Virtual World News 

A lot of commotion seems to be going on lately about the aspect of content creation inside of the virtual world. In particular user generated content in 3D environments turns out to be a topic for many to spend huge amounts of time on. Many different people have many different opinions about the content that is present inside of a virtual world. Since Dreamworld is a young new virtual world it doesn’t have huge amounts of content in world yet. Still this is changing as the world is getting more reliable and robust, a major level of improvement was recently achieved when inventory started to work as it is supposed to do. Dreamworld struggled a long time with inventory failing issues as  we wrote about earlier this year. Today the grid performs in a much better way and is becoming more friendly for people to use. Not just the very first inhabitants of Dreamworld who weren’t afraid to crash 5 times when they made an attempt to build are now able to create things in world. Also normal residents who try out building can make all sorts of great 3D objects and experiment with the building tools. When flying around in world today I visited several places where people have been building and noticed that all kinds of constructions are being made, I see houses, furniture, pets, huge structures, towers, landing platforms, stores …. 

I even took some pictures of things that residents have been building in Dreamworld so far. The first photo shows the dog kennel behind the store of resident Max Halifax in the Hera sim. 

The next photo is taken at the Titus sim, resident Neptune Ivanova is building a huge Egyptian piramid build in the sim and even in its early stages it looks to become a spectacular building in the future.

Back in the beginning of this year we posted on how Dreamworld was making progression. At that point we posted a picture on the blog showing the landscape of the first part of Dreamworld. It was completely empty at that point in time, a bare looking virtual landscape without any objects or 3D content. It is rewarding for Dreamworld to see that residents can begin using the world we have been working on for over a year now and that people can do their thing in an environment allowing them to be creative and use their imagination to construct virtual objects in all freedom. We see that more and more people are coming to Dreamworld and more of them are returning as the platform becomes more stable which is a positive sign.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new version of the Dreamworld viewer to explore the Virtual World. While it is just a few weeks ago since we released the previous version of the viewer it was a must to come out with a new release in order to ensure that both the server and viewer remain compatible with each other. We do want to make clear that viewer updates every few weeks will not become a habbit. It’s a small update and doesn’t require much except some clicks but nobody appreciates weekly software updates and installs so we wanted to make a clear statement regarding this aspect.

Technology always moves forward, it always improves, better, faster, more features and Dreamworld is no exception. We plan to upgrade and complete the server code update in the next few days. This update has been in the works for several weeks now but we couldn’t complete the update without releasing a new version of the viewer and verify that everything will work in a smooth way. This will be an important grid update as some major work and efforts have been made by the programmers in order to improve the inventory system which lacks performance at the moment.

For this release no special new features have been implemented into the new viewer, the only purpose for this viewer release is to be compatible with future upgrades of the server code for the virtual world of Dreamworld. We strongly recommend to upgrade right away as you will not be able to properly use Dreamworld in the next few days from now when the server code will be upgraded. Your in world experience will not be same, you will no longer be able to properly teleport, see and explore the 3D environment so do upgrade to the latest viewer.

DOWNLOAD DREAMWORLD VIEWER V1.0.3

Today Dreamworld reached a new milestone as over 2000 avatars have now became a member of Dreamworld. Since we are still in alpha testing stage at the moment Dreamworld hasn’t made any efforts yet in promoting the virtual world so people who register their account came to Dreamworld by word of mouth. We also see a healthy increase in the numbers of avatars who visit Dreamworld on a regular basis. Several brave alpha testers are also building in Dreamworld as we speak and they are doing fine from what we see. Besides the regular crash of a simulator (we are working on that) and a few bugs the grid platform is bahaving very well. A good example to see what residents can already do in Dreamworld you can see on the picture below. A lady started building her town a while ago in in the region named Thor. At the moment we let residents build just about anywhere in Dreamworld as it helps us to learn and understand the working of the grid platform in a better way. As you can see on the picture some decent building is possible. This lady is working on a huge castle consisting out of a mixture of regular primitives and sculpted prims.

Persistency was needed, certainly in the beginning as the crash ratio was high during that time, yet after some debugging the Thor region is now running stable which allowed faster progress of the building work, at the moment the castle is becoming complete and the Medieval village the lady is building is starting to get its shape.

Anyone can create what he or she wishes. The only thing needed is some creativity and you will be on your way. A lot of technical work is currently done by the programmers to improve the current tools and to move to the next level where more use will be made of professional building tools compared to the basic prims and sculpties used today. So far 2000 people came to take a look at Dreamworld and we are working to fulfill the expectations that people have about their virtual life. Feel free to explore Dreamworld, build, experiment and test things out. The more testing takes place the faster progression will follow and the better the platform will be that is constructed.

We are pleased to announce that a new version of the Dreamworld viewer is now available for download. We strongly recommend you to upgrade to the latest viewer release. If you already have the Dreamworld viewer installed on your system you can just install the new viewer labeled V1.0.2. If you don’t have the viewer installed on your system the new viewer will be automatically be the one that gets installed after you downloaded it to your system.

