New World Notes

Cajsa SL Flickr Pick: Boo Boo Beautifully Chronicles a Second Life Romance

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Boo Boo’s photostream is a delightful chronicle an adventurous Second Life romance. I love this picture of them saying goodbye to Chouchou. It typifies their stream which they describe as “The things we do, the places we explore, the moments we share..” It also reflects the joyful optimism they share. Be sure to look at the other pic from the same day. A lot of the photos are blown out by light giving them a feeling of softness and joy.

Things We Lost in the Flood: A New, Massively Multiplayer Loneliness Simulator Where Players Can Only Share Messages in Bottles With Each Other -- And If Enough Players Win, Self-Destructs

Things We Lost in the Flood is a new, free-to-play indie MMO with a brilliant twist: It's a massively multiplayer "loneliness simulator" where each player is set adrift on a boat in a post-apocalyptic world that's been flooded over. So instead of forming into groups or communicating via chat or instant message, players can write and send messages in bottles for other players to find. Some of those messages can advance the game (more on that below), or simply just be personal expressions, anonymously shared and set adrift into the pixelated sea.

Created by indie developer Dean Moynihan of Awkward Silence Games (who also created the acclaimed, deeply moving game One Chance), Things We Lost was first conceived to be massively multiple storytelling game: 

"The original idea was for players to find notes that I had written, to tell a short story out of order," he tells me. "However, I'm no writer... Once I figured out a way for the players to be doing all the prose work, it was smooth sailing from there." 

That decision enhanced his intent to simulate loneliness: "The only thing that could feel more lonely than floating in the middle of the ocean by yourself," he explains, "would be floating in the middle of the ocean by yourself -- and reading notes from other living people."

Though the game has only been out for a short time, players have written over 6,000 notes to each other, running the gamut of useful to the game, to creatively discursive, to surprisingly profound:

Psychedelic Zebra Sex, Alien on a Stripper Pole: What's Your Strangest Second Life Experience?

Reddit's /SecondLife has a fun thread on "the Wildest/Weirdest Experience you've have on SL", including some that are just horrible and disturbing (i.e. racist roleplay) while others are refreshingly zany:

Long time ago I was in a sandbox and suddenly a lamp avatar started talking to a toaster avatar. It got a little NSFW. The light got turned on and the toaster ejected burnt toast all over the sim.

Well OK then! The thread inspired blogger Meri to go into further detail in a post, including the time a Linden staffer showed up as an alien (above) which danced on a nearby stripper pole.

All of which reminds me that I've never got around to telling my story of Psychedelic Zebra Sex:

Cajsa's Flickr Pick: Artful Screen Captures Created in Assassin’s Creed Origins

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Essovius captures lovely landscape and action photos from several games. I particularly like the photos from Assassin’s Creed Origins. This untitled capture is active and exciting with a lot of movement, particularly as the ground is at such a steep angle, making the horse’s ride feel much wilder.

Libra Has Promise, Says Virtual Currency Expert/Blockchain Skeptic Adam Frisby, But Faces Adoption, Trust & Storage Challenges

Everyone in tech is talking today about Libra, the new blockchain-related cryptocurrency initiative led by Facebook in association with many major companies and organizations. (Read this detailed summary from Josh Constine on TechCrunch.) Assuming it isn't regulated to death by concerned government officials, can it live up to the utopian promises made in its promotional video (see above), while becoming a functional alternative to existing currency system?

"Biggest hole is just whether or not people trust it," virtual currency expert Adam Frisby tells me, in a chat today. "I think some will. Honestly, if it was anyone but Facebook pitching this (even if their stake is a minority one), it'd be way more likely to succeed."

As longtime New World Notes readers know, Adam has been involved as an entrepreneur in virtual world economies for over 15 years, and recently wrote a much-shared VentureBeat essay detailing his skepticism for blockchain. Libra, however, has promise, because (in his words) "it [s]olves a lot of the issues with blockchain, by not really being one."

