New World Notes

The Hidden Armies of Second Life

By one estimate from a leading member, roleplayers in the various Second Life military clans range in the several thousands, and count a couple dozen affiliations. (Some allied, others at a tentative truce, but many in fierce blood feuds.) Despite those relatively low numbers, the high attention to detail and the culture that's evolved around it is deep, detailed, and passionate. Via Nexii Malthus, here's a well-produced machinima from MJ Katsu that depicts one the leading militaries, Ordo Imperialis. Also: looks a bit like something Leni Riefenstahl would make, if the Axis was largely comprised of furries.

Naruto-Inspired Ninja Combat System & Mini-MMO Coming to Second Life

If you're a gamer or an anime lover or both, you'll definitely want to watch this rousing machinima: it's a preview of a new Naruto-inspired game system and mini-MMO being developed in Second Life, on the region of Hinode Shima. "The combat system is based off of the Japanese manga and Anime hit series called 'Naruto'," the video's creator, Shikai Kanto, tells me. (He also created the game HUD you see in the video, and the in-game sound effects.) Yes yes, NCS is an acronym for "Ninja Combat System".

"This combat system allows it's players to join in ninja-fantasy based combat and roleplay," Kanto continues. "From melee combat, to using ninja techniques called 'jutsu'." That translates into cool gameplay that accomodates water-walking, teleportation, and of course, the firing of giant balls of energy. (The game's key scripters are Puppet Tatsu, Bioblaze Payne, and Kegan Loon.) The game mechanics look suitably complex and ambitious, matched to beautiful, detail rich architecture.

Kanto tells me the large team plans to open their game to the Second Life public "hopefully next week, but definitely by the end of this month." The island is still closed off to outsiders, but if you want an advance peek, IM Shikai Kanto, Bioblaze Payne, or Puppet Tatsu to get on the access list.

Kanomi Plays: RAGE, a Melee Combat Tournament Game

Kick, punch, it's all in the costume

• Title: RAGE Fighting Championships
• Released: 2008
• Genre: Player vs. player hand-to-hand combat
• Age Category: PG (Mature sim)
• Summary: Beat other players into grapefruit pulp
• Price: Free trial / 900 Lindens for a pro HUD
• Estimated Play Time: Indefinite
• Where to Play: RAGE at Devil's Moon (SLURL)
• Web Resources: Combat Evolution site; Combat Evolution forum
• Developer: Royce Boa (RP groups); Abramelin Wolfe of Abranimations (Combat HUD)

The first rule of Fight Club may be that you don't talk about Fight Club, but when it comes to Second Life combat groups, the more said the better. There are a lot of communities out there in the metaverse beating each other up, but the result is generally the same: broken noses, bloodied avatars, and a lot of fun. Whether it's samurai swordfighting or mecha combat, you'll find it in Second Life. And while not often noticed by the press, a lot of avatars are out there making in-world games and communities around them, bearing out -- albeit more violently -- Phil's original vision of "Your world, your way." Now if only we can get Linden Lab hippies to put a "Games" tab on the Showcase...

At any rate, this time out we're playing RAGE Fighting Championships, one of the longer-running but probably lesser known fighting venues. The group actually hosts three different competitions -- mixed martial arts, wrestling, and boxing -- but for this review I concentrated on the martial arts. In their version, you can use a variety of styles like kickboxing, kung fu, muay thai, a few weapons styles, and street brawling against your opponents.

How is all that hand-to-hand combat possible in Second Life? Read on, dear reader, and see:

SL Roleplay Plus Ironclad Combat Equals Two-Fisted Steampunk Story

Steampunk chronicler Hotspur Otoole recounts with brassy illustrations and muscular prose a recent clash between Second Life ironclads, merfolk, and other combatants, and it's a rousting adventure worthy of a penny dreadful: part one is here, part two is here. Equally interesting to me is his explanation of how the combatants decided upon the narrative before the fighting began: "[B]oth sides make up a plausible story and sketch out the logistics of how a fracas might start. Then the battle sort of unfolds from there, let the chips fall where they may." Excelsior!

Update, 5/6: Ironclad pic by Mako Kungfu.

