Foren

Hallllloooooooooo ihr Lieben!


Hier bekommt ihr ein bereinigtes Log des Chat Events mit dem Erfinder des Palace, das in 50 Räumen gleichzeitig stattfand von Doug.


=========================================================================
Special 7th Anniversary of The Palace Chat with Jim Bumgardner at Mansion
November 15th, 2002
Event Moderator: webdogª
Talent Assistant: Auto
=========================================================================
{webdogª}:  I'd like to welcome and introduce Jim Bumgardner, creator of the Palace software.
{jbum}:     Hi everyone :)
{webdogª}:  Often known as "jbum", Jim has a vast knowledge of virtual worlds and social aspects of the Internet.
{Auto}:     )applause
{webdogª}:  We are grateful to have him here at Mansion to celebrate the 7th Anniversary of the public release of the Palace software.
{webdogª}:  )applause
{webdogª}:  Welcome!
{jbum}:     Thanks for inviting me. :)
{jbum}:     When do the rockettes come out?
{Auto}:     They where occupied, sorry Jbum.
{jbum}:     Damn.
{webdogª}:  Ah, back again!
{jbum}:     Did we lose you there? Welcome back.
{webdogª}:  :(jbum coughs politely, and asks for a green smiley ball to crush under his thumb)
{jbum}:     heh
{webdogª}:  We have a bunch of questions, mostly submitted by users on www.thepalace.com for you tonight.
{jbum}:     You got questions. I got answers.
{webdogª}:  The first part we want to delve into is the history of the Palace.
{jbum}:     cool
{webdogª}:  Ready for the first question?
{jbum}:     Yes please. :)
{webdogª}:   "Jim, could you tell me a little about yourself and what led you to create the Palace?"
{jbum}:     Hmmm okay.
{webdogª}:  :You can just take the first part.
{jbum}:     I recently took a personality test that said that I am a 50% audio and 50% visual thinker ...
{jbum}:     ... but that I am 30% more right brained than left.
{webdogª}:  hmmm
{jbum}:     Meaning, I suppose ... I have no idea.
{webdogª}:  :I'm a 90% olfactory thinker.
{jbum}:     I went to art school in the early 80s, studied music, and then got into computers ...
{jbum}:     ... so I'm a person, I guess who likes to mix creative things with technical things.
{jbum}:     Incidentally, before i go on,
{webdogª}:  A catalyst of sorts?
{webdogª}:  Yes?
{jbum}:     I should mention that I put a very detailed accounting of the origin of the Palace on my website.
{jbum}:     It's a copy of an email I sent a few weeks ago. It can be found here:
{jbum}:     http://www.jbum.com/details.html
{Auto}:     A very interesting read.
{webdogª}:  Better than the Reader's Digest version.
{jbum}:     My daughter Jenna just picked this time to ask me how to get an avatar from Photoshop into The Palace.
{jbum}:     Funny.
{webdogª}:  lol
{jbum}:     Anyway, the short answer is, "I made The Palace because I thought it would be something fun to do."
{webdogª}:  Was it as fun as you had hoped for?
{jbum}:     And I was right, I guess.
{jbum}:     Oh, much more. I never guessed it would turn into the life altering force (for me, anyway) it did.
{jbum}:     My experience with it, and its success (and lack thereof) has colored my whole adult life.
{webdogª}:  How did you get interested in virtual worlds?
{jbum}:     Well, I've always been a dreamer and a reader of fantasy.
{jbum}:     I was a big giant Tolkien nerd in high school ...
{jbum}:     ... used to walk around school with a Gandalf staff.
{jbum}:     Oy ...
{webdogª}:  hahaha
{jbum}:     ... still am (I geek out at theonering.net nearly everyday).
{jbum}:      So I was always into the *idea* of living in a fantasy world.
{jbum}:      And then, when I got into computers, there were the early 80s BBSes.
{webdogª}:   :Sir Ian McKellen eat your heart out.
{jbum}:      Some of which used a virtual world kind of metaphor - there was one called Citadel I remember well that was like an early kind of MUD.
{webdogª}:   Tell our audience what a MUD is.
{jbum}:      I tried programming a chat system in the mid 80s at work,
{jbum}:      A MUD, or multi-user-dungeon, is a text based virtual world where people do D&D kinds of things.
{webdogª}:   Sorry to interrupt, go on about programming the chat system.
{jbum}:      So yeah, before I had ever heard the word MUD, I worked on a text-based system called "Mansion".
{jbum}:      This was a BBS that you called on the phone, and when the modem picked up, you would see the lines "You're at the front door",
{jbum}:      and you would type "knock on the door" and you would see "A butler answers the door" and so on ...
{jbum}:      ... and the idea was that the house was unfinished.  That anyone who visited the house could add rooms at the "frontier" of the house - it had a bleeding edge.
{jbum}:      People could add rooms, or they could add a rocket launcher in the backyard that took you to other planets. It was just text.
{jbum}:      The cool thing about it being just text was that it could really be anything you wanted.
{jbum}:      Anyway, the "mansion" project didn't get very far, because I was working at a real-estate company and there weren't paying me to make chat software.
{jbum}:      So I worked on it for a few weeks, and got the basic chat mechanics - the multiuser chat system happening ...
{webdogª}:   heh
{jbum}:      And then I got bogged down in the natural language-parsing stuff.
{jbum}:      :like you could say a cup was ON the table, and a picture was ON the wall. But if you said the cup was ON the wall, what did it mean?
{webdogª}:   :it means my milk is on the floor again!
{webdogª}:   Angel asks: "What gave you the idea to start The Palace?"
{jbum}:      So then my attention wandered and I spent a few weeks working on natural language parsing, and then as I am known to do, I moved onto to something else.
{jbum}:      So, Angel ...
{jbum}:      10 years later ...
{jbum}:      I was working at Time Warner and I got this idea to do a graphical version of "mansion".
{jbum}:      At this time there were a lot of stories in the press about "3d virtual reality". The movie Lawnmower Man had come out recently ...
{jbum}:      ... and I vividly remember an issue of Scientific American with a dataglove on the cover.
{webdogª}:   Ah, I remember that.
{jbum}:      And I remember reading all these stories and thinking, "Why does it need to be in 3d?"
{jbum}:      I thought you could make something really cool in 2D, which would allow people greater freedom to use their imaginations (just as text gives you greater freedom still).
{jbum}:      ... but still have a strong visual component, which is cool too ...
{webdogª}:   yes
{jbum}:      And I pictured this app, that would look a bit like that old Nintendo "Zelda" game, except with smiley heads, that you would use on your TV with a headset. You could chat with folks (using voice).
{jbum}:      ... and move from room to room, talking to the other folks on the Cable TV system.
{jbum}:      (My division of Time Warner was into interactive Cable TV)
{webdogª}:   heh
{jbum}:      so I made a demo at my company, and the demo evolved ...
{webdogª}:   So that's how you justified the project?
{jbum}:      Yes, the cable-division wanted "games", and this was my idea for a "game".
{jbum}:      (Although I knew it wasn't really a game,)
{webdogª}:   Did they know?
{jbum}:      (but a portal into serious addiction.)
{webdogª}:   haha
{jbum}:      Yeah, they knew. They saw right through my proposal and rejected it.
{jbum}:      BUT one of the execs encouraged me to make a 'proof-of-concept' anyway, so I did.
{jbum}:      And it evolved over the 2-3 weeks we were working on it. When we started, it was all OVERHEAD views, like the NES Zelda game.
{webdogª}:   So we have a Time Warner exec to thank!
{jbum}:      But then the artist I was working with, Damon Williams, started making pictures where the camera was at eye level.
{webdogª}:   Yes, I believe you have a picture on your website?
{jbum}:      And it was SO MUCH BETTER.
{jbum}:      It seems obvious now, but at the time, it was like, hmm this is interesting ...
{webdogª}:   http://www.jbum.com/jbum/history/index.html
{webdogª}:   Ah, so that was Damon's early contribution.
{webdogª}:   Damon and Doyle Moyer made the original room artworks for the Mansion.
{jbum}:      One of his many contributions. The whole 'interior design' of the original Mansion is basically Damon's.
{jbum}:      I said 'let's have a bar HERE, and a room with a movie screen HERE and make some stairs HERE' - but they actually made the rooms.
{jbum}:      One of my favorite things Damon made was the original 'Mansion' exterior that shows the actual house.
{Auto}:
{webdogª}:   So how did you convince Time Warner to spin off into your own company?
