Ciaran Laval

January 10, 2014

Video Births The Radio Star

I can’t quite remember where I first heard of Draxtor Despres, I think it may have been on Metareality Podcast. I know that I discovered, late in the day The Adventures Of Flufee, which was a joint venture with people such as Pooky Amsterdam. There were clues there though as to what may come later, although the site was largely about the avatar of Flufee, there were also highlights featuring destinations within Second Life.

When Flufee had to halt his adventures, we may have wondered where Draxtor would go next. I don’t know if The Drax Files were in the pipeline before Flufee closed but they certainly arrived with a bang in 2013 and continued to impress throughout 2013 with fifteen wonderful video interviews.

The feedback for this show has been wonderful :

“His machinima are actually better ads than I’ve ever seen LL put together themselves“. – Nika Talaj.

“This is the right narrative to describe #SecondLife. Excellent work” – Indigo Mertel

“All this talk about Second Life and Relay for life.. this tells it perfectly! ” – Aine Flanagan

“This story gave me goosebumps. Outstanding work as always Drax!” – Freeta Kayo

“Draxtor Despres? Is he that German bloke?” – Ciaran Laval

Now Draxtor is moving on to the next stage, by launching The Drax Files Radio Hour. This show is a collaboration with Frau Yardley of 1920’s Berlin fame.

Continue reading “Video Births The Radio Star”

January 9, 2014

Kitely’s New Pricing Structure Closes Some Doors And Opens Many Others

On January 1st Kitely finalised their new pricing structure. This provided new fixed price options, but worryingly took away the two free hours a month from free accounts. New accounts will get six hours of free time, which once used up, means they will need to buy Kitely Credits to visit their own metered world, those six hours don’t need to be used up in one month. However on the plus side free accounts no longer have to buy minutes to continue exploring. I have some concerns about how this will pan out and things didn’t start well when I tried to login.

Image of Kitely message — Not allowed to login

That was due to trying to login to the last world I visited. This world must have set their world to not allow free accounts anymore. So I decided to head home ….

Kitely image should be here — My Home Suspended!

So now I can’t visit my own free world anymore! This took me a little by surprise, I thought they may have allowed people a month with a little free time at least. However as there’s pretty much nothing on my own world, this is no great loss. So what next? I decided to explore and this is where the new pricing structure could well work well because now I can explore without worrying about being charged Kitely Credits for doing so.

Dragon’s Teeth

Continue reading “Kitely’s New Pricing Structure Closes Some Doors And Opens Many Others”

January 8, 2014

Inara Holmes In On The Answer

So as I continue my end of year round up (checks calendar) …. anyway! As I continue my end of the year round up I feel it’s only fair to go back to the mystery of the missing mysecondlife messaging options. This was the curious case of how people found they could no longer send direct messages via web profiles.

Rumour had suggested that this feature had been discontinued but rumour can only go so far, cold hard facts are needed to solve a case. Therefore I decided to enlist the help of Inara Holmes Pey. To this end I found myself on a cold January day winding my way down on Baker Street, light in my head and dead on my feet. Then I found the door and knocked, a housekeeper let me in and showed me upstairs.

Sat there in an armchair was a lady who identified herself as Inara Pey, she sported a deerstalker and was smoking a pipe (I’m not sure how long I can keep this up for). “I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.” she said standing to greet me. They looked more like leather boots to me, however I shook her hand and provided her with the details of the case.

Inara mused the issue for a while and then advised me that unfortunately, her assistant Dr Urriah was out of town, so the case would take a bit longer to solve than usual but that she would have an answer for me shortly, I wondered how she could so easily find out this information, she just smiled and said “My name is Inara Pey. It is my business to know what other people do not know.”

We talked some more, I find out more information about the mysterious Ms. Pey She’s got this dream about buying some land, She’s gonna give up the booze and the one night stands, and then she’ll settle down in some quiet little town, and forget about everything. But we know she’ll always keep moving, We know she’s never gonna stop moving, cause she’s rolling, she’s the rolling stone (*EDITOR* Oh come on, wrong bloody Baker Street!/*EDITOR*).

Continue reading “Inara Holmes In On The Answer”

January 6, 2014January 6, 2014

The Drax Files Episode 15 – Scottius Polke

I’m still catching up with the end of 2013, such is life. Episode 15 of The Drax Files aired on December 27th, complete with the traditional theme tune and opening credits. I’ll embed the video at the end of the post, as usual.

This episode features an artist and a tiny otter, whom happen to be one and the same being in the shape and form of Second Life’s Scottius Polke, AKA Scott Rolfe. Art in Second Life is quite popular, the platform lends itself to the artistic and in this episode we can see why. Scottius discovered Second Life in 2008, he was at this stage already an artist. Therefore he saw the opportunity to create virtual world art based on his real world art, by using the building tools available within Second Life. Scottius also spotted the potential to use scripts to add something to his virtual world art.

What this episode manages to capture so very well is how art within the virtual world becomes part of the scenery, as opposed to when you walk into an art gallery say, where art is on the walls but might not grasp the visitor’s attention. The way Second Life is constructed lends itself to artists being able to make their art very immersive, making the world that the avatar is within a strong focus.

Continue reading “The Drax Files Episode 15 – Scottius Polke”

January 4, 2014January 5, 2014

Net Private Region Losses Slow Down During 2013

Tyche Shepherd’s last report of the year revealed a distinct slow down in the net number of private region losses during 2013 when compared to 2012. The report also reveals that despite net losses, the overall number of adult rated sims is on the rise. The usual caveats should apply here, just because sim is adult rated it doesn’t mean it’s a den of iniquity. Setting your sim as a rating of adult means that only people who have age verified should be able to visit.

An adult rating also gives a sim owner the greatest flexibility. This is the reason why moderate sims have always been the rating of choice. When LL added adult as a rating, many people still felt moderate was a high enough rating but some have clearly moved to adult. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that adult content or activities in Second Life are on the rise.

The report also shows that Linden Lab have definitely been rolling out newer hardware to support the service, hurrah!

Let’s first take a look at the number of sim losses during 2012 and 2013.

2012 Net Private Region Losess – 2865 (12.0%)
2013 Net Private Region Losses – 1719 (8.2%)

The overall number of private region losses over the two year period stands at 4584 (19.2%), so down by almost one fifth in two years, which is definitely cause for concern but the fact that losses are slowing down should be welcomed. A point to note here is that these are net losses, so more than 4584 sims have gone, some have been renamed, some have been sold and some have been replaced by new purchases.

Now let’s take a look at maturity ratings. These figures are for the year ending, so year ending 2012, year ending 2013. I should also point out that I haven’t double checked my calculations and figures can make my eyes go funny, so I may have made an error in my calculations. I apologise therefore in advance in case I have made an error, don’t be shy about pointing out errors. I’ve also included tables, which hopefully display properly! Ok on with the show.

Continue reading “Net Private Region Losses Slow Down During 2013”