Maid Marian Entertainment Inc. is a self cited, “leading developer of next generation web based games specializing in community oriented multiplayer games.” They have built several browser based games all centred around socialising, driving or sword fights. Their nearest ‘equivalent’ to Second Life is Club Marian.

Club Marian is a virtual world (of sorts) with a difference. To take part, you don’t need to download any software, you don’t need to install anything special… in fact, you don’t even need to register. You visit the website, choose your name for that session and hit ‘start’. You’ll be asked to hit a button to confirm you are over the age of 13 and then will instantly land ‘in world’ at the avatar customisation point.

The avatars are, to say the least, basic. But once you have the look you’re going for…

… you’re set to go.

And it really is that simple. But what can you really do in a virtual world that requires so little by way of setup?

There’s chat (text chat only) and there are people around to chat with, believe it or not! There were 850 people online when I was online.

There’s driving. Every avatar has a sports car and a very simple panel on your screen with a button to let you get in and out of it. Vehicle control is simple and functions well.

But where exactly are you going to drive to – Club Marian has only three destinations to go. There’s there wintery ‘Snowy Alpine,’ the grasslands of ‘Maple Grove’ and the tropical ‘Tacky Tiki.’ Once you’ve driven or walked around all three, you have seen everything there is to see. So exploration is over and your only remaining option aside from chatting is playing with the bizarre little music generator – disco lights optional.

The verdict? Graphically simple yet functional. However, this is just essentially a 3D chat room. It really does remain to be seen whether it’s possible to build a truly immersive browser based virtual world. Would we really want to limit the realms of possibility in such platforms just to make them browser playable?

Not for me, thanks.

I decided I was perhaps judging a little too quickly, however and opted to for a quick session on their MMORPG game known as Sherwood Dungeon. This one does have a point to it. Some sort of fighting game. But it follows the same principals in its simplicity and if you really want to be able to achieve anything you need to purchase various aides. Not particularly entertaining, in my opinion. If you’re interested in trying a few of these very simple platforms out for yourself, visit MaidMarian.com

Tags: browser based virtual worlds, club marian, maid marian
Categories: Second Life

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Second Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.