Virtual Worlds – Page 173

December 9, 2013

Nobody Does It Better, Makes Me Feel Sad For The Rest

Nobody does it half as good as you, baby you’re the best.

Second Life has long had strange issues, for example there is an issue known as “Prim drift” whereby a prim does not seem to be in the location where you last left it, or prims mysteriously seem to disappear and then reappear, it seems there may be an explanation for this!

The Guardian breaks the news: Spy agencies in covert push to infiltrate virtual world of online gaming. Allegedly, The NSA and GCHQ decided that they need to infiltrate The Horde in World Of Warcraft and human avatars in Second Life. Furries everywhere celebrate smugly at this news. This does possibly explain why The Horde seem to win more often than not in the Warsong Gulch battleground in World Of Warcraft.

Not surprisingly Linden Lab haven’t responded to The Guardians requests, The Guardian claims :

“Microsoft declined to comment on the latest revelations, as did Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life and former CEO of Linden Lab, the game’s operator. The company’s executives did not respond to requests for comment.”

However in the land of Azeroth, there has been a response :

“The California-based producer of World of Warcraft said neither the NSA nor GCHQ had sought its permission to gather intelligence inside the game. “We are unaware of any surveillance taking place,” said a spokesman for Blizzard Entertainment. “If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission.” “

I’m sure that the NSA and GCHQ are delighted that their covert efforts went undetected by the GM’s in World Of Warcraft, I mean it would be far more embarrassing for them if Blizzard declared “Yeah, our GM’s knew all about it.”

However the article does suggest that Linden Lab were talking to the security services, indeed it seems Linden Lab tried to sell a use case of virtual worlds as being a place where you could observe the behaviours of non US citizens without leaving the USA. I’m sure those agents who quite enjoyed the idea of leaving US soil to observe the behaviours of non US citizens were a tad miffed about this, although wild speculation that they joined the PN or griefed sims with giant penises to wreak revenge over this suggestion have been strenuously denied. The article claims:

“In May 2007, the then-chief operating officer of Second Life gave a “brown-bag lunch” address at the NSA explaining how his game gave the government “the opportunity to understand the motivation, context and consequent behaviours of non-Americans through observation, without leaving US soil“.

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December 9, 2013

Private Sim Losses Swell Due To Large Estate Closure

So last week I blogged that private estate losses were slowing down and that losses were around the teen to high 20’s mark per week. Now just to prove me wrong, this week Tyche “Statto” Shepherd reports:

“A net loss of 63 regions this week, Private Estates down by 69 while Linden Owned were up by 6”

However I do have a defence here, this change in pattern of net losses is due to the departure from the grid of 47 sims owned by Beach Front Realty, if you exclude that then this week’s losses would have been in line with the recent net loss pattern at around 22. There are still 16 sims owned by Beach Front Realty on the grid but the company have announced that all their sims will close by the end of December.

A notecard sent by Beach Front Realty stated:

“Dear Beach Front Residents:

The company of Beach Front Realty will regrettably be closing its doors effective immediately. Tiers will not be excepted on behalf of the owners at BF. All tenants will have a until the end of December to relocate to a different company.

For your convenience, we have located a reputable company that are willing to take our residents with a warm welcome. This company has been in business since 2007 and we assure you that you will be pleased with the new owners of the Estates.

The Estate name is called: Tribe Estates

The owners are as follows:

Alexxa Despres

Driftwood Miles

Please contact them as they are aware of the transition.

On behalf of Kandee and Breeze we want to take this chance to thank each and every one for the loyalty you have provided throughout the years. And would like To wish you all a Happy Holiday Season.”

I have been on friendly terms with Driftwood Miles and Alexxa Despres for quite a while, we used to joke around at Jack Linden’s office hour so I’m glad to see that they are trying to help out with soon to be homeless residents. Tribe Islands are good people.