One interesting point he raises: The industries with the greatest incentive to use Libra now are on the edge of the mainstream economy -- for instance, gambling, online gaming, porn, and the burgeoning legal pot industry in some US states. In my view, their rapid embrace will likely turn Libra into "Vice Coin" -- a brand association which might hamper Libra's adoption by the wider mainstream. (Which is probably not what Facebook and its partners were going for.)

On a technical front, Adam me, the heavy storage requirements may prevent Libra from becoming decentralized. Other challenges remain. For more detail, here's our lightly edited transcript:

Low Grav, Social VR Version of Ultimate Disc Game Launched in Sansar

Sasnsar is still in early beta with very limited consumer usage (as Linden Lab's CEO readily admits), but we are starting to see some interesting and fairly robust, and quite possibly fun applications emerge: Take Ultimate Disc, a new, low gravity version of the cult amateur sports game:

The Ultimate Disc arena (by @C3rb3rus & @EvoAv), a game loved by millions in its RL version, is now available on Sansar. This is a team based sport where the team with the most points wins. Organize a game with your friends and play a game with up to 5 vs 5 players. The game starts and entrance blocked once there is at least one player on each team, so have your players ready at the entrance before joining the game.

More on the Atlas page. If I'm reading the description there right, a lot of the playing rules of the Sansar version of Ultimate are not hard coded, but based on the honor system -- which would be similar to Ultimate the RL version:

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Evie Heights, Master of Angles & Intense Colors

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I love “Big Picture” by Evie Heights. It is very representative of her entire photostream which is full of pictures that appear casually captured in the moment. There is an artful unstudied effect. The thing is, we know what it’s like taking a picture in Second Life. It takes a lot of work to make a picture look so spontaneous. But look how her body angle mirrors the angle of the flowers. I also love her use of color, of using the purple/yellow complementary colors. There are so many thoughtful choices made that mentioning she also centers the subject using the Rule of Thirds feels redundant.  

SL Should Adopt VRChat's Avatar Rankings -- And SLers Should Be Less Like Barbie, More Like Elizabeth Warren (Comment of the Week #2)

Great conversation in this post praising VRChat's new avatar optimization rankings (from Excellent down to Very Poor, for avatars over 70,000 triangles) -- including this great comment from reader "Finni Graves", who agrees with reader "Cake" that Second Life should adopt these rankings:

I've invested a lot of my SL esteem in the whole crazy avatar adornment scene. Then one day, after trying to navigate a horrible shopping event, I've got to stop being so selfish and hogging so much resource. What's the point of looking good, if I don't feel good? These ridiculous mesh bodies, heads, hair. clothes, and accessories are literally sucking the life out of our SL. We must simplify ourselves because this whole hamster wheel isn't working.

Cake is right. All of us need to be graded harshly and it is our duty to ask ourselves, " do I really need this?". It's also the duty of content creators to make consumers aware of the optimization of their products and to guarantee it. They should have to be graded too, at least on Marketplace. 

Finni says SL's many fashion bloggers should advocate optimized avatars and stop promoting resource heavy avatars which degrade the performance for everyone around them. And then, notably, likens these reforms to the plans put forth by the US Presidential candidate who's leading the charge to reform the American economy by penalizing people whose greed hurts society and the environment:

Linden Lab Needs a Prominently Placed FAQ for Second Life Users (Comment of the Week #1)

My interview with a famed YouTuber turned Linden Lab staffer Strawberry Singh provoked some reader complaints that the company is not very responsive to SL user feedback. As reader "Mac" points out, there's an easy way to partly address that problem:

People need context to understand. Just as important, however, this context needs to be accessible and available.

My suggestion: Have Linden Lab make a bullet point FAQ list. '20 Top Misunderstandings Explained' -- something like that. Put this list up on the Forums and PIN IT, so it stays up there and people are forced to see it. Pinning it will also help with (formerly answered) questions that keep coming up, such as "Why won't LL tell us the exact time when they're going to do big maintenance?" [Linden Lab community forum staffer] Grumpity (I think), has answered that several times, but without a pinned answer, her attempts have vanished into the ether. Add to, and update, this list when necessary.

