Vastpark Stress Test

I feel fortunate to be selected as one of the beta testers for Vastpark. It’s an exciting virtual world concept that appears to be moving in a more integrated direction than other VWs that I’ve looked into.

I am including a statement from the founder to give you a better idea of what this company is hoping to do:

A message from the Founder of VastPark:

“Welcome to VastPark!VastPark’s tools are digital crayons for a new medium. Although VastPark suits creating virtual worlds, you may find it useful for many purposes including: digital puppetry, interactive 3D ‘powerpoint’ presentations, game creation and immersive exploration of architecture. The question is: What are you going to do with it? As a kid, my favourite activity was dreaming and my secret ambition was to conjure dreams in other people’s minds. When I hear artists talk about their work affecting people, I know I’m not alone in that secret ambition, so I’m dedicating VastPark to my fellow dreamers. Already in its ‘beta’ form, VastPark is a significant step forward in enabling the dreamer inside you to dream and for others to share and participate in your worlds. Commercial and artistic opportunities abound for those who get in early. That’s why we encourage you to Grow Your Own. We’re working hard to ensure that VastPark can be adopted by online communities, corporations, individuals and indie developers alike. I hope you will download the software, play with it, get involved and come to love this new medium as much as I do.”

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. T.E. Lawrence

Last evening I was one of 23 people in-world for a stress test they were conducting. The public beta is due in April so i’m sure they want to get alot of the bugs worked out now.

It was a fun time. It took me a while to figure out how to do anything, but the ongoing chat was most helpful. Even in this early stage I noticed avatar movement was quite good, and the visuals were nicely done. I see alot of potential here.

Having been a Second Life user for a year and a half now, I can appreciate their efforts to accomodate large numbers of people concurrently, something SL has not done well, mostly due to their server model. I don’t pretend to really understand these things, but it sounds like Vastpark is going to have more at the local end which should alleviate the server stress and famous “Linden Lags”.

Here is an image from the test:

We all had these bizarre, broken teddy bear avatars at first, and then when we moved to a different park we were some kind of computers on a wheel. It was odd, but fun anyway. I hope they got some good info. Now I have to look at their creation program and prepare a world for myself…