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December 7, 2013

Toysoldier Thor Takes His Digital Art To The Real World

Second Life artist Toysoldier Thor has blogged about his first ever art exhibition outside of a virtual world. Toy exhibited 40 works of art at a corporate campus between October 26th – December 3rd and feels very happy about the experience.

This was not just a first for Toy, the corporation who invited him to exhibit were also experiencing their first exhibits by a digital artist. Financially this was a burden for Toy because unlike the digital world where you can upload an exhibit for L$10, printing artwork to canvas is a tad more expensive, to say the least. However whereas Toy wasn’t financially better off after this exhibit, the event was far from a failure, as Toy explains:

“Well I can tell you now with the conclusion of the exhibit, the response was simply amazing. More importantly, for this being my first ever real world art exhibit, the value I received from the experience was beyond my expectations in many ways”

Toy did make sales, 16 pieces were sold, which compares well with other artists who have exhibited at this location, the previous exhibit sold 2, whereas others have in the past sold a lot more, so for a first exhibit Toy did well.

However overall this was a very rewarding experience from Toy, taking the skills he’s learnt in Second Life and taking them to a RL exhibit was a huge step forward, not just for Toy, but also for other digital artists who can now see an example of how art can exist inside and outside the virtual world.

Toy started on this journey as a digital artist in 2010, he was of course already artistic and had commercial work to his name, which obviously helps, but he was a relative noob in the virtual world art scene. Spurred on by his friends in the Second Life art community, Toy gained more knowledge and skills to bring his work to life.

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December 6, 2013

Come On, Come On, Hurry Up Array, Come On!

We’re going down the pub! Warning, this post may containt geekiness and nuts.

One of the things that has always puzzled me in Second Life has been the lack of arrays in LSL. I mean arrays, they are sexy, they are useful, they store data, they beat lists, strided lists and any other sort of list by a country mile. Basically arrays are too sexy to be bodged as lists.

I didn’t do much scripting in Second Life because scripting consumes much time in my day job, so I felt it would be like a busman’s holiday, but arrays, how can you not have arrays? That was one of my first questions to myself back in 2007 when I joined Second Life and it remains a questions that puzzles me as we come close to 2014.

I was so scarred by Second Life not having arrays that when I took a look at Cloud Party and saw that they supported arrays, I cheered!

The power of arrays should not be underestimated, indexof, finding matches of, adding, removing, substrings, two dimnensional! Arrays are bloody sexy and more importantly, they are bloody useful.

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December 6, 2013

Ever, Jane Reaches Kickstarter Goal

Ever, Jane has reached its kickstarter goal with pledges of USD$109,563 helping it sail past the USD$100,000 target. Wait wait wait, what is Ever, Jane I hear you ask…. maybe! Ever, Jane is an upcoming online roleplaying game set in the world of Jane Austen’s novels.

This is an interesting project, although it’s certainly in its early stages and people will definitely need patience, it should be noted that the power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.

Behind the project are ex Linden Lab Senior Engineering Manager Judy L. Tyrer. Judy’s work covered Second Life. The lead artist is Renee Nejo and PR and community management will be handled by Annabel Smyth, which isn’t a bad thing because a lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

The game will be free to play but there are also plans for subscription models:

“Free-to-play allows you to be a peasant and you have 3 months to find work or starve (or poach, but you can go to jail if you get caught).

$5.00 per month puts you at the merchant/farmer level where the best you can do is earn a lot of money and your children marry into a gentrified family due to your wealth.

$10.00 is the basic subscription and lands you in the gentry at the level of a second son or a daughter. You have a very small yearly stipend but you are gentry so you get to do all the gentrified things.

$15.00 is the equivalent of a first son. You get a stipend and land.

$25.00 gets you a title and an estate

$50.00 gets you a royal title, an estate, and your own town..”

There will be no slaying of Orcs in this game, gossip and social status will be the tools of the trade. In terms of community management they have very large ban hammers at their disposal and won’t be afraid to use them, so be nice and try not to get angry, remember that angry people are not always wise.

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