New World Notes

Open Forum: What Were The Most Important Second Life Stories Of 2008?

Among the many advantages of being in a virtual world community with a truly international membership in every time zone is this: on New Year's Eve, no matter what RL time it is for you, people in-world are welcoming the next year already. 

It's been an eventful year for the metaverse, with the most obvious news items being the departure of Philip Linden as company CEO in March, the subsequent April arrival of M. Linden to replace him, and in recent months, the (partly successful) rebellion over Openspace price increases.  Looking back, what other milestones good and bad will be most important to Second Life and OpenSim in 2009?

Want The Obama Administration To Establish Metaverse Standards? Vote On Change.org By Midnight Tonight!

Recent dispatches from the outside world...

The incoming Obama Administration has at least four associates who are extremely well-versed in Second Life and virtual worlds.  (Two staffers on the President Elect's FCC transition team, and two members of his "Innovation Agenda" group.)  Now Andabata Mandelbrot and Gwyneth Llewelyn are pushing for what seems like the next inevitable step: campaigning the Administration to establish universal standards for the metaverse, similar to those set for the broader Internet.  To do that, they're directing people to this page on the Web 2.0 lobbying site Obama team's Change.org, which is using a Digg-style tool for help guiding them on policy measures [to advocate].  (Specifically, it's "a citizen-driven effort to identify and create momentum around the best ideas for how the Obama Administration and Congress can turn the broad call for 'change' across the country into specific policies.")

To vote on it, you need to go to the site, quickly create an account, and encourage your friends and colleagues to do so as well.  I say "quickly", because apparently, the deadline for making the next round is Midnight tonight, and the proposal still needs several hundred votes.

Koinup's Top Ten Most Popular Second Life Sims For 2008

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The folks at NWN partner Koinup just passed along the final data for the year, tracking the number of times members of the virtual world social network clicked the teleport SLURLs of the Second Life sims listed in their directory.  Here they are below, with more screenshots and SLURL at each link; try to visit them all before the year is out!  (And congrats to the creators and owners of such artfully realized locations-- and all the Koinup members who paid tribute to them in the screenshots below.)

1  - Creamshop (featured above; other top ten locations depicted in widget above each listing)

2  - Cu Mara

3  - Gion

4  - Rez

See five through ten after the break...

The Ten Most Popular New World Notes Posts Of 2008

- Imagining "The Dumb Man": SL Machinima Auteur Lainy Voom's Latest Movie
- Like a Natural Woman: Raven Sells Swaying Breasts
- Lindens Limit Libertarianism: Billboard Advertising Restricted, Continuing Rollback of Laissez Faire Policies
- A Babylonian Scholar Returns To Second Life
- The Second Life Of Sarah Palin
- Lost In The Void: Unexpected Virtual Land Price Hike Leads To Anti-Linden Protest, Self-Immolation
- Mark Kingdon And The Openspaces Rebellion: A Chat On What Happened And Why, And What Happens Now
- Ophelia's Gaze: 2008's Top Ten Hottest Avatar Guys-- My First Five
- Why Svarga's For Sale: The Artificial Ecosystem's Creator on Second Life's Limitations as a Development Platform
- Mescaline's View: Watch "Pipedream", and Get the WindLight Preset It Was Made In

New World Tableau: Dark Isle, A New Roleplaying Sim

This is a look at Dark Isle, a new fantasy roleplaying sim created by Darby Dollinger and watcher Castaignede. Despite its painterly magnificence, Ms. Castaignede tells me,"The landscape shot of the sunset has very little Photoshop applied to it -- it was taken using WindLight settings and wide screen print screen direct from my monitor."  Billed as "Mythical Celtic Roleplaying", all of Dark Isle is striking, and a perfect theater for a new kind of group narrative.  See more Dark Isle imagery on her Koinup profile.

"We love role play in Second Life," Watcher tells me. With Dark Isle, they're hoping for a movie-quality experience. ""[I]n SL we can actually step into the movie, interact with its characters and eventually influence plot and narrative."  See for yourself: direct SLURL teleport to Dark Isle at this link.

NOAA Imports Google Earth Data Onto Scale Model Of Earth In Second Life

The US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration created a Second Life presence back in 2006, but what have they been doing lately?  Well, how about taking real time data from Google Earth via a customized importer, and layering that on top of a 90 meter scale model of the globe you can explore as an avatar in SL?  In this demo video, NOAA-in-SL head Hackshaven Harford demos their Second Earth, which features the orbit of actual satellites circling the world.

Nice video, but can't beat a first-hand visit.  Here's the direct SLURL teleport link to Second Earth.

Combat Cards Enter The Real World: Second Life Strategy Game Now For Sale In Hard Copy

Combat Cards, the acclaimed SL strategy game from Doc Boffin and Osprey Therian, is now for sale in a real world edition.  US Residents can buy a deck of cards for $10 here; UK Residents can get theirs for £7 over here.

This is a cool example of mixed reality and metaverse prototyping.  The high quality card illustrations were derived from SL screenshots, an economical way of developing product art. And as you can guess from the photo at left, Combat Cards comfortably fits in the genre of Magic: The Gathering and other tabletop strategy card games.  So it might actually be just as fun to play in the real world, as in SL.  But starting the game's development in Second Life was probably an advantage for Mssrs. Boffin and Therian, since it gave them a low cost means of playtesting and fine-tuning it. 

But is the game itself any good?  Don't take my word for it, read this enthralled review of Combat Cards from NWN game reviewer Ms. Vidal Tripsa.  Hat tip: slgames.wordpress.com

Last Week In New World Notes...

I learn how to export my avatar to the web... thanks to a support network of avatars, Eshi Otawara gets to stay in the real country of her choosing... an interactive sculpture musically responds to virtual wind... Iris Ophelia ogles and admires New World Notes' (surprisingly humble) Hottest Male Avatar of 2008.

Open Forum: What Were Your Favorite Second Life-Related Blog Posts In 2008?

Next week, I'll aim to highlight the best posts throughout the big and diverse Second Life blogosphere throughout 2008.  Which posts were your very favorite?   Can be from any category, for any reason; that includes pod and vlogcasts.  Please post in Comments, and of course, include the full URL.

Ms. Creeegan's Advice For Would-Be Fashion Entrepeneurs: Not Now, Wait For The Shakeout

Want to jump into the big and volatile Second Life fashion industry, where the very best designers can earn upwards of six figures in US dollars?  Longtime fashionista CronoCloud Creegan has some great advice on her blog, because it's stern about the harsh virtual realities that await you.  There's a lot of tips, much of it based on an epic economic analysis by Gwyneth Llewelyn, but I'm most struck by Ms. Creegan's opening salvo:

Don't. There's a glut of stuff on the grid, so much stuff that it's overwhelming, and if your stuffage isn't as good or better than the stuff that's already out there you WILL get lost in the glut... Wait for the shakeout.  I'd lay odds some of these new creators won't be able to keep going for too long.

In other words, if I read her right, the fashion industry is tapped out with content, we're in a deflationary period, and it's better to hang back awhile.  I put it to other fashionistas: is this advice too downbeat, or on target?

Image: www.ccslfashionista.blogspot.com