Author: Ciaran Laval

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All The Fun Of The Fantasy Faire

Draxtor Despres had posted a teaser video:

The Fantasy Faire blog had been previewing like crazy but now the wait is over, the hype will be delivered, Fantasy Faire 2014 is open!


Fantasy Faire 2014

Celebrating its sixth year, the Fantasy Faire is the largest gathering of fantasy designers, enthusiasts, roleplayers and performers in the virtual world. From May 1st through the 11th, treat yourself to eleven days of shopping, live music concerts, auctions, hunts and roleplaying. Come join thousands of Second Life residents and creators as they bring their visions together in support of the American Cancer Society.

Visit in Second Life

Linden Lab have even joined in the fun by blogging about it. This is a far cry from the days when my post on the official forums about Fantasy Faire was deleted by a moderator and I received a warning … I really should let bygones be bygones on this …. but it still irks me!

However back to the Faire, it will be running from May 1st, (which is a rather special day in my calendar and one on which I’m a year older than I was yesterday) to May 11th. The event will be very busy, at some times maybe a little too busy but that’s the beauty and beast of such events.

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Linden Lab’s Bizarre System Requirements Move

Yesterday Linden Lab blogged about updates to the Second Life system requirements. This mainly centred around Linden Lab no longer wanting to support Windows XP because Microsoft no longer support Windows XP. This is fine and lots of companies will follow suit.

However where matters get a tad distasteful is in Linden Lab’s moves to block future installs of the client on machines that aren’t running Windows XP Service Pack 3.

This is a very bizarre move considering the client will happily run on Windows XP SP2. There are numerous reasons why clients crash on systems, people running Windows XP are likely to be running older hardware and have less RAM than modern systems, for example, but upgrading to a new OS or Service Pack is not likely to improve their performance to any great degree in terms of Second Life.

I don’t see the problem with Linden Lab saying they are going to stop supporting Windows XP, it’s a sensible move but it’s not Linden Lab’s role to dictate to people whose systems can run Second Life, what Service Pack level they should be at unless it poses a threat to the Second Life service as a whole, which is clearly not the case or else Windows XP would have been blocked long ago.

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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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