We Can't Drive 55

Over the holiday, optimizations were applied to our exclusive forums reducing the original load times of 30 - 45 seconds down to an average of 6 seconds or less. Also with these optimizations have come another theme in testing for lower bandwidth users, named Galactic Underground, which is slimmer and trimmer than our default.

Andromeda Underground forums have also been given their own domain address as part of a future enhancement program still under way. From this point forward, you can access our forums using the following dedicated domain address:

http://www.andromedaunderground.com

In Other News

Progress is being made with the distributed database system for Andromeda3D, albeit a slow progress. One of the major setbacks for progress with our project is that it does not have adequate resources to continue at a full-time pace. This overall has slowed our progress but has not halted it, as we refuse to stop working on it.

As it stands, Andromeda3D is a work in progress under the constraints of inadequate resources, funding and time; but we see these deficiencies not as impossible things to overcome, but instead something to make us try even harder.

We may not have millions of dollars and an army of programmers like others in this industry, but we have the one thing the rest of the industry does not and it is the most important thing of all:

Intelligence.

Not to say that others in this industry are dumb, but it takes a failure of common sense to assume you can build a Metaverse from a centralized system. That mentality only works for the first 1 million people if you are lucky, and god forbid they all want to show up to an event.

No, centralized systems are lucky to handle a few hundred simultaneous users, but are more likely to begin dying with 50 simultaneous users per area. If you are a company looking to have a virtual world for a conference where the expo center in real life would expect 10,000 or more people, then if you see 1/10th of that in your virtual environment version you are incredibly lucky.

The point of a Metaverse is to be a better option than physical attendance, and even with the hundreds of so-called options, none of them can come close to that expectation.

So much for tens of millions of dollars being thrown at these companies to make a better Metaverse, eh?

The money and resources, as far as we can see, are being given to the people who are better at talking than doing. LindenLabs is a good example of this, in that their evangelist Mr Rosedale can talk a smooth talk, enough to convince investors to hand over millions of dollars to build his SecondLife, but it is a system built so poorly that it consistently fails and requires a high end computer system for the most basic of graphics, let alone something better.

A good idea with a silver tongue to talk investors into writing the checks. Horribly implemented, and now being held together by duct tape.

We won't even start about Avatar Blue Mars. It looks good, requires high end hardware to use, and is functionally useless. But it's the "shiny graphics" that seemed to convince investors to throw millions of dollars at them.

Due to the track history of investment groups versus the "products" they invested heavily in for this metaverse industry (if you even want to call it that), we're under the impression that what matters most to investors isn't if it will actually work, but whether it looks flashy enough. Nobody is actually doing their homework and asking important questions beforehand, such as "How many people can simultaneously be in a given area?".

Secondlife: 40

I'm sure IBM or Cisco can spit out a case study where under certain conditions they have managed 300 people simultaneous at an event, but those numbers are the exception and not the rule. Ask any sim owner how many people showed up to a location before people began lagging and crashing, and the number is usually around 20 - 40 users.

Clearly this is not the bandwagon to be on, but there is so much hype that investors and companies with common sense seem to throw all of that out of the window to jump on board.

So the real question is, have investment groups finally learned their lesson when evaluating the base ideas for a new Metaverse before pouring millions of dollars into it, or are they still about as competent as a cat only interested in chasing the shiny laser dot on the carpet?

From our first hand experience such far, they're still blinded by the looks while disregarding the fundamental foundations. We'll be more than happy to talk with an investment group that would like to prove to us otherwise, but so far we've heard little more than incompetence over the past ten years.

This is why we'll continue building Andromeda3D regardless if it is being backed. It's something that simply needs to be done the right way whether or not the people with the resources approve of it.

On Complexity...

There is something to be said about the absolute complexity of building a virtual worlds environment platform from scratch. You never really understand where the process will take you until you begin down different paths, but as long as you understand the guiding factors in your ultimate decisions, you will always drift forward with a clear understanding of every element.

One of these complexity issues happens to be our biggest concern while designing and implementing Andromeda3D, in that we are actively seeking a solution to a problem which no other virtual worlds environment company has dared, let alone even acknowledges in this industry.

Of course, we're speaking about the glass ceiling issue with simultaneous users within a virtual environment.

I personally don't care how much funding you have, how many programmers are coding away diligently, or how great your hype machine is. If you refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room, you are doomed to failure. It isn't a matter of if, but when, as you one day realize the system you built is constantly failing under the weight of the popularity you've created for it, and there is nothing you can do short of tearing out the entire system and starting again. But since you are unable to rip the carpet out from your now paying customer population, we have no choice but to continually apply duct tape to your collapsing system as it slowly spirals into its grave.

Virtual worlds for business is an excellent idea, but not one which is fully matured. As it stands, the technologies on offer today do not meet the demands of a full scale event and are nothing more than a trivial side show compared to packed convention centers housing 50,000 people.

This is what we're working on solving. We like to ask the unthinkable question; "What if all 50,000 people could attend a virtual location with little to no detrimental effects?"

We're calling the elephant in the room out of hiding, acknowledging it exists, and taking steps to solve the issue that hundreds of millions of dollars and some of the brightest minds on this planet refused to acknowledge. We're doing this because we hate leaving people out of the loop, or telling them "We're sorry, this simulator is full.. come back later"

That is unacceptable, and we're doing everything in our power to make it right.