Roleplaying » Ciaran Laval

Roleplaying Sims And Rules

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 3 Responses »

Feb 112013

I sometimes see complaints about roleplaying sims and rules, the rules put visitors off. People aren’t familiar with terms such as OOC or IC or Get Out Of The Way. However there are often times when rules are there for a good reason, although sometimes they get TLDR.

So I found out the other day whilst taking some photographs on my own roleplaying sim when I was told off for dressing as a Dwarfin. I quickly headed back to find fellow protesters on another sim to march on the town hall about these rules.

At this point my chief Elf slapped me and told me to behave, pointing out that there was no way I was going to be able to build a story arc that explained how my Evil Drow Wizard had turned into a mining Dwarf with an army of Gnomes! I had to admit, she had a point.

Adult Rated Sims Continue To Grow

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 4 Responses »

Jan 112013

On the 2nd January 2012 Tyche Shepherd informed us that the state of estate land was:

Adult: 2,877 sims
General: 3,141 sims
Moderate: 17,822 sims

Moderate remained king, but Adult sims had increased by 872 during 2011, General had also increased but at a slower rate, 434.

Fast forward roughly twelve months to 6th January 2013 and Tyche informed us that the state of estate land was:

Adult: 3,458
General: 2,302
Moderate: 15,143

Now bearing in mind that we’ve lost around 12% of private estates, adult Sims have stood up well. Some adult sims may be converted moderate sims, so this isn’t an exact science but we can now see that adult sims are firmly in second place when it comes to choice of classification for estate owners, moderate remains King by a long chalk.

The Chronicles Of Xcalibur Is A Very Ambitious Proposal

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 7 Responses »

Dec 272012

There I was reading the forums when I noticed two forum posts about a roleplaying venture called The Chronicles Of Xcalibur. One in the role play forum and the other in the games in Second Life forum. I am glad I read this in two places because this is an amazingly ambitious proposal that requires a double take.

The idea is to create a massive roleplaying space within Second Life, by massive I mean four hundred sims massive. Yes 400! Now it does appear that there is some funding available for the person behind this, however I don’t think the funding will run to 400 sims, this is a venture aimed at attracting other interested parties. The blurb opens with:

“Our goal is to build the biggest Fantasy sim on the grid, consisting of 400 Sims.Each sim will represent a town, all Unique. For each town there will be a King elected.For example, The King of River-stone. A Peaceful elven community.”

As I said, this is a mightily ambitious project but one that if it works, could be a real boost for roleplaying in Second Life. I’ve done a bit more digging and found the official website, which gives some more information on how they’re going to try and build this.

Tier, Not Land Barons, Will Undo Second Life

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 4 Responses »

Oct 172012

There are a few posts over at New World Notes during the last month or so regarding Land Barons, the damage (or not) of the SL Marketplace, tier prices, entertainment and roleplaying. I’m not a Land Baron, I do have an interest in roleplaying, entertainment, tier pricing and the damage or not of the SL Marketplace. There are links between these subjects.

Desmond Shang kicked things off back on September 27th with a post about whether land barons matter anymore or not. They do, love them or loathe them land barons do work that would otherwise fall upon Linden Lab to do. Linden Lab are not Blizzard Entertainment, they don’t have the resources to deal with lots of individual customers day in, day out, they have a product that is chaotic in nature, Land Barons fill a gap.

Masami Kuramoto then inspired a post from Hamlet Au regarding themed mainland, and Masami makes some reasonable points but misses the point that the chaotic nature of Second Life is also one of its biggest draws. Masami is quoted as saying:

“SL has the largest map of all games, but the content is messed up. Imagine entire continents of adjacent regions featuring the same theme. Sort of like the Linden Home areas, but without the prefab buildings. Imagine Nexus Prime, Suffugium, S.I.C., The Next Day, Insilico and Hangar Liquides side by side and The Wastelands somewhere nearby.”

Elf Clan Ship Sails To Inworldz

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 4 Responses »

Nov 022011

ElvenMyst, the sim owned by Elf Clan will be closing on November 23rd as the clan head to Inworldz full time, the full story is detailed here. There are a few points to note, first of all not all Elves are leaving Second Life, indeed my chief Elf has just poked me telling me I need to update the covenant on a sim. Secondly not all of Elf Clan are Elves!

The blog post by Wafinder Wishbringer is a harsh one, a tale of frustration, woe and cold harsh realities about running costs, Inworldz is cheaper, a lot cheaper and for some people it may seem like the better option, for me I still think Linden Lab are heading in the right direction under Rodvik but I have been to Inworldz where Lady Sakai tries to get me to rent land, one of the reasons I haven’t so far is because I’m at my limit with how much Im prepared to invest financially as well as time wise, days aren’t long enough but one day I will rent a plot from Lady Sakai, if she lets me! I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. I’m a fan of virtual worlds so the more the merrier is fine by me.

Second Life Roleplaying Could Do With More Oomph

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Aug 252011

I got an email from my chief Elf on my Roleplaying Sim:

“Dear Lord,

I’m going on holiday, so is the Potter and Human, all at the same time, see you in a week.

The Elf”

Now I must say that my first reaction was “Never trust a Hobbit” and then I remembered there are no Hobbits involved… although I still maintain that Hobbits are to be handled with caution, but this is an Elf, they’re supposed to be all sweetness and light…. which also probably means you should treat them with the caution.

Now the problem I have here is that as Evil Overlord of said sim, I may now have to speak to the inhabitants, in character! This could be a long week.

NPC’S, Blog Comments And Pictures, Oh My!

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Aug 172011

Good grief what in the name of all things holy is going on, the official blog is allowing comments, this won’t end well! Such has been the sorry state of affairs with the official blog that I’d largely stopped looking there for information and it’s still not a good place for information, however they have unveiled a some interesting concepts, blog posts about resident blogs, such as this post about Honour McMillan’s post about Raven’s Mist, then there are posts about places, such as this one about The Crossword Gallery and they have also been running these flickr pic of the day posts, it would be better if they tagged them all but still, there’s life being breathed into the blog.

However when it comes to information and news, that’s still thin on the ground, Hamlet Au to the rescue then with a couple of interesting posts, one about content speciality roles and one about the product team. There are some potentially exciting developments here, but there’s also going to be an issue of communication and it’s not really clear what channels are going to be open here.