New World Notes

Three Reasons Why Your Mom Might Love Diablo III

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

For hardcore gamers, the initial hype around Diablo III has started to die down, but now folks like my mother are getting interested in dungeon-crawling. (Mom just started installing the game today.) But she's not the only surprising new member of Diablo III's audience either: Ever since the game launched, lots of women on my social networks, who usually talk about their kids, husbands, and virtual fashion projects in Second Life, are now talking about Deckard Cain and the best strategies for besting the Butcher. Some of these women are gamers, but many have rarely played anything beyond SL so I didn't expect them to be tearing their way through Westmarch with more gusto than me. Diablo III seems to be a game both casual and hardcore gamers are enjoying equally, and here's three reasons why:

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Have You Seen Yooma Mayo's Dreaming Machine?

Rowan Derryth has, and she has the photos by PJ Trenton to prove it. "Steampunk Japonisme," Rowan calls it. "[S]imply beautiful," she says of it. "Stunningly beautiful," adds. Your turn to see: Click to teleport to Yooma Mayo's Dreaming Machine #1.

Webcam-Powered Facial Recognition Coming to Everquest II

Webcam-powered facial recognition tech is coming soon to EverQuest 2 (as you can see here), merging the movements of your head and the expressions of your face to those of your MMO avatar. "Hey Wagner James Au," MMO expert Scott Jennings just told me, "tell Rod Humble SL needs this tech, like, yesterday."

Sounds good: Hey Rod Humble, SL needs this tech, like, yesterday.

Blogger Kara Trapdoor Leaves SL Through the Outdoor

I'm sorry to read on the SL blog of Kara Trapdoor that she's leaving SL "to spend more time in my first life", for she had a great eye for great SL content, such as this.

Whoever she was behind her avatar, I wish her well, and if you do too, think about stopping by her blog to say farewell.

What Went Wrong With the Word "Gamification"?

"Gamification: The Term Wanes, the Concept Waxes" is my latest post for Internet Evolution, which jumps off from the fact that the once-hot term seem to be declining in news articles (see Google Trends waning above), while we still see gamifying companies and related systems doing well. Hope you join the conversation there that's already in progress. Related post: My thoughts on this 2010 talk by designer Jesse Schell, which helped give rise to the excitement around what came to be called "gamification". (Though no one seems to know who came up with that awful, awful term, let alone come forward to claim credit.)

Isa Messioptra Makes Masterful Single-Frame Movies With SL

Ms. Isa Messioptra makes "Single Frame Movies" built from Second Life, such as the one above, called "Done", and they are images that convey drama, conflict, mystery, desire, and all that's best in real life in a way that's sumptuous and richly textured and witty and full of light. Stop reading me already and click to see them all here. I mean, come back afterward, but yes, click here when you can.

Hat tip: Ms. Cajsa Lilliehook's indispensable "What I Like SL" screenshot series, which contains another Messioptra masterpiece, which is somewhat unsafe for work viewing, but more moving than sexy, so you should probably click here too.

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NWN in Japanese:Second Lifeの技術的問題へのユーザーの寛容さが、SLの成長を邪魔している－－その理由

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Want to Save Your Second Life Estate? Do What Desmond Did, and Offer Your Renters a Minecraft Server

Last month I mentioned that SL land baron Desmond Shang has a Minecraft server which he offers free to people who rent space on his steampunk-themed estate of Caledon, and here's an interesting follow-up: Minecraft is helping him keep his estate in Second Life thriving.

"I don't keep 'hard stats' on this yet," Shang acknowledges up front, noting it's just several dozen of his renters who play on his Minecraft server. "But it's quite clear already that some people are hanging onto their Caledon estate land, or have rented new land, simply because they want to support the Caledon Minecraft server experience.

"It's a modest boost," he adds, "nothing that is going to make or break an estate. It may ultimately save a Second Life region or two, but certainly not ten or 100." But the reason this works points to the problems with Second Life's land revenue model, and why people rent virtual land in the first place. And as SL sims continue to disappear due to heavy tier costs and natural attrition, his strategy is definitely worth considering. As Desmond puts it to me:

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3 Fabulously Feminine Fan-Made Minecraft Skins

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

I'll admit to being a very late-starter when it comes to Minecraft. I tried it a year or so ago but it didn't really hook me until I tried it again last week. I'm not sure what changed in the interim,  but now I just can't get enough of its sandbox survivalism. But of course no matter what game I'm playing I always have to have the most chic and adorable avatar possible, so I've been searching for the cutest Minecraft skins out there to share.

The first is this ultra vibrant Kokeshi doll skin by the_soup which you can download here. Space is very limited on the Minecraft skin template, which is why the pattern and design of this avatar's kimono really stands out to me. They've made excellent use of every pixel to perfectly convey a floral printed fabric with a bit of an ombre effect, not to mention the obi detail around the waist. The downside of this skin is that the detailed kimono looks quite odd when it's half-covered by armor, but if you don't mind living a little dangerously without any armor you're guaranteed to stand out.

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See StarForge: Minecraft Meets Halo in Infinite, Procedural 3D World With Dynamic Content Creation

This is an early and impressive look at Starforge, an indie game in development by two dudes named Steve and Will who have created a kind of Minecraft-meets-Halo game, meaning: a sandbox survival game world with procedural graphics and dynamic content creation, just not blocky like Minecraft, but full of high res graphics and physics in a beautiful but deadly alien world, a la Halo. Even if you're not into FPS action, be sure to watch until 1:50, when the 3D content creation comes:

And you can check it out for yourself right now -- there's download links for the Alpha client at the video site here, though at the moment, massive gamer buzz seems to be hosing the servers. Check out this Reddit thread where the developers discuss their future plans.

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Facebook Didn't "Kill" Virtual Worlds, But It Did Show Their Shortcomings (Then Again, the Opposite's Also True)

"How Facebook Killed the Virtual World" is a new editorial on Wired by my colleague Mark Wallace, who co-wrote a couple books about Second Life, edited the Second Life Herald blog, and worked for a short time at Linden Lab itself. Despite (or because) of that background, Mark Wallace now argues that Mark Zuckerberg's social network has eclipsed the once shining and buzzworthy idea of virtual worlds:

Facebook’s near-universal appeal — and virtual worlds’ near-universal failure — has as much to do with presentation as anything else. The very concept of a virtual world works against its acceptance. If I’m your great-aunt and I need a place to post pictures of your cousin’s bat mitzvah, I don’t necessarily mind joining a network in order to do so. But do I really want to join another world?

There's some truth to this, but saying "failure" seems to me a stretch. Because if we're to define "virtual worlds" as graphically simulated spaces in which users interact in real time through avatars (a definition that includes MMOs), that category is in aggregate still quite large; not only that, usage has been growing, not retracting, with the rise of Facebook:

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Dio: Name of Heavy Metal God Also Linden Lab's Apparent Name of Upcoming Platform for Creating Adventure Games

Linden Lab recently trademarked "dio" for a product that's "computer game software", Tateru Nino reveals, which seems to refer to a new (and closed) Linden Lab site, Inara Pey blogs, which says “Dio allows you to create and play user-created stories", and thus sounds for all the world like the text adventure game Emily Short is making for Linden Lab. Which doesn't necessarily tells us anything beyond the upcoming game's apparent name; but then, that's a good excuse as any (and when it comes to Dio, do you really need a reason?) to post this video:

So it's unclear as yet how users will be able to create and share stories on Dio, but I sure as hell hope some of them are like this video by Dio. (Broadswords! Rats! Big hair blowing in the heavy metal wind!) Botgirl Questi has some tongue-in-cheek parody on this tip.

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SL Social Network: Less Than 100K Users, Says Google

So I wondered last week how many people are actually using my.secondlife.com, the internal SL social network, on a regular basis, and here's a pretty good estimate: According to Google Ad Planner, the site gets about 84K monthly visitors, with 32K of those from the US. Yes yes, a site user is not the same as a registered user with their own profile and such, and so the number of people actually using the social network to post updates and such is likely less than 84K. (Significantly less, I'd wager.) That said, traffic approaching 100K is pretty good, especially if you assume the active, meaningful Second Life userbase is probably 400K monthly uniques. So overall, it's not a bad idea to create a my.secondlife.com profile of your own, especially if you're an SL content creator. In which case, follow Cajsa's advice.

Then again, if you take Google's numbers to be reliable, you probably don't want to spend too much time doing so:

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SL Founders Philip Rosedale & Mitch Kapor Invest in Sunglass, "Google Docs for 3D Objects" Startup

Sunglass, a "Google Docs for 3D objects" startup which came out of beta at TechCrunch Disrupt last week, has a couple well-known backers who know quite a lot about 3D content creation: Second Life founder Philip Rosedale, and founding SL investor Mitch Kapor. Running on HTML5 and WebGL, as TechCrunch's Kim-Mai Cutler explains, "Sunglass users can simultaneously access a single 3D model and suggest tweaks through chat or voice chat. There’s also a sketch tool for marking suggestions." Virtual world content creator DanielRavenNest Noe noticed Philip and Mitch are listed as "Supporters" on the Sunglass site, and I just confirmed with both of them that this means they're also financial backers:

"I love what they are doing," Philip tells me by e-mail, "and I am a small investor!" When I asked him, Mitch affirmed his backing (through his venture firm Kapor Capital) specifically in relationship to Second Life:

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Annotated 9 Year Timeline of Social Controversies in SL

SL blogger Botgirl Questi recently created this annotated, interactive timeline of controversies in Second Life, going back to 2003, and it's pretty damn cool:

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Outerra 3D World Engine Displays 400K Blades of Grass

Here's the latest tech demo to the Outerra 3D virtual world engine (which I wrote about in March), showing how it displays 400K individual leaves of grass all at once. Suck it, Walt Whitman:

Read much more about it here, on Outerra's blog. Go here to try an earlier build of the Outerra tech demo for yourself.

Hat tip: Kotaku.

SL Redditors Advise SL Newbie on Reddit

There's a good discussion thread on Reddit in the site's Second Life subreddit group, started by a new SL user asking for advice on how to start. Favorite advice/observations so far:

• "I would definitely search through Second Life for ANY of your interests in RL (or even fantasy!) - if you enjoy roleplaying or medieval themes, there is tons out there for that... I find SL search often times sucks so sometimes if you search Google for those terms+Second Life you might get better results." (Emphasis mine. Redditor: Pipiru)
• "[I]f you are mistreated or feel unwelcome anywhere you visit; just move on. There are loads of places to visit, you will not run out." (Redditor: fosdagger)
• "You can search for events to find clubs or different events that might be interesting to you. I started in a vampire clan to make friends (but way too much drama). These days I hang out doing 7seas fishing." (Redditor: curiousGirlie)

Go here to offer/get more advice and insights. And if you haven't already, consider joining Reddit's SL subreddit. Lots of fun and useful content... but a lot less useless drama.

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Last Week in New World Notes: 10 Highlight Posts

Happy Memorial Day, fellow NWN readers in the US. Here's 10 posts from last week you might missed but are definitely worth a look:

SL news, opinion, and content:

• Second Life-Based Autism Therapy Yields Meaningful Real Life Improvements in Social Abilities, Study Suggests 
• 1920s Paris Meets the Metaverse in Mixed Reality Performance Art Show in Los Angeles Gallery
• Adeon Writer Builds Working Portal Gun in Second Life!
• Miss Ophelia's Metaverse Manners: The Etiquette of Using (and Abusing) Second Life Templates
• The Phoenix Viewer Project is a Non-Profit Corporation Registered in a US State
• Lack of Linden Communication Causes Community Concern

General gaming/tech news, opinion, and content:

• 3 Ways Diablo 3's Lack of Avatar Customization Fails Players 
• How an SL Creator Learned to Love the Zombie-Filled DayZ
• How to Turn Your SL Avatar into a Real Life, 3D Printed Doll with Makies: Iris Ophelia's Tips!
• Augmented Reality Apps on Tablets: Seems Like a Big Fail

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How to Turn Your SL Avatar into a Real Life, 3D Printed Doll with Makies: Iris Ophelia's Tips!

  

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

Makies, the 10-inch dolls designed by you then created in a 3D printer, was blogged by Hamlet last week, but if anyone on New World Notes should get to play with avatar-based fashion dolls it should be me, right? So, when MakieLab offered me the opportunity to design and review my very own Makie from their site (which is still in early alpha), I leaped at the chance.

For the first post in my Makie review series, I'm going to give you some Makie-making tips and a first look at the Makie-fied version of Iris Ophelia that I'll be reviewing in June!

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How an SL Creator Learned to Love the Zombie-Filled DayZ

DayZ is a hardcore zombie-survival multiplayer mod built on a hardcore FPS, so you might be surprised that Cyclic Gearz, a well-known SL content creator, is among its biggest fans. After I shared my interest in DayZ yesterday, Cyclic (who has a crazy cool Plurk profile) shared her interest in the game as a player with me:

"To me, it's a semi-accurate simulation of what zombie survival is like, everything is dynamic and you really do have to work hard to survive past a day or two," she tells me, and explains how a maker of adorable virtual furniture came to love fleeing from the ravaging undead instead:

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SL9B Site Live: Resource for SL's User-Run 9th Anniversary

Click here to visit the blog for SL9B, the user-run celebration of Second Life's 9th anniversary. Here's the calendar of events and deadlines for SL9B, with applications for exhibitors open until June 3rd, and the official opening on June 18th. I recommend starting here for an introduction to the site, the event, and info on how to get involved. I'm curious to see if SL9B's user-run anniversary will draw more users than when it was run by Linden Lab. (Attendance for Linden-sponsored anniversaries ranged from 17,000 to 38,0000, a fraction of the userbase.)

