I admit it: I still have a soft spot in my heart for the early social VR platform Sansar.
I joined Sansar which was then in closed beta test, in January 2017, and I began this blog in order to write exclusively about Sansar (in fact, the original name for the RyanSchultz.com blog was the Sansar Newsblog). Over time, I slowly expanded to write about other platforms, but Sansar was my introduction to social VR.
In my opinion, Sansar (built by Linden Lab, opened to the public on July 31st, 2017, and later sold to Wookey in 2020) still boasts some of the most breathtakingly beautiful worlds in the metaverse (thanks in large part to their advanced lighting model). I wanted to reshare two of my favourite videos to give those of you, who might never have set a virtual foot in Sansar, a taste of those worlds.
First is a video by Wurfi, compiled in 2019, showcasing numerous worlds in Sansar. Watching this brings back so many happy memories!
And second is the following YouTube video by Daisy Winthorpe, made in 2020, which also shows off numerous Sansar worlds:
The Metaverse Festival is a four-day celebration of music, culture, and creativity in the blockchain-based virtual world of Decentraland (DCL), starting today and running through to October 24th, 2021. Here’s a sitemap with coordinates (you can see this in a larger size on the Metaverse Festival website):
The festival boasts an impressive lineup of over 75 performers, including 3LAU, Alison Wonderland, deadmau5, and Nina Nesbitt. You can get details on when and where to catch your favourite artist on the Decentraland events listing. A complete lineup of performers is on the Metaverse Festival website, which features a suitably trippy design:
A four-day celebration of music, culture and creativity in the virtual social world of Decentraland, the Metaverse Festival is a grand collision of light, sound and portable toilets.
It’s the first event of its kind – a fully decentralized celebration of music that offers a weird and wonderful brew of world-class headline acts, mind blowing stages, games, exclusive artist merch, collectibles and more.
So, on October 21, dress your avatar in your very best wearables and jump into an experience like no other.
And if this is your first time in the virtual world, be sure to take a look at our Festival FAQs, which explain how you can be a part of the fun.
We can’t wait to see you in the metaverse!
Gah, that word again…”decentralized”. Decentraland may be many things, but one thing it is most certainly not is decentralized. Everything runs on Decentraland’s own servers, on Decentraland’s artificially scarce and increasingly expensive virtual land (called, of course, LAND).
It just irritates the hell out of me when PR people cavalierly toss around meaningless descriptions like “a fully decentralized celebration of music”. And “the first event of its kind”? Second Life would like a word. Festivals in virtual worlds have been around for years, people.
Apparently, even Paris Hilton herself is making an appearance at Decentraland’s Metaverse Festival (hmmm, I guess she gave up on Staramba Spaces/MATERIA.ONE, another blockchain platform which I savagely reviewed here and here on my blog). God only knows what she’ll be doing up on stage (probably trying to deejay).
Anyway, that’s enough kvetching for one day. If you want to visit the Metaverse Festival, you will likely need to set up a wallet (here’s a quote taken from the Festival FAQs document):
The best way to fully enjoy the Decentraland experience is to get yourself a digital wallet. Digital wallets work as your personal account, keeping all your digital assets (such as NFTs, LAND, cryptocurrency) and in-world progress safe. And when you return to Decentraland, you just need to hit ‘connect’ and you’re in.
You can still enter Decentraland without a wallet, by signing in with your email address (via Fortmatic) or as a Guest, but you won’t have the chance to – for example – receive daily rewards and airdrops, trade in the Marketplace or log in with a different device using the same ID and avatar.
Does Decentraland run on top of its own blockchain?
Decentraland uses the Ethereum blockchain to store and verify information about LAND ownership and LAND content. It does not run on its own independent blockchain. Content within Decentraland is hosted and served to users via a network of community-owned content servers.
Don’t forget that venture capitalist and metaverse writer Matthew Ball will be speaking at an event in Breakroom (Sinespace’s corporate cousin) today, Thursday, October 21st, 2021 at 8:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time/GMT or noon Pacific Standard Time/PST. You can register for the event here, through EventBrite (it’s free). When you register, you will receive an email message with a special link you must click on to load the web-based Breakroom app in your web browser (which works surprisingly well, based on past Fireside Chats in the series!). More details here.
Here are some pictures I took this morning of the venue; the first shot shows you the user interface, which I think you’ll find very similar to the layout of the Sinespace client. (One of the things I like the most about Sinespace/Breakroom is that I can adjust my avatar’s shape to more closely resemble the real-world Ryan Schultz!)
Your intrepid embedded reporter also attended the Zombie Ball last night in Sinespace—and won 1,000 Gold (Sinespace’s currency) in a random draw! Here are some pictures I took at the event; please click on each thumbnail to see it in a larger size:
This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here).
