Ciaran Laval

January 28, 2015

An Interview With Marsha Warwillow Part 1 – SL Goth Magazine

I find myself inside a gothic building at the HQ of SL Goth, a website and inworld magazine dedicated to all things gothic in Second Life. The magazine describes itself as :

slGoth Magazine is an independent showcase of gothic Second Life residents, places, philosophy, fashion, entertainment and events. The articles are written by resident avatars and cover a variety of topics in the gothic community. It is published monthly in-world and is a wearable HUD which supplies landmarks and gifts from sponsors.

I’m joined by Editior in Chief of SL Goth, Marsha Warwillow. The magazine was launched in June 2009 further editions appeared in July and August of that year. The fourth edition appeared in May 2010, with further editions appearing in June and July of that year and then Marsha took a break from Second Life.

The magazine reappeared along with Marsha in August 2014 with a HP Lovecraft special edition and since then there have been editions in September, October, November and December 2014 as well as January 2015.

I ask Marsha about the return of the magazine, she pauses and then replies :

“Well, some people enjoy building and making things in Second Life. Some people DJ, dance, hang out, take pictures, etc. My thrill is making magazines, and I love goth culture, so it seemed a fun way to explore goth/dark SL and learn new things and just basically document it as I went along.

But it became collaborative, and I do not write at all really any more, it’s based on submissions and people who volunteer to contribute now.”

How many people are involved, I ask Marsha, “It varies from month to month, I call it “an open invitation” and send out a theme note, people respond who are interested and have time and are inspired.” she replies.

Sl Goth has a website and inworld publication, I ask Marsha about the challenges of the inworld version compared to the website, she pauses and then tells me :

“Hmm… with the in-world magazine, making edits is a bit harder after it is published, and adding to it. It IS possible to do just a lot more work compared to simply editing the text on a webpage. Also the magazine contains gifts from Sponsors. There’s a bit of a process with that, and it’s not always easy, but worth it.”

Continue reading “An Interview With Marsha Warwillow Part 1 – SL Goth Magazine”

January 27, 2015

City Of Harrison – Urban Roleplay In Second Life

The City Of Harrison in Second Life is pretty damn stunning. This is an urban roleplay area that spans two regions and manages to pack a hell of a lot in to packed streets which are surrounded by numerous buildings.

As with most roleplay regions in Second Life, the trick is to not tag yourself as being into the roleplay if you’re just visiting. City Of Harrison has a very simple way of helping you opt out, there’s OOC tag, there’s nothing to wear, indeed that’s the trick, you simply don’t join their group or wear their group tag. That means you can even join the group, but avoid roleplay by not wearing said tag until you’re ready.

So what exactly is going on here? Well this is a good time to head over to their website to find out more :

The City of Harrison is a casual modern urban roleplay environment – that is, we are a modern-day big city aimed at everyone simply living their lives. Unlike many other urban roleplay environments, Harrison does not focus on being “dark” or “dangerous”; rather, we cater to anyone that wants a chunk of a bustling metropolis. Whether you aspire to be a financial magnate or a criminal mastermind – or anything in between – Harrison is the place for you.

There are perks to getting involved in the roleplay, you can rez items and drive around the streets.

Continue reading “City Of Harrison – Urban Roleplay In Second Life”

January 26, 2015

Former Linden Yoz Grahame And The Not So Secret Forum Associated With A Douglas Adams RPG

These days Yoz Grahame works for 18F, a USA Government website that bills itself as : “Building the 21st century digital government“. However in a former virtual life Yoz worked for Linden Lab, unsurprisingly he was known as Yoz Linden. However he has also long been harbouring a secret, that may or may not have been closely guarded.

Yoz it seems was involved in keeping a alive a forum that had a life of its own, as reported by Kotaku : The Secret Douglas Adams RPG That People Have Been Playing for 15 Years. The RPG itself, known as Starship Titanic, is, claims the Kotaku article, pretty unplayable these days. The book of the same name was not written by Douglas Adams, it was instead penned by Terry Jones, but the forum? That’s where Yoz comes into play.

