Saturday, February 5, 2011

SELECTED VIRTUAL WORLDS AND SPACES



The below worlds are mostly based on current fandoms. By the time full immersion virtual reality worlds exist, this list will be seriously out of date. Some of these worlds, such as Star Wars, will almost certainly be realized Outside. Others will have been forgotten by then. As well as beginning to establish the wide scope of Outside, I hope that this list will demonstrate the variety and extent of current fandoms. It’s amazing how much work fans have put into expanding and realizing their favorite fictional worlds. I believe that while professionals may create the initial structures of these worlds, it will be fans who ultimately do the most to fill them in and bring them to life. Middle-earth forever!


If anyone has other ideas for potential virtual worlds, let me know.


Titles in red
are involved in the story of Living Outside.
Titles in blue
are for fun and to give some context for what’s going on Outside.



Realized Fantasy Worlds- Many with game elements:
The Adult Swim Continuum
Adventure Time: With Finn & Jake
Conan the Barbarian
Discworld
Comic Book Dimensions: DC/Marvel/Image/Dark Horse/Etc
Doctor Who
Eberron: D&D world.
Firefly
Futarama
Golden Martyr: Based on the books. Epic horror-scape.
Harry Potter
Hitchiker's Guide to the Outside
Mad Rush For The Scissors
The Magic Kingdom
Matrix: Mega City, Machine City, Zion, etc.
Middle-earth
Miskatonic U
Narnia
Neverland
Oz
Planescape: Epic D&D campaign setting.
Riverworld
Springfield
Stargate
Star Trek
Star Wars
Toontown: Crosslinked with the Magic Kingdom.
Tron
The Whedonverse: The Angel/Buffy universe.
Wonderland



Worlds Designed To Evoke The Works Of Creators
Al-buquerque: All things Weird Al.
Tim Burton’s “Nightmare”
Neil Gaiman’s Dreaming
William Gibson’s Sprawl
Junji Ito’s Spiral: Awesome Japanese horror manga artist. Ironically, a “spiral”.
David Lynch’s Subconscious: Featuring the Twin Peaks- full immersion experience.
Anne McCaffrey’s Pern
Takashi Miike
Monty Python’s Outside Circus
Michael Moorcock
Sam Raimi’s Bloody Mess
Masamune Shirow
Neal Stephenson’s Metaverse
Shinya Tsukamoto
Tad Williams' Otherland

Jhonen Vasquez


Major Game Worlds with Social Components
Ataraxia: Premier gaming world of Outside.
Bullet Ballet: Slow motion gun battles to the death!
Bushido Blade: Honor. Revenge.
CyFrenia: Mech based offshoot from Ataraxia.
Eclipse Phase
Dragon Warrior Outside
Final Fantasy

Grand Theft Outside
Hellfray
Hero/Dragon: Kill the dragon and his minions! Win his castle with all its goodies! Or become the dragon and fight off other players.
Kung Fu Continent
Nintendo/Sega Outside: Pokemon, Mushroom Kingdom, Hyrule, etc.
Puzzle Grind: One of the many, many puzzle worlds.
Resident Evil: One of the many game series that evolved into full immersion virtual worlds.
Silent Hill: A fun place to visit.
Space Wars: Space opera central. In Space Wars, explosions are silent. Unless you’re the one exploding.
Super Happy Fun Land: Has not been happy or fun since an unfortunate coup which [data redacted]. NOT to be confused with Happy Land.
Starcraft/Warcraft/Diablo Outside: Blizzard’s war on productivity continues.
Steam Nation: Steampunk heaven with a robust gaming framework.
Yoma: Inspired by Japenese horror manga Claymore, Berserk, Gantz and the works of Junji Ito.


Games And Entertainment- often includes social areas
Destructo World: The physical world, continuously deconstructed. With explosions and Katamari.
Dread Pirates: Swashbuckling adventures on the high seas.
Happy Land: The one place where bad things never happen. Except for the riots.
Hot Pursuit: Get away from the bad guys by car, by jetpack, or by parkour through the concrete jungle gym of Chase City.
Hyper Grind: Incredibly popular strategy game. One of T’s favorites.
Mech Smash: Notable for the exacting detail that goes into the mechs and mech combat, all of which is physically realistic and could actually occur in the natural world, given ridiculous resources.
The Onion Outside
Quarter Arcade: The most rocking arcade of all time.
Theme Parks Outside: Digitized Disney World, Universal Studios, Six Flags, Wet'n Wild, etc.
Ultra-Epic Crash Forest: Mike’s favorite single player rpg.
Wild Blue Yonder: Realistic aerial combat from every generation.