{jbum}:      I remember the marketing folks at Time Warner picked that thing apart. They thought it looked too 'gothic' and 'scary',
{jbum}:      but I always liked it.
{webdogª}:   :that is, the formation of The Palace, Inc.
{jbum}:      I don't know if it was me that convinced them as much as the Internet itself. The Palace was clearly a cool "Internet thing" and in 1994 (when the demo was made) the Internet was becoming very hot.
{jbum}:      So Time Warner Interactive decided to produce the product as a marketing tool to sell their other CD-ROM games.
{jbum}:      They would give out The Palace on the Internet, and then cross-promote other stuff on it, that was what they wanted to do ...
{jbum}:      ... but then something happened ...
{jbum}:      ... the division of Time Warner I worked for was disbanded.
{jbum}:      But they still wanted to keep The Palace project going (because it was 'Internet' hot hot hot) so they did, and it sort of developed a life of its own.
{webdogª}:   :It still has a life of its own. ;-)
{jbum}:      Indeed. :)
{jbum}:      The Palace is dead. Long live The Palace!
{webdogª}:   haha
{webdogª}:   trav's freq gf asks: "After looking back at all of the trials and tribulations during the seven years in which The Palace existed, what is one (palace-related) thing you would have done differently?"
{jbum}:      I would have resisted the impetus for Time Warner to sell the property to Intel (this deal resulted in the stand alone company "The Palace Inc.").
{webdogª}:   Ah, I see.
{jbum}:      Once the team went from being 6-7 people to 40 people, that's when things started to go south.
{webdogª}:   :I remember.
{jbum}:      Ideally, the company should have been a small 6-7 person company. It might still exist today if that had happened. But in reality that was probably impossible,
{jbum}:      because it was owned by a very large company.
{webdogª}:   Later on, The Palace, Inc. went through a merger and became Communities.com.
{webdogª}:   Jon asks: "Why exactly did Communities.com close? They were doing so well with Palace and other Palace Programs. I just don't understand why in the world they would do that when The Palace was the biggest virtual avatar chat used ever."
{jbum}:      Yes, that's true. As far as I'm concerned though, things started going wrong around 1996.
{jbum}:      I didn't work for Communities.com (I left right before the merger in late 1997). However, my guess is that they weren't profitable, and were finding it harder to get investments from VCs.
{webdogª}:   :I had to ask ... that question gets asked all the time.
{jbum}:      I don't think the Palace community was capable of sustaining a company of that size.
{webdogª}:   "The Palace was pronounced dead over 2 years ago, and surprisingly, there are now over 1500 active servers - more than ever before. Why do you think this is?"
{jbum}:      Because it was designed to work on small systems, and to be self-sustaining. Because we started out with a small number of people, we had to build something that could exist without our support,
{jbum}:      and of course because it's fun and incredibly addicting ...
{Auto}:      :Indeed.
{webdogª}:   I am not an addict.
{jbum}:      ... and because other chats aren't quite as good (most of them anyway). That will change I hope. I hear "The Sims Online" is going to be quite good.
{webdogª}:   "Where do you think the Palace community is headed over the next 2 years?"
{jbum}:      I don't know. I wonder if "The Sims" when it is released might absorb some of the folks. It might. I remember when The Palace came-to-be we absorbed a lot of the folks from Worlds Chat ...
{jbum}:      ... but at the same time there's a lot of folks here who've been here for years and years. Amazing.
{jbum}:      And it's hard to imagine them just putting it down.
{webdogª}:   :I remember on New Year's Eve, 1995, you prognosticated that in a year, The Palace wouldn't exist, or it would be completely different.
{webdogª}:   Yeah, we have some hardcore users out there!
{jbum}:      Wow. How wrong can a person be!
{jbum}:      Not only does it still exist, but it still uses a 512x384 window!!!!!
{webdogª}:   I think it was the eggnog speaking.
{jbum}:      (The window size chosen to run on Macintosh LCs.)
{webdogª}:   Ah, those good old 12 inch CRT's.
{webdogª}:   "What role do you currently have in the Palace community? Are there currently other virtual worlds or related projects are you involved with?"
{jbum}:      Yeah.... (raises fist at bastards at apple... Dammmm  you.....)
{jbum}:      My current role in the Palace community consists of visiting yearly to give retrospective interviews.
{jbum}:      Other than that, no role whatsoever.
{webdogª}:   heh
{Auto}:      An idol among us Palace mortals.
{jbum}:      I am still somewhat interested in virtual worlds, but this interest competes with several other strong interests, which have not been sated as much as my virtual worlds interest.
{jbum}:      Therefore, they get more attention.
{webdogª}:   Such as your chess program?
{jbum}:      Those interests include: graphics and music programming, game programming and at the moment COMPUTER CHESS.. (and the upcoming two towers movie...)
{jbum}:      My involvement in virtual communities is mostly restricted to the online chess company. I am 'plywood' at freechess.org - the free Internet chess server.
{webdogª}:   You mentioned it, tell us more about your involvement in Two Towers.
{jbum}:      I'm trying to fix my program so it'll beat the other programs.
{jbum}:      :)
{webdogª}:   :-)
{jbum}:      My involvement with the Two Towers consists of waiting patiently everyday for the film to come out (i'm SUCH a geek...)
{webdogª}:   Is someone holding your place in line?
{webdogª}:   Doug asks: "What is your opinion of the Palace replacement projects out there?"
{jbum}:      Nah. I'm going to take off work that day and see the noon show. Last year I attended the same show with the whole animation department from Disney Studios.
{jbum}:      My opinion of most of them is high, and as of late, I've been a little more willing to share source code with those who ask, since no lawyers have come knocking on my door these past few years.
{jbum}:      However, at the same time, I must say ...
{jbum}:      that simply 'duplicating' The Palace is not really that interesting to me. The Palace is vintage 1995 software, and it shows.
{webdogª}:   An anonymous user asks: "Are on-line friendships fundamentally deceiving? Or just different?"
{jbum}:      I think there is some truth to the idea of there being 'fundamentally deceiving' - however you are deceiving yourself.
{jbum}:      The problem is that you are communicating with someone over a very low bandwidth stream - just a few text characters in the ether.
{jbum}:      Whereas, in person there is a LOT more information being exchanged.
{jbum}:      Given the lack of information, you tend to (especially when you first meet someone) FILL IN THE BLANKS in the information void.
{jbum}:      It's kind of like when you see an attractive person and you imagine what they sound like ...
{jbum}:      ... and then they open their mouth and you realize a little more of the truth ...
{webdogª}:   :bark
{jbum}:      So you fill in that void with YOURSELF.
{webdogª}:   gotcha
{jbum}:      Everything you don't know about the person (and there's a lot of it) is replaced with YOU.
{jbum}:      And since you like yourself, this is a great thing. So to sum up - there is a potential narcissistic thing going on with new online relationships that you have to be careful about.
{webdogª}:   "What influence, if any, do you think The Palace has had on other social environments on the Internet?"
{jbum}:      Well, in the mid-late 90s it had a lot of obvious direct influence.
{jbum}:      AOL had a chat space, if I recall which was quite obviously modified to more closely resemble The Palace.
{jbum}:      However, beyond that I can't say. I think The Palace in turn was influenced by a lot of things that were going on simultaneously.
{webdogª}:   Ready for some fun questions?
{jbum}:      Oh sure.
{webdogª}:   Sparkle asks: "My friend and I are both addicted to The Palace, but we have an ongoing disagreement about it. Was The Palace originally created for prep avs or skater/goth avs?"
{jbum}:      hahahahaha
{jbum}:      Uh. No.
{jbum}:      Let's see. If The Palace was originally created for any kind of av, it would be the 'smiley' av ... (which was drawn by yours truly).
{webdogª}:   Lou Lou asks: "I don't like how some wizzes and gods are mean. How is the EASIEST and FASTEST way to get rid of them? (Because I hate it when they pin you or play around with you for no reason at all.)"
{jbum}:      The easiest way to get rid of a wiz is to ...
{jbum}:      ... poop on his head.
{jbum}:      However, you have to be in the same room.
{webdogª}:   :Taking notes.
{webdogª}:   :Poop on head ... got it.
{Auto}:      Was )wind a personal creation?
{jbum}:      There are two wind sounds: one of them (the louder 'robust' one is Mark Jeffrey), and the 'wet' one is me.
{webdogª}:   Uck.
{jbum}:      The kiss and giggle are me too.