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How to Fix Your Secondlife.Com Profile (If It's Worth Fixing)

Cajsa Lilliehook has very good and detailed advice on improving and customizing your web-based SL profile at my.secondlife.com, especially if you're a content creator who wants to use it as a way to market your SL wares, and are already using the profile/social network system. However, I have to ask: How many people are actually using my.secondlife.com on a regular basis? I have a profile there, but it attracts little engagement, especially compared with SL interactions I get via Facebook, Twitter, or Plurk (where activity is still greatest). However, maybe that's just me -- how's it been for you?

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SL Petites: Great Avatars... Not So Great Avatar Accessories

Aemeth Lysette has a sharp if probably necessary post on the problems with petites, those pint-sized mesh-based SL avatars which have recently become all the rage in the fashionista community and which Iris recently blogged about here. Yes they're great says Aemeth, but evidently, the buzz is leading to some sub-standard accessories: "A lot of items, clothing, and areas made for petites suck," she writes. "New designers are jumping into the fray to make clothing/items/whatever, and don’t have enough experience to know what looks good in a store and what doesn’t... [there's r]ampant use of templates and obvious photosourcing when it comes to clothes. Some stores I’m actually afraid to buy from, because I wonder where they got those jean and shirt textures from." Sounds like many content creators are still learning how to develop for petites, or are rushing things in an attempt to capture a hot market. Hope it doesn't deflate the excitement around a new kind of avatar (though it might). Read the rest from Aemeth here.

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Second Life-Based Autism Therapy Yields Meaningful Real Life Improvements in Social Abilities, Study Suggests

Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas Center for Brain Health have been using SL as a therapy tool for people with autism since 2008, and now an academic paper just published online has the results. (Direct link to the paper here.) At Brain Health, SL was used to simulate a number of real world scenarios such as a therapists' office (see screenshot above, and video below), so someone with Asperger's (for example) could roleplay common day-to-day interactions from the security of their computer, through an avatar that he or she controlled, and then get guidance on improving their social interaction, to better prepare for doing the real thing. According to Dr. Michelle R. Kandalaft, lead author of "Virtual Reality Social Cognition Training for Young Adults with High-Functioning Autism", published in the Journal of Austim and Development Disorders, the results were highly promising:

"The progress of increasing social cognition as measured in our study was comparable to what other researchers are finding," Dr. Kandalaft tells me in e-mail. "[A]lthough it is not a great leap in skills, we feel that these changes are meaningful when it comes to improving social abilities."

However, she adds, it's one thing for someone to improve their social abilities in a virtual world, and applying the lessons they learned in real life:

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Augmented Reality Apps on Tablets: Seems Like a Big Fail

Here's a very cool augmented reality demo video from the Tangible Media Group at MIT, which shows off some impressive collaborative creation applications; while watching it, however, I started thinking stuff like this:

Tablets are destined to largely supplant desktop and laptop computers, and in a certain sense, the touchscreen and two-way camera makes them ideal for augmented reality applications. At the same time, a tablet almost by definition requires you to hold the device in your hand, which really isn't feasible beyond a minute or so. And the screen itself is on the small side, which will limit the kind of AR applications you can do on it. I'm starting to think laptops will still be central to augmented reality, especially when you match it to tech like this Kinect-style camera control.

Anyway, full Tangible video below!

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3 Ways Diablo 3's Lack of Avatar Customization Fails Players

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

Diablo III launched last week to plenty of fanfare (and server downtime). Now the auctions are booming, the servers have stabilized, and friends are eagerly adventuring together in the game's seamless multiplayer mode. Well, seamless unless you and your friend happen to be playing the same class and gender, that is. More often that not, you and your friend will look like identical twins, especially early on in the game. That's a pretty big problem with Diablo III, especially at a time when other online games offer so many more options.

Here's three key ways that Diablo III's avatars fall short for players:

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Who's Interested in the Zombie-Filled Virtual World of DayZ?

DayZ is a persistent world multiplayer survivor game I've been reading quite a lot about, primarily on Kotaku, but also from my style writer Iris Ophelia and others too. It puts you and other players in a 135 square mile country after an infection has zombified most the world, where you must stay alive and hopefully trhive (but probably won't). Watch the trailer:

That likely sounds like a lot of other games, but because the game is open-ended and persistent, it has a lot of social emergence. Basically it simulates a Hobbesian state of nature where people can compete or collaborate or both (possibly betraying each other along the way), and in either case, death is final:

