New World Notes

How To Be A Patron of the (Second Life) Arts

Tezcatlipoca Bisiani is the avatar name of Andrew Sempere, a staffer with IBM's Collaborative User Experience division, and the man behind Big Blue's patronage of "The Rabbitcorn", a recently acclaimed Bryn Oh installation. That patronage mostly involved offering free virtual land on IBM's large campus. As he explains on his blog, "First life doesn't adequately support the arts, and there is little to suggest that Second's play economy could do any better, but sim space is the one bit of SL that remains most closely tied to real value. Sims cost real money. Space grants equate to real money."

There are a few exceptions to that observation -- virtual abstract artist Filthy Fluno has had patrons, for instance -- but generally speaking, for the short term at least, I think he's right that support for the arts in SL will largely be limited to free land. That's a painfully tragic thing, because there's a burgeoning art movement in Second Life, dozens of talented figures working on a professional level innovating a new medium. It's yet another reason why growing the Second Life user base, especially Residents who spend L$, is so important: More paying customers in SL means more patrons of the metaverse arts. And until SL gets millions of regular users, all the great Second Life art will remain an obscure secret to the select few who've managed to squeeze past the many technical and financial hurdles to reach it. (Related thoughts by Bisiani on NPIRL after attending SLCC, where I was fortunate to hang awhile with Andrew.)

Strange Dialogs With Owners of Odd Second Life Vehicles

One day, Ms. Gattina Dumpling hopped on the vehicle of Daniel Luchador, who is a psychotic vampire and a rabbit clown, and asked him why he preferred that mode of transportation.

"Because it is cool and unique and colorful," he answered. "It has three gears, it is a robot dog, it makes noises. It is relevant to my interests." I see. "Do you have any other cars in SL?" Ms. Dumpling also asked.

"Yes," Mr. Luchador answered, "a Nissan Sentra."

Much more odd dialogs with owners of eccentric SL vehicles on Shopping Cart Disco.

SL Steampunks Blogswarm Steelhead Shanghai!

In the recent week or two, Steampunk-centric Second Life blogs have become quite enamored over Steelhead Shanghai [SLurl teleport at this link], a new region the creator winningly calls “hysterically accurate American Victorian steampunk”. Which is to say, since steampunk creates a science fiction 19th century that never was, Steelhead is a gold rush-era Chinatown from that same alternative past. (Here's fascinating historical/creative background on the new sim from its creator, Total Lunar Eclipse.)  Many more blog posts assembled here on the SL Steampunk blog, The Heliograph, including this post by Eladrienne Laval, from whence the photo above emanates. If someone creates steampunk-themed kung fu machinima in Steelhead, a la Shanghai Knights, please let me know!

New Artificial Life Species in SL: Mating & Hatching Turtles!

Will thousands and thousands of multicolored turtles join a hundred thousand Sion Chickens to ride herd over Second Life, albeit very slowly? Artificial Life aficionado Aunty Audrie has a charming and detailed review of Petable Turtles, which hatch, mate, and create another generation. Similar to Sion Chickens, which became a craze in SL over the Summer, a starter kit costs L$270, which gives you four random egg types, though Auntie intriguingly notes, "you can accidentally cross-breed the turtles but apparently this is a bad thing". Read the rest at Aunties' Chicken Diaries, which as the name suggests, was an SL blog largely devoted to Sion Chickens. (Ms. Audrie and her co-writer, PacificBlue Hanly, even have a Sion Chicken FAQ.) That said, it does seem enthusiasm over chickens is on the wane, in the wake of controversies over lag they apparently cause, and a rash of drive-by chicken killing. Will turtles inherit the earth?

Update, 12:25pm: Co-creator Matthew Anthony discusses his turtles in Comments. As it turns out, they can only be killed by starvation. (Sorry, would-be turtle hunters.)

Chestnut's Choices 8/27 - 9/2: From the State Fair to a Virtual Broadway Musical to SLCC Star RoseDrop Rust Playing Live - Events for All Tastes in SL this Week!

Chestnut Rau’s weekly round-up of upcoming SL events…

'Chicago' is a successful Broadway musical based on a 1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins.  This popular tale was also made into an Academy Award winning movie in 2002.  Given Chicago's huge popularity in both theater and film and its exploration of celebrity and scandal, it seems fitting for the show to be reproduced in Second Life. 

The Moulin Rouge Revue and Director Xanthia Lisle present three performances of Chicago in Second Life this weekend.  This show has everything that makes Broadway great -- your favorite music, beautiful dancing avatars and a story of fame and fortune. Performances are on Friday 8/28 and Saturday 8/29 from 7pm - 9pm or Sunday 8/30 from 2pm - 4pm.  Be sure to get to the Theater early as the sim is likely to fill for this special musical extravaganza.  In Moulin Rouge.    [SLurl teleport at this link]

Also after the break:  Learn to Surf, Steam/Cyber Punk and Traditional Mexican Costume Fashion Shows, Bull Riding Championships and much, much more.

New World SLurl: Wild Racing Awaits On the Island of Rune

The forest island of Rune is new home to what Toxic Menges recently told me is "the best racetrack in Second Life". I just gave it a quick whirl, and can confirm it's certainly a leading candidate in that category. You rez a free vehicle at the starting point (dirt bike, ATV, etc.), hop on, and plunge headlong into a beautifully realized race course, with glowing red arrows helpfully guiding you along the way, up steep slopes, along the water, beneath snowy mountain caps, and more.

Rune is the work of Maxwell Graf, who is still adding final touches to the racing elements: "I haven't even really had the opening yet," he tells me, "though people can already come and ride the track. I still have to do the damage systems with blood and so on, the interactive elements."