Anime Worlds
CLAMP!
Dragon Ball: Bravado and furious fighting, in that order.
Ghibli/Miyazaki: Realized Worlds Collective.
Giant Robo
Gundam
Magical Girl World
Naruto
One Piece
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Sakura Breeze
Rumiko Takashi Collective: Ranma ½, Urusei Yatsursa, etc.
World of Tezuka
And about a million more


Music
Crain Slain: Featured in episode 4. Also has a decent rhythm game extract.
Ego Slider
Gold Wire
Slushmare
The Grid: Expanding dance floor on an infinite plane. Music and vibe changes as you move in any direction.


Social Spaces, Many With Game Components
Afterlife Collective: Dozens of realized visions of the afterlife. Some heavenly, some hellish, frequently weird.
Communes: Where millions live Outside. Artistic, religious, polyamorous, world building, etc.
Mars Colony: Earthlings and Martians, coexisting peacefully on Mars. Many users play Martians, who have their own culture, social mores, and a developing language.
Lunar, Jupiter, and Europa Colonies
Virtualized Cities: Just about every city has been virtualized to some extent, but some have been “brought Outside” more than others, including New York City, London, Paris, Beijing, the mysterious land of Toronto, Canada, etc.
Fan Conventions: Anime, science fiction, horror, comics, gaming, etc. Some periodic, some perennial.
Film Festivals (perennial and periodic): Fantastic Fest, Cannes, etc.
The Graveyard: Goth central.
Historic era simulations: These aim for realism. The 1980’s, Victorian England, the Aztec Empire, etc.
The Mixer: Popular social space where participants are given random proxies each time they visit. Short, tall, thin, fat, male, female, etc.
The Mythic Golden Ages Of Countries: Samurai Japan, 1001 Nights Baghdad, Three Kingdoms era of China, etc.
Mythologies Incarnated Outside: Hindu, Arabic, Buddhist, Greco-Roman, etc.
The Ocean Outside: Live at the bottom of the ocean! Stare at the weird animals. Watch out for Kraken.
Omni: Social hub. Music, sex, spirals.
Philosophy And Debate Clubs: Discussions of philosophy, religion, ad infinitum.
The Pure Land: Experiments and lessons in compassion. Meditation, empathy exercises, etc.
Sunshine City: One of the most popular and well realized meta-worlds of Outside. With a community of millions and a robust combat component.


Educational Spaces
Virtual Universities: Many are excellent and super cheap or free.
Virtual museums- Smithsonian/Louvre/etc: Touch the art! Set it on fire! Take it all home for free!
Safari!: Every damn animal ever. Yes, dinosaurs too. Watch them, shoot them, ride them, etc.
Maths: Fuck yeah, maths.
Science Town: Interactive science learning for all ages and levels of knowledge.


Horror Worlds
Hell Fray: Premier survival horror world. Epic.
Painted Doors: The Pink Cellar Door is legendary and has become a meme. Hint: do not touch pink cellar doors.
Reflecting Shadows (Color of Night): Surreal. Beautiful. Gruesome.
Still Space: Dubious distinction of having contributed to at least two fatal heart attacks. Still includes no warning.
The Swirling Abyss: Spiral devoted to nightmare fetishists.
Undead Earth: There are many zombie game worlds. This is the premier zombie survival world. With a few nasty twists.
Combined SCP Foundation/Holders Universe: Not for those who lack conviction. See these links:
http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/
http://theholders.org/


Runs, Spirals, and Experimental
--7 colors represent the different types of game runs.
Red: Chase/racing
Orange: Strategy/puzzle games
Yellow: Action/fun
Green: Mech combat and flight
Blue: Horror
Indigo: Sexual
Violet: Experiential/endurance/experimental forms

--There are 2 types of non-game runs:
White: not game focused, social, like wandering the lands or couch surfing.
Black: Non-social. For fun or contemplation. Joy rides, retreats, etc.

--Some specific runs:
Rainbow Run: Includes all. Legendary. Brutal. Insane. Fun to watch- from a distance.
Endless Run: With minimal effort, the flow will continue indefinitely. Great way to meander Outside.
Dark Side Run: One nasty piece of work. For rotten bastards.

--Spirals:
Indra’s Net: Spiral featured in Omni episode. With feeds from all over the physical world and Outside.

--Experimental spaces:
Vermillion Pleasure Slice
The Washer


Sexual Spaces
BDSM Communities: Safe, sane and consensual. Safe and consensual anyway.
Downstairs Mixer: Orgy goers provided with random proxies.
Friends and Lovers: Focus on socialization and making connections.
Masks
Sex Spirals: Spirals focused on sexuality. Best way to have sex with 100 people at once.
Oodles & Oodles
Sex Arena: Features various forms of combat. The winner has their way with the loser. Great way to meet people.
Yiffville: Furry fun.


1 comment:

  1. Are there city planning crowdsource worlds? Doing physical city planning and engineering where it can be used, modified, and debugged before installation would be a godsend to any city employee. And anyone who likes to walk around in physical space.

    ReplyDelete