New World Notes

Second Life in Shadowdraft Seems Visually Superior To Sony Home (And On Par In Other Ways)

Compare and contrast: Sony Home, versus SL in Shadowdraft (pic by Kean Kelly)

I recently read this preview of Sony Home, the upcoming Playstation 3-based virtual world which the Ars Technica writer deemed "shows potential, still needs work".  Second Life users aggravated by their world's frequent downtimes will love this part:  "First and foremost," he notes, "[Home] disconnections are frequent—startlingly so—even though there are rarely more than a few people online at any given time."

Then I noticed something striking about the post's accompanying images.  Home development began in 2005, and was publicly announced in March 2007.  When it was, the screenshots the company published suggested a world far more graphically rich and nuanced than Second Life.  Since then, however, with the addition of WindLight and sculpted primitives, and Residents' ever-greater facility with the SL building tools, and the viewer's open source code, I'd have to say they're now about on par-- in fact, Second Life is now arguably superior, especially when seen in the Shadowdraft viewer created by KirstenLee Cinquetti.  Take a look at the above screenshots, and judge for yourself.

Marvel at that:

Who's In Iris Ophelia's Hottest Avatar Guy List?

After an exhausting search, NWN style correspondent Iris Ophelia is finally ready to profile her ten hottest avatar guys for 2008-- look for her list starting next week!  For now, here's some unidentified jaws and foreheads to glimpse and guess at.

How Many Bots In The World Are There? Vlad Calculates 7K+

Last week I noted the Lindens had estimated 10-15% of Second Life activity are really just open source bots, but I lacked the mathematic acumen to convert that into a headcount.  Fortunately Vlad Bjornson of Shiny Life has, and it goes something like this:

+ LL estimates 10-15% User Hours are racked up by Bots.
+ Most traffic bots probably run 24/7
+ 34,800,000 User Hours in August

Running those numbers, Vlad comes out with 7,016 bots. Which is roughly 10% of the Second Life population at any given time, give or take, since there's currently a 76K peak concurrency, and a low end of about 42K, at the world's slowest. 

Check his math to see if he missed anything.  Thing is, if 1 in 10 of are bots, and some of those bots serve a useful function, what do we do with this minority race of artifical intelligences?

Lanna's List for November 20-26: Iron Minstrel, Electric Sheep, Music at Mongo, and more...

Charlanna Beresford & Moggs Oceanlane’s weekly round-up of SL events…

Charlanna Beresford, Moggs Oceanlane, and Nightflower artists Gina Gimmer, Bunny Brickworks, and Botgirl Questi.  Image by Gina Glimmer.

Nightflower Artist's Cooperative is opening it's doors this Saturday, November 22 from 2-6 PM. The mission of the cooperative is to support leading SL artists through exhibitions and supported residency programs. The artists lined up for the opening extravaganza are all well known personalities in the Second Life community. AND... they have the lot - guns, brains, hearts and serious artistic talent. You'll see works by Bunny Brickworks, Botgirl Questi, Codebastard Redgrave, Gina Glimmer and artist-in-residence - the blue haired girl - Seikatsu Koba. Come and celebrate the arts at Nightflower this weekend. Tunes will be spun, a prize will be awarded for the most creative avie look - and you'll get to mingle with some serious Second Life talent. After the opening the Gallery with continue creating unique opportunities for artists and help them focus on developing their talents to the fullest. At Night Flower (click here to teleport).

(All times in SLT, "Second Life Time" - i.e., Pacific Standard)

***
Thursday, November 20

6PM - Explore the Susan Constant
The Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) is graciously sharing their rendition of the Susan Constant, one of largest of three ships that voyaged to the Colony of Virginia in 1607 and resulted in the founding of Jamestown. Why not join in the exploration of the Susan Constant and celebrate this season of exploration, discovery, and thanks? At ISTE Lagoon and Campfire Field (click here to teleport).

8 PM - Wild Wild West at Ye Olde Terriers Inne
Circle the wagons, its Wild West night!  Gunslingers, cowboys and cowgirls, saloon girls.  The prize tonight goes to the best wild west character!  In Seventh Eye (click here to teleport).

Also this week: Star Simulations, Bootleg Par-tay, Go Karts for the Missing, and more...

New World Tableau: "After" by Turlu Tulu

Partly inspired by Cloverfield and Planet of the Apes, Turlu created this post-apocalyptic image, which is actually a composite of several SL locations.  The Statue of Liberty, of course, from SL's New York sim, and the surrounding city, from Sick. "And finally," he tells me, "snaps for the helicopters to add on the pic; I mixed the differents snaps in one pic, then edited each part, and finally used a Photoshop filter 'Flood' from Flaming Pear."

The other inspiration is the woman braving disaster: his model Keyem Little, who often dresses this way, roleplaying in SL, "looking like a huntress." 

Large version here.  Tulu also did this Tableau image; see much more in his Koinup profile.  See the entire New World Tableau album here-- and read on for guidelines to submitting one of your own.