"So when the bears attack they'll actually kill you?" I ask him. (Yes, Maxwell has made Steven Colbert's nightmare come true: bears bolt out of the woods and try to maul you off your vehicle.)

"They will, yes, and the sharks, spikes, wasps, lava, rocks... for elimination rounds during the championship events we are working on weapons for the passenger, like teams of two, so you can have one drive, one attack [with] trash can lids and stick, chain, I think." (Curiously enough, that part reminds me a bit of Road Rash, the videogame franchise Cory Ondrejka was working on, before he became a Linden.)

A supremely talented content creator, Maxwell tells me all this manic inventiveness was made as a response to frustration over content theft and recent Linden policy changes. "You begin to question your options, your reasons," he tells me. "I needed to find something fun to do, both in building and that others could come and goof out on. I'd love to see it become popular, but even if it's not, I had a blast doing it, and I needed that."

I think you are likely to share Mr. Graf's fun (especially if you bring your friends): Direct SLurl teleport to RUNE at this link.

In New Second Life Website, SL Culture Rebranded as "Counterculture" (Update: M. Linden Replies)

The new and thoroughly revised version of Second Life's official homepage is online and available now, making good on the features promised by T. Linden only last week at SLCC. It is sleek, gorgeous, and full of widgets worth a look. Overall, there is also a strong emphasis on human avatars in "mundane" settings (shopping mall, business office, and so on), which is to be expected as a necessary move to expand SL's mass market appeal. Just as striking is another small but (I believe) profound shift, captured above and featured in the new homepage's "What is Second Life" section:

"Looking for counterculture? Second Life is also full of furries, ninjas, steampunk balls and an enormous virtual recreation of Burning Man. Thousands of vampires seek victims alongside wandering elves, marauding cyberpunks and club-going Goths. Come join the party."

All of the aforementioned Second Life groups, of course, actually comprise a significant percentage of SL's active user base. (20-30% total is a safe estimate.) In the sense that they are most prevalent in and relatively unique to Second Life, as compared to other virtual worlds, you could say cyberpunks, Goths, steampunks, et. al. actually are SL culture, integral and mainstream to it. For that matter, Burning Life, SL's annual tribute to Burning Man, is a Linden-sponsored event, mainly because Philip Linden himself largely conceived of Second Life itself when he was at Burning Man. So it is a notable thing to rebrand all this as "counterculture". Then again, it's also notable the Lindens took pains to emphasize it's still a part of the larger SL experience.

4:10pm: In this post's Comments, Linden CEO Mark Kingdon (known as M Linden in-world) replies to this "Counterculture" designation: "The web team thought 'counter-culture' was a badge of honor... but clearly for some it was the opposite. That's not good! We'll change it to something that feels better, more right, in an upcoming release (soon)." Read the rest here, part of a much longer but very interesting reaction thread, pro and con, among many readers.

Second Life Content Creator Survey: Have You Registered Your SL Content With Real World Government Copyright/Trademark/Patent Agencies?

Online Surveys & Market Research

If you're a content creator in SL, please take this survey, and discuss your answer in Comments.

The Spartan Army Of Second Life Has A Beautiful Base (If You Can Fight Your Way Far Enough To See It)

Some months ago I came across this video, revealing the interior of a military base in Second Life, built with such fine detail, it compared quite favorably to most anything you'd come across within a standard first-person shooter. The creation of a Resident called Siiaas Saarinen, it's the headquarters of a combat roleplaying group called the Spartans. I sought to see it for myself, but that turned out to be more difficult than I originally assumed. There is no direct SLurl teleport into the base, for one thing; for another, if you're not coming with a squad of hired guns willing to fight their way in, you have to plead for safe passage with the Spartan king. Fortunately his Highness Bruno Ziskey and his unofficial Aide-de-camp, Aleena Yoshiro, were friendly sorts (at least with embedded journalists), and not only did he escort me into the interior, he gave me an account of Second Life's large and vibrant community of combat gamers, who've managed to create a system of clans you'd usually associate with shooters like Halo or Team Fortress, rather than SL.

"Do you remember the Residents of the Jessie Wall in the early part of the millennium?" Aleena asks. I tell her I do, because I wrote about their war in 2003. "A number of roleplay militaries got together and storm each other's bases." Ziskey estimates there are dozens, some with just a few members, some with hundreds. (The Spartans count forty among their number.) "Dedicated militia roleplayers such as the Alliance Navy," Yoshiro goes on. (Another would be Ordo Imperialis, featured here last June.) "There are also national combat groups who band together based on nationality or language."

Which explains why the interior of the Spartan base, as beautiful as it is, is guarded on a regular basis, and locked away from outsiders by several armored doors, elevators, and passageways that only Spartans can access. Another reason: If an invasion is successful, every Spartan online dies.

Thousands of SL Groups on Flickr! (Way More Than WoW)

Here's a handy list of Flickr groups related to Second Life, listed on the official wiki. That's roughly 700 groups, but if you do a group search on Flickr itself, you come up with 2,235. (To be sure, some of those listed are false positives, but on a quick survey, most are clearly SL-related.) By comparison, a search for Flickr groups with "Warcraft" in the description (as in "World of") brings up just 329 groups. So roughly seven times the number. This is yet another example of Second Life's pervasiveness on Web 2.0 systems outside the world itself, and why in-world usage numbers only tell part of SL's story. About 750,000 returning users log into Second Life on a monthly basis, but how many more are also engaged in SL-centric activity on other online sites and systems? The numbers are enormous. Last August, for instance, the CEO of Japan's largest Second Life web/blog portal told me they got 15 million page views a month. Just on that one site alone.