Virtual World Idea -- The Metaverse

Big Idea: An open source, free virtual world that is designed to grow and evolve at the will of the users.

Target Audience: Male & female: Developers: 18 - 24, General users: 18 - 35.

Purpose: The Metaverse is blank slate for people to build upon as they see fit. Some users will take on the roll of designer/developer, and others will merely participate in this virtual world using the tools built by those that create. This virtual world will evolve, build-up, break-down, and reflect the people that exist within it.

Lacuna: The design of this world is minimal, but programming and developing is a whole different issue. Creating an engine that is compatible with multiple programming languages and 3D modeling softwares would be ideal, but difficult to bring to fruition. Also, releasing the product as open source, while maintaining a decent level of functionality will be challenging.

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In Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash," there is a virtual world called The Metaverse. It's a fully immersive 3D virtual world that has replaced the internet. Think of it as being like Second Life, but on steroids and acid.

I believe this would be an excellent candidate for creating a new and successful virtual world. People have tried to emulate this formula in the past with lackluster results. I believe that others have failed because of one simple fact: The Metaverse is completely user driven. In this virtual world, it is the user that creates all content and manages it, but like the real world, is subject to the basic rules of the Metaverse. Think of these like the laws of physics in the real world. These laws include:

1. "no build" highways/roads.
2. no-clipping in vehicles on highways.
3. users define rules for own property.
4. death booting/temporary ban.
5. no weapons of mass destruction.

Beyond these basic rules, the users possess complete freedom within the Metaverse.

Imagine a virtual planet that is completely blank, except for the highways that run along the lines of longitude and latitude. The Equator would be the primary road for transportation with user designed vehicles. Because there are no restrictions of physics, vehicles can be programmed to go any speed, allowing for fast travel throughout the vast world.

There would be no restraints on user content. Anything can be built in The Metaverse in any proportion (within reason and ability). Skyscrapers can reach hundreds of miles high, vehicles can travel many times the speed of sound, avatars can look like anything (not creepy and distorted like Second-Life). The style and scale of the user's designs would completely depend on their computer's ability and thier abilities with design and programming.

For those users who find designing and programming their own content a little discouraging, there would be basic construction sets that people can download to be able to build their own avatars, vehicles, objects, and structures. Since it would all be open source, users would eventually build their own construction sets, thus eliminating the need for content to be constantly built by the admins.