Play With Vidal: "The Avarian Expedition"

Vidal Tripsa plays some of Second Life's most promising games

Title of Game: The Avarian Expedition
Released: August 2008
Rating: **** (out of 5)
Genre: RPG
Summary: Hunt for treasures, gather resources and craft or trade precious items in the world of Avaria.
Price to Play: L$30 for the basic toolkit
Estimated Play Time: N/A
No. of Players: 300 (approx.)
Where to Play: Avaria Tor (direct SLURL teleport)
Developers: Flea Bussy, Barney Boomslang, Heiko Decatur & Piper Zuhal
Web Resources: Grendel's Children (general site)

Grendel's Children has long been known as a go-to destination for finely-crafted, bargain-priced avatar creations, and it sees a heavy following from role-play communities too. The small continent of Avaria recently took on a bold new project, and it's known as The Avarian Expedition. With it comes a cause for much scavenging and trading on Avaria's plains, as I soon found out, pickaxe and scythe in hand.

Solution To Solve Content Over-Saturation: "First Sold On" Timestamps On Commercial Products?

Last month we were discussing the over-saturation of content in the Second Life economy-- with clothes that never fray or homes that never need repairs, a mountain of content amassed from five years of activity has expanded the supply of freebie/extremely cheap items, while doing nothing to increase the market for items sold at a substantial price.  (Why buy anything, when there's so many quality objects that cost so much less, especially in the context of an ailing real world economy?)

One idea occurred to me then that I think is worth airing here:  What if the Lindens added a date/timestamp to objects that are put on sale? That's not artificial obsolescence, but it would tend to put a premium on newer objects, while adding an "antique" value to quality items from a year or two back, (if they're extremely well made.) It might also help clarify content theft allegations.

Of course, I'm not really a content creator, except for the words you're reading right now.  How plausible is this suggestion?

Kentucky Dreaming: AM Radio's Latest Metaverse Installation

Photo by Poid Mahovlich

Ah Kentucky, proud exporter of thoroughbred horses, fine whiskey... and now, metaverse art.  The University of Kentucky's site in SL (direct SLURL teleport at this link) is now host to AM Radio's latest work of immersive art, another long highway stretching into nowhere, anchored by a mystical tree. 

"[They] invited me to utilize the space", AM explains simply.  He built the dreamscape gratis. "I would reject payment even if offered."

Many of AM's previous works, while gorgeously wrought, allowed for little direct interaction (a shortcoming in my view), but this one integrates you into his reality.  The road is strewn with physics-enabled umbrellas, which skitter off in satisfying directions, when you kick them.  ("Oddly satisfying isn't it?", says AM, as I run down the road.)  And sometimes, as Wizard Gynoid reports, the umbrella can even take you and a group of friends into the stratosphere.

The interactivity doesn't end there:

Koinup's Top Ten Second Life Sites Last Week

<p>&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Koinup: Your &amp;amp;lt;a href=&amp;amp;quot;http://www.koinup.com/&amp;amp;quot;&amp;amp;gt;Virtual Life&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</p>

As selected by users of the virtual world social network (an NWN partner), these were the most viewed and/or photographed locations in SL last week, and once again, they're an entirely different top ten from last week.  Each link takes you to more pics and a direct teleport SLURL:

1 - Blue Galaxy (fairytale island)
2 - University of KY (AM Radio's latest project, more on that later)
3 - Cu Mara (pictured above)
4 - Namba
5 - Dancing
6 - Arachnod (Underwater seascape?)
7 - SwayLand (beautiful island escape)
8 - Delphic (sci-fi tinged paradise)
9 - Arrakis2
10 - Head Conference (RL enterprise meeting space?)

Want to add a place you love to this list?  Upload an SL postcard to Koinup (directions here), or add the SLURL to locations already in your Koinup archive (directions here.)  The virtual world social network's servers do the rest, aggregating and displaying the locations by popularity, discovery date, etc.

New World Newsfeed: Barack Obama Appoints Two Second Life Residents To His FCC Transition Team

President-Elect Barack Obama has appointed University of Michigan law professor Susan Crawford and Wharton School professor Kevin Werbach to the Federal Communications Commission Review team; as such, they'll be reviewing US government telecommunication policy and advising changes as the Obama Administration takes over.  Crawford and Werbach are passionate advocates of net neutrality.  "This bodes very very well indeed for American telcoms policy!" enthuses Net freedom advocate Cory Doctorow. 

Indeed it does.  So does this fact: they're both Second Life Residents.  Not regular users, most likely, but even more significant, well-versed in its potential and its broader importance.  Here's Crawford, writing about Second Life on her blog:

I'm not a very agile presence in Second Life just yet; if you see an avatar spinning and gesturing meaninglessly, that's me... Artists and all sorts of other people have adopted the SL language, and they're producing like mad.  They're building museums and stores and planes and taxis, both individually and in groups.  Cory [Ondrejka] says a big bump in productivity happened after SL announced it was giving IP rights to subscribers in their creations... So I'm a huge fan of Second Life, and I hope to be able to figure out how to talk to the people there at some point.

And Werbach, explaining to BusinessWeek why he added a video stream into SL from the Supernova conference he founded: