New World Notes

In Survey of SL Users, Plurality Believe Linden's New World Won't Change Their Second Life Usage

Will Linden Lab's new virtual world in development (let's call it Second Life 2 for short) change how you use Second Life? I asked that question in a survey last week, and with about 400 responses from SL users, the results are decidedly mixed:

A strong plurality of 40% believe SL 2 won't change their current usage of SL one way or the other, with 9% saying it will lead to them using SL more -- so if you put a positive spin on that and scale it, half the SL userbase won't lessen their usage because of SL 2.

Then again, there's a negative spin to these results:

Don't Miss These Gorgeous Free Posters Featuring Second Life Designers, Out Now at Rhapsody

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

If you fell in love with any of Strawberry Singh and Anya Ohmai's promotional posters for music-inspired event Rhapsody (which I blogged about on NWN a couple weeks ago) there's some very good news. The posters, which feature designers participating in the event styled to represent an array of music tastes, are now available framed and ready to be hung in-world. Some are dark and moody, others are bright and bubbly -- even if you don't know all the designers showcased, there's a poster to suit just about everyone's virtual home.

Drop by Rhapsody [SLURL] before it closes on July 12th to shop, listen to performers, and pick up posters and other freebies. You can also find the complete list of participating designers here, and a shopping guide for what's available here.

 

It's All in the HUD: SLink's New Second Life Mesh Body Could Be a Game Changer

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

One of the core problems that's plagued mesh bodies in Second Life has been compatibility. Worn over the outdated and widely disliked Second Life avatar body implemented over a decade ago (remember what other games looked like back then?) the earliest mesh bodies limited how the wearer could dress, usually to clothes designed specifically to fit the body or clothes that could be applied on a transparent layer overtop of it. Since then, mesh body designers have started offering bodies with a little more flexibility, allowing their wearers to mask certain areas to avoid clipping with their own mesh clothes (as Second Life's official mesh avatars do.) But none of those masking systems have been as highly controllable as what Siddean Munro unveiled with her new SLink Physique mesh bodies last week.

SLink Physique (which is fitted mesh made to conform to your avatar's shape) comes with a HUD offering control over a dozen different areas of the body; you can alpha out large chunks or just a few small sections to suit what you're wearing.  If you want to see SLink's system in action, check out this (mildly NSFW) video posted by Gogo over on Juicybomb, which I've screencapped above. 

While this probably won't allow as much compatibility as custom-made alpha layers give vanilla avatars, SLink Physique's user-friendly masking system seems like the innovation mesh bodies have been waiting for.

Top Six New World Notes Posts from Last Week

• One Reason Among Many Migration of Second Life Inventory to Linden Lab's New World Won't Happen: Licensing
• If You Could Bring One Virtual Possession With You Into the Second Second Life, What Would It Be?
• Metaverse-Themed Ready Player One Novel Now Being Adapted by Avengers Screenwriter for Warner Brothers
• The 5 Most Hated Virtual Fashion Faux Pas in Second Life
• Linden Lab Designing New World to Allow Transfer of Second Life Identity & Friends Network, Says CEO
• Second Life Designers Face a New Kind of Content Theft Thanks to DMCA Abuse

Two Days Left to Get SL Go's Special 75% SL11B Discount

Update, 7/30: This offer is no longer valid.

Go here to redeem a special one month 75% discount= =for SL Go, the Second Life streaming service from OnLive (for which I occasionally consult), and enter the following redemption codes: For US users, SL11US.; for users in the UK, the code is SL11UK. If you've been interested in trying SL Go on your Android tablet or low-end laptop, this is a great chance to give it a go -- especially to visit the lag-heavy SL11B sites. The discount ends on June 29.

One Reason Among Many Migration of Second Life Inventory to Linden Lab's New World Won't Happen: Licensing

Since news broke that Linden Lab is developing a new virtual world, many SLers have clamored for the company to enable migration of their Second Life content to it. This will almost certainly not happen in any substantial way, because it's simply not feasible, cost effective, or even ultimately desirable. Ciaran Laval points out of one of many reasons why this is so -- licensing problems:

Here's Why Simmers Feel Burned by the Lack of Toddlers and Swimming Pools in The Sims 4

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

It was recently announced that there would be two very notable features absent from The Sims 4 when it's released on September 2nd. Neither swimming pools nor the "toddler" life stage will be in the base game, and fans are incensed. 

But they're mad not just because of the omissions. What's really getting under players' skin is what those omissions imply. Here's what I mean:

If You Could Bring One Virtual Possession With You Into the Second Second Life, What Would It Be?

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

I used to get quite upset at the idea of losing everything I'd amassed in SL. I didn't think I'd ever be able to fully leave it behind because of the anchor of all those virtual goods and the very real dollars I'd invested in them over the years. Then one day I stopped thinking of my virtual closet as an analog to my real one, and started thinking of it more as a list of DVDs or games I'd rented -- an entertainment expense, valuable but fleeting. That was a turning point, and it's absolutely why I wasn't upset to learn that I won't be able to bring my virtual belongings into Linden Lab's Second Life successor when it launches.

It also got me thinking, and I realized that for many of us there's only thing harder to deal with than bringing nothing:

Control VR System Proposes Virtual Reality System With Hands -- and VR as a Female-Unfriendly Frathouse

Already financed on Kickstarter, the Control VR system addresses some of the problems of a fully-embodied VR avatar I mentioned last week. Watch:

With this system, you can see your hands in VR, so that's a bit more embodiment -- but in practical terms, as a mass market solution, most people won't ever want to use something like this for more than short bursts (try waving your hands in the air for ten minutes to see how that feels), let alone buy an additional hardware peripheral on top of VR goggles. And to satisfy the desire to see one's hands in a virtual reality space will only increase the desire to feel even more embodiment -- which will require an even more pervasive and niche system (treadmills, leg hookups, etc).

Also, if you keep watching the video, the Control VR demonstrators spend the last few minutes engaging in a virtual version of the bro-iest, douchiest behavior possible:

Metaverse-Themed Ready Player One Novel Now Being Adapted by Avengers Screenwriter for Warner Brothers

A list screenwriter Zack Penn (Avengers, X-Men: The Last Stand, Pacific Rim 2) is writing the screenplay adaptation of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, which Warner Brothers optioned to turn into a movie even before the book was published. With that kind of firepower, it's likely Warners is fast-tracking Ready into a Summer blockbuster in coming years. (Dear Chris Nolan: Please read this script.) The novel has a metaverse-type virtual world called OASIS that's key to the storyline, and is often compared to Second Life. In fact, Cline himself is a one-time SLer, and there's even a Second Life location inspired by the novel, created with Cline's hearty approval.