Outback Online & Papermint: virtual worlds from austr[al]ia

Posted on | February 27, 2007 | No Comments

as reported by Robert Scoble & 3pointD, a new Second Life-competitor is currently being developed in Australia: like SL, Outback Online is based primarily on user-generated content, but promises better scalability by use of P2P-technologies, better 3D-graphics and the ability to host much larger user-audiences than SL. however, this is private beta, no screenshots whatsoever, and their blog seems to be only a week old. smells a bit like vaporware to me, but only time will tell.

another virtual reality just launched into (sort of) public beta recently is Papermint. however, comparing the austrian project to SL seems a bit unfair, since it’s hardly more than a graphically enhanced chatroom aimed at technically non-inclined beginners. the java-based client replaces common 3D-graphics with simple semi-perspectives similar to paper-cuts and from what I have seen on my brief visit, content is predefined mostly. furthermore, I guess creator Avaloop kept beta-accounts a bit too scarce – I hardly met other users in Papermint. if you want to try it anyway, keep in mind that it’s german-only.

 

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