One great thing about having a prominent FAQ is it encourages oldtimers to point to it, when noobies ask a basic question. It's why RTFFAQ is a commonly used acronym. And as Mac continues, it helps convey more transparency:

Top 7 Posts Last Week: Oculus Quest Sales Estimates, Strawberry Singh Interview, Pokémon Problems, SL Protests, and VRChat's Thing With Mirrors

• Strawberry's Second Second Life As A Linden: Check-In With Famed YouTuber
• Nylon Pinkney Is Online: The Problem With Loving Pokémon As A Millennial
• Watch: Syrmor Interviews A Man With ALS Reflecting On Life While A Talking Mushroom In VRChat
• Great Idea: VRChat Ranking Avatars By "Excellent" To "Poor" Optimization
• Petition Against L$ Processing Fee Increase Slows, Draws Some Skepticism
• Oculus Quest Likely Sold Low 6 Figures Of Units In First 2 Weeks Of Launch
• Why VRChat Players Love Looking At Themselves In VRChat-Based Mirrors

Strawberry's Second Second Life as a Linden: Check-In With Famed YouTuber

It's been a couple months since Strawberry Singh, Second Life's most popular YouTuber, joined Linden Lab as an employee named "Strawberry Linden", making videos like the recent one above for the company's official YouTube channel. So I just checked in with her to see how the transition has been so far:

"I'm learning a lot and enjoying myself," she tells me. "I have full control over what I want to cover and how I want to cover it. I've started with the basics and plan to move into more intermediate and advanced tutorials soon. I haven't had that much interaction with Residents yet, other than just running into them when I'm bouncing around on the grid. Everyone's always very nice. They keep asking me for a Linden bear though, which I haven't had a chance to make yet. I promise that will be my first project as soon as I learn how to build!"

The most surprising thing she's learned since becoming a Linden? It may surprise many SLers:

Google Gets Back Into Virtual World Creation Game With Game Builder

Game Builder is a fun-looking game platform free on Steam for Mac and PC from Google's Area 120 incubator.  With block-like graphics and easy to use tools for creating games from scratch without having to know any coding (though you can add code to any game with Javascript), it's more or less a direct competitor to Roblox and Minecraft. But as explained on Google's blog, it's also a persistent virtual world: 

Multiple users can build (or play) simultaneously. You can even have friends play the game as you work on it.

As virtual world veterans might remember, this isn't Google's first foray into the virtual world/online game business:

Cajsa's Flickr Pic: Metro Exodus' Broken World Made Into Art

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I am not sure what happened to this overpass and on-ramp or to the rest of the freeway that must have once attached, but it must have been big. This photo has been desaturated until it seems black and white, but look closely, there are red railroad cars and blue water, they just have lost their color in a world gone grey. This sure creates the sense of dystopic destruction that makes a setting for gaming mayhem, but there is a stark beauty to this scene as well.

Nylon Pinkney Is Online: The Problem With Loving Pokémon as a Millennial

Greedy Greedy, Popular SL Game, Test Launches in Sinespace

UPDATE, 6/14: Posted the recorded session above.

Greedy Greedy, a popular Second Life-based dice game from K.R. Engineering and Karsten Rutledge, is test launching tonight in Sinespace (a proud sponsoring partner to NWN!), ported by Karsten himself, who's added new effects and hilarious avatar expressions. Sinespace lead developer Adam Frisby and his team will be playing and streaming the results on Twitch and YouTube -- watch above starting around 8pm PST, or come in-world to join the fun. More details from the Sinespace blog:

Watch: Syrmor Interviews a Man With ALS Reflecting on Life While a Talking Mushroom in VRChat

The latest video by Syrmor, the Errol Morris of VRChat, is his most powerful yet, an interview with a senior citizen with ALS who plays VRChat and reflects on his last remaining years through his talking cartoon mushroom avatar.

