New World Notes

The 5 Most Hated Virtual Fashion Faux Pas in Second Life

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

Last week I asked you about your most hated virtual fashion faux pas and you weren't terribly shy about your answers. Some offered complaints best illustrated in the satirical picture above by Marcia London, which there were a few other suggestions that came out of left field.

So what are the most reviled fashion missteps in Second Life? Let's start with...

Linden Lab Designing New World to Allow Transfer of Second Life Identity & Friends Network, Says CEO

Just noticed a Tweet from Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, responding to a conversation with the former SL blogger known as Botgirl Questi and iO9's Annalee Newitz, who perceptively wonders, considering Linden's new world, "Is Second Life About to Become a Ghost World?". Botgirl says this:

.@slhamlet @Annaleen @ebbealtberg If LL ports existing SL IDs to the new platform, hooking back up with friends & groups should be fine.

— Botgirl Questi (@botgirlq) June 24, 2014

And Ebbe answers this way:

Second Life Designers Face a New Kind of Content Theft Thanks to DMCA Abuse

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

If you're not a designer in Second Life, it's hard to imagine the feeling of being completely at the mercy of an anonymous stranger willing to claim your work as their own. It's a story we've heard many times over, usually when it comes to content theft: All your hard work swiped and resold under a string of alts. It's a nightmare for many creators and a constant reality for many more.

But there's a flip side to this familiar problem, which one designer has brought to light in a recent blog post in the wake of the removal of her most popular product.

Hatsune Miku and the Pros and Cons of Democratizing Your Pop Idols

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

Polygon's Chris Plante posted a video today comparing the meteoric rise (and ongoing fall) of pop idol Justin Beiber to the world of virtual pop princess Hatsune Miku. Miku, along with her fellow Vocaloids, are both highly-accessible vocal emulators and anime-inspired characters -- basically pre-built virtual pop idols delivered into the hands of pros and amateurs alike. This open-source approach has lead to a tremendous amount of music and material being produced under Miku's name, making her one of the most ubiquitous pop princesses of all time. Except for that whole not-being-a-human thing.

Plante posits that for better or for worse a virtual pop star in the hands of their fans for better or for worse is a good alternative to a flesh-and-blood idol like Bieber, prone to implode under the phenomenal pressure they're placed under from a young age.

And he may have a point...

Survey: Will Linden Lab's Upcoming Virtual World Change How You Use Second Life Now?

Now that the news of Linden Lab's upcoming virtual world is out in the wider web (as on Gamasutra here, and on Massively here, and with a very old screenshot on Polygon here) with CEO Ebbe Altberg telling The Next Web that it'll be available for beta use in 2015, it's time to ask to ask the most obvious question: As Second Life's successor is developed, what happens to Second Life's existing userbase? Let's frame the survey question this way:

Results shared at the end of the week. And please discuss in Comments below!

Soak in this Inviting Renaissance Scene Courtesy of Second Life Artist Boudicca Amat

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

Warm colors, cool tiles, a cat stretching lazily, shoes kicked off and feet dangling. The scene that Boudicca Amat's Second Life piece titled "The Music Lesson" seems to only get deeper (and more inviting) the closer you look. Maybe it's that depth and subtlety that make it so very entrancing, even without the piles of post-processing work many of us have come to expect in SL artwork. 

Although the actual inspiration for this virtual world tableau came a few centuries too late, it still seems to offer a very faint, ever so distant taste of Italian renaissance paintings. At least, that's the feeling I get. Either way, it's classically-inspired roots are very apparent, and something I know I'd love to see more of.

Visit Boudicca's Flickr gallery (mildly NSFW) for more of her stunning Second Life artwork, including my two personal favorites "Sweet Pea" and "Eliza".

(Hat tip: Xantheanne)

Fashion in Motion: Check Out These Dynamic Second Life Skateboarding Snapshots

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

The nature of virtual fashion often means that we don't get to see it in action as often as we see it completely static. While mesh clothing conforms to an avatar's pose in a way that earlier Second Life designers couldn't, you still need hairstyles designed with movement in mind at the very least if you don't want to look like a frozen statue. Then of course there's the matter of posing your avatar and staging things to get that perfect, natural-looking shot.

It's never as easy as it looks to truly sell this illusion of motion, but Gia Nikai of SL fashion blog Gia's World has her technique on lock in this set of dynamic skateboarding snapshots she shared on her blog recently. While the windswept hairstyle from Lelutka may be doing most of the heavy lifting, it's Gia's own careful arrangement of the shot that seals the deal in the pic shown above.

Head over to Gia's blog to see the full skater-inspired post, along with complete outfit notes.

(Hat tip: Gorgeous Yongho)

Top Six New World Notes Posts from Last Week

• BREAKING: Linden Lab Confirms It's Building New Virtual World "Far Beyond What is Possible with Second Life"
• Read it This Weekend: Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell's Admission That He is Sexist is Incredibly Relatable
• What's at the Root of Racism and Sexism in Minecraft Communities?
• Makies Virtual Fashion Game Launches: Custom-Create Styles, Eventually Turn Them Into Real Clothes
• Can Virtual Reality Really Work With a Fully-Embodied Avatar? (Hint: Probably Not)
• Iris Wants to Know: What's Your Most Hated Virtual Fashion Faux Pas?

SL11B Special: 75% Discount for One Month of SL Go Streaming on Android Tablets & Low End Laptops

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

OnLive (for which I sometimes consult) has a special one month 75% discount for a subscription to its SL Go streaming service in celebration of SL11B. The discount offer ends on June 29, so 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. I'm utterly biased, but until Linden Lab opens its new virtual world (and to judge by their announcement that's quite awhile down the road), SL Go is the best way to experience what's still the best and only and now 11 years old user-created, single shard MMO.

BREAKING: Linden Lab Confirms It's Building New Virtual World "Far Beyond What is Possible with Second Life" (Updated with Official Statement)

6:07PM: Confirming unofficial reports from earlier today (which I've moved below), Linden Lab just sent me this statement about the new virtual world it's building:

"Linden Lab is working on a next generation virtual world that will be in the spirit of Second Life, an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king. This is a significant focus for Linden Lab, and we are actively hiring to help with this ambitious effort. We believe that there is a massive opportunity ahead to carry on the spirit of Second Life while leveraging the significant technological advancements that have occurred since its creation, as well as our unparalleled experience as the provider of the most successful user-created virtual world ever.

"The next generation virtual world will go far beyond what is possible with Second Life, and we don't want to constrain our development by setting backward compatibility with Second Life as an absolute requirement from the start. That doesn’t mean you necessarily won’t be able to bring parts of your Second Life over, just that our priority in building the next generation platform is to create an incredible experience and enable stunningly high-quality creativity, rather than ensuring that everything could work seamlessly with everything created over Second Life’s 11 year history." (Emphasis mine.)

"Does this mