Seanchai To Open New Storytelling Chapter In Kitely

The Seanchai library team have been telling stories in Second Life for over six years, but like all good story tellers they have decided it’s time for their stories to reach further shores and this has resulted in Seanchai Library announcing that their first storytelling session in Kitely will be on May 2nd.

The initial event will include an Estate Tour at 6:30pm ~ Ghost Stories at the Firecircle at 7:00pm (All times Pacific Time).

Location : hop://osgrid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/144/129/29 or IM Shandon or Caledonia once you arrive.

Another way of getting there if you have a Kitely account is to go to the Kitely page : http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Shandon-Loring/Seanchai-2

Seanchai In Kitely

When you arrive there you find yourself at the central hub and from there you can teleport to twelve Storytelling venues or one of eight additional themed worlds. The blog post informs us that :

Each Venue provides an immersive environment for the story-listening audience, and each is parceled to be capable of supporting simultaneous events concurrent with events at the other Venues.

Small skyboxes at Seanchai are connected to the Storylink Radio Channel providing recorded stories from our Storytellers 24 hours a day.

So it’s clear to see the potential in this venture for plenty of storytelling locations and venues. When you click the main board you’re teleported straight away to a different location. When you walk through the portals there may be a short delay whilst the world is brought online and then you are teleported to a different region.

There’s potential to break these additional worlds down even further and parcel them so that even more stories can be told at one time.

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Achievements In Second Life – Sometimes We Do Need Stinkin’ Badges

Recently I was reading how Russian player Хируко had become the first player to achieve all the available achievements in World Of Warcraft, this is no mean feat as there are around 22,000 of them. Second Life doesn’t have achievements and has met resistance at the idea, indeed when they were introduced to the Second Life Forums there were achievements of a sort in terms of rankings and this met with resistance. Many people felt We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!

However those rankings have remained, I wanted an opt out, but they have remained and they do no real harm. The problem for an achievement system for Second Life as a whole is that Second Life is not a game, there are games within Second Life but it’s an open ended virtual world and many people really do not want badges.

However there are places where they would be useful and I’d like to see tools available for sim owners to build achievement systems for their own sims, this would be especially useful for roleplay sims.

There is also room for an overall achievement system for Second Life, which could be built in conjunction with Second Life business owners and Linden Lab. This could start at a very basic level, which would be appealing to new residents. For example earning an achievement for your first teleport, but it could be built upon.

Visit all the sims at Fantasy Faire and earn an achievement, visit the skin, hair and shoe fairs, earn an achievement. Visit x amount of locations on the destination guide, earn an achievement, visit the Linden Village, The Governor’s mansion and take a balloon ride, earn an achievement, yadda yadda yadda.

This isn’t an easy system to implement because of the dynamic nature of Second Life but it could be done.

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The Drax Files Radio Hour Episode 16 – Drax Meets The Lindens

The Drax Files Radio Hour Episode 16 : lindens are people too! [part 1] is another superb production from Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley. A wide variety of topics are covered and as usual, I won’t go too deeply into them because the true richness comes from listening to the show!

However they cover education in Second Life and OpenSim. In terms of Second Life they talk of the recent Introduction to Second Life for Educators – a Course in Spanish, which Linden Lab blogged about. I must admit I got this a bit arse about face when I read the blog title because I thought it was teaching Spanish in Second Life, whereas it’s teaching Second Life to Spanish speakers.


Second Life Para Docentes

El curso MOOC Second Life para docentes, está diseñado para capacitar a educadores de habla hispana en el uso del mundo virtual Second Life, como punto de partida en su interacción en entornos emergentes e innovadores que pueden ser utilizados en favor de la Enseñanza. Esta iniciativa responde a las necesidades de los estudiantes y su nueva forma de aprender y estudiar, así como a su tendencia por el uso cada vez mayor de la tecnología.