New World Newsfeed: Second Life Concurrency Competitive With Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike

NewTeeVee >> How Meet the Spy Machinima Helped Double TF2’s Popularity

If you play Valve Software's Team Fortress 2, you might enjoy my new NewTeeVee article on the making of the very cool Meet the Spy machinima that's been making the rounds this month. During my interview, this intriguing datapoint came out:

Up until last week... TF2 was hitting maximum concurrency numbers of 32,000 players; over Memorial Day weekend, however, that more than doubled to 68,000.

Those numbers jumped out at me, because as regular Second Life users know, the world reaches maximum concurrency numbers of nearly 90,000 on the weekend. I wondered if this was an anomaly, so about 15 minutes ago, I compared the concurrency stats of the top games on Steam, Valve's online game distribution/online multiplayer system (available here) to Second Life's concurrency (available on the official homepage and on the client log-in page) and came up with the above comparison.

So looking at concurrency levels, Counter-Strike Source seems significantly more popular than Second Life -- which in turn is about even in concurrency with Counter-Strike, and considerably more than TF2 or Left 4 Dead. Another data point: Valve's Jason Holtman told me that Steam now has 8 million monthly unique users; Second Life, by contrast, is getting these concurrency numbers from roughly 750K monthly uniques.

None of this, I should hasten to say, is meant as a slam on Valve games; I'm a great admirer of them myself, and the company's success is well-deserved. The comparison is worth making, I think, to correct a common but mistaken impression (held especially by hardcore gamers) that their favorite titles are more popular than they actually are. These concurrency stats (as did Nielsen's March ratings) suggest otherwise.

Kanomi Plays: Tiny Empires 3000, Addictive Strategy Game

Kanomi Pikajuna Reviews Second Life's Most Promising Games

No, I'm not ignoring you, I'm playing Tiny Empires.

• Title: Tiny Empires 3000
• Released: March 11, 2009
• Genre: Massively multiplayer online multilevel marketing (MMOMLM :)
• Age Category: PG
• Summary: Wear a HUD. Do basic math. Click buttons. Repeat...
• Price: Free (trial) / L$999 (full)
• Estimated Play Time: Indefinite
• Where to Play: Tiny Empires 3000 Shop In-world (SLURL); Tiny Empires 3000 on XstreetSL
• Web Resources: TE 3000 blog; TE 3000 Player Wiki
• Developer: Ultralite Soleil

Some people say there's nothing to do in Second Life. To those people I say, "Get a Tiny Empires 3000 HUD, sign up as my subordinate, and begin contributing ships and income to my tiny space empire."

The game is about as undemanding as a game can be. It's played entirely through one HUD; that's it. No keyboard commands to memorize, no sim to go to, no board to rez. There's no looking for other players or waiting for a game to start.

The flip side of that is there's no action, no combat, and little in the way of in-depth strategy or roleplaying to be had, at least at the lower levels. In fact you don't really have to do much of anything at all. Check a few boxes, solve a few puzzles, and that's it.

Yet over time, the accumulated results of even minimal efforts will begin to push you up the ranks and increase your fleet. And that's where the addictiveness kicks in. It's like cigarettes -- not much of a kick at first, but over time you can get hooked.  Here's how:

When your HUD is active, a new turn will appear every few minutes or so, offering you some different options: buy or sell a ship, solve a puzzle, change allegiance, or vote on a measure. By default your options are set to "No", so if you are AFK or have the HUD minimized, you don't have to take a turn and you won't be penalized. So you can play the game risk-free while shopping for shoes or discussing Metanomics or all the other things you normally do. This subdued and slow pace meshes nicely with Second Life.

Every turn your ships earn a set amount of income; the more ships you have, the more income you make, but much of that is sent to your superior. And that's the key to the game, having others do the work for you.

This basic design borrows from multi-level marketing schemes, in that everyone has an upline (or "superior") to whom you pay a share of each turn's income. That's not exactly a Better Business model in real life, but in the context of an imaginary game world, it's fine. No real Lindens are changing hand, just in-game money called "credits."

