Outback Online

There a new virtual world coming and its called Outback Online.

Scobleizer:

"Anyway, why does the world need another Second Life-style thing?

Well, here’s some reasons that Outback Online gave me:

1. The quality of graphics on Second Life aren’t good enough to do lots of things.
2. The scalability of Second Life isn’t good enough to hold really large events (only about 100 people can fit into a single island, in Outback Online they claim they can get 10,000).
3. Second Life is too restrictive globally for kids and families (in Second Life it’s OK to have virtual sex almost anywhere and only 18-year-olds are allowed into the main world and adults aren’t allowed to work with kids in the teen grid). Outback Online says they’ll have much better granularity of age controls and parental controls and community controls. If they can control the flying penises, that’ll be a big driver for many of us who want to play online with our kids.
4. They see that by focusing on Windows only at first they can push the edge of graphics (and, they are working on an Xbox version too that’ll bring lots of people into this world). It’s among the world’s most graphically intensive C# applications.
5. Instead of hosting everything on centrally-located servers they are using P2P to get more people onto islands and bring better graphical performance."

3pointD:

"Depending on how much of the system is peer-to-peer, this could make a huge difference in what the experience is like. One of the great advantages in Second Life is that everything in the world is persistent (as long as the Grid itself is working).

SL’s virtual 3D spaces hang around like Web sites even when the admin isn’t logged in. I have nothing against a constellation of islands small and large, especially if some of these could be tied together into small mainlands — but a constellation of islands that blink on and off is less compelling."

From Yoick:

"Outback Online provides an easy, free way to have fun with friends while creating 3D virtual worlds together. It combines a fun social environment like MySpace and Cyworld, a peer to peer communication network like Skype and a user-generated service like YouTube into a seamless 3D platform, that is infinitely scalable."

CEO Rand Leeb-du Toit:

"Experienced venture investor, deal maker and senior executive with a special interest in high technology, high growth areas that involve tech and business step changes. An entrepreneurial change agent, chief mischief maker and evangelist for seizing opportunities and getting stuff done, Rand plays on the edge between futurist, catalyst and leader and likes to push the envelope at every chance."