Virtual Worlds – Page 281

June 27, 2011June 27, 2011

Fractured Crystal Invited To Move Onto Other Opportunities By Avination

In my previous blog post I talked about Fractured Crystal’s contract with Avination on their viewer development and whether one of the infamous participants in the Emerald scandal should be trusted again. Avination were aware of his past but wanted to give him another chance to demonstrated his skills. However there’s a new twist to the story, due to allegations that Fractured Crystal still logs into Second Life, despite being permabanned, Avination have now taken the decision to remove Fractured Crystal from their staff and have intivted him to move onto other opportunities, as posted here.

I have no idea if the allegation against Fractured Crystal is true, but allegations surface in this thread over at SLUniverse (Caution, thread contains profanity). This is quite an epic thread, the questions about whether Fractured Crystal still logs into Second Life start at the bottom of page 14.

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June 26, 2011June 26, 2011

Is It Fair Not To Trust Fractured Crystal Again?

I don’t use Avination very often, this is mainly due to time restraints, the same goes for Inworldz, my virtual world time is mostly invested in Second Life. However I welcome alternative virtual worlds and although Avination and Inworldz are technically inferior to Second Life, that doesn’t mean people can’t have more fun in them than they have in Second Life. One area that interests me is of course the cheaper tier costs, from a roleplaying point of view that is appealing. Those lower costs though have to be weighed up against inferior performance.

I’m also not a fan of third party viewers, so were I to heavily invest in Avination I’d be tempted by the official Avination viewer, well I would have been until I learnt that Fractured Crystal of Emerald viewer infamy had been hired to help develop the official Avination viewer, this means I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. The question then is: Is it fair to not trust Fractured Crystal again? The answer of course is, who knows? Actions will certainly speak louder than words.

In Cyberspace people not only have long memories, they also have aide memoires of old data to refresh their memories in cached google blog posts. What happened with the Emerald Viewer and Fractured Crystal’s involvement was a massive breach of trust and one I can’t simply overlook, although Avination owner, Melanie Milland, is quite correct in saying that Black Hats can become White Hats, it’s still an issue of personal trust.

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June 24, 2011June 24, 2011

The Emperor’s New Spaceship

Last night, your dashing hero (that’s me) battled lag, viewer updates, being unable to move safely and risky teleports to catch a glimpse of Rodvik at Second Life’s eighth birthday celebrations (AKA SL8B). Rodvik didn’t make a speech, he seemed to have saved his speaking for a Massively article (well worth a read). He also didn’t sing, despite Inara Pey’s encouragement. I did ask Inara to encourage Rodvik to get on stage and break out in a chorus of “Alex Mcleish’s Claret and Blue Army” but she refused on the grounds of bad taste… umm some Villa fans would agree.

However whilst Fedora Jones was singing, Rodvik arrived, to much chatter, only for me to ask Inara where the bloody hell he was because I’d only came to see his toga! However I was to be thwarted, as I discovered that amongst mutterings about nanobots and taking over the galaxy, Rodvik had turned into a Spaceship!

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June 22, 2011June 22, 2011

Looking a Gift Horse In The Mouth

As I am not certified for a SL press pass, I look to the SL press for news and information on things happening at Linden Lab, I used to look at the main blog but that seems to be in sore need of some care and attention. The forums aren’t so bad, and the mesh forum for those interested in mesh, is interesting viewing, even for those who don’t like mesh, it’s interesting viewing! However for general information I keep an eye on the SL press and SL Press member extraordinaire; Inara Pey, has an interesting post regarding SL8B, or more to the point about the lack of Linden involvement at SL8B. I agree with the main thrust of Inara’s post, to quote in part:

“SL8B represents a marvellous opportunity for LL to reach out to the user community and communicate with us – so where are they?

I’m not talking about glad-handing or getting involved in in-depth discussions about who, what, when, where, how and why; rather I’m talking about getting up on stage and giving an overview of what is coming down the road, thing like:

What is happening with Viewer 2?
What is Mesh going to look like? (Given many haven’t see the results from the Beta Grid)
What is happening around service improvements like Group chat and server-side lag issues?”

The SL8B Blog itself is on its own blog, containing far more information about happenings than Linden Lab’s own official blog, have they outsourced the birthday event or something? I know Linden Lab officially take a hands off approach to SLCC.

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June 20, 2011June 20, 2011

Qie Niangao’s Train Display At SL8B

When I was a lad, like many a lad, I dreamt of one day being a train driver and although that dream has long since faded, there’s this magical theme with trains still, which makes it a perfect subject for this year’s SL8B. The bonus here being that Qie Niangao has made a display that not only captures that magic, it also allows you to simulate riding a train inworld as well as promoting the Virtual Railway Consortium and Second Life Rail Road (SLRR).

The display starts with a simulation of a toy train which you ride.

Then before you know it you’re inside a train carriage, with sound and shaking.

I caught up with Qie Niangao to ask him more about the display, the Virtual Railway Consortium and the SLRR.

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