New World Notes

The Drax Files Returns, Shining a Spotlight on SL and RL Style Icon Elie Spot

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

After a brief summer hiatus, Draxtor Despres is back with a new episode of our favorite mixed-reality mini-documentary series. The latest installment of The Drax Files: World Makers features Elie Spot, one half of the wildly popular brand Mon Tissu, one third of the wildly stylish sim Mayfair, and one of the sweetest digital designers you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting. Watch the full episode after the cut!

What's Important in Linden Lab's New Terms of Service?

Linden Lab has an updated Terms of Service, which you probably noticed if you logged into Second Life lately, and there's a good long conversation on SL Universe about what the updated version changes. I've contacted Linden Lab to find out what the most important changes users should know about are, and will update this post when/if I get word back. Meantime, here's some interesting points noted by SLU readers:

If You Don't Stop Online Harassment, No One Else Will

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Earlier today, Polygon's Brian Crecente ran what might be one of the most significant articles about gaming culture that you'll read in 2013, all about the effects of the vitriol that game developers and community members in general receive on a regular basis.

Normally this is not the kind of thing I would post on a Thursday. I like having meaty original content up on a Thursday to entertain those of you feeling that end-of-the-work-week malaise, and a simple link usually wouldn't make the cut. But this is more than a simple link. This is a vital piece of perspective for those of us interacting (and watching others interact) online.

... So, you know, basically everyone.

How to Use Facebook Using Your Second Life Avatar Name

Yesterday this 2011 post about Facebook deleting some Facebook accounts named after Second Life avatars went crazy viral on, well, Facebook. Evidently some SL users are worried about their own Facebook accounts getting suspended. So to emphasize a point that's been made often before, let me say it again in bold:

To use Facebook with your SL avatar without violating Facebook's policies against fake names, create a Facebook page named after your avatar, and change your Facebook settings to reflect that.

Basically, here's how it works:

Death of the WoW-Killer: With WoW Subscriptions in Decline, Will Upcoming MMOs Take More Risks?

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

World of Warcraft, the fantasy MMORPG that's been defining the genre for nearly a decade, is hemorrhaging subscribers. There are certainly a lot of reasons why this could be happening, including the rise of other team-oriented online games like DOTA 2 as well as the decreased popularity of pay-to-play subscription models. It's pretty interesting stuff, but it's a topic for another day. I'm much more interested in how WoW's decline will affect the MMO landscape.

WoW's dominance has meant that countless MMOs launched with the intention of being a "WoW-killer", and if they weren't applying that label themselves the press has been more than eager to do it for them. Of course no one game has succeeded in doing this, largely because most of them have tried to replace World of Warcraft by replicating it. There's very little incentive for people who are already well established in WoW to start all over in a new game if that game is really just more WoW.

So what will this mean for upcoming MMOs, most notably EverQuest Next and the highly anticipated Elder Scrolls Online? Will they be more willing to ditch Blizzard's baggage and take a few chances on their own? It's still early to say, but here's why I'm optimistic:

Artist Turns SL Inventory Into Performance Art, Deleting Every Virtual Item She's Owned Over the Last 7 Years

Second Life users have inventories full of virtual stuff, stuff of unimaginable (and unmanageable) variety, folders of stuff stuffed into other folders of stuff, so much stuff it's sometimes impossible to even see the stuff, and this state of things is such that it's inspired an LA artist to turn the madness into a work of performance art:

Behold "Binge and Purge", a new installation by Kristine Schomaker (Gracie Kendal in SL), in which the artist will methodically take out and delete every single virtual item she's come to own in Second Life over nearly 7 years of being in-world:

I will rez 15000 prims worth of ‘stuff’ from my inventory every 2-3 weeks. (Sunday morning 9am SLT/PST). After the 2-3 weeks, I will delete all 15000 prims. (This will include all my art, presents, furniture, houses, clothes, pictures, notecards, landmarks, calling cards, collected art, etc) EVERYTHING. I will take pictures of my inventory window/the interface after each purging Each Binge and Purge will be documented through filming and photography.

More here on her site. To me the project seemed like a perfect metaphor for consumerism and the way Second Life's cumbersome inventory interface implicitly encourages excess consumerism (since it's so difficult to delete things, once you acquire them), but Kristine Schomaker relates it to broader trends in social media, and also, to her own real world challenges with an eating disorder:

Wear At Your Own Risk: Liquid Mesh's Days In Second Life May be Numbered

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Last weekend, SL blogger Nalates Urriah shared a pretty important message with the fashionistas of SL on her blog: If you think Liquid Mesh is the solution to all our mesh fitting problems, think again.

Liquid Mesh/Redpoly Rigging is a technique employed by quite a few large brands in Second Life including Redgrave, and enjoyed by a vast number of residents who aren't satisfied with the Standard Sizing options that dominate mesh fashion and are sick of waiting for the Mesh Deformer to be implemented. It's an absolutely ingenious solution to the issue, but it's also a big risk for consumers. Here's why:

In New Movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix Falls in Love With A.I. Who Talks Like ELIZA But Sounds Like Scarlett Johansson

Coming in November, Her is a movie by Spike Jonze (who directed Being John Malkovich), and it's about a lonely guy played by Joaquin Phoenix who falls in love with an A.I. named Samantha (who sounds suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson‎, because it is), and here's the trailer:

A lot of the A.I.'s dialog resembles that of ELIZA, the famous fake AI program which seemed to be insightful and empathetic, but was simply repeating what the user had previously typed, just in the form of a question. (From the movie: "There's something that feels so good about sharing your life with somebody." "How do you share your life with somebody?") When ELIZA was first created in the 60s, it was said that highly intelligent people wound up having deep, emotional conversations with the program, without realizing it was simply a text-based mirror of the user's own words. I bet if ELIZA sounded like Scarlett Johansson, a lot of them would foolishly fall in love, too.

Rod Humble is The Gridfather (Great-if-Late SL Movie Meme)

The "Put Your SL Avatar Into a Movie Poster" meme was launched a couple months ago, but this very late entry by a guy named Rocco Signi is by far my favorite: Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble as the Gridfather. At least, he sure looks like Humble, Corleone-ized. Don Humble, I believe in Second Life. Second Life has made my fortune. And I customized my avatar in the Second Life fashion. Some day, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day -- accept this mesh update as a gift on my Sim's wedding day. (Click to make as large as Luca Brasi.)

Cute Girls Kick Ass in Monty Oum's Latest CG Series, RWBY

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

If you like watching spectacular CG fights but you're looking for something a little more crafted and deliberate than random SaltyBet Mugen matchups, you might want to catch up on Monty Oum's latest project, RWBY, an original combat-focused series with an undeniable "magical girl" anime influence.

Oum is best known for Dead Fantasy, a set of spectacular CG shorts (available on his YouTube channel) pitting various heroines from the Final Fantasy franchise against the bombshells of Dead or Alive in jaw-dropping cinematic combat sequences. His animation and fight choreography made Dead Fantasy a must-watch for game fans... Or really anyone with an appreciation for computer animation and digital artistry.

RWBY, made in partnership with Rooster Teeth, is a an evolution of what Oum's done before, and it shows.