January 2015 – Page 2

January 29, 2015

Joystiq Once Gave Great Coverage To Second Life, It will Be A Shame If It Disappears

re/code recently reported : AOL Likely to Shutter Gaming Site Joystiq in Larger Content Cleanup. This has not been confirmed yet, but Joystiq themselves responded to the rumour :

Sources tell Joystiq that the staff is aware of the closure, but corporate hasn’t officially told them, so they are unable to acknowledge anything out of concern that it will cause immediate shutdown. We’ve reached out for more information. We will update, as we always have, when we know more.

This post may start to sound like an obituary, so let’s get some things cleared up here near the start. The rumours about Joystiq closing remain simply that, rumours. However they look like bloody well informed rumours. There have been no comments regarding what this all means for Massively. The talk is of a restructure.

You may be wondering “Who cares”, but the simple fact of the matter is that Joystiq has been a good friend of Second Life in the past. Largely due to sites such as Second Life Insider that then got merged into Massively. There are plenty of posts from the Second Life category over at Massively. The output certainly slowed down over the years, especially once Tateru Nino moved on. However Beau Hindman did keep up the good fight and Moo Money and Eloise Pasteur, who blogged about Second Life earlier also deserve a mention.

You can go all the way back to 2006 for a history of Second Life Insider. Back then the site was part of Weblogs, which was part of the same network as Joystiq. The bloggers back then were people such as Akela Talamasca, Callandris Pendragon, Aimee Weber, Master Penguin and Local Jezebel. The site had a more fansite appeal.

Back in October 2008 Massively interviewed Tateru Nino : Meet the Team: Tateru Nino, who explained what she did at Massively :

I’m a general writer, though I act as the team specialist for collaborative virtual worlds (particularly Second Life), and legal analysis. I help brainstorm and do some proofreading, and examine the philosophy of MMOs and virtual environments.

Eventually Second Life Insider would become part of the main Massively site, but even before that happened Massively were covering Second Life. On a site more about games and MMO’s in particular, this wasn’t always popular, as a post from November 2007 addresses : Why Second Life belongs at Massively :

Or: Why gamers and virtual worlders should care about each other.

We’re shy of a month in to Massively’s existence, and one of the more persistent bits of feedback we continue to receive regards the inclusion of Second Life content on a site about MMOs. There are really two questions to answer here:

Does Second Life coverage belong on Massively at all?

Is the amount of Second Life content disproportionate to its mindshare?

I will herein state a claim for a definitive yes on point 1, and readily admit that point 2 is arguably a matter of taste. Maintaining editorial balance surrounding all of the many, varied games we cover is an ongoing process, and we’ve selected a suite of “core games” based on many factors including subscriber/member numbers, overall buzz and mindshare in the industry, and input from a secret algorithm I would love to call “interestingness” if it weren’t already taken. We are proud to offer in-depth Second Life coverage as one of those core current titles.

Those sort of discussions would rage on whenever Second Life was talked about, it still happens today.

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January 28, 2015

An Interview With Marsha Warwillow Part 2 – Life, The Virtual World & Everything Else

I’m talking to Marsha Wawillow, Editor in chief of SL Goth Magazine, an inworld publication which I covered in a part 1 of the interview. In this part of the interview Marsha gets a little more personal, although she readily admits she’s generally shy. However we start with location, the SL Goth HQ sits in a corner of the home of Morphe Inc. Abel Dreamscape’s wares are readily available around here and they are very pleasing on the eye.

I ask Marsha, how she got here :

“I’ve known Abel Dreamscape for a long time. In the earlier days of the magazine he made gifts for readers as well as did the special event buildings for SL7B. When I left, and returned, I contacted him because I just think he’s so talented, and reliable, and genuine – I trust him. He is our patron here and we are ever grateful for his hospitality.”

Marsha took a break from Second Life for around three years but on her return she quickly got back into the swing of things and relaunched SL Goth Magazine with a HP Lovecraft special, so how big a fan of HP Lovecraft is Marsha? Marsha squirms, a little uncomfortably and then answers, somewhat sheepishly :

“I actually do not know very much about Lovecraft, although I did have a big dose with the Special issue and learned a lot. It’s interesting – there’s a HUGE Lovecraft following in Second Life. Very dedicated, and creative fans, who have a strong community. The people in that community are just top notch – storytellers, role players, creators, sim builders, you name it. I’m just always blown away by what comes out of Innsmouth.”

