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Jim Bumgardner Mansion Chat Transcript
- wedog™:
- I'd like to welcome and introduce Jim Bumgardner, creator of the Palace software.
- jbum
- Hi everyone :)
- webdog™:
- Often known as "jbum", Jim has a vast knowledge of virtual worlds and social aspects of the Internet.
- Auto:
- applause
- webdog™:
- We are grateful to have him here at Mansion to celebrate the 7th Anniversary of the public release of the Palace software.
- webdog™:
- )applause
- webdog™:
- Welcome!
- jbum:
- thank's for inviting me. :)
- jbum:
- when do the rockettes come out?
- Auto:
- they where occupied, sorry Jbum
- jbum:
- damn.
- webdog™:
- ah, back again!
- jbum:
- did we lose you there? welcome back.
- webdog™:
- :(jbum coughs politely, and asks for a green smiley ball to crush under his thumb)
- jbum:
- heh.
- webdog™:
- We have a bunch of questions, mostly submitted by users on www.thepalace.com for you tonight.
- jbum:
- you got questions. i got answers.
- webdog™:
- The first part we want to delve into is the history of the Palace.
- jbum:
- cool.
- webdog™:
- Ready for the first question?
- jbum:
- yes please :)
- webdog™:
- "Jim, could you tell me a little about yourself and what led you to create the Palace?"
- jbum:
- hmmm okay.
- webdog™:
- :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.
- webdog™:
- hmmm
- jbum:
- meaning, i suppose... i have no idea.
- webdog™:
- :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,
- webdog™:
- A catalyst of sorts/
- webdog™:
- 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
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- lol
- jbum:
- anyway, the short answer is "i made the palace because i thought it would be something fun to do"
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- 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...
- webdog™:
- ahahaha
- 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
- webdog™:
- :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.
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- 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:
- and 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...
- webdog™:
- 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?
- webdog™:
- :it means my milk is on the floor again
- webdog™:
- 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 was 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.
- webdog™:
- 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...
- webdog™:
- 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)
- webdog™:
- Heh
- jbum:
- so I made a demo at my company, and the demo evolved....
- webdog™:
- 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)
- webdog™:
- Did they know?
- jbum:
- (but a portal into serious addiction)
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- 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...
- webdog™:
- http://www.jbum.com/jbum/history/index.html
- webdog™:
- Ah, so that was Damon's early contribution
- webdog™:
- 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:
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- :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.
- webdog™:
- :it still has a life of it's own ;-)
- jbum:
- indeed :)
- jbum:
- the palace is dead. long live the palace!
- webdog™:
- ahaha
- webdog™:
- 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")
- webdog™:
- ah, i see
- jbum:
- once the team went from being 6-7 people to 40 people, that's when things started to go south.
- webdog™:
- :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.
- webdog™:
- Later on, The Palace, Inc. went through a merger and became Communities.com
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- :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.
- webdog™:
- "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
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- "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.
- webdog™:
- :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.
- webdog™:
- 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!!!!!
- webdog™:
- i think it was the eggnog speaking
- jbum:
- (the window size chosen to run on Macintosh LCs)
- webdog™:
- ah, those good old 12 inch CRT's
- webdog™:
- "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.
- webdog™:
- heh
- Auto:
- an idol amung 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.
- webdog™:
- 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 involvedment in virtual communities is mostly restricted to the online chess company. i am 'plywood' at freechess.org - the free internet chess server.
- webdog™:
- 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:
- :)
- webdog™:
- :-)
- jbum:
- my involvement with the Two Towers consists of waiting patiently everyday for the film to come out (i'm SUCH a geek...)
- webdog™:
- Is someone holding your place in line?
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- An anonymous users asks: "Are on-line friendships fundamentally deceiving? or just different?"
- jbum:
- i think there is some truth to the idea of their 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...
- webdog™:
- :bark
- jbum:
- so you fill in that void with YOURSELF.
- webdog™:
- gotcha
- jbum:
- everything you don't know about the person (and there's a lot of it) is replaced with YOU
- webdog™:
- "What influence, if any, do you think the Palace has had on other social environments on the Internet?"
- 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 ahve to be careful about.
- 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.
- webdog™:
- Ready for some fun questions?
- jbum:
- oh sure.
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- 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:
- 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)
- 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.
- webdog™:
- :taking notes
- webdog™:
- :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)
- webdog™:
- :uck
- jbum:
- the kiss and giggle are me too.
- webdog™:
- "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.
- webdog™:
- :-)
- webdog™:
- ah
- webdog™:
- Kai's Power Tools
- jbum:
- we had some fights over that original avatar at time warner.
- webdog™:
- 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...
- webdog™:
- glide asks: "If you could only have one super power, what would it be?"
- 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.
- jbum:
- does 'invisible flight' count as one superpower?
- webdog™:
- yes
- jbum:
- okay, that's the one.
- webdog™:
- heh
- webdog™:
- 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 experiements on me)
- webdog™:
- :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!)
- webdog™:
- 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)
- webdog™:
- 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 squeezed in.
- jbum:
- there's something very "I Claudius" about that story...
- webdog™:
- :whoa
- webdog™:
- :better check with janet on that
- webdog™:
- ok, one more question?
- jbum:
- sure :)
- webdog™:
- "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...
- webdog™:
- 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
- webdog™:
- i think these women would be classy enough to have 24-bit color
- webdog™:
- )applause
- jbum:
- thank you :)
- webdog™:
- It's been incredible having you here this evening.
- jbum:
- sure. did you know there's a hole in the curtain?
- webdog™:
- It's being fixed
- jbum:
- oh good :)
- Auto:
- glide is working on that
- webdog™:
- 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.
- webdog™:
- It's been a real pleasure learning about your creation, the Palace.
- jbum:
- thank you very much for having me- thank you everybody :)
- webdog™:
- and of course, having your as a guest.
- webdog™:
- Can we count on having you next year?
- jbum:
- absolutely. i have a role to fill.
- jbum:
- :)
- jbum:
- :)
- webdog™:
- )applause thanks again, and everybody go and visit www.jbum.com!!!
- jbum:
- (and freechess.org)
- webdog™:
- :YA
- jbum:
- (and theonering.net)
- webdog™:
- lol
- jbum:
- (and slashdot.org)
- webdog™:
- heh
- jbum:
- bye folks :)
- webdog™:
- bye all!
- Auto:
- thankyou Jbum
- jbum:
- you're very welcome :)
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