Virtual Worlds – Page 95

February 16, 2015

A Visit To K’Taclysme Town, A French Speaking Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland In Second Life

I decided it was time to go International with my Second Life explorations, so I headed to the International section of The Destination Guide. I looked around at a few interesting looking links and decided to brave a visit to a scary looking location known as K’Taclysme Town. Now first things first, this is a sim created by French speakers and the notecards are in French. Therefore you may struggle with the roleplay if you’re not a French speaker. However don’t let that put you off from visiting.

One of the beauties of a virtual world in circumstances such as this is that the landscape is painted for you, therefore you can get a bloody good idea of what’s going on. Another beauty of a virtual world is that if you’re familiar with the mechanisms, you can work some things out for yourself. For example I figured out how to get hold of a visitors tag by touching the prim that contains said visitor tag.

I could also figure out how to get hold of some of the rules and background to the sim, again by touching the correct prim.

Obviously, if you’re not a French speaker then you may well have difficulty understanding the instructions, but there are tricks of the trade to guide you, such as using Google Translate to give you a nudge in the right direction. However even before doing that it wasn’t hard to work out that something bad had happened to this town. Armed military figures, strange gases on the streets, crashed vehicles, collapsed roads, floating spores and blood on the street give you the distinct impression that it didn’t end well here.

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February 14, 2015February 14, 2015

Giulio Prisco Has Been Talking About Religion In Virtual Reality, Will It Work For Him This Time?

A couple of posts from physicist and computer scientist, Giulio Prisco. The posts are linked to each other. The first post was published on Hypergrid Business : Virtual reality a new frontier for religions. In that post Giulio talks about churches in virtual reality. In that post Giulio revists some of the ground he has covered before, which I covered when Giulio had been talking about the book Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life by Robert M. Geraci.

In the Hypergrid Business article Giulio says :

The book reports that many groups in mainstream religions, including Christianity and Islam, established a virtual presence in Second Life, often bypassing institutional channels and creating grassroots communities instead. These virtual communities are often independent of traditional religious hierarchies, and much more open to inter-faith dialogue and alternative lifestyles.

Physical churches can and do work together, I know that the local Catholic and Baptist churches near me have joint ventures in terms of open days and money raising causes for example, but could virtual reality help people to make those links and alliances without the structure of their own church leaders? This is an interesting thought process. Giulio goes on to suggest that new religions may be formed in the metaverse :

The chapter “Sacred Second Lives” of Virtually Sacred is dedicated to new, emerging religious movements in Second Life. Perhaps more than established religions, new “native” metaverse religions will be able to take full advantage of the endless possibilities of virtual reality and offer a spiritual home to multitudes of people worldwide, especially those who search spiritual meaning independently, outside the legacy framework of mainstream religions.

I don’t think Giulio was talking about The First Church Of Rosedale when he wrote that. Especially as The First Church Of Rosedale is Second Life only and has as its tagline :

There is no Chairman but Philip,
And Torley is His Prophet.
The first church devoted to an entirely SL-focused religion!

Samantha Poindexter has a lot to answer for!

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February 13, 2015February 13, 2015

A Dwarfin Goes To The Isle Of View And Meets Xiola Linden

Pensively I announced to The High Council Of Dwarfins that I had to embark on a perlious mission to The Isle Of View in Second Life.

“Second Life?” pondered the woman sat next to me, “Is that still around?“. The females either side of me found this highly amusing, I just raised my eyebrows.

“The mission is perilous“, I announced, “Love Is in the air, everywhere I look around, Love is in the air, every sight and every sound“.

The lady stood to my left groaned and said “Will you please stop singing that bloody song!“.

With that I left the hall.

“Gwarda!” I shouted as I saw Gwarda Rockbeard, “I’m off on a Perilous mission to The Isle Of View in Second Life“.

“Why?” asked Gwarda.

