Blue Mars

Shade City - Blue Mars

Blue Mars began it's extended Beta period over a year ago.  Last year, the Second Life grapevine was buzzing with rumors that it could be an SL killer.  Well it turned out that it wasn't the killer it was rumored to be.  Instead it just hovers on the edge of the VR world.  Mention Second Life to most people and they will immediately recognize it as that online virtual sextopia they see on the nightly news.  The name of Blue Mars would just cause bafflement.  Recently the team of BM is working very hard at making "cloud computing" a reality.  This would allow the technically monstrous computers Blue Mars requires to be, in essence, obsolete.  The BM company seems to be putting all it's eggs into this cloud basket because siphoning off the residents in SL, the now defunct There, IMVU and other VRs failed.

Blue Mars is a beautiful series of places.  It isn't a VR world, it is more like a vacation scrapbook of photos.  Unlike SL in which one's avatar can walk through changing landscapes and experience a "world", Blue Mars just has destinations.  An avatar can't keep walking in Blue Mars.  You can't visit Shade City (shown pictured above), keep walking and find yourself in the area called New Venice.  While the areas are large (encompassing what would be several Second Life sims), they are separate and must be chosen from that picture scrapbook (called Places in the UI menu).  To a user of Second Life, as I am, this seems rather static and confining.  But it's really a small drawback in the grand scheme of things.  Someone new to VRs would not even care that these worlds are not connected.

Caledonia - Blue Mars

The make or break element of all these VR worlds are the avatars.  Do they look good?  Is it easy to make them look good?  Second Life has struggled with this element by making it's starting avatars look better.  But it still requires enormous amounts of time, money and effort to make an SL avatar look fabulous.  In fact so much so, that most new people think it an insurmountable problem.  Especially when they see how wonderful many of the older residents look.  Unfortunately, Blue Mars has the same problem.  While the game does offer basic starter avatars, no tweaking required, they still look awkward.  Not to mention that everyone gravitates towards the same pretty face, the result being clones all over the welcome area.  Seeing numerous faces the same as your own at the beginning of the game is disappointing.  Blue Mars has tried to alleviate this problem by offering an advanced option that allows the user to further customize their avatars.  Until recently, Blue Mars avatars were stuck with the face they were born with because further optimization wasn't allowed.  Now there is a customization station in the welcome area that allows users to go back and tweak their facial structure.

New Venice - Blue Mars

Still tweaking the controls still requires loads of work, not to mention a gift for proportion.  My avatar's face shown above required many trips to the work station in the welcome area.  The work doesn't only end in the work station, a user must also master the make up controls in the UI.  Unlike Second Life where a user has full control to change their avatar form, Blue Mars only allows facial tweaks.  Actually changing the shape of an avatar body is not allowed.  A user will need a Blue Mars developer's license and knowledge of 3d modeling programs in order to change their body shape.  You can buy these items from a merchant but if it looks really good, chances are other people have it as well.  Which leads back to the clone problem.

The basic animations of the avatars are a bit annoying.  My avatar is constantly in motion which is distracting.  The sit animations remind me of a person who is wishing that she had access to bathroom facilities.  But all that can be ignored.  What can't be ignored is Uncanny Valley.  Blue Mars has set a bar for truly realistic looking avatars.  Where they stumbled is in the eyes.  The eyes on BM avatars are flat and soulless.  This is disconcerting in an avatar that would otherwise look truly beautiful.  I'm hoping that eyes will become replaceable in the same way they are in Second Life.  On the whole, Blue Mars avatars look very nice, if one is willing to spend the time to customize.

Shopping in Blue Mars is a great experience.  It is easy and has a nice demo feature called "try it on".  The only drawback is that shopping options are slim at the moment.  I've traveled around a few worlds that showcased a shop here and there.  But mostly there were rows and rows of empty shops.  This is why I'm hoping that they will consider becoming friendly to user created content.  The world hoped that they would get loads of professional and professional grade hobbyists into the world.  But so far, that hasn't happened.

As far as socialization is concerned, I see most users congregating in the welcome area.  So far I've only seen one or two other users during my tours of other locations.  The clientele in Blue Mars is based on a wide variety of nationalities.  The first time I logged in, the welcome area was filled entirely with Russian speakers.  You can speak to other users through a chat menu, the standard of all mmos.  There is a strange quirk in that Blue Mars will show your conversation on screen as chat bubbles over avatar heads.  Although it may have struck Blue Mars developers as a cute design, when in a crowded welcome area it is confusing to see so many bubbles filling the screen.

The impression I have a Blue Mars is a platform trying to find it's place in a shrinking VR world.  A world caught between catering to seasoned VR veterans and the Farmville crowd.  It is hard to determine if Blue Mars or any of the VRs will survive.  So far the regular Facebook minions have been frightened or uninterested of these worlds.  I, for one, hope they find success.  Blue Mars is a solid entry to the VR open world genre.