"Some of my friends who already play say the game scares the crap out of them," as reader Aemeth Lysette tells me. "If you look at the mod stats on the site, murders are high in number." (Presumably players killing each other for equipment, or sometimes just for fun.) "Also, if your character dies, it dies forever. You have to make a new person to start over--they are banned on all servers." What's more, you start with little or no info about the world (I read), supplies are hard to come by, and the world physics are so realistic, managing to shoot a target is quite an accomplishment. Hence the crap-scaring quality. Via Aemeth, watch this pretty tense and hilarious (and NSFW) gamplay video:

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1920s Paris Meets the Metaverse in Mixed Reality Performance Art Show in Los Angeles Gallery

This is a lot of fun and conceptually clever -- to debut her show at the Los Angeles Art Association earlier this month, LA artist Kristine Schomaker (known as Gracie Kendal in SL) gathered a group of friends together, dressed them in 1920s-era finery, and staged a Parisian dinner in the gallery, which was matched by a virtual dinner in Second Life that went on at the same time:

Paris of the 20s was also a gathering place of artists, emigres, and expatriates from around the world, who often came there to escape the harsh realities they left behind -- hence the metaphorical framework of SL. On the walls in the background, you'll notice the portraits are also avatars, taken from Schomaker's 1000 Avatars portrait project. Around the dinner table, she tells me, "are artists and a couple people I know in SL. Jacki Mori, Debbie Ferrari, Nicole Fornier, Christine Terry, Rebecca Bennett-Terry, Araceli Garcia, and myself." (She's at the far right of the table.) Jacki, by the way, heads an interactive research group at USC which does SL projects.

Since this was in a popular gallery space, the show brought in a lot of folks not familiar with SL, but judging by some of the comments left in the guest book, a fair amount were able to resonate with the mixed reality aspects. Kristine shared some samples with me:

• "You've taken the white walls of the traditional gallery space and transformed it into an immersive environment changing my perception of time and place."
• "I thought the performance was interesting in how the concept was both extremely accessible to people and then also steered them to look at the bigger questions of 'what is art?' and 'how does the computer (SL) facilitate explorations of identity?' I thought the performance touched a sweet spot where by people were uncomfortable but still curious and engaged. I felt that people who normally would not engage in questions about art felt both compelled (because they were uncomfortable with the questions of identity) and empowered (because the content was still something they had experience with) to have a dialog they might otherwise have tried to avoid."

Here's a good mini-video documentary of the performance, embedded below. Her show (if not the dinner) is running until June 1st, so if you're in LA before then, go here for viewing details.

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Cool Kickstarter: Zombie Playground, Kids vs. Undead Multiplayer RPG from All-Star Developers

Zombie Playground is a cool new game on Kickstarter being developed by an all-start team who've worked on hit games like Dragon Age: Origins and Skyrim and blockbuster movies like Lord of the Rings:Two Towers and I Robot. A multiplayer RPG, the player characters are kids trapped in a zombie apocalypse, who fight off the undead with squirt guns and slingshots and such, instead of chainsaws and flamethrowers or whatnot. Decidedly not intended for kids themselves to play, it'll be interesting to see how many gamers are interested in roleplaying as kids, and getting into imaginative scenarios we used to dream up while actually being kids. Watch the Kickstarter trailer below:

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Adeon Writer Builds Working Portal Gun in Second Life!

This is a triumph; I'm making a note here -- HUGE SUCCESS:

Yes yes, a working portal gun inspired by Portal made by Adeon Writer. I want to tell Portal writer Erik Wolpaw about it, because he'd probably be impressed, or at the very least say, "I'm busy with Portal 3 here, so go the hell away."

Now, I've seen other Portal-esque Portal guns made in SL before, but I know Adeon to be a clever sort of someone, so I'm thinking this was impressively scripted. [Update, 11am: Adeon explains how he does this after the break. - Hamlet] And not only can you apparently teleport yourself with Adeon's portal gun, you can evidently teleport objects too, watch:

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Lack of Linden Communication Causes Community Concern

SL blogger Tateru Nino wondered aloud last week why a large group of Linden Lab staff recently met in SL, noting that such convocations are "considered to be portents or harbingers of bad news by Second Life customers". I've checked with various insiders, and received no hints of impending bad news for SL; the large in-world meeting was probably a standard all-hands assembly that Linden Lab has every quarter. (Yes, Linden Lab sometimes uses SL for meetings, especially to connect their remote workers with each other.)

However, as suggested by the long thread of reader comments which followed, there's quite a lot of SLers who are concerned about Linden Lab's direction, and are worried that bad news might be imminent. Though I think their concern isn't really based on one large in-world meeting, but the company's general lack of communication in recent months:

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Ever Advertised Your Virtual World Content on Facebook?

