Madpea Productions Mad City Now Open

An Image Should Be Here
Mad City

I missed the Mad City Blogger preview because I was asleep in bed, even seekers of truth and justice style evil Drow Wizard types need sleep at times and those times often coincide with 2am! However I have been very kindly presented with a press release, which is all about Madpea Productions Mad City! I have also visited the sim today and I must say it is very atmospheric, although there were one or two teething problems, there are plenty of people visiting and they even have their own radio stream!

Mad City Street

Now I’ll get on with sharing the press release, below the cut, unless you’re already below the cut, in which case it will be in italics …. hopefully!

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Whatever Happened To Apez?

There I am reading the official forums when I see a post : Apez Sold Yet Again, WTF I thik, Apez is still going? Seriously? Apez? However no, it’s a necropost, updated by Wiseguy Capra whose business merged with Apez back in its heyday. Apez was a nice system and had a nice rental system.

However Wiseguy wants to know what happened to the assets associated with Apez, as he owns the intellectual property rights to some of those assets and he’s making a return to Second Life, in his post he says:

Sorry for digging this up after all the time that has passed but I need to clarify my own stand in this matter.

 In late 2008 SLCI – SL Content Innovations joined forces with Apez. At that time the entire product line which was known under the [SLCI] brand was moved over to Apez, re-branded and then available for sale until Cenji decided to sell Apez.

 During that time I moved to Spain and had more important things on mind than SL. However, when the news about Cenji selling Apez popped I made it very clear that the [SLCI] products will remain [SLCI] prooperty and may not be sold to any 3rd party nor may any 3rd party be given any permission to sell those products.

 This includes:

  •  Control-Demon Home Control (builders and private editions)
  • All modules available for CD including the security system, mailbox, teleporter etc
  • All [SLCI] created texture packs including the terrain texture pack which has always been one of the best selling in SL
  • Multi-Media Rack, Radio player and all prefabs created by [SLCI] and sold under Apez.

So whoever the new owner of Apez is I don’t wish to see any of those products in SL. Yes I have been away for a couple of years but the copyright of all those products remains with me. I still have all the original texture files and control-demon source code and ANY [SLCI] products found on “ApezProducts Engineer” (now called ApezProducts Tomorrow” are my intelectual property.

Control-demon will return to SL soon. All current owners of the builders edition will receive a update in the next weeks.

Also, if anybody knows who bought Apez in the end please message me.

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Missed Opportunities With Alienware Competition

On June 20th Linden Lab blogged Celebrate SL10B With a Chance to Win a New Alienware 14 Laptop!Awesome” was likely to have been the reaction of many, until they saw “Note: this contest is limited to Second Life users in the US” At this point the reaction of many was likely to have been “Boooooo!” I don’t have a problem with this, even though I can’t enter, the same as I don’t have a problem with the previous Amazon promotions I can’t participate in.

The competition runs until July 17th, so if you are a US resident and fancy entering, go here: http://www.alienwarearena.com/lan-give-a-way/second-life/ Read the rules carefully, if you’re from Rhode Island you’re out of luck!

I see promotions such as this as helping to promote Second Life outside of Second Life circles, and that’s a good thing. I will however say that I don’t think this competition is a great fit as part of the SL10B community celebrations, but that’s a minor quibble.

To get this into some sort of perspective, there are Alienware competitions that cover other countries, for example The Alienware Arena Weekly “Gamer’s Grab” Sweepstakes is open to: “legal residents of the United States, Canada (excluding Quebec), United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, that are 13 years of age or older and residents of Germany that are fifteen (15) years of age or older.

A lot of excluded countries there, then there’s the 5v5 Heroes of Newerth Tournament – Europe which is open : “only to residents of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom that are thirteen (13) years of age or older, residents of Spain that are fourteen (14) years of age or older and residents of Germany that are fifteen (15) years of age or older as of June 17, 2013

So we can see that it’s not unusual for competitions and tournaments to be restricted. However where I feel opportunities have been missed here is that a platform such as Second Life has a wide range of ways to deliver content and prizes, and there are more creative ways to engage with a wider range of users.

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Something To Do Sims Need Some Linden Loving

Protest Gnomes

The first thing to note when it comes to issues surrounding tier payments is that Linden Lab have to pay their bills, they have to pay their staff and in order to pay their staff and maximise their income they need tier payments as they remain the largest slice of the income pudding. Therefore there are no easy answers to the tier issue. However tier remains an issue that stifles devel0pment.

Content creators have the Marketplace whereby they can sell their wares in a low risk environment. This is great, it means people can create content without having to worry if they’re going to meet tier and they only get dinged for fees if they sell an item and even then, the fee is low at 5%. However there are other costs for content creators that should not be ignored. Software, training, hardware and time, let’s not forget that time is money, but content creators do have a place where they can offer their wares without the worry of upfront fees for using Second Life.

I’ve posted before how the rise of The Marketplace has came at the cost of hurting something to do sims, because merchants used to rent space to merchants to help subsidise those something to do ventures. There has been a trade off, The Marketplace has pro’s and cons for Second Life as a whole but in the main, I support it, it’s also easier for customers to find items on the Marketplace, so it’s not just of benefit to merchants, but there is a cost associated with this. However I can recall in days gone by, people discussing in the Second Life forums how they were discouraged from creating content because of tier or rental costs, so The Marketplace certainly helps with a wide range of diverse content being available, it should also be noted that one of the complaints in the past was that Second Life had too many malls and stores and not enough something to do places.

Many Marketplace merchants, it should be noted, have an inworld presence and do have tier worries, but The Marketplace is a place they can engage without tier worries. When it comes to the arts, there’s no Marketplace option, but there is the Linden Endownment for the Arts. Inara Pey recently covered the fact that applications are now open to apply for land there, the applications are still open. The LEA have around thirty regions, twenty of which are available via these applications for inworld artists to display their wares for five or six months, Linden Lab donate these regions.

The number of LEA regions is nowhere near enough to satisfy the huge range of diverse art installations that Second Life could attract, but it’s better than nothing. However many in the artistic community are in the position merchants were before the rise of The Marketplace, tier and rental costs stifle engagement.

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The Drax Files Episode 8 – Madpea Games

Storytelling is an art form that I often think doesn’t realise anywhere near its potential in Second Life. However, when you stop and think a bit longer, we see lots of roleplaying, which is a form of storytelling and then we have interactive games from producers such as Madpea Games and that’s the focus of this blog post, because the lastest episode of The Drax Files involves an interview with Kiana Writer of Madpea Games. I’ll embed the interview at the end of the post, along with some trailers from Madpea Games, as long as the Shockwave Flash plugin doesn’t crash again, all should be well!

This episode has a twist, a bit like those films where cartoon characters appear, in this episode we see Kiana’s avatar but Drax in all his RL glory. However we do see some of the content creators for Madpea Games in action, including an amusing scene where one of them holds up a help sign!

Kiana starts by saying that she thinks Second Life is the perfect platform for designing games, something that I really can’t agree with. However Madpea have produced some excellent examples of storytelling and games on the Second Life platform. Kiana explains how Second Life has allowed her to bring her stories to life. That’s a really impressive point to note.

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