Live4 — A New Paradigm for Web3 Interaction
The metaverse as a service will be a vibrant track, and Live4 will continue to cultivate it.Author: Cyno
The concept of the Metaverse originated from the American writer Neal Stephenson's science fiction novel "Snow Crash," published in 1992. The Metaverse is generally considered a virtual space that can map the real world while being independent of it, blending cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality, blockchain, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.
In the Web2 world, tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and NetEase are all entering the Metaverse. In the Web3 world, projects like Otherside, Decentraland, and The Sandbox have emerged, embodying the concept of the Metaverse. However, the current state of Metaverse development in both Web2 and Web3 is not optimistic. Each company and project interprets the Metaverse in its own way, leading to fragmentation and a lack of users.
The main reason is that the Metaverse currently lacks compelling reasons for users to participate. It does not offer truly engaging content, and its social experience, gameplay, and content richness still fall significantly short compared to traditional social products and games.
In contrast, in the Web3 world, on-chain interactions have become an indispensable part of digital nomads' daily lives. A wealth of interactions generates rich information and content, but the interactions themselves still rely on very primitive methods. Many Web3 Metaverse projects claim to serve as a second social space for users, yet they fail to showcase the most frequent interaction behaviors of users within the Metaverse.
We believe that combining the Metaverse with Web3 to visualize Web3 interactions in the form of the Metaverse will be a very interesting endeavor.
The Possibility of Visualizing Web3's On-Chain Interactions through the Metaverse
Firstly, on-chain interactions for Web3 users are very abstract and difficult to understand. These interactions generally occur between addresses and protocols, akin to the early days of computer systems like DOS, which were hard to use.
Secondly, the most important community attributes of Web3 are not reflected in the interaction phase. The interaction and communication phases are disconnected; users can only interact in isolation with cold protocols and then seek warmth in Web2 community products like Telegram and Discord.
Finally, what should be continuous interaction behaviors are fragmented by different products. For example, NFT minting occurs on the project’s website, is displayed in wallets, traded on Opensea, and shared on Twitter.
The transition from the DOS system to the Windows system represents a significant leap in computer operating systems, with the most notable change being graphical interfaces. Windows transformed user operations from complex command codes into windows and visual drag-and-drop actions.
For the Web3 world, a visual protocol that makes on-chain interactions more convenient and tangible, accommodates continuous interactions within the same scene, and integrates interactions with user communications will be extremely valuable. This will be very friendly to both native Web3 users and Web2 users who are about to enter Web3.
Today, we will introduce a project that attempts to let users experience Web3 interactions in the form of the Metaverse - Live4.
Metaverse as a Service
Live4 is a Web3 interaction visualization protocol designed to provide users with an immersive interaction experience through the Metaverse, offering real and high-frequency usage scenarios for users' digital identities, and providing a one-click visual scene building service for Web3 projects and enterprises wishing to enter Web3.
On the Live4 platform:
- Users can generate their own visual digital identity for free—a 3D virtual avatar—and explore in a seamless MMORPG-like open world. They can engage in DeFi interactions, participate in Free Mints, team up with community members for whitelist tasks, join project AMAs, and create or purchase NFT components to decorate their private spaces. Live4 grants users significant freedom.
- Users can also act as creators, designing digital avatars, accessories, and scene components, with all created content mintable as NFTs for trading in the marketplace.
- Web3 projects and enterprises wishing to enter Web3 can use existing materials on the platform to build their ideal scenes or utilize pre-built templates for product promotions and marketing. For instance, if a project wants to conduct an NFT minting event, they only need to focus on NFT design without needing to develop front-end technology, simply integrating their designed NFTs with Live4's built-in NFT minting scene templates.
Live4's visualization services consist of three parts:
1. Visual Digital Identity System
Digital identity is the carrier of users' lives in the Metaverse. Live4 provides users with a highly flexible digital avatar generation system, transforming abstract digital identities into visual digital avatars. Users can generate their digital avatars with a single click through face sculpting or facial scanning and can customize them with clothing and accessories. Users can explore the Live4 world with this digital avatar and later choose to bind their wallet address to it. The digital avatar will gradually evolve with the user's experiences, becoming their avatar in the Web3 world.
Additionally, Live4's digital avatar generation system supports third-party plugins, allowing users to use cartoon models uploaded by third parties as their digital avatars.
2. Visual Interaction System
Visual interaction includes the visualization of on-chain activities and social scenes, primarily targeting B-end clients such as Web3 projects and enterprises wishing to enter Web3, driving C-end experiences in specific scenarios.
Live4 offers a series of high-demand, high-frequency 3D visual scene templates, visualizing frequent interaction scenarios and merging on-chain activities with social interactions in the same scene. The interaction process will have stronger visual expressiveness and immersion, allowing users to complete the entire interaction process within the same scene, sparking more social connections between users.
Scene Examples
In the NFT minting scene, all users participating in the mint will appear in the same scene, with promotional videos from the project displayed on surrounding screens. As the countdown from 10, 9, 8, 7… ends, all users press the mint button in front of them, and the minted NFTs are displayed like holograms in the scene. The appearance of rare NFTs is accompanied by different background music and fireworks effects, and users can hover over the NFTs to view specific information. After minting, all NFTs will automatically appear in the project's exhibition hall, where users holding NFTs can freely enter to explore. Users can also find their NFTs on their personal homepage and list them for sale in the marketplace. This visual format transforms NFT minting from a tedious task into a celebration for all users, with a social experience and virality that are completely different from traditional minting methods.
In the project's AMA scene, the project defines the scene theme based on its marketing needs. The large screen behind the guests plays an introduction to the project, and the guests use their digital avatars to communicate on stage. The audience below can control their digital avatars to move freely, purchase gifts to tip the guests, or open private chat windows with nearby users. Audience members who initiate questions can be invited on stage to interact with the guests. After the AMA, the project distributes an NFT to each user who participated in the meeting, which they can display on their personal homepage and in their private space.
In the private lounge scene, users can customize their decorations, showcase their PFPs, badges, and works, and set it so that entry requires an invitation.
A game hall integrated by third-party developers can require users to hold a specific type of NFT to enter.
3. UGC System
Users can freely create using the NFT Toolbox provided by Live4, enabling interoperability of NFT assets. Created content includes digital avatars, clothing, accessories, scene components, etc., all of which can be minted as NFTs.
Interoperability of NFT Assets
Users can create derivative works based on NFTs they already hold from other projects. The newly created NFTs will inherit the rarity of the original NFTs, and their value will be anchored to the original NFTs. This not only creates significant usage scenarios for the original NFTs but also generates a second growth curve for their value. For example, users can design clothing based on Azuki avatars or transform a Punks avatar into their digital avatar.
The Advantages of Live4 Include:
- Live4 provides B-end clients with a one-stop solution, allowing for one-click deployment of template scenes or customization options.
- Live4 offers a powerful custom editing system and pre-set resources, making it easy for anyone to get started.
- Cloud rendering and streaming technology significantly reduce the entry costs for users, allowing any configured terminal to run Live4 quickly and easily.
- AAA-level graphics quality.
- Live4's core engine integrates top components from multiple vertical fields, offering scalability, ease of development, full-end deployment, quick response, rapid iteration, usability, and excellent localization services, achieving full system coverage across all terminals.
- The core team of Live4 comes from well-known companies such as Tencent, Ubisoft, Shanda, 2K Games, IGG, Binance, and Huobi. The core members have led the development of games with a cumulative user base of over 1 billion and revenue exceeding 300 million USD, with rich experience in product development and market operations.
Conclusion
Live4 effectively combines visual digital identities, visual scenes, and UGC to present the rich content of Web3 visually, redefining the interaction process in Web3. It naturally integrates users' social behaviors into their daily Web3 interactions, making social experiences more immersive and participatory. Essentially, it lowers the barriers to entry and use for users through visualization, allowing more users to participate in the thriving development of the Web3 world.
Metaverse as a service will be a highly vibrant track, and Live4 will continue to cultivate this space.
Currently, Live4 has released a demo of the initial product, with the beta version set to launch at the end of November 2022 and the official version scheduled for release in 2023.
