New World Notes

Play to Your Strengths With the Colorful Cast of Multiplayer Indie Heist Game Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

This time, I am the lookout. It's my job to stay on my toes and make sure that the members of my team know what's coming. It is our third time trying to infiltrate this building. There have been a variety of... Setbacks. We revise our plans and push our cigarette butts into the damp earth before parting ways.

My companions skirt left, and I right.

My most valuable but least trusted ally on this job is the cleaner. Like many of us he is quite good at preventing trouble, but not always skilled at escaping from it after the fact. Disaster lingers around every corner, and he is turning quite a few.

I am on the other end of the building, shuffling cautiously through the vents. My goal is a small room devoid of any of the valuables we are pursuing. Given our current position, the switchbox on the wall is priceless.

I cut the power. Lights, lasers, and palm scanners flicker and darken. It buys the cleaner a little more time, and a little more space.

We press on.

China Could Really Use That Oculus Rift+Treadmill Deal

So I was exercising in my Beijing hotel and the view from the gym looked like this:

So later on, it hit me: While I doubt many out-of-shape Western gamers really want it, a country like China would probably embrace this Oculus Rift merged to a 3D treadmill technology. Because the thing is, Beijing is hardly the only epicly polluted city in China -- there are many more. In Beijing, even on nice days (and there are many of those, actually), you rarely see people jogging or otherwise exercising outside, probably because most city dwellers don't associate the outdoors with health. At the same time, since the Chinese government has banned videogame consoles, PC gaming is extremely popular in China, and there's several successful local PC manufacturers like Lenovo... so, put the pieces together.

State of the Av: Kit Yourself Out in Spring Fashions from Collabor88 and Kawaii Fair

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

It occurred to me that it's been a rather long time since Iris Ophelia has made a real appearance on NWN. Obviously I'm here and writing regularly, but the focus of that writing has broadened a lot, and doesn't include big beautiful shots of my SL avatar as often as it used to. But of course Iris is still around off-stage, and still dressed impeccably.

So to make sure the fashionistas in the audience are still getting their fix, today I'm presenting the state of my avatar. Hint: Her state is pretty damn kawaii, even more than usual. Keep reading for full details!

My Boyfriend the Romancebot: Banned Boyfriend AI Makes its Glorious Return to Apple's App Store

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

The internet shed a single collective tear the day that Boyfriend Maker was removed from the App Store. In the game's short life it became a minor meme with as many ironic fans as sincere ones. Unfortunately the app, which relies on an ELIZA-esque communication process that adapts to include player responses, got on the wrong side of the App Store's content guidelines when users started programming a fair amount of vulgarity into their boyfriend bot's responses. Articles like this one from VentureBeat (which seems slightly misinformed about the response-generating process) sprang up criticizing the app's content, and Boyfriend Maker was promptly pulled.

A few months have passed and the internet's favorite boyfriend is back, this time as Boyfriend Plus, a free app that fine tunes the original Boyfriend Maker formula and adds some much needed moderation features. Or tries to, but more on that later. First, let me introduce you to my date for the evening, NiceDon Draper. He's like Don Draper but, you know, nicer...

Oculus Rift Integration Coming to Second Life, Linden Lab Staff Confirm (Both Officially and Unofficially)

Linden Lab intends to integrate the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset with Second Life, company spokesman Peter Gray just confirmed with me. "Yes," he replied, when I asked, "we plan to strongly support Oculus Rift. That means code, client, and server-side, to make the Oculus Rift experience excellent in Second Life." That's excellent news, because like I said last week, the Oculus could become Second Life's killer app, but only if Linden Lab is willing to go all in. Sounds like they are doing just that, in an official capacity.

Here's some more interesting news: several Linden staff are also working on integrating Oculus Rift with Second Life in an unofficial capacity, as some of them also confirmed with me.

Don't Starve Released on Steam Today, And Only an 'Act of Dapperness' Can Save You From Its Spooky Charms

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

If you're looking for a new release to play around with this week, do I have the title for you. Don't Starve is a tremendously engaging (and super stylized) indie survival adventure game, pitting the player against every conceivable threat -- from hunger to horrible, horrible monsters. It's not Minecraft, it's not Terraria, but it definitely has something in it for adventurous fans of either.

Made by Klei Entertainment (the team responsible for Mark of the Ninja) the game has been in a buy-in beta since late 2012, and I even wrote about it back in December. Don't Starve's development was still incredibly active during the beta period, so there's been a surprising amount of new content and features added since I last sat down with it. For example...

Oculus Rift on a Treadmill Just Proves Oculus Rift is Not Ideal for First-Person Shooters

There's a startup called Virtuix that's integrated the Oculus Rift with an omni-directional treadmill, and shot a demo video (below) of their technology in action with Team Fortress 2. I love the idea of hardcore gamers having to run around for hours at a time, but I'm betting most of them do not. Which is yet another reason why I agree with Keystone that the Oculus Rift is better suited to leisurely virtual world experiences, versus twitch shooters.

Anyway, more huffing and puffing violent VR below!

New World Notes is Blogging from Beijing

Today my posts about the metaverse for New World Notes are coming from Beijing, a city with gravity-defying architecture surrounded in a post-apocalyptic smog (that's the view of Rem Koolhaas' CCTV tower from my hotel room), which is the capital of a country where it's not uncommon for the nation's elite to spend six figures a year on virtual goods, and for the working class in the remote cities to spend nearly half their income on items that don't strictly exist. I don't have a particular point beyond that, except maybe to say the virtual world is not always as strange as the real one. Also, question for my regular readers:

The iDOLM@STER's Seemingly Insane iOS Launch Price Is a Reminder of How a $50 Game Becomes a $15 App

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Hopefully Hamlet will forgive me for stepping on his toes with this story (since he's the mobile app expert between the two of us) but, Japanophile that I am, I couldn't resist. Namco Bandai's popular rhythm game series, The iDOLM@STER, made its debut on the App Store today, and they've made a pretty big splash in the process. And not in a good way.

This release is the very first iDOLM@STER game to be localized in English, so you can finally experience the phenomenon for yourself... Provided that you have $165 burning a hole in your pocket. Alternately, if you're on a budget, you can opt to buy just one of the game's three episodes, which sell for $54.99 apiece. Sounds reasonable to me!

So WTF was Namco Bandai thinking? Well...

Quantum Mechanics Suggests Reality is a Simulation (Comments of the Week)

I love the reader comments to my post on scientists' effort to determine whether or not reality is actually a massive simulation. Adeon Writer and Metacam Oh in particular have a lot of fun with the idea, pointing out that quantum mechanics seems to lend credence to the theory. First Mr. Writer:

"Quantum theory and the Observer Effect are just peeking behind the curtain into some resource optimizations. Why simulate the complex internal biological systems of some flower in a field in the middle if nowhere miles from anything 'important' until someone actually needs to examine it. Fill the details in when it's actually needed, I say.

"Ever wander into a room and instantly forget why you're there? Packet loss.

"Suddenly forget how to say the word you know you know? Chat lag."

Jumping off from there, Mr. Oh makes a point that's so interesting, I'm starting to freak out a little: