The death of the walled
virtual garden

A virtual realm called Metaplace is being tested for launch next year. The platform allows anyone to build a virtual world from scratch - for the web or even the mobile medium - without programming knowledge.

According to BBC News, the site is the brainchild of Ultima Online creator Ralph Koster. The worlds can be used for gaming, socializing and e-commerce, and can be embedded in a webpage, social network profile or blog.

Unlike Second Life, users will not need to download any special software to engage their respective metaverses; the service is hosted, so everything happens inside a browser.

Koster envisions this as a visual form of the web, with objects becoming links, and each world being a webpage.

While those without programming backgrounds can design their worlds on a simple interface, Metaplace also allows those with code savvy to design worlds from scratch.

Koster ultimately wants to see people sharing thousands of user-created virtual worlds with one another.