“Love is in the air, In the whisper of the trees, Love is in the air, In the thunder of the sea“, I replied.

Gwarda frowned and went about her business.

I then spied Rehri Rockbeard and went to speak to him.

“Don’t you dare bloody sing!” he told me, “Oh and be careful, I hear there are Lindens there“.

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February 12, 2015

Friday 13th Meets Valentine’s Day At The Isle Of View

Linden Lab have decided that Friday the 13th shall be a day of love this year, with a blog post of Valentine’s Day fun : Valentine’s Day Fun on the Isle of View – February 13th! Rumours that there will be camping and a host called Jason have been strenuously denied. Indeed Gray Of The Lab from San Francisco almost told me :

Love is in the air, Everywhere I look around, Love is in the air, Every sight and every sound.

The blog post informs us :

Come to the Isle of View on February 13th for some Pre-Valentine’s Day fun. Meet up with other Residents and enjoy all the romance that Isle of View has to offer – boat rides, fireworks, kissing booths – a treasure trove of memorable moments just waiting to be made with someone special.

Why February 13th? Because we believe in love, and there is still time to find a special someone for the big day.

If you’ve got a Valentine – bring them to the Isle of View.

If you’re currently looking for a Valentine – come to the Isle of View.

If you have several Valentines – well lucky you – bring them all to the Isle of View!

However I’m not actually buying their reasons for Friday being the day and a more realistic explanation is that :

I don’t care if Monday’s blue, Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too, Thursday i don’t care about you, It’s Friday I’m in love.

The Isle Of View it has to be said is pink, very pink, with a hint of red.

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February 11, 2015

The Computer Gaming Industry Should Pay Attention To Linden Lab’s Community Relations

When it comes to the computing gaming industry and communications, there’s a very sorry picture lying before us in 2015. The industry as a whole has an extremely immature reputation and this applies to gamers, gaming publications, gaming journalists and game developers. There’s a toxic pile of cack in front of them that far too many are happy to pour oil onto the fire of.

The industry as a whole could do far worse than to take a step back and look at how Linden Lab have approached community relationships over the years. Linden Lab have certainly not always got it right, indeed at times they have got it very wrong, the communication blackout being one glaring example. However at no point in the history of Second Life have I ever witnessed anything close to the sorry state that the computer gaming industry currently finds itself in.

There was a time when the official forums were far more vitriolic. Office hours inworld could get vitriolic.The Jira could get vitriolic and of course the blog post comments could get vitriolic. Linden Lab cut off some of those vitriolic sources by removing those communication channels. That wasn’t the smartest move and in some cases it appeared as if Linden Lab were burying their heads in the sand. Recently Linden Lab have vastly improved their communications, brought back some of those communication channels, engaged with their community and it’s working well.

Ok when Rod Humble was interviewed by Draxtor Despres he was quoted as saying :

I come from gaming communities, where I was running a gaming community, I received three death threats in a day! I’ve never received three death threats in a day from Second Life users, I’ve only received only one death threat here. And that was from a guy who got banned, you know, he was angry.

We shouldn’t make light of death threats but I think this puts into context some of the levels of vitriol that have been around. When Second Life did receive vitriolic comments they were more measured than what we see in the computer gaming industry. When I was more of a git in the forums, blog posts and office hours, the idea of threatening en employee would never have been on my or pretty much anyone else’s radar.

I used to point out in the Second Life forums that the levels of vitriol were tame compared to other forums. This tells me two things, one that I’d accepted that vitriolic behaviour was something of a norm and two, that I thought the level of vitriol aimed at Linden Lab was at an acceptable level. As I’ve aged, I’m puzzled as to why I accepted this behaviour as being part and parcel of online communities.

However Linden Lab largely continued to engage, to talk, to try and work around the noise. As I’ve said, sometimes they took extreme measures, but Linden Lab’s employees in public remained professional, courteous and engaging. That’s not something you could say about the computer gaming industry.

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