I'm experimenting with an ad for New World Notes on Facebook, which you likely won't see even if you're on the social network -- that's because the Facebook advertising platform allows you to target your intended audience in an extremely granular way. So as you can see in the screen capture at left, taken from the platform's preview page, I'm directing the ad for NWN at Facebook users who've expressed an interest in Second Life by liking the popular official page of the same name (with 250K+ members) but who are not connected to the somewhat (OK much) less popular New World Notes page on Facebook, and who are from countries with the most SL users. (Not quite sure why that enables me to connect with only around 30K Facebook users, but at least I know they're well targeted.) I'm paying per click, as opposed to impression, so I only pay Facebook if someone actually goes from Zuckerberg land to this blog you're reading right now. Results when I get them.

Any other SL content creators tried this advertising method?

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Miss Ophelia's Metaverse Manners: The Etiquette of Using (and Abusing) Second Life Templates

Iris Ophelia's ongoing take on etiquette & ethics in virtual spaces 

I recently wrote about the pros and cons of templates and pre-made kits for Second Life content creators,  and unsurprisingly the topic created a lot of discussion and raised a lot of questions. Though my opinion on the issue may differ from your own, hopefully my template etiquette advice will still be helpful!

I make things in SL but I use building kits and full-perm pieces. There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing but some people are really snarky and go out of their way to tell other people where I'm getting my pieces. Why do people resent what I'm doing and how can I stop it?

                    - Anonymous

Templates are controversial, and some people feel very strongly that they give people an unfair or uncreative advantage. Using templates "correctly", that is in a way that helps you grow as a creator and helps the market grow and diversify as well, is nothing to be ashamed of. If people ask, be honest and upfront about your use of templates and full-perm building kits. You shouldn't need to hide something unless you're ashamed of it. Simply put, anyone bullying you for using templates and kits correctly is in the wrong. Because opinions are so sharply divided on this issue you'll never be able to please everyone. Haters gonna hate, so focus on building things that you can be proud of, with or without the templates.

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The Phoenix Viewer Project is a Non-Profit Corporation Registered in a US State

The Phoenix Viewer Project which develops the extremely popular third party Phoenix and Firestorm SL viewers is a registered non-profit corporation based in a US state listed with a registration address and the real name of the company's president, Jessica Trinity, who's known in SL as Jessica Lyon. (And is the rare person whose real life name is more metaversey than her avatar handle.)

I mention this fact for at least two reasons:

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Leap in PC Computing: Kinect-Style Control of Your Desktop!

CNET's Dan Terdiman has a pretty impressive write-up of the Leap 3D motion control system from SF-based Leap Motion, which promises Kinect-style command of your computing experience with the wave (and pinch, and poke) of your hand. Watch this demo video:

Read much more from Dan here. If it works as demoed above, it could transform desktop/laptop computing. For virtual world/gaming fans, it could be the kind of technological leap we've been looking for. As Beverly "Bettina Tizzy" Millson just put it: "Hey Linden Lab developers! Integrate this well and I might use SL again."

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SL Pathfinding: Less a Potential "Tsunami" Than Postulated?

Nalates Urriah has an update to a post on the SL pathfinding tools that I blogged about last week, in which I quoted her that there could a "tsunami" of problems when it's officially introduced to the main grid. Apparently some parts of her analysis were not accurate, and has some geek-heavy clarifications here. (The Lindens pointed me to her post as well.) However, while some of her concerns are less concerning, she cites an NWN comment by DBDigital Epsilon, who described his first hand experience in the pathfinding Beta, and it does suggest another problem point:

Continue reading "SL Pathfinding: Less a Potential "Tsunami" Than Postulated?"

Settlers of Catan Parody Music Video ft. Keiko Takamura!

Here's a fun video to start the week, especially if you're a Settlers of Catan fan (and really who isn't) -- spun off from The Ting Ting's hit, here's "That's Not My Game", starring Keiko Takamura:

This is a music interlude for "Level 20-Something", the animated web cartoon I blogged about last year, which features mixed reality pop star Keiko starring as herself. "Keiko and I were Skyping one night and one of us uttered the song title in the context of a sentence I don't quite remember," series creator Michael Szymanski explains. As fans of Catan, "We decided immediately this was a thing that had to exist, so I opened up notepad and typed out the lyrics." But creating the retro 8-bit animation to go along with the song is a lot harder than it looks -- according to Mike it took over 150 hours:

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Top 7 Posts You Might Have Missed From Last Week

• Lumiya: Second Life Viewer for Android Phones & Tablets -- With 3D Graphics Display!
• Second Life Usage Dominated by Third Party Viewers -- Linden Lab's Own Software Only Used by "Minority" of SLers
• Makies, Customizable, 3D Printed Avatar Doll Creation Site Alpha Launches
• New Mesh Eyes Will Revolutionize the Way Avatars Look -- and How We'll Photograph Avatars
• Top 25 Most Popular Second Life Sims for April 2012
• Diablo III's Virtual Economy About to Transform the Real One
• Why Virtual World Content Creators & Game Developers Will Like Storybricks -- Brian "Psychochild" Green Explains

Makies, Customizable, 3D Printed Avatar Doll Creation Site Alpha Launches: Make Your Own Makie Today!

