Wild

We're building the modern middle school playground.

[Wild @thatswilddotcom]

Reality can't compete.

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Wild is live on Quest and we’re working hard to increase capacity!

The feeling of hundreds of people in VR celebrating RecRoom, building together, and making friends is unreal.

The metaverse is almost here.

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

We just did a big load test for Wild with hundreds of players + simulated clients!

I was surprised how comfortable it felt, especially with so many people talking at once.

RecForever will be a really special event.

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Wild is hosting RecForever on June 2nd!

RecRoom was a turning point for me in VR - its the reason I got my first headset. It's going to be really hard letting go of RecRoom.

RecForever will be a huge event with hundreds of people in the same world celebrating our time in RecRoom with music, guests, and activities.

Invite only right now, but check the next post for an invite code!

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Mwahahahaha QuestCam has made it's return in a new form!

We just tested our HandyCam in Wild for content creators.

Much more performant than QuestCam, less lag when starting a video compared to LIV's LCK, and lots of optimizations so even Quest 2 players can record HD videos.

It works especially well with Wild's face animation, which will be even better at lauch.

All of this, plus 300+ player servers, 10 chunk rendering distance, smooth lighting, and networked physics.

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

We’re giving a sneak peek at @thatswilddotcom’s next (and namesake) virtual world - Wild!

We all love VR and we all know it can be big. The opportunity to make lasting civilization in VR has literally never been bigger.

It’s taking everything we learned about large scale virtual worlds with Factions and improving on all fronts.

Quite a light tease at what it will have to offer, but excited to begin talking about it nonetheless. It’s the culmination of almost 5 years of technical and product effort.

We’re working hard to complete it and have it out in about a month!

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

RecRoom was literally the reason I bought my first headset.

If there’s anyone at RecRoom who wants to keep working on VR with a super talented and passionate team, please shoot me a message!

[Wild @thatswilddotcom]

Rec Room shutting down is a sad day for VR.

It was Wild’s players’ first exposure to VR and reason to get a headset.

But those players aren’t going anywhere, and we think there is more opportunity than ever to make VR what it was always meant to be.

To anyone at Rec Room who still wants to work in VR and spread it to millions of players, Wild is hiring.

Wild is a bit unique - we work in an in-house engine and networking stack and are completely focused on VR. Our team is small, but extremely high talent and passion.

We’ve got a title out already with an energizing player base, and a new world in the works.

We’d love to connect with anyone at Rec Room who is still passionate about VR and can help us build even better worlds!

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Every day we restock the shop in @thatswilddotcom's virtual reality world.

And every time, 200+ kids hop in line to be first in the door.

Everyone's in the same world, so the shop restocks are absolute pandemonium.

Oh - and the entire city you see here wasn't built but our team, it was made by the world's users! As we've grown, they expanded the shop from one floor to three!

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Factions is the top trending game on the Quest store today!

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Odds are, you think VR is nothing more than Zuckerberg's most expensive failed experiment.

But VR is home to the most unique consumer social products.

Far more distinct than anything in AI consumer products right now, and a bigger opportunity in my opinion, too.

In @thatswilddotcom's virtual reality world, over a hundred kids get in their headset to shop for new avatars.

The only thing you can compare it to is Walmart during Black Friday, and it is only possible in VR.

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

When I'm not dismantling fraudulent AR companies, I'm building a virtual reality world!

My company, @thatswilddotcom, runs a giant libertarian social VR world called Factions where everyone shares the same server.

Everything is run by players - they have presidential elections, operate legal systems, start wars, host massive entertainment events, etc.

The explored world is roughly 14 times the size of Manhattan and growing every day.

Our latest experiment: opening a school in VR. This week, we'll kick off a school inside Factions.

The first course will be on how to make social media content and, later, ones like world history, language arts, debate, and more.

Fun fact: it's built in a custom game engine made for VR that we spent 3 years building!

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Last March, @thatswilddotcom's virtual reality world was twice the size of Manhattan two weeks after launch.

Now, since we reset the world 5 weeks ago, the world is more dense the user builds and 15 times the size of Manhattan in developed space.

City -> State -> Continent -> World -> Universe

[Wild @thatswilddotcom]

The VR/AR space is filled with opportunity.

Software hasn't even come close to what the hardware is capable of yet!

No need to lie about hardware until the software frontier is mapped out.

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

https://t.co/GznSoGQBaK

[Wild @thatswilddotcom]

Well designed wirtual reality worlds are intelligent.

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

The turning point was today - I'll share more soon.

I'm now very confident that Factions & @thatswilddotcom will consume what is left of the VR industry and turn it into something truly great.

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

After some added analytics features, we can now create daily rundowns for all the crazy stuff happening in Factions!

7/10 for accuracy - will improve!

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

First campaign video, a third candidate since recognizing the election as official

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Wild Stream 1 https://t.co/lpqh26TsQV

[Matthew Dowd @thedowd]

Why do I think the consensus around VR as a Holodeck with gaussian splats is wrong?

I've written some extended thoughts on it. Check it out.

https://t.co/TWhuWutIBt

[Wild @thatswilddotcom]

VR gaussian splats: virtually irrelevant

Read it here:
https://t.co/Fl4SvC59eh

[martin_casado @martin_casado]

!! I really cannot believe this works. Large splat scene in VR on a Quest 3 using sparkjs. LoD budget is 500k splats. Runs about 30 fps. Full scene is ~6million splats.

It's janky (sorry about the controls) But still, just insane this works at all ...

(Metaverse is coming!)