Are you waiting for the family to arrive?
Are you sure you’ve got the room to spare room inside?
Does your granny always yell ya, that the old songs are the best?
Then she’s up and rock ‘n rollin’ with the rest!
Oh wait .. wrong post, that’s for the Karaoke Christmas special. There’s only so much Slade one can take, forty years old next year so I’m sure Noddy Holder and co. will be getting a windfall next year. However after spending half an hour driving around Morrissons car park at 9am this morning looking for a parking space, I’m not sure how much Christmas spirit I’ve got left, I only wanted to get some beers! The shops are only closed for one fecking day, good grief people what is it with this bunker mentality at Christmas … wait wait wait Ciaran, this has nothing to do with Rodvik, Second Life or Linden Lab! ok agreed, so where was I? Oh yes, Rodvik’s blog post. In my previous blog post I talked about the policy and direction, now I want to talk about NPC’s!
Yes yes yes, I know, Second Life isn’t a game. However parts of Second Life are a game and the more the merrier I say, although tier prices will always be a barrier for people who want to create game sims, this pathfinding feature is exciting.
On the blog post Rodvik tells us:
“For creators our first new feature for 2012 will be pathfinding. Because worlds feel most vibrant when they are full of life, one of our next focuses for Second Life is the ability to make high-quality “life” within it. So in 2012, we will be rolling out more advanced features that will allow the creation of artificial life and artificial people to be much smoother. For starters, in Q1, we’ll unveil a new, robust pathfinding system that will allow objects to intelligently navigate around the world while avoiding obstacles. Combined with the tools from Linden Realms this will make the polished creation of full MMORPG’s or people/animal simulators within Second Life easier and of high quality.”
This is long overdue and has massive potential, although the devil will be in the detail I quite enjoyed Linden Realms but the concept of NPC’s is one I’m all in favour of, even if they don’t do a fat lot other than march up and down my roleplay sim guarding the Queen from pirates. I’m not expecting them to be able to engage in any exciting combat, although I could be pleasantly surprised,but merely as scenery they’ll be useful, they will also be useful for people who engage in the arts, from Machnima to photography, this feature should be full of win.
However it’s more than just NPC’s, as Rodvik points out, artificial life in other forms will be viable, this all adds an extra string to Second Life’s bow and that’s certainly welcome, it could well attract new people creating new experiences or it may be that us crusty oldbies create new experiences, of course it could all be a damp squib but I’m in a glass half full mood and I’m looking forward to this.
This is an additional feature so shouldn’t change the experiences of those who aren’t interested in roleplaying, games, or such like, but for those of us who are interested in those aspects of Second Life, this is an addition that adds a nice tingle of anticipation, adding life to a sim can improve everyone’s Second Life experience.
Those who don’t play games possibly won’t see the advantage of these concepts, I’ve been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic a lot this week, there are plenty of NPC’s there, including pole dancing aliens, it adds to the ambience, hopefully this feature will be full of win, I’m certainly looking forward to it.