Great Idea: VRChat Ranking Avatars By "Excellent" to "Poor" Optimization

With VRChat now working for Oculus Quest, the company is putting out new optimization policies for users of the portable VR headset, and also for PC users, to generally improve the performance for everyone in the virtual world:

You can choose to block avatars based on their Avatar Performance Rank. This option is available in the “Performance Options” menu, accessible as a button in the top-right of the Safety tab in the main menu.

When you choose a Performance Rank in this menu, all avatars that are below that rank will be blocked by default and replaced with a placeholder avatar. You can choose between “Medium”, “Poor”, or “Very Poor”.

On VRChat for PC, the Minimum Displayed Performance Rank is set to “Very Poor” by default. This means that no avatars are hidden by default on PC. You can choose between “Medium”, “Poor”, or “Very Poor” options.

On VRChat for the Oculus Quest, the Minimum Displayed Performance Rank is set to “Medium” by default.

Veteran virtual world user and 3D graphics artist "Cake" of Juicy Blog (known as Aemeth in both SL and VRChat) sees this as a smart way to not only encourage optimization, but turn it into a kind of game:

"This is a great idea," as she puts it. "Not only do people become render-conscious, but now even random players I run into know what polys are. It isn't just a 'designer' thing. Everyone is aware. You're giving a score and told exactly what's wrong and what you should do to improve it."

Doing this puts more power in the users' hands, she argues (and I agree), and challenges content creators to optimize -- something VRChat and other virtual worlds (looking at you, Second Life) surely need:

Petition Against L$ Processing Fee Increase Slows, Draws Some Skepticism

The signatures to this online petition protesting Linden Lab's plan to increase the cost of processing Linden Dollars in Second Life recently passed over 2500 total total, but the numbers of new signees is noticeably slowing (most signed signed within the first couple days). Given that there's roughly 100,000 highly active Second Life users, it's likely that the vast majority don't have much incentive to sign on.

Also, since the petition went up, I've seen quite a number of skeptical comments from other SLers who have misgivings with the petition itself. For instance, it mentions (in a message to Linden Lab) "[S]hould you agree to have a direct conversation with representatives for those who have signed this petition, we will work with you to choose those delegates." But that brings up a potential problem:

Cajsa's Choices: Flick's SL Community Creates "Bloom of Spring" Photo Series

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Lawrence D. Pryce is back with another community project. This time it is called the “Bloom of Spring” campaign and is open to all who want to celebrate femininity and the blossoming of spring. He explains the inspiration for the photos here. There are two galleries of photos, The Cigar Room: Bloom of Spring Campaign and The Cigar Room: Bloom of Spring Campaign Vol. 2.  Among the many entries, a few really grabbed my attention like this one called “Cherry Blossom” from Rose Hanry. I love how bold it is and the repetition of arcs in the arrangement of the flowers.

Top Hacker News Comments on My "Metaverse Needs Gameplay" Post

Great thread, as I said, including some SLers in comments. While I argued that Neal Stephenson's original novel which described the Metaverse included games, one Hacker News reader notes that Stephenson later made the connection between the Metaverse and games even clearer in a 2011 interview:

When I was thinking up the Metaverse, I was trying to figure out the market mechanism that would make all of this stuff affordable. Snow Crash was written when 3D imaging graphics hardware was outrageously expensive, only for a few research labs. I figured that if it were ever going to become as cheap as TV, then there would have to be a market for 3D graphics as big as the market for TV. So the Metaverse in Snow Crash is kind of like TV.

What I didn't anticipate, what actually came along to drive down the cost of 3D graphics hardware, was games. And so the virtual reality that we all talked about and that we all imagined 20 years ago didn't happen in the way that we predicted. It happened instead in the form of video games. And so what we have now is Warcraft guilds, instead of people going to bars on the street in Snow Crash.

