Facebook announces Horizon, a VR massive-multiplayer world | Hacker News Reader

Facebook announces Horizon, a VR massive-multiplayer world

techcrunch.com

76 pointstosh45 comments

"Because everyone is going to be able to create their own... spaces... Horizon is going to have this property where it grows and expands and gets better and better over time." - Zuckerberg keynote (1)

In related news, a high-ranking Facebook exec revealed that Zuckerberg had been planning to name this massively multiplayer online experience "Myspace".

After heated internal discussions, Horizon was chosen as the brand name for Zuck's vision for "the future of computing", as, well, it seemed somewhat less played out.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOJ8KE5g6kg&t=45m01s

Haven't watched the keynote yet, is this a renaming or expansion of Facebook spaces (already a VR world where you connect with your friends) ? Or is it something new entirely? And do you need a fb account to go to Horizon?

> As part of the launch, Facebook will on October 25 shut down its existing social VR experiences Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms, leaving a bit of a gap until Horizon launches.

Why not?

Messenger used to be MSN Messenger, nowadays it is Facebook chat.

Two unrelated software?

I'd love to see a decentralized version of this - VR instances run on individual or group-owned servers that perform the bulk of the environmental simulation and rendering for clients, and have some sort of intercommunication protocol. Once we have high-res environments and fluid UIs to use them, I really want to create my own virtual space, share it, and experience others' spaces, I just don't necessarily want Facebook controlling it.

Have you checked out JanusVR? It's pretty much what you're describing. Its web client, native client, and server are all open source. Anyone can create worlds and host them like you would any other website, and links between sites are represented as portals.

For a sampling of some of the worlds people have built, check out https://vesta.janusvr.com/

Interesting, thanks for sharing! So what are the features a big company like Facebook can offer over e.g. JanusVR? Asset generation? Network effects? Does JanusVR have anything like a killer app?

You might be interested in a talk I did on this last weekend: https://youtu.be/MOf7mDQ2xfU

TLDW: - transclude WebVR worlds with URLs - delegate authority recursively - pay for things with e.g. Github Sponsors - enforce licenses, allow remixing - tech demo

So, is this the REAL reason for Libra coin?

Create a virtual world that completely mirrors the real world, and that world will need currency and economics at scale too, why not use an alt coin as it's base?

Second Life 2.0

Reminds me more of Ready Player One

Second Second Life?

Why are advertisements for big tech companies always so... cringey? What target audience responds to this kind of marketing?

I love my Oculus Quest device and some of the experiences that you can buy for it are very compelling (eternal thanks to the developers of Vader Immortal) but, I just don’t see much fun in VR for huge numbers of participants.

I helped build a VR racing system at SAIC in the 1990s that had two units, each with full motion, haptics in steering wheel, and it’s own Reality Engine graphics display. Racing against one other person was lots of fun. I may be having a failure of imagination here, but I just think I would enjoy Horizon, as it is described.

Does anyone else find those avatars really creepy? They look like the characters in those weird CGI kids cartoons.

Its for many reasons: 1.It scale better: less memory/rendering time. 2.It allows low-end hardware. 3.It appeals to children(probably a huge chunk of audience). Facebook isn't going the Second Life route(visuals-first,scripting, limited capacity servers), they're making something that is essentially a casual/social videogame with VR and scripting added - and capable of hosting hundreds(like VRchat).

VR causes development issues in children (especially for eyesight). Facebook really likes the game of poking the bear, doesn't it?

I would be very careful anything that Facebook does after hearing they former bosses whistleblowings.

VR is interesting but I'm not ready to sacrifice my privacy for that.

Sorry Facebook, just to be honest.

Why would I use this over the existing product, VR Chat: https://www.vrchat.net/

It doesn't have to be either-or...any game / app / service can, and should, have competitors.

Plus, the article provides a lot of comparisons to relevant services that help differentiate Horizon in the marketplace.

Mixing Facebook trolls with VR sounds like a very, very bad idea.

It could never be worse than VR Chat.

(as far as trolls go, I mean. I love VR Chat)

"We've collected your personal info. Now let us keep collecting your interactions, so we can really know you."

They should have named it OASIS...

second life gets a second wind

Ah crap, I wanted to build something like that. Oh well...

You can still do it. Make it open source too.

Its called Mozilla Hubs

So, Facebook finally read “Snow Crash”, I see.

The Black Sun comes to life!

That book also featured crypto-currencies which is of course another thing Facebook is dabbling with. And it had a plot that featured vastly diminished US government marginalized by commercial burbclaves and other corporate entities, which seems to be exactly why governments are anxious to block Libra and worried about companies like FB having valuations exceeding the GDP of most countries.

I recently re-read Snow Crash. I love that book. A lot of that stuff looks a lot less like science fiction these days.

Oculus' goal has been to build a metaverse pretty much from the start: https://www.oculus.com/blog/onward-to-the-metaverse/

Seek don't simulate.

This looks like the new Google Lively.

And no one will use it.

Facebook Home

Please no.

Here's hoping that nobody named Ted Faro is involved.

For a company with the resources FB has, it's remarkable how out of touch they are.

I think you are underestimating the appeal of being able to watch movies or tv shows with a friend or loved one in VR.

Obviously I am as well.

Sounds like watching a move or TV show while being on the phone to a loved one.

I think you underestimate just how much marketing $ can drive innovation and user behaviour

It looks like they’ve been doing pretty well in VR so far.

this is them moving on Microsoft/Minecraft. it makes some sense.

Well, you know the saying, “Cash flow solves everything”? Sometimes it masks problems you’d have to solve other ways than just throwing money at them. This is the only problem cash flow can’t solve.

Cash flow washes snow crash.

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