Cloud Party is now offering user-created alternative avatars in its Marketplace, which launched in Beta less than a month ago. In that short time, there's been a pretty impressive growth of user-made content (still given away for free), including this purple alien and tribute to Wall-E. Shortly after this screenshot was taken, I selected an aviary avatar that I just acquired, and gave these players the bird.
To get an avatar like this, go to Cloud Party's Marketplace, click the drop-down menu labled "All", and scroll down to Alternative Avatars. A helpful Cloud Party user named "Real Burger" (yes), told me how to put the avatar on from there:
"In Outfit Creator you have a Type icon in the upper left where you can choose male or female, and if you have a new avatar ('costume types' actually), you should see them here." The UI is still somewhat counter-intuitive, but the whole marketplace/usage process is already way, way, way easier than it is in Second Life. And there's a lot more than alternate avatars in the store. Since the monetization options haven't been turned on yet, everything in the Market is free -- so why not check out, and tell me about other cool content you find there.
Much thanks to Joja Dhara for the tip and additional help!
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So his name was 'Real Burger'? Assuming that's a pseudonym, does that mean Cloud Party allowing them now, or was he just lucky enough to have Facebook not curb stomp him, like they did me? :/
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 01:25 PM
Yes, he's half-Latino and half-German, so his name is Real Burger.
Kidding (I think). You can change your display name so it's different from whatever Facebook account name you use.
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 01:41 PM
You are most welcome Hamlet ;-)
Real Burger is one of the hardcore developers working around the scripts and responsible for various verhicles you can use. Like flying helicopters.. driving cars ..skateboarding.
Content is getting there and also serious projects like ServLab are using Cloudparty.
I do keep an eye on this place and keep you posted ;-)
Posted by: JoJa Dhara | Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 01:46 PM
From Sam (Cloud Party CEO) recently on the forums regarding the near future for default avatars, custom avatars and the marketplace:
"As you have guessed, we are focussed almost completely on the avatars at this point, and they are very close to ready. The plan is to release the avatars, get feedback and deal with any issues that come up, and then shortly after that we will end the marketplace beta and you will be able to sell items for Cloud Coins.
I apologize for the delay, but we have a strong commitment to doing things the "right way", and that involves a lot of extra work to make sure the infrastructure is complete and that features we add are user-extensible and generalized. Allowing custom skeletons, for example, makes our work much harder but we believe that level of customization will pay off for our users in the end."
http://forums.cloudpartytime.com/discussion/comment/1411/#Comment_1411
@Adeon
Cloud Party has "display names" much like Second Life, but just like Second Life's display names, Cloud Party's display names don't hide your Facebook account. So no pseudonymity unless you're lying to Facebook still. No new word on whether or not they'll lose the Facebook-only login dependency.
Posted by: Ezra | Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 01:48 PM
"The whole marketplace/usage process is already way, way, way easier than it is in Second Life."
I'd kinda like to put that on a billboard across from Linden Lab and let them stew on it for awhile... and then do something to make it a false statement.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 07:17 PM
So you guys need Facebook in order to log on?
Arrgs :(
And you're living on smallish floating islands but you have cars now?
To drive to exactly what destination?
With all the things Cloud Party does better than SL there is still the major problem of [b]no land[/b]. Which renders Cloud Party useless for a majority of SL residents.
Posted by: Orca Flotta | Friday, September 21, 2012 at 03:28 AM
@Orca "With all the things Cloud Party does better than SL there is still the major problem of [b]no land[/b]. Which renders Cloud Party useless for a majority of SL residents."
Depends on what you mean by "no land". There's 100x100 and 500x500 meter islands anyone can rent right now, or use public sandboxes of.
There's no contiguous joining of islands however like Second Life, so feats like mainland or large private continents like Wastelands is impossible. But, at least already there's the Deluxe island type which is 4 times the size of a Second Life full region at 1/3rd the cost.
And hopefully in the future there'll be even bigger landmass types in Cloud Party with higher concurrent loads because it is one of Second Life's grand achievements that no matter how laggy things like the 40 sim, 1-3 thousand people Relay for Life course is, it's possible at all.
Posted by: Ezra | Friday, September 21, 2012 at 04:26 AM
Shouldn't we be a tiny bit worried about the fact that there's hardly anyone around there? I went in yesterday, late European evening, I found hardly five people at Beginners' Zone and elsewhere. I went in just now - 2 pm in Belgium - and I find 4 people.
I do realize this is early beta or something, but still it makes me worry...
Posted by: Roland Legrand | Friday, September 21, 2012 at 05:01 AM
"Shouldn't we be a tiny bit worried about the fact that there's hardly anyone around there?"
There's just certain basic things they don't have in place yet that facilitates any kind of community building. There's no private groups, group chat channels, Facebook-independent friend lists, etc.
So far the beta has been entirely about creation tools and little about social tools besides fixing up the default local chat here and there, which itself is incomplete because it only supports one island-wide chat channel and nothing vicinity based like Second Life's /say /whisper and /shout.
As impressive as the creation tools already are, the community and social tools are entirely lacking. And the Facebook only login is going to keep the pseudonymity only types away permanently.
I'll worry myself if things go too long without an expressed plan to either deal with Second Life users' common concerns, or a plan for Cloud Party to survive without Second Life users who won't relent on things like Facebook-only login.
Posted by: Ezra | Friday, September 21, 2012 at 05:57 AM
Another grid as many others, using just a diff hardware!
Orca pointed out the real problems off all those grids (even aurora sim, where any can have a sim that is equal to 1024 sl sims together!)
We can't do trips and cross more then 200, 300 name them, straight without need to tlp!
LL should really understood this!
For now is still the only grid that allows that, so should invest much more granting smooth cross sims and making sure mainland are keep open to All!
2 bad we all know by now how LL board are!
Posted by: foneco zuzu | Friday, September 21, 2012 at 06:31 AM
and btw, how is sex on cloud??? or its denied, no poseballs no sex engines???
Posted by: foneco zuzu | Friday, September 21, 2012 at 06:32 AM
Rofl. This crap is doomed to follow in the footsteps of Blue Mars. What a huge waste of venture capital.
Posted by: Lol No | Sunday, September 23, 2012 at 07:07 PM
I really like it. To my surprise. Being a SL user for a few years now, and playing around a bit with Kaneva and Twinity, I expected less. However it does have a certain appeal. I visited a place in CP called Utopia by Claudia and WOW, if that is any indication of what is possible in Cloud Party, I'm excited.
However the Facebook log in was a drag. I cancelled my FB account months ago. Had to reactivate an old one in order to join with CP, and from talking to others, they had to create FB accounts because they didn't have one originally. Hopefully this changes. Virtual Worlds often have residents that don't want people knowing their Real Life self - VW are a place to be free and express yourself. Being linked to a FB account really takes away that freedom.
Also, Im not super fond of the Cloud Party name. Cloud Worlds or InterCloud or something else would sound a bit more appealing to those who aren't just looking for a 'party'.
All that said, I like it and I'm excited to see how it goes. Im IW almost daily. Moonrise Azalee
Posted by: Razzy | Wednesday, September 26, 2012 at 08:00 AM
I wonder what the concurrency is now ... seven?
Posted by: Phantom Republic | Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 07:09 PM
haha for Disney, hope they will like it.
I think copyrights will come soon in cloud party, as it came in second life, but for now just let's have fun.
For french speaking visitors, cloud party news here on www.cloud-party.fr
Posted by: cloud-partyfr | Sunday, October 07, 2012 at 06:34 AM