As the server software keeps evolving and improving so does the viewer and to guarantee you the best possible experience in Dreamworld we have released a new version of the viewer. The most significant change you will notice is that we did further work on the integration of the VEC (Virtual Economy Currency) inside the new viewer release in order to get the platform ready for the in world economy.

After the next server maintenance and upgrade of the grid platform, you will notice a substantial amount of difference in quality again so that makes performing the update definitely worth it in order to have a smooth experience in the virtual world.

DOWNLOAD DREAMWORLD VIEWER V1.0.2

* At the moment the Dreamworld viewer is only released for Windows platforms, we expect to release viewer for both Linux and Mac in the future. This doesn’t prevent both Mac or Linux users from visiting as there are many clients out there for these platforms which can be used to enter the Dreamworld grid.

It has been well over a month since our last blog post, time for an update about what is currently taking place on the grid. What exactly is happening in this new virtual world you might ask yourself? The answer is a lot, so much activity goes on in world, so much movement went on in the past few weeks as we initiated the placement of the world’s virtual landscape it looks like a typhoon went through. Even our residents (the early alpha testers) were surprised to see all their homes and 3D objects floating around in the air when they logged on. This thoroughly approach was indeed needed to form the landscape. The first stage went smoothly and all the rough work has been completed. One could say the tornado calmed down and the constructions made by the people of Dreamworld are slowly coming down to earth again as they get settled with their belongings on the fantastic looking new landscape.

The unspoiled desert you see pictured above preludes the coming of a new virtual world which will be part of the Metaverse. With the initial work on the landscape completed we now have time to focus on several other urgent issues we are currently facing on the grid. This also reminds ourselves and the residents that we are still in the very early stages of alpha testing. However we must admit that we are satisfied with the procedural process Dreamworld is making.

Before this major work could be started we had to expand the grid with more land mass. The expansion of the landscape is something that took place in january. Before this enlargement of the virtual land mass Dreamworld consisted out of a testing area with a surface of 589824 m² (square metres). At that point we had kept the world to a minimal in land mass for testing purposes. The larger the world the bigger the amount that each update and fix requires. Further delay of the world’s expansion was out of question as more and more people are coming to take a look in world and have the urge to test and explore which is a good thing. In order to satisfy the demand and need for more terrain the grid has been expanded with a massive land mass 3.932.160 m² which is almost 4 million square metres of virtual land. This brings the total land surface area of the virtual world to 4.5 million square metres. We believe that this will be sufficient in a first stage to meet the direct needs of the residents to get acquainted with the world and see what it is all about. Important to note is that this huge land area is not intended to offer directly for sale to residents. The purpose of the landscape is to serve as some sort of virtual park, a place to meet, interact with other avatars, objects and discover what the virtual world has to offer. We will go further into this once the landscape has been completed and place an official announcement regarding this when the landscape is complete. As you see with projects of this size we have to work in different phases until the desired result has been reached. When you will check the map you can now overview the new continuous area of land which forms Dreamworld today. The picture below will go into history on how Dreamworld started and what it looked like during its first half year online.

Our main concern is inventory at the moment but we have good news on this. Thanks to the efforts of our alpha testers who keep reporting what works well for them and what doesn’t we have been able to improve inventory performance in a drastic way. We received many complaints from people regarding the lack of working inventory. Everything in world seemed to be working well, teleports are smooth, so is region border crossing, logins happen fast, textures rez fast and the grid is running stable. But inventory that is something else we noticed. The main reason for this is that inventory in Dreamworld works in a very complex way and forms quite a challenge for the programmers. During each update improvements are made, but in world inventory was failing and kept failing. Until recent rezzing an object was a huge challenge and would fail in plenty of cases. Transferring an object from avatar to avatar also didn’t work properly. One could say that inventory certainly didn’t perform as it should but investigating the issue and the feedback we received from our residents helped to determine the cause of the lack of performance for inventory. We have made several changes and now we can say that inventory performance has increased in a drastic way. We received many positive remarks yesterday regarding this subject when we went in world so we are going to keep working to make inventory accurate and stable as we know this is important. Now we do know and understand on what to work in order to increase performance which is splendid. The first tests we performed so far on the grid indicate a 95% performance boost in rezzing objects and reliability of inventory. The storage of objects also works much smoother so we are very pleased with this as it will allow people to build and enjoy Dreamworld in a better way. We also want to thank the alpha testers for their continuous reporting on the matter.

Another point of importance to mention is that we have commenced to work on several ways to make it more easy for our new virtual colonists who arrive in world to start out. When new people come to Dreamworld they arrive as Ruth, a little lady with brown hair. Of course it’s possible to change and alter your avatar appearance but we noticed that for many this isn’t so obvious so we commenced to make efforts in creating starting packages for both the male and female avatars on the grid. This goes from skins, clothing, hair and objects to make it more easy for people to feel comfortable with their virtual body. A nice example is this release of the first male avatar since our male residents were asking to improve their looks. We will continue to work on the development of starter packages for people in world. There are also several residents who are creating all kinds of items for new people or so called freebies so we wish to thank them for their input.

We welcome you to come and take a look in world and see for yourself what people are doing and experience what Dreamworld is like. Each day we strive to create a world that goes further and advances to become a stable and robust 3D platform for avatars to sojourn in.

