vSide beta 6 released
by Orion Elenzil · 07/31/2008 (11:19 pm) · 7 comments
vSide has just released Beta 6!
vSide is a Massively Multiplayer Online World for teens, centered on partying with your friends.
It's based on TGE 1.3.5, although with some fairly significant modifications here and there.
new user-facing stuff:
Apartments
--------------
* LGA Tower - a new, larger apartment.
Users in vSide own their own apartment, customizing the surfaces, choosing YouTube videos, placing furniture, etc, etc, and with Beta 6, there's a new apartment to own. LGATower is a much larger apartment than others, allowing users to build wild environments.
* Multiple layouts per apartment
Your apartment can now have three different layouts instead of just one
* Door Codes
You can restrict access to your apartment by setting a DoorCode. Throw private parties!
* Tons more surface materials and furniture for apartments, including customizable picture frames of your friends.
Games
---------
* Sumo! There's now a Sumo Wrestling Hall, where you wear a sumo suit and enter sumo combat!
* The Grind - a virtual arcade game you can place in your apartment. It's got the gameplay of a classic puzzle game, but the screen is a projected hologram so your friends can spectate.
* Other casual, open-ended gameplay enablers.
Shopping & Clothes
-------------------------
* Two new clothing shops and fashion lines: Modz-Podz and Kawaii, and additional gothic clothing and furnishings will be released each week.
First User Experience
---------------------------
* Not so exciting for existing users perhaps, but important for vSide as a product.
We've streamlined our first user experience by letting you design your avatar's initial look on the web, and making the introductory "Gateway" world even more streamlined and fun.
Under The Hood
--------------------
* Naturally the usual bugfixes and general improvements.
* We reduced the size of our installer by about 70MB by baking in only tiny versions of our textures, and dynamically downloading the full-size versions as needed.
* A technique to capture high-quality images of players complete with transparency allowed us to automatically generate the hundreds of images needed to "design" your avatar on the website, such as these:
some screenies:
the new kawaii store with it's t-shirt-flinging octopus!
kids getting crazy in the sumo ring!
playing The Grind in a dark alleyway..
the materials and surfaces browser
vSide is a Massively Multiplayer Online World for teens, centered on partying with your friends.
It's based on TGE 1.3.5, although with some fairly significant modifications here and there.
new user-facing stuff:
Apartments
--------------
* LGA Tower - a new, larger apartment.
Users in vSide own their own apartment, customizing the surfaces, choosing YouTube videos, placing furniture, etc, etc, and with Beta 6, there's a new apartment to own. LGATower is a much larger apartment than others, allowing users to build wild environments.
* Multiple layouts per apartment
Your apartment can now have three different layouts instead of just one
* Door Codes
You can restrict access to your apartment by setting a DoorCode. Throw private parties!
* Tons more surface materials and furniture for apartments, including customizable picture frames of your friends.
Games
---------
* Sumo! There's now a Sumo Wrestling Hall, where you wear a sumo suit and enter sumo combat!
* The Grind - a virtual arcade game you can place in your apartment. It's got the gameplay of a classic puzzle game, but the screen is a projected hologram so your friends can spectate.
* Other casual, open-ended gameplay enablers.
Shopping & Clothes
-------------------------
* Two new clothing shops and fashion lines: Modz-Podz and Kawaii, and additional gothic clothing and furnishings will be released each week.
First User Experience
---------------------------
* Not so exciting for existing users perhaps, but important for vSide as a product.
We've streamlined our first user experience by letting you design your avatar's initial look on the web, and making the introductory "Gateway" world even more streamlined and fun.
Under The Hood
--------------------
* Naturally the usual bugfixes and general improvements.
* We reduced the size of our installer by about 70MB by baking in only tiny versions of our textures, and dynamically downloading the full-size versions as needed.
* A technique to capture high-quality images of players complete with transparency allowed us to automatically generate the hundreds of images needed to "design" your avatar on the website, such as these:
some screenies:
the new kawaii store with it's t-shirt-flinging octopus!
kids getting crazy in the sumo ring!
playing The Grind in a dark alleyway..
the materials and surfaces browser
About the author
#2
08/01/2008 (7:03 am)
I want to be a teen... ;-) 
#3
08/01/2008 (2:39 pm)
Teens can't be LEET forum moderators. 
#4
08/01/2008 (3:59 pm)
I gotta say.. VERY slick. I love the use of the cell shaded avatars, and it fits perfectly with your theme. It's rare to see an effort like this that not only displays such technical expertise with the engine, but also exhibits a great sense of style. Very nice.
#5
08/01/2008 (8:08 pm)
As always, lookin great, dude! 
Torque Owner Novack