ElsewhereVR

ElsewhereVR
Information
Type	Virtual reality; Mixed reality
Subtype	Immersive social platform (virtual and mixed reality), virtual residential area
Creator	Elsewhere Interactive B.V.
Developer	Elsewhere Interactive B.V.
Operating System	All
Release Date	September 14, 2018 (public beta); 2019 (full launch)

ElsewhereVR is an immersive social platform combining virtual and mixed reality, developed and operated by Elsewhere Interactive B.V., based in Utrecht, Netherlands. It combines social networking, massively multiplayer activities, and creative sandbox tools across interconnected digital environments and experiences integrated with physical surroundings.

The platform encompasses digitally reconstructed real-world locations, original fantasy regions, and spaces built by users. Participants can enter fully virtual environments or interact with digital objects, spaces, and other users' avatars through mixed-reality features.

Activities include socializing, exploration, construction, performances, commerce, and adventures. Some users visit occasionally, while others establish residences, businesses, creative projects, and lasting communities.

Development of ElsewhereVR began in 2015, following the establishment of Elsewhere Interactive B.V. The platform launched publicly on September 14, 2018.

Platform and environments

ElsewhereVR incorporates both real-world geography and locations created specifically for the platform. Its geographical systems connect physical cities, neighborhoods, and landmarks with virtual counterparts. Original environments can feature landscapes and architecture unrestricted by physical conditions.

Users can build and customize spaces ranging from individual residences and shops to neighborhoods and extensive shared worlds. These environments vary in appearance, purpose, and organization. Some emphasize everyday social life, while others support exploration, games, performances, or collaborative creative work.

Fully virtual experiences coexist with mixed-reality interactions. A user may explore a fantasy city, visit a digital counterpart of their hometown, or see a distant friend's avatar situated within their own physical living room.

Avatars and identity

Avatars range from realistic representations of users to stylized human characters, animals, fantastical creatures, and elaborate original designs. Some users incorporate their physical appearance into their avatars, while others adopt substantially different forms.

Users may participate under their real names, established online identities, or names associated with particular characters. Their avatars can represent them within fully virtual environments and in mixed-reality encounters with other participants.

These identities often become recognizable parts of users' social and professional lives, especially within communities they regularly inhabit.

Connections with physical reality

The relationship between physical and digital environments is central to ElsewhereVR. Geographical synchronization provides virtual counterparts to actual places, while mixed-reality features allow digital elements to appear within users' physical surroundings. These can include decorations, interactive objects, spatial avatars, and extensions of existing spaces.

A physical home may incorporate digital furnishings, while a gathering may bring together people present in the room and remote participants appearing through their avatars. Shared experiences can therefore involve users accessing the platform in different ways.

Social and economic connections also extend between environments. Friendships formed within a virtual neighborhood may continue through travel and in-person meetings. Creative work and businesses on the platform can provide real income, while events within its communities can affect users' everyday relationships and responsibilities.

Users can enter and leave immersive environments while maintaining their lives outside the platform. Over time, familiar digital places and identities become lasting parts of those lives.

Virtual residences

Users can maintain persistent virtual residences, including apartments, houses, shared homes, and custom-built dwellings. These provide personal spaces for relaxing, hosting friends, displaying possessions, and pursuing creative activities. Residences remain available between visits and can be customized with furnishings, decorations, architectural changes, and interactive features.

A residence may exist entirely within a virtual environment, reproduce a physical home, or connect with that home through mixed reality. Digital furnishings and visiting avatars can appear within physical rooms, while additional virtual spaces can extend the residence beyond its physical layout.

Users may maintain distinct physical and virtual addresses. Their virtual homes can belong to established neighborhoods, supporting familiar routines such as visiting friends, meeting neighbors, and returning to a shared gathering place.

Worlds

Goldenglow Gardens

Goldenglow Gardens, commonly abbreviated GG, is a creator-developed world within ElsewhereVR. It was founded by Beatrice Bloem, known online as BumbleBea, and Holly van Hooven, known as Holly Hive.

GG integrates stylized fantasy landscapes with structured social venues, creative development tools, and adventure-oriented interactive spaces. The world's geography comprises original designed regions, community-contributed settlements, and digital replicas of real-world locations, all sustained by the underlying infrastructure of ElsewhereVR. Through the platform's broader ecosystem, certain elements of the world's aesthetic design and social systems are accessible outside fully immersive environments, allowing selected visual and interactive features to be experienced via mixed-reality contexts.

Beatrice and Holly oversee GG's development alongside a growing creative community. Their responsibilities include maintaining its environments, developing new experiences, and supporting its users. They also participate socially through their own avatars and friendships.

Bee and garden imagery contributes strongly to GG's identity, while its environments and communities encompass a broader range of themes.

Honeycomb Heights

Honeycomb Heights is GG's flagship bee-inspired metropolis. It combines residential neighborhoods, commercial areas, public spaces, entertainment venues, and transportation systems with fantastical architecture.

Apartment buildings, shops, studios, and local gathering places stand alongside hive-like towers, oversized floral structures, elevated walkways, and buildings possible only within a digital environment. The city accommodates everyday social routines as well as organized events and adventures.

Its community includes visitors, residents, independent creators, performers, business operators, and members of GG's development team. Users can maintain homes, organize public activities, operate businesses, or spend time with friends. Residence within the city refers to an ongoing virtual home and community membership alongside a user's physical life.

Community and creative economy

ElsewhereVR supports communities built around shared places, interests, activities, and relationships. Events include concerts, exhibitions, festivals, games, and informal gatherings, with some incorporating both virtual and mixed-reality participation.

Economic activity includes avatar clothing, digital furnishings, commissioned environments, performances, and other creative services. Businesses may function as roleplay establishments, commercial ventures, or a combination of the two. Physical businesses can also maintain connected digital spaces.

Responsibility is distributed between the platform operator, the teams running individual worlds, and users managing their own spaces and projects. Within GG, Beatrice and Holly's organization oversees the world, while its wider community contributes residences, businesses, events, and social life.

External links

ElsewhereVR on Websites.com