Count Dreamworld

First I would like to start out by wishing everybody a happy 2009. At the moment times are exciting and the future for Dreamworld is looking bright. We want especially thank the people who are currently participating in the alpha testing stage by experimenting in world with all the tools and technology they encounter during exploration of the virtual landscape. The “early settlers” really provide us with good feedback about every aspect in Dreamworld which help us to create a more stable and robust platform (and make you crash less). It takes courage to use an unpolished software system so this is why we want to say a special thanks to these early residents. 

When ending 2008 and looking forward at what the new year of 2009 will bring for Dreamworld it is a good time to take a look back at what has been accomplished in the past calendar year and what lies on the road ahead for the virtual world in the year to come.
We started to work on Dreamworld as it’s own independant virtual world one year ago. The Dreamworld grid went online in june 2008 and since then we have had the pleasure to work with many different talented people to create what you experience today. When you log on to the Dreamworld grid today you find this small but gorgeous looking place and see the very early beginning of a new virtual world. We have intentionally kept Dreamworld small in landscape untill this point for testing purposes but in the new year you will start to notice change in this. This has been a logical step to follow as one doesn’t need volume when performing constant test and updates to improve the system of the virtual world. At this point we can say those early days are now behind us time has come to move to the next phase which will include the placement of more land in world.

Another important point we achieved so far is implementing the in world currency for Dreamworld known as the VEC (Virtual Economy Currency) as Dreamworld will be a place where RMT (Real Money Trading) will take place on a day to day basis. Our next step is to implement the usage of VEC on the website which is going to take place in the beginning of 2009. We have done a great deal of research about the best way to activate the financial monetary system for Dreamworld. As the economical model and structure for Dreamworld is one of our top priorities we are working on we aren’t going over this subject in a light way. There is also the real world currency market which is extremely volatile at the moment to take into consideration as we see huge fluctuation between the most commonly used currencies. Setting up a healthy financial system is of utmost importance in order to guarantee a stable economy in world. We will post more information regarding this aspect soon.

In the past few months people often asked me where they could live in Dreamworld, how they can settle down on the grid and establish their virtual life by becoming the owner of their own virtual land. The reason we haven’t started to offer parcels for sale or islands is because we find it to soon. We do have people who are currenly testing out what it is like to live in Dreamworld. These avatars, these virtual colonists do have their own simulator somewhere secretly hidden on the grid where they already commenced building their houses, stores at the time of writing this post. For the next few months we will look how they are experiencing what it is like to have their own virtual island on the Dreamworld grid. What works for them and what they are able to construct. This is a challenge for them as they don’t have a large amount of content at their disposal and are forced to create. Compare it a bit like Robinson Crusoë who arrived at a tropical island where there was nothing. These early testers are now going to a similar experience, a virtual one but a similar one. It’s fair to say this is also a challenge for Dreamworld to see how well we have done so far, in a few months from now we will talk more about how this experiment went with our early adaptors. As the provider of a virtual world immersive platform we want to let people do their thing on the grid. Provide people with as much freedom as possible so they can create the things they have in mind. A virtual world is a fantastic source of inspiration and can be the perfect outlet for anyone who has the desire to be creative.

When looking ahead we expect that 2009 will become a year of testing for Dreamworld and it will also become the year where Dreamworld will evolve from the early stage of alpha testing and move on to beta stage where the grid will turn into a production environment rather then the testing ground it is as we speak. Further we also expect to see the introduction of meshes this coming year, perhaps not fully supported and integrated but we do hope the first experimentation with real 3D objects will be able to take place on the grid. As taking care of priorities is a must and mesh support is high on our list we will strive to bring industry standard 3D objects to the grid where they belong.

We hope new year 2009 will become a very interesting year for the Metaverse in general, as so much is going on and so many interesting things are taking place. Dreamworld will strive to bring a postive difference on how virtual worlds are experienced by avatars today by providing them with a platform which is created by people who have infatuation for artificial worlds. We are looking forward to see you in world.

Count Dreamworld

While we are currently still working on the website there is already a healthy amount of interest for the new virtual world of Dreamworld. Because of this we would like to give some insight to you the visitor at what is currently going on behind the scenes. A lot of work has already been done and a lot still needs to be done for Dreamworld to become part of the metaverse. As this is a large scale project we are working on with several people, (the development of a new virtual world isn’t an easy task) we haven’t officially opened the world for people to join in and experience what Dreamworld is about. We do anticipate that the official beta testing for the public will start in several months from now by the end of this year. At a first stage people will be able to login to the virtual world, create their avatar, build, explore and test things out for themselves. Dreamworld will offer several new techniques and new types of technology as it is one of our key points of attention to push virtual worlds as we know them today beyond their boundries.

What we can say is that Dreamworld is the result of the efforts of many people who have a passion for virtual worlds in general. Because of this we believe Dreamworld will become a new way to experience a virtual world as it has been created by residents of the metaverse. This is coherent with our philosophy that the world “metaverse” is made by people opposed to a single entity. We are looking forward to meet you in world and become a affordable platform for people to participate in, either for business, entertainment or educational reasons.

Count Dreamworld