I don’t use Avination very often, this is mainly due to time restraints, the same goes for Inworldz, my virtual world time is mostly invested in Second Life. However I welcome alternative virtual worlds and although Avination and Inworldz are technically inferior to Second Life, that doesn’t mean people can’t have more fun in them than they have in Second Life. One area that interests me is of course the cheaper tier costs, from a roleplaying point of view that is appealing. Those lower costs though have to be weighed up against inferior performance.
I’m also not a fan of third party viewers, so were I to heavily invest in Avination I’d be tempted by the official Avination viewer, well I would have been until I learnt that Fractured Crystal of Emerald viewer infamy had been hired to help develop the official Avination viewer, this means I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. The question then is: Is it fair to not trust Fractured Crystal again? The answer of course is, who knows? Actions will certainly speak louder than words.
In Cyberspace people not only have long memories, they also have aide memoires of old data to refresh their memories in cached google blog posts. What happened with the Emerald Viewer and Fractured Crystal’s involvement was a massive breach of trust and one I can’t simply overlook, although Avination owner, Melanie Milland, is quite correct in saying that Black Hats can become White Hats, it’s still an issue of personal trust.
Recently the LulzSec group have came to the attention of the media, with some people suggesting on various sites that people involved in groups like this should be hired by the authorities, rather than put on trial, but you can’t underestimate the damage caused by groups like this, which are definitely more serious in many cases than the actions of Fractured Crystal. The Guardian even have a guide as to who’s who, with Second Life’s Patriotic Nigras making it on to that list of bad boys:
Patriotic Nigras (AKA PN)
“Griefers” who caused trouble in the online world Second Life
Members 100-200
Agenda Cause trouble – “grief” – in the avatar-driven world
Timeline
2006 PN is formed
October 2006 Raids a chatshow in the virtual world, appearing as giant pink penises
February 2007 Raids the Second Life headquarters of then US presidential candidate John Edwards. Linden Labs, owner of Second Life, cracks down on PN
Where to find it Second Life
Where will it go from here? Likely to vanish as the virtual world attracts less media attention.
There has been talk that former PN members have reformed and now work positively in Virtual Worlds and beyond, it would still be difficult to trust them though I would say, again, actions would speak louder than words.
The bottom line here is that new folk, unaware of Fractured Crystal’s past misdemeanours, will happily use the Avination viewer Fractured works on and one would hope, they have no bad experiences, for those of us who are aware of his past, it’s a controversial development to say the least and one that needs to be viewed with care and attention. However don’t fret too much yet, Avination welcomes viewers other than their official one and will continue to welcome them.
Hopefully future talk of Avination viewers will be based on their performance rather than wondering whether there’s anything suspicious about them, at which point it may be time to start to place some trust in Fractured Crystal again.