{webdogª}:   "Harvey Ball, creator of the yellow smiley face, died a year and a half ago. What influence, if any, did he have on your development of The Palace avatars?"
{jbum}:      Well, obviously a huge one. I grew up in the 70s and always liked those smiley buttons.
{jbum}:      Kai Krause had a big influence too, because I used his "spheroid" tool to make it.
{webdogª}:   :-)
{webdogª}:   Ah.
{webdogª}:   Kai's Power Tools ...
{jbum}:      We had some fights over that original avatar at Time Warner.
{webdogª}:   ... for Photoshop.
{jbum}:      There was one exec (Mike Gutentag) who thought we should have a collection of human faces (with hair and everything).
{jbum}:      So we would have 'the generic white guy' and the 'generic black girl' and so on ...
{jbum}:      I've seen other chat systems which do this and I think it's a terrible idea, and I fought against that idea at the time.
{jbum}:      Later at TPI there was a similar war waged ...
{jbum}:      ... I liked the smileys, because there more abstract, and easier to relate to. If I see a photo of someone's face, that's not me - that's someone else.
{webdogª}:   Glide asks: "If you could only have one super power, what would it be?"
{jbum}:      Does 'invisible flight' count as one superpower?
{webdogª}:   yes
{jbum}:      Okay, that's the one.
{webdogª}:   heh
{webdogª}:   LossAngeles asks: "Is he still married to Janet and what is she doing these days? Does she use The Palace anymore for chatting?"
{jbum}:      (I'd want to fly, but only if I could be invisible so the military wouldn't be able to catch me and do horrific experiments on me.)
{webdogª}:   :Ya, the military might turn you into a black hole or something. ;-)
{jbum}:      Let me get Janet, one moment ...
{jbum}:      Okay ...  yes Janet and I still married. We live in a beautiful house in Shadow Hills, California.
{jbum}:      Janet's doing laundry at the moment (how domestic!).
{webdogª}:   heh
{jbum}:      Janet doesn't use Palace much either these days. She DOES play a LOT of snood.
{jbum}:      (When she's on the computer, which is not all that often.)
{webdogª}:   I remember how I first became a wiz: I knew it wasn't possible through you, because everyone wanted jbum to make them a wiz. But I got on the good side of Janet and that's how I squeezed in.
{jbum}:      There's something very "I Claudius" about that story.
{webdogª}:   :whoa
{webdogª}:   :Better check with Janet on that.
{webdogª}:    Ok, one more question?
{jbum}:       sure :)
{webdogª}:    "If you were single, and the only women you could date were colored smiley balls, which color would you choose?"
{jbum}:       Hmm, let's see ...
{jbum}:       ... trying them out ...
{webdogª}:        sure
{jbum}:       ... well, some I would like more if they didn't have horrible banding artifacts, but ...
{jbum}:       ---------- I think this one.
{jbum}:       I'm a sucker for magenta.
{webdogª}:    I think these women would be classy enough to have 24-bit color.
{webdogª}:    )applause
{jbum}:       thank you :)
{webdogª}:    It's been incredible having you here this evening.
{jbum}:       Sure. Did you know there's a hole in the curtain?
{webdogª}:    It's being fixed.
{jbum}:       Oh good. :)
{Auto}:       Glide is working on that.
{webdogª}:    I think he's going to put a hole on the other side for symmetry.
{jbum}:       That would work.
{Auto}:       The unsupported way to patch The Palace. ;)
{jbum}:       Yeah, just even it out.
{webdogª}:    It's been a real pleasure learning about your creation, The Palace.
{jbum}:       Thank you very much for having me - thank you everybody. :)
{webdogª}:    And of course, having your as a guest.
{webdogª}:    Can we count on having you next year?
{jbum}:       Absolutely. I have a role to fill.
{jbum}:       :)
{webdogª}:    )applause thanks again, and everybody go and visit www.jbum.com!!!
{jbum}:       (and freechess.org)
{webdogª}:    :YA
{jbum}:       (and theonering.net)
{webdogª}:    lol
{jbum}:       (and slashdot.org)
{webdogª}:    heh
{jbum}:       bye folks :)
{webdogª}:    Bye all!
{Auto}:       Thank you Jbum.
{jbum}:       You're very welcome. :)


Danke an Doug fürs Bearbeiten und Posten des Logs.