Hamlet Au has been breaking the news about Cloud Party, the virtual world in a browser, you can read about it over at New World Notes with articles here and here. Investors in Cloud Party include former Linden, Cory Ondrejka and Cryptic Studio’s ex-CTO Bruce Rogers, so people who know a thing or two.
The first thing I groaned about was that Cloud Party requires a Facebook login. Indeed I didn’t just groan, I sighed, heavily, I may have swore too. However you can sample Cloud Party without a Facebook login, by going here and choosing anonymous login. This will mean you have restricted access, you can’t build for example, but you can at least have a look around. This is a better option than a Facebook only login and I do understand why companies use Facebook logins, it’s easier than developing your own login system but any company worth its salt should develop their own login too, which is why I still find Spotify’s Facebook requirement absurd and I’ll never use their service, or recommend it. The worst part of the Spotify issue is that they did have their own login system, why on earth they went Facebook only for new users will forever remain a mystery, but it’s an idiotic decision.
However back to Cloud Party, it’s an interesting development.
The first thing that impressed me was the basic tutorial, you get told how to move, navigate, teleport. They try to encourage you to point and click but you can use WASD if you prefer, although A and S strafe, rather than pivot, which to me is rather cack as I prefer to pivot. However some folk prefer to strafe.
There are options available via a mobile phone icon in the top right, this is where you can find other places, build, navigate, add contacts yadda yadda yadda, it’s rather slick and intuitive. The other places however, are not quite so well presented via the world itself, you have these bubbles in the sky and whereas it’s easy to get to them, they sort of get in the way of the visual experience.
There were places for sale whilst I was there, I didn’t actually find out how you can purchase a lot as whilst I was taking a screenshot, someone purchased it, but I’d imagine you’d have to be logged in with Facebook for this as anonymous logins are temporary accounts.
There’s potential here for sure, it feels a bit manic right now but it’s easy to engage with and there’s no download. However Second Life it is not. Many will see it as a Second Life rival, I really don’t, although it could develop into one. They do have some nice features, and hopefully they’ll ditch the Facebook only login eventually and allow others access to the full set of tools. This is worth keeping an eye on, it’s in its infancy but it does have some early appeal.
Arrow keys pivot…