Metaplace in Open Beta

Last night at the in-game party in Metaplace Central, company-head and project-lead Raph Koster announced that the virtual world / game development platform, Metaplace, will be entering into Open Beta today as part of their “soft launch”. Metaplace, for those of you who are unaware, is a virtual world that allows users to create their own worlds within it. Users can create anything from social spaces, to small puzzle games, to more complex games, and even full-scale MMOs. While the latter most hasn’t been done just yet, there are projects set up to actually complete a game of that scale.

Metaplace runs in a browser. Just about any browser will do, as long as it runs Flash. It is also cross-platform compatible, although there are some problems with 64bit Linux and Flash 10 – really more the fault of Adobe than Metaplace, as near as I can tell. Currently, everything does run in a 2D environment, with the ability to display worlds in isometric, side-scrolling, or top-down view points. The platform is powerful enough that if you wanted to, you could theoretically create your own 3D engine through it, and even your own client software.