIRC, Slashdot stopped being great around the same time as the decline of the Digg era. It started to sink in quality around 2007, which gave it ten years at most of being a central part of the online tech community (1997 - 2007).
I started reading HN in 2008. It's lasted nearly twenty years as an incredible community.
Here are some graphs:
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/01/slashdot-fail.html
SLHamlet · 2023-01-19
Meta tried to co-opt it, but way way more people use the Quest headset to play Rec Room and VRChat than their own metaverse platform Horizon.
Also, Meta seems to have quietly given up on the Metaverse:
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2022/12/meta-reality-labs-metaverse-bosworth…
Cthulhu_ · 2024-02-01
There's a book called Designing Virtual Worlds from 2003 that might be interesting to you; since it's 2003 it predates World of Warcraft and some of the information is dated, but other elements are timeless. It was re-released under a Creative Commons license in 2021: https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2021/08/richard-bartle-designing-virtual-wor…
And another recommendation if you're interested in worldbuilding is the Encyclopedia Eorzea books from the Final Fantasy XIV game, three of them; they contain the full backstories, timelines, summarised in-game stories, locations, characters, races, etc etc etc. However, it's written "in-universe", not so much from a developer's point of view.
That said, you didn't specify which part of said games you would like to read about, I can imagine more information about the design and build would be interesting too, a look behind the scenes. The video game resources I mentioned get you there partway though.
bentcorner · 2023-05-30
Aetolia tried this in a 24 hr experiment: https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2023/04/aetolia-mud-virtual-world-chatgpt.ht…
Sounds like it was a success! I suppose it comes down to cost - I think it'd be fun to try a single player game authored like this and would be willing to use my own API token to try it out.
colesantiago · 2023-01-02
"All photos included a Creative Commons licenses, but most were not licensed for commercial use."
I wonder what the implications are for Stable Diffusion, DALLE and Midjourney since that art images on the internet are copyrighted by default.
Even with a fair use argument, there are examples in cases where AI was generating art that included the signatures of artists.
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2022/12/lensa-ai-art-images-without-consent.…
fsiefken · 2022-12-24
With Firestorm, Open Simulator and Termux you could theoretically host your own world in VR on your Quest.
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2021/03/second-life-social-vr-oculus-quest-2…
wildrhythms · 2022-10-23
I'm reminded of a previous article and discussion from January: "Shock Stat: More People Own Items in Second Life Than Own NFTs" [1][2]
[1] https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2022/01/second-life-nft-ownership-rate.html
[2] HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29789584
bla3 · 2022-01-05
36k wallets own 80% of NFTs, 10x that number of wallets own all of them [1]. And that's wallets, not people. That's not what "people" want, that's what a bunch of millionaires push, hoping to get out first.
1: https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2022/01/second-life-nft-ownership-rate.html
jbellis · 2021-08-19
This reporter reached out to Richard and got his comments on how well each chapter holds up today:
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2021/08/richard-bartle-designing-virtual-wor…
Kroeler · 2019-12-17
The co-founder of Second Life eventually became a VP at Facebook, where he drove the acquisition of Oculus:
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2014/08/confirmed-facebook-purchase-of-oculu…
skymt · 2014-02-28
I read a blog post today that has a different perspective on this issue: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2014/02/women-play-where-were-welcomed.html
sp332 · 2011-10-20
They've been saying for a while that pseudonyms were a "feature" that wasn't yet supported in the early release. They've always planned to eventually allow them. http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/07/google-plus-pseudonyms.html
troymc · 2011-06-14
Another possible reason for the decline is that Facebook recently disabled a bunch of Facebook accounts associated with non-real-life names (e.g. accounts using Second Life account names).
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/05/facebook-deleting-second-life-avatar-…
allenbrunson · 2009-12-05
apparently, second life insiders don't think much of this article: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/11/five-bbc-fact-fails.html
leoc · 2018-02-15
> In many more words: 2017 sales of "full VR" rigs were flat or even negative, with Rift shipping slightly more HMDs in 2016 than 2017, and HTC Vive shipping less last year than the year before.
By those numbers, PC VR sales are only down in 2017 if you exclude Windows MR. That seems a bit arbitrary, as the Odyssey at least is apparently a fairly decent system overall.
Again by these figures, sales of all PC and console VR systems are up except for the most expensive, the Vive, which was $800 US for most of 2017. That seems to support optimism that future PC VR price reductions will improve sales: especially an end to the cryptocoin-driven GPU cost (and availability) crisis.
It also has to be said that people with inside information have publicly expressed skepticism about the SuperData numbers: https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/959172783765729280
(Repost of my comment: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2018/01/vr-sales-shipments-2017-superdata.htm… )