Kanomi Plays: Khet, Chess Meets Disco In Your Second Life

Kanomi Pikajuna Reviews Second Life's Most Promising Games

• Title: Khet
• Released: 2008
• Genre: Turn-based strategy
• Age Category: PG
• Summary: Two players play a chess-like game with lasers and mirrors
• Price: 500 Lindens
• Estimated Play Time: 15-30 minutes
• Where to Play: K.R. Engineering
• Developer: K.R. Engineering

Chess meets disco? Is this revenge of the nerds, or has the rhinestone nation trading in their dancing boots for some serious gaming?

Whatever the case, Khet is a little-known two player strategy game that will appeal to Second Life's dedicated strategy game fans -- admittedly a smaller demographic than say, shoe-shoppers or Zyngo players, but a market certainly deserving of more in-world diversions. I'm happy to say I found another one in Khet.

Second Life Roleplaying in the Swedish Royal Court

I was already surprised to find robust SL roleplay set in the Summer palace of Louis XIV, but as it turns out, that isn't even the sole area for roleplay in 18th century European court life. Therese Carfagno has an in-depth, first-hand report at the second life of Drottningholm palace, one of the Swedish royal family’s homes. Not just recreated with accurate costumery and archiecture, the members enact intricate intrigue, romance, and conspiracy among the aristocrats of Sweden--which is then ably captured by Ms. Carfango's quill.

Kanomi Plays: Dark Urban RP Gaming In The Crack Den

Kanomi Pikajuna Reviews Second Life's Most Promising Games

• Title: The Crack Den
• Released: 2006
• Genre: Urban Roleplaying
• Age Category: Mature/Adult
• Summary: Story-driven, text-based roleplaying in a gritty, urban world
• Estimated Play Time: Weeks+
• Where to Play: The Crack Den
• Developer: Nadir Taov and BeBe Pink
• Web Resources: The Crack Den

Don't Taze me bro! Text me instead

Recently the Crack Den has gained some notoriety for being mentioned in a lawsuit by TASER International Inc. that targets Linden Lab for trademark infringement.

After reading the actual complaint (PDF link), I can say the connection to the Crack Den game itself is tenuous and the game's creators are not named as defendants, nor is the Crack Den in any danger of dissolution because of it. On the other hand, there has been some impact on the player base already: at least one merchant has already closed shop because Linden Lab "came in and deleted everything anyways, including our guns." [1] Then again, the Crack Den was just one of many places where these knockoff Taser guns were sold; they were primarily available on Linden's own Xstreet SL -- although they are no longer there.

So what is the Crack Den? What kind of crazy game involves stun guns and crack cocaine? Is this Grand Theft Auto in Second Life? Should Linden Lab sweep these sickos off the grid? New World Notes investigates!

The Unwritten Rules of Second Life Roleplay

There's an enormous number of roleplay-themed Second Life communities based around every conceivable theme and narrative -- I'm still astounded there's a small but active one based on courtier life in Louis the XIV's Versailles -- and just as many rule sets by which they're self-governed. Steampunk journalist Hotspur O'Toole has written a smart considerations of these communities, and the written and unwritten guidelines by which they play.

As he notes, for example, you can get an immediate sense of these rules by the qualifiers written in the very group description. "If a community advertises itself as being constituted with a certain attitude towards roleplaying ('relaxed', 'strict', 'enforced', 'easygoing', 'not required' are often used as descriptors, for instance)," he writes, "then the players have a certain attitude towards roleplaying going into the game." That also means bumping up against the often invisible boundaries of what's considered "in character" (and therefore encouraged) and "out of character" (sometimes grounds for penalty). Then there's roleplaying that's obnoxious, but still within character -- for example, someone playing an incoherent lunatic babbling in text chat. Bad experience with this has led Mr. O'Toole to offer a trenchant principle: "Playing in character is certainly desirable for many people, but when the act of playing a role forces the rest of us to experience a roleplaying environment we didn't choose, the choice of other players effectively limits the rest of us."

Another interesting point: Hotspur speculates that SL's Gorean roleplay community is also the strictest about roleplay: "Players are expected to never deviate from their role, ever, unless they speak (( in brackets )). Players who violate this expectation are often encouraged to go play elsewhere." You'd think this high expectation would grate on people, but the Gorean RP community is one of the largest in Second Life. I saw similar tight adherence to roleplay in the very popular and creative Midian cyberpunk society. So I put it to members of other SL roleplayers: how important is RP rule enforcement to the overall communities' growth and cultural richness?