Makies, the customizable avatars that become 3D printed dolls, just Alpha launched, so you can go to the site and create a customized avatar of your own -- and when you're ready, you can get it printed up, and sent right to you in a tube in the mail. Makies are the brainchild of my friend the lovely and brilliant UK game design star Alice Taylor, who co-founded the company with Sulka Haro, formerly lead designer for Habbo Hotel. And Alice has a special message for readers of this blog:

"As trufans of the genre -- avatars and virtual worlds -- we're really excited and nervous to hear what your readers will think. Obviously we're at maybe 10% of what we want to be: Selections and actions are currently super alpha, but over the next 12 months we're going to be building all sorts of things: creativity tools, games, unusual items in both digital AND physical.

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SLer Harlow Heslop Says: Pay it Forward to Another SLer

Harlow Heslop has launched a great Pay it Forward Project, encouraging SLers to take some time to praise and help other SLers:

Each week I will pick one person in the Second Life community that I feel has displayed a positive attitude and an overall kind nature that week. I will then offer to do a free portrait for them!

She wants other SLers to join the pay it forward chain however they see fit: "Whether you are a designer, blogger, photographer, or just someone who enjoys what the Second Life community as to offer…GET INVOLVED. Pick someone weekly... show them how you appreciate them, whether it be a small gift, a photo, or a kind word, it does not matter. Then as you have done, encourage them to pay it forward to someone else."

Read more about paying it forward here. And I'll pay it forward by praising Harlow Heslop for coming up with Pay it Forward.

Hat tip: December Dollinger.

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The Second Life of Facebook: How SL Helped the Social Network Go Big

Facebook, a social network which earns about 15% of its revenue from virtual goods sales (i.e. Facebook Credits) and depends on avatars, virtual worlds, and games to maintain its user activity (about a third of the userbase play one or more games on the platform) today became a public company, with shares trading as high as $42 for a total company value of up to $115 billion. Its success owes a fair amount to Second Life, not just for pioneering the mainstream acceptance of virtual goods and avatars, but in ways even more direct: Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka has been with Facebook since 2010, and is a major player in the company's game platform development. Lawyer Ben Duranske, who wrote a book on virtual law and often lectured on that topic in SL as an avatar named Benjamin Noble, has been Payments Counsel at Facebook for the last two years. Then there's all the former Linden Lab staff who also now work/have worked at Facebook: Ian Wilkes (one of the original Lindens), along with Lindens like Brad Kittenbrink (one of the lead developers of WindLight), and other Lindens like Bethanye McKinney Blount, Leyla Farazha, Sean Lynch, and Steffan Mejia. (I'm probably missing many more.) I suggested this in relationship to the rise of Zynga, which also owed a lot to SL, but it bears repeating today:

Continue reading "The Second Life of Facebook: How SL Helped the Social Network Go Big"

Fashionography: SL Fashion Blog for Manly Metaverse Men

Mister Nathan Chafee has a metaverse fashion blog for manly men (maybe meterosexually so). Replete with clever poses and excellent screenshot photography and (this is especially good for dudes what are looking for duds) Marketplace and Map links for buying the items he shoots. See some stylish samples above -- see much more metaversey manliness here.

Hat tip: Gracie Kendal.

Why Virtual World Content Creators & Game Developers Will Like Storybricks -- Brian "Psychochild" Green Explains

The Storybricks Kickstarter which which I blogged recently has a new video better demonstrating how cool this build-a-story kit project for MMO/RPG players and developers really is -- watch:

I've been e-mailing with Storybricks development lead and longtime veteran designer Brian "Psychochild" Green, and he explained why content creators and game developers (such as those who create in Second Life and other open platforms) will like Storybricks:

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New Mesh Eyes Will Revolutionize the Way Avatars Look -- and How We'll Photograph Avatars

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion

Damien Fate's latest release, FATEeyes [Marketplace page here], brings a pretty groundbreaking level of customization to our SL avatar's eyes, putting detailed control of their color and position right at your fingertips --  take a look at this demo video by fellow fashionista Strawberry Singh to see what I mean:

 

It's not just texture-changing and size control that makes these eyes such an awesome addition to your avatar's wardrobe, though. One simple slider, allowing you to control the direction of the eyes, makes these eyes a total must-have for SL photographers, artists, and bloggers alike. Let me show you...

