Gabe wanted to meet someplace in VR, but most of the stuff I play in VR are games like Demeo, where who you are is sorta defined by the game - there's no "you" out there really, just some hands and a mask. So when I popped in, I popped in as Ronia - a person for whom the Avatar Creator is an entire game in itself. I suspected that I might, but thought it would be complex psychologically for him, which was a reason to do it. Just know that everything happened exacty as you see it here.
Horizon Worlds (and maybe Second Life? I don't know, I was only in there for a little bit, but this first part tracks) feels like the old Internet where everybody is just sort of surprised it works.
It's really wild. The cyber venue he took me to is designed as a comedy club, which I think is kind of a good idea, but at least half of the participants in any cyber outing I commit to in these places are children. I'm not saying they can't be there or whatever. This is what used to happen in any chatroom, and still does, except now you know who is actually twelve because they sound twelve. Each one of these larvae got the mic at various times and this is what they did.
1. Caleb wanted to know if anybody wanted to play a game with him. He sounded about seven.
2. A young woman sang for a while.
3. Then a young man beatboxed in VR. It kinda worked!
4. The young woman from before got the mic and used it to berate people who had not listened with sufficient enthusiasm to the previous beatboxing. Do these two know each other? Is there lore?!
Not a lot of comedy. Well, not intentionally. There was also one other guy who kept talking about how he liked the old version of the club better, but he didn't really say why and I'd never been to the previous one. "Totally," I said.
And, hey! It might not be Halloween anymore, technically it's just the one day or - for those souls perhaps more directly adjacent to The Void - a Season. But that doesn't mean you can't bite down very firmly on the first episode of Seattle By Night: Season 2. I wouldn't say that the first season is required to get into it, we have a new cast member around and it's the first time we've ever been to Seattle, but the full playlist has lots of good stuff in manageable, two-hour episodes.
(CW)TB out.