Another Hacker Newswer makes a great case that the Metaverse needs great physics before it needs games:

Oculus Quest Likely Sold Low 6 Figures of Units in First 2 Weeks of Launch

Oculus Quest has now been out for about two weeks, and we finally have some sales figures to help us guess its install base so far:

At launch the company’s store had just over 50 titles available to download, with a mixture of free titles and games costing as much as $30... At Vox Media’s Code conference, [Facebook VP of AR/VR Andrew Bosworth] detailed that in the first two weeks of sales there has been $5 million in content sales. We have not gotten any details on device sales, though Facebook has never shares sales data on their VR products.

However, as anyone who's gotten an Oculus Quest knows, it does not come pre-bundled* with any games. (That was among my biggest disappointments when I opened my unit -- hey wait how come Beat Saber doesn't come pre-loaded on this puppy?) So the content sales figure helps gives us a good guesstimate of HMD sales:

Caja's SL Flickr Pick: Titus Palmira, Stylish Storyteller & Avatar Portrait Taker

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Titus Palmira’s photostream is one giant “Wow!” from beginning to end. Every picture tells a story and most have a title that makes the story self-evident. His avatar subjects are more interesting than the often plasticine perfection of most of ours, including my own. “His chaos births a dancing star.” not only gives us a unique avatar, but the use of radial blur creates a sense of movement from a static image.

Nearly 2000 SLers Sign Petition Against Linden Dollar Processing Fee Increase

This online petition suggests that the backlash to Linden Lab's recently announced pricing changes continue, even after the company reversed plans to limit group restrictions. Launched just two days ago, it's already attracted close to 2000 signatures from Second Life users. At issue is Linden's plan to increase the cost of processing Linden Dollars:

[We are] disheartened by the other changes that you have announced that are scheduled to be implemented this month, specifically the doubling of the processing fee from 2.5% to 5%. While we understand that Linden Lab is a business that needs to profit in order to thrive, we feel it is necessary to remind you that we are running businesses, too. As you know, many of us are more than just hobbyists, we rely on the money we earn in Second Life to pay our bills, feed our children, and survive. 

"The last time the fee was increased, it was promised that the cash out times would be faster, which never happened," one signee, content creator Mari Mitchell, tells me.

She also makes an allegation frequently raised by SLers: That the company is squeezing Second Life to benefit its new virtual world, Sansar: "Announcing that [fee increase] at the same week then removing the transaction fees from Sansar was disheartening to many of us," as she puts it, "making us wonder if Second Life creators are listened to or valued at all."

The petition claims that the signees "have a long list of innovative and insightful ideas of how Linden Lab might increase profits without relying on land and without creators having to bear such a severe financial burden." However, specifics on those ideas are intentionally vague:

Why VRChat Players Love Looking at Themselves in VRChat-Based Mirrors

In case you were wondering what inspired Nylon Pinkney's latest comic about VRChat, reader "Cake" has some more context for you in Comments:

The mirror is a big social area in your typical VRChat room. People stand in front of it and talk like they would if they were primping with friends in a bathroom. Shaders also look slightly different in different maps depending on what you're using--so even if you have one set for your avatar, you still go to the mirror to check out what you look like on that particular map.

That's actually a fascinating analogy, and does a lot to help explain VRChat's popularity:

Top 7 Posts Last Week: Making the Metaverse, VR's Coming Privacy Crisis, Transgender Avatars in SL, Fun With Baptism & Mirrors in VRChat

• Why The Metaverse Needs Gameplay & Gameplay Mechanics
• Nylon Pinkney Is Online - Why Virtual Mirrors Are Popular In VRChat
• Inside The Avatar-Based Transgender Community Of Second Life
• Virtual Reality Pioneer: A Data Mining Crisis Is Coming For Our Industry -- We Need Privacy Protections From Oculus, Vive & Others Now Before It's Too Late
• Survey Results: SLers Overwhelmingly Reject New Land Discounts & Premium Offer - But Enough Like It To Be Worthwhile
• Watch: Daily Show Features VR-Based Baptism, Hilariously Misses The Point
• Bowing To User Anger, Linden Lab Reserves Plan To Limit Group Memberships For No-Subscription Basic Accounts