Yoz worked for The Digital Village and as part of his work on the website he created an employee forum, that wasn’t just open to employees. Cryptic clues were provided as to the existence of this forum. However Yoz forgot all about it, for around six months, and then decided to take a peek :

Visitors to the forum had created fictional employees and passengers on the Starship Titanic and begun role playing as them. Someone would make up an implausible, Adams-esque scenario, and everyone else would react to it in character, resulting in some enormously complex storylines and in-jokes that developed and diversified over years. And this strange fictional world had appeared entirely spontaneously, without any input from Douglas Adams or The Digital Village. Indeed, Yoz was as surprised as anyone when he stumbled across it: “It was like ignoring the vegetable drawer of your fridge for a year, then opening it to find a bunch of very grateful sentient tomatoes busily working on their third opera,” he says.

The beauty of user generated content, even in forum form appears to have been a sight to behold.

Continue reading “Former Linden Yoz Grahame And The Not So Secret Forum Associated With A Douglas Adams RPG”

January 23, 2015

SLGO Is Worth A Dabble But Snapshots Are Easier With A Normal Client

Ok first of all, as I’m a great believer in ethics in Virtual World Blogging I will declare from the outset that I have no connection with SL Go, or OnLive. At the moment, I’m on my iMac, which isn’t new and I’m struggling to find the bloody hash symbol. This reminds me of the time I was in the United States and phoning home and the phone told me to press the pound sign, which confused the living daylights out of me as there was no £ sign on the telephone, eventually I realised they meant the old pound sign for weight, which is #. Aha alt + 3 on a Mac. Ok, so #Theonlywayisethics

Now on with the show!

I logged into SL Go from OnLive for the first time in ages. This is largely due to the problems I’m having with AMD graphics in Second Life. The results, were quite staggering on my mid 2007 iMac. Now, wait, I hear you say. A 2007 iMac won’t have AMD graphics, this is true, but I was downstairs watching Cambridge United v Manchester United in the FA Cup.

Anyway, the first thing I noticed was that my experience of the wonderful Escapades Island was vastly improved because all of the textures seemed to load right away.

Wait wait wait! You can’t save Snapshots to disk with SL Go! This is true too, the images in this post were taken on my PC with the regular Second Life client, but here’s the thing, whilst I’m waiting for scenes to rez on my PC, I see the textures loading, they turn from grey and lifeless to being filled in. This doesn’t happen when I’m using SL Go.

However I do like my snapshots. So the ideal scenario for me is to be able to use SL Go and a regular Second Life or TPV client and I’d imagine a lot of people are the same.

Continue reading “SLGO Is Worth A Dabble But Snapshots Are Easier With A Normal Client”

January 22, 2015January 22, 2015

Forthcoming Events By The Alexandrian Free Library In Second Life

Regular readers of blog may be familiar with the fact that I’m a big fan of Storytelling and I’m happy to see quite a few storytelling groups in virtual worlds. Some are in Second Life, some go beyond Second Life’s borders but they all have a story to tell.

In this post I’m going to list some of the forthcoming events from The Alexandrian Free Library in Second Life. The Alexandrian Free Library is a community based group, supporting libraries in Second Life and their members come from lands such as :

Caledon, Winterfell, Steelhead, New Toulouse, New Babbage, Amatsu Shima, West of Ireland, Steeltopia, Deadwood, Al Andalus & Constantinople.

With that said, on with the forthcoming events :

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Philomena Public Library
Philomena Public Library Weekly Book Discussion Club
3:00pm – 4:00pm SLT
Where: Philomena Public Library
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bruda%20Plateau/15/38/57

Description:

A 1903 novel by Frank Norris set in the wheat speculation trading pits at the Chicago Board of Trade Building. Aspects of love, marriage and wealth are included. We get a glimpse of urban life in the early 1900’s.

You are invited to attend the informal discussion. We often assemble in 1900 – 1920 period clothing. We meet over tea and often talk over other topics as well. All are welcome to attend.

Reading Schedule:
January 25th: Chapters VII and VIII
February 1st: Chapters IX, X and Conclusion

A copy of the book can be found in the Town of Philomena Public Library.

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Philomena Public Library
Philomena Public Library – Oral Reading
4:00pm – 4:30pm SLT (immediately following the weekly Book Discussion)
Where: Philomena Public Library
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bruda%20Plateau/15/38/57

Description:

Skilled Sage and Bard Big Red will continue reading from Jules Verne’s “Master of the World.” This is a serialized book and will end with a cliff hanger each week. Red will also read a personal letter written by his uncle during the first world war circa 1916 – 1918.

Continue reading “Forthcoming Events By The Alexandrian Free Library In Second Life”