Visit in Second Life

In terms of OpenSim there’s an excellent feature on a school in Ireland using OpenSim and Oculus Rift to teach history by allowing the kids to experience historical settings in a virtual world. Virtual worlds do have a place within education but I feel the problem with virtual worlds and education remains the baggage with a one size fits all solution to delivery in terms of Second Life, indeed this is where OpenSim does have an advantage.

Now if Linden Lab were to make Second Life technology available to schools to host their own Second Life technology grid, away from the main grid, I feel real progress could be made there. Say for example if JANET in the UK hosted a grid powered by Second Life technology that educators could build on and collaborate with other institutions, there would be potential there. I thought this was where they were heading with SLEnterprise until I saw the pricing. However in this day and age when the public sector is still being squeezed, a presence on the Second Life main grid and all the associated baggage (much of which is overblown but still exists) is a difficult proposition for educators to sell as a business planning need.

I do believe Linden Lab need to consider such a setup because if they don’t deliver it, High Fidelity is likely to look very appealing to educators due to the nature of how that looks like it will allow people to create their own grids.

However back to the show, there are lots of features, lots worth listening to but the big news is that Draxtor has been out to Santa Cruz, where he was probably initiated into the FIC hall of fame as he fraternised with Ebbe Altberg and The Lindens … to those unfamiliar with Second Life, that is not the name of a rock band.

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Fantasy Faire 2014 – Call For Second Life Film Makers To Tell A Fantasy Faire Tale

Banner For Fantasy Faire 2014

 

 

This year’s Fantasy Faire is taking a bold extra step in terms of movie making for the event. Five Machinima makers will have the opportunity to create a Fantasy Faire tale before the Faire opens. Now, let’s clear something up first, this does not mean other people are forbidden from making films during the event, it’s just an opportunity for five film makers to create a tale before the Faire opens and therefore whilst the streets are free of visitors.

If you are a machinima maker and fancy telling a tale then head over to this Fantasy Faire blog post and read the details. However there is quite a short deadline on applying for this, you will need to apply before midnight on Saturday April 26th, I assume this is midnight SLT, but you’ll have to clarfiy that with Saffia Widdershins. So what sort of creation are they looking for? Well, from the blog post :

Explain what you would like to film (whether you you want create a story with actors, an abstract pieces of a travelogue), and supply a link to a previous film or machinima you have shot.

So the next obvious question is going to be why only five people, well again it’s best to quote from the blog :

Well, people are still building, and each film-maker will need to work with us to ensure that they are filming what is finished (or certainly ready to film!). And as this is the first year we have done this, we want to ensure that we are able to help you to the best of our abilities.

So basically you will be given the opportunity to film but it needs to be coordinated to fit in with the work going on behind the scenes.

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Fantasy Faire 2014 – Hope On The Horizon

hopeshorizon

Jaimy Hancroft’s teaser poster for the Tolkien inspired Hope’s Horizon sim at Fantasy Faire 2014 captures the spirit of the Faire extremely well. However the reasons behind the design capture the spirit even better.

In a blog post entitled There’s Hope In The Horizon Jaimy explains the inspiration behind the build :

Hope’s Horizon was born in Tolkien’s mind. The sim is inspired by the great city of Minas Tirith and I am dedicating this build to my dad, who passed away a couple years ago of cancer. He was a major Lord of the Rings fan and this was my chance to do something great to make him proud. The building stands high above everything and it is as if you are flying when you reach the top, you can see the surrounding Faire sims when you are standing there. I have put a blossoming tree at the top to represent life, and everything good in life. The tree is blossoming there in all its glory on top of this city in remembrance of our loved ones letting you all know that the spirit never dies…

This captures the reasons for Fantasy Faire being part of the Relay For Life effort within Second Life as well as capturing the fantasy element of the Faire. Now Jaimy is someone whom I’ve ran into before in Second Life, because she works on The Dwarfins! Jaimy doesn’t work exclusively on Dwarfins, she has her own brand of Death Row Designs, but I know her from Dwarfins!

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