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January 28, 2015

An Interview With Marsha Warwillow Part 1 – SL Goth Magazine

I find myself inside a gothic building at the HQ of SL Goth, a website and inworld magazine dedicated to all things gothic in Second Life. The magazine describes itself as :

slGoth Magazine is an independent showcase of gothic Second Life residents, places, philosophy, fashion, entertainment and events. The articles are written by resident avatars and cover a variety of topics in the gothic community. It is published monthly in-world and is a wearable HUD which supplies landmarks and gifts from sponsors.

I’m joined by Editior in Chief of SL Goth, Marsha Warwillow. The magazine was launched in June 2009 further editions appeared in July and August of that year. The fourth edition appeared in May 2010, with further editions appearing in June and July of that year and then Marsha took a break from Second Life.

The magazine reappeared along with Marsha in August 2014 with a HP Lovecraft special edition and since then there have been editions in September, October, November and December 2014 as well as January 2015.

I ask Marsha about the return of the magazine, she pauses and then replies :

“Well, some people enjoy building and making things in Second Life. Some people DJ, dance, hang out, take pictures, etc. My thrill is making magazines, and I love goth culture, so it seemed a fun way to explore goth/dark SL and learn new things and just basically document it as I went along.

But it became collaborative, and I do not write at all really any more, it’s based on submissions and people who volunteer to contribute now.”

How many people are involved, I ask Marsha, “It varies from month to month, I call it “an open invitation” and send out a theme note, people respond who are interested and have time and are inspired.” she replies.

Sl Goth has a website and inworld publication, I ask Marsha about the challenges of the inworld version compared to the website, she pauses and then tells me :

“Hmm… with the in-world magazine, making edits is a bit harder after it is published, and adding to it. It IS possible to do just a lot more work compared to simply editing the text on a webpage. Also the magazine contains gifts from Sponsors. There’s a bit of a process with that, and it’s not always easy, but worth it.”

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January 27, 2015

City Of Harrison – Urban Roleplay In Second Life

The City Of Harrison in Second Life is pretty damn stunning. This is an urban roleplay area that spans two regions and manages to pack a hell of a lot in to packed streets which are surrounded by numerous buildings.

As with most roleplay regions in Second Life, the trick is to not tag yourself as being into the roleplay if you’re just visiting. City Of Harrison has a very simple way of helping you opt out, there’s OOC tag, there’s nothing to wear, indeed that’s the trick, you simply don’t join their group or wear their group tag. That means you can even join the group, but avoid roleplay by not wearing said tag until you’re ready.

So what exactly is going on here? Well this is a good time to head over to their website to find out more :

The City of Harrison is a casual modern urban roleplay environment – that is, we are a modern-day big city aimed at everyone simply living their lives. Unlike many other urban roleplay environments, Harrison does not focus on being “dark” or “dangerous”; rather, we cater to anyone that wants a chunk of a bustling metropolis. Whether you aspire to be a financial magnate or a criminal mastermind – or anything in between – Harrison is the place for you.

There are perks to getting involved in the roleplay, you can rez items and drive around the streets.

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January 26, 2015

Former Linden Yoz Grahame And The Not So Secret Forum Associated With A Douglas Adams RPG

These days Yoz Grahame works for 18F, a USA Government website that bills itself as : “Building the 21st century digital government“. However in a former virtual life Yoz worked for Linden Lab, unsurprisingly he was known as Yoz Linden. However he has also long been harbouring a secret, that may or may not have been closely guarded.

Yoz it seems was involved in keeping a alive a forum that had a life of its own, as reported by Kotaku : The Secret Douglas Adams RPG That People Have Been Playing for 15 Years. The RPG itself, known as Starship Titanic, is, claims the Kotaku article, pretty unplayable these days. The book of the same name was not written by Douglas Adams, it was instead penned by Terry Jones, but the forum? That’s where Yoz comes into play.

Yoz worked for The Digital Village and as part of his work on the website he created an employee forum, that wasn’t just open to employees. Cryptic clues were provided as to the existence of this forum. However Yoz forgot all about it, for around six months, and then decided to take a peek :

Visitors to the forum had created fictional employees and passengers on the Starship Titanic and begun role playing as them. Someone would make up an implausible, Adams-esque scenario, and everyone else would react to it in character, resulting in some enormously complex storylines and in-jokes that developed and diversified over years. And this strange fictional world had appeared entirely spontaneously, without any input from Douglas Adams or The Digital Village. Indeed, Yoz was as surprised as anyone when he stumbled across it: “It was like ignoring the vegetable drawer of your fridge for a year, then opening it to find a bunch of very grateful sentient tomatoes busily working on their third opera,” he says.

The beauty of user generated content, even in forum form appears to have been a sight to behold.

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