Continue reading "New Mesh Eyes Will Revolutionize the Way Avatars Look -- and How We'll Photograph Avatars"

SL Pathfinding a Potential "Tsunami" (If We're Not Prepared)

I rely on Nalates Urriah's blog for getting geek-heavy updates about Second Life code and features, so when she mentioned in a recent post that Linden Lab's new pathfinding features presented a possible "tsunami" of problems, I paid attention:

When the pathfinding code is released to the grid, she explained to me in an e-mail, "Doors need to work in new ways. Bridges will become a performance issue. Anything that moves and cuts the Navmesh [pathfinding objects], anything would cause an AI critter to change path... will incur a lag cost. Again, how much is a question." Right now, she continued,  "[i]t seems the plan is to roll out pathfinding enabled on all regions and let estate managers turn it on or off. If that is done, tsunami."

Whether there's a tsunami or not depends on how Linden Lab rolls out the pathfinding code, and how SL landowners deal with it. Here's Nalates with the full geek exegisis -- read and discuss after the break!

Continue reading "SL Pathfinding a Potential "Tsunami" (If We're Not Prepared)"

Second Life Usage Dominated by Third Party Viewers -- Linden Lab's Own Software Only Used by "Minority" of SLers

Third party viewer developer Tonya Souther recently pointed out a very important March interview on Treet TV with Linden Lab's Open Development director Scott "Oz Linden" Lawrence, which includes a crucial passage I initially missed. It's so important, it needs to be highlighted here. At about 33 minutes into the conversation, Lawrence says this in relationship to the official Second Life viewer as compred with Phoenix and Firestorm, which are third party SL viewers made by The Phoenix Viewer Project team, a large consortium of SL users (none of whom are well known by their real names):

"Our own viewer users are a minority. A significant minority -- we're the number three viewer behind, behind the two... Phoenix is far and away the number one viewer, although it's quite steadily losing market share these days, has been for some months now. And Firestorm is the newer technology viewer from your project, is the number two, and it's gaining market share... And our viewer is number three behind Firestorm."

This admission came in March, as I said, so I checked with Linden Lab if it remained true:

"The 'market shares' of various Viewers isn't a data point we're currently sharing," spokesman Peter Gray told me. Still, it's unlikely the shares have changed drastically in two months, and based on what Oz says, along with what some SL insiders have suggested elsewhere, I think the following is a very plausible estimate:

Continue reading "Second Life Usage Dominated by Third Party Viewers -- Linden Lab's Own Software Only Used by "Minority" of SLers"

Cool Kickstarter: Word Realms MMO from Kingdom of Loathing Team -- Think WoW Meets Words With Friends

World Realms is a very new cool Kickstarter game project with a great premise: MMO questing combined with word games matched to the uniquely wacky humor that made Kingdom of Loathing such a successful indie MMO. Think WoW meets Words with Friends, and watch the hilarity-spiked pitch:

As I suggested above, it's from Asymmetric Productions, the guys who made Kingdom of Loathing, so even the Kickstarter write-up is pretty funny. Don't take my word for it, read the FAQ... I mean, the NUTSAQ:

Continue reading "Cool Kickstarter: Word Realms MMO from Kingdom of Loathing Team -- Think WoW Meets Words With Friends"

Run Second Life on a Samsung Galaxy Tablet (Like a Boss)

On Monday I wrote about Lumiya, the app that runs SL on Android phones and tablets, and now here's Wolden Avro taking it for a test drive on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1:

Frame rate and display ain't super great, but as Lumiya creator Alina Lyvette told me, it's not about creating a full immersive experience, but "more about getting rid of that feeling of being blind and stuck" while running SL on a mobile device. For that matter, while I like the ability to pan the camera with the touchscreen, that's also immersion breaking, in my opinion: The effect makes it less about being in a virtual world, and more about looking through a world behind a layer of glass.

Continue reading "Run Second Life on a Samsung Galaxy Tablet (Like a Boss)"

Ask Miss Metaverse Manners About the Etiquette & Ethics Around SL Templates

Last week, our post about SL templates -- pre-made kits/pieces that fashion designers can use to easily create their own sellable content -- caused a fair amount of controversy and conversation; clearly there's a lot of questions out there that Miss Metaverse Manners can help with. For example, what price is fair for something made from templates? Or what do you do if you discover the templates you're using are based on stolen content? Miss Metaverse Manners (hopefully) to the rescue: Anonymously post your touchy etiquette and ethics questions around templates on Iris' Formspring account by Thursday afternoon. (Or you can post them anonymously in Comments below, as long as they're civil.)