When Agora World started a year ago (~Oct 2020), we were building off the foundations of some non full time work for a VR shopping app. The pivot away from a shopping and VR focus was the true genesis of Agora World, and what galvanized our CTO to come onboard as a true partner. As of today, essentially no code remains of that foundation. Any time that might have been saved from small pieces still in use is cancelled out by time needed to remove legacy code (for example, we finally pulled out the last piece of the Oculus SDK a few months ago).
So, with all that said, here is what we were able to build in our first year:
-customizable avatar system and initial options
-user profile system (including ability to link out to social media)
-secure login
-no code event creation layer
-image upload to slots in an event
-automatic sharding for events (stable up to 15k concurrents total on platform)
-world sdk (internal only) allowing infinite 3D Unity scenes as base layer for events
-in-event chat
-emote system
-booth system
-settings customizations
-native distribution on Mac and Windows
- code signing so you know the download comes from us
- installers
- patcher that automatically updates app
-voice chat
-acoustic echo cancelation
-user selected muting, self muting (with UI indicators)
-event editing and management (deleting events, updating events, seeing events you attended, etc)
-interactables (ability to have HUD stuff show on hover, and to click on objects. Ex. hovering on user avatar to see a profile card, and click on them to see full profile)
-globe you can click on to place a 3D flag of your location
-settings customizations (including ability to change mic, adjust network quality, adjust volume, toggle fullscreen, change turn sensitivity, and more)
-video streaming (ability for users to place videos in slots like with images)
-ability to see all users in your event instance
-tuned first-person controller
-improved menu system
-designer polished menus
-several 3D worlds (Expo Center, Agora Forum Island, Art Gallery, Tiki Booth Room, Downtown Philadelphia and more)
-file size optimization
-website (WordPress marketing site, event pages, etc)
-backend automated deployment pipeline
-Cloudflare CDN
-+ other minor things (such as room code copying, leave room button, etc)
This is just a broad-strokes overview. Many of these features we could go into much more depth on (and may in the future).
On the non-technical end, some of our accomplishments include:
-Founders contribution of $80,000 funding
-over $117,000 in external funding
-a career fair with 226 concurrent users and 1h 42 min average use time the day of the event
-$16,700 revenue
-9 subscribers
-Grand Prize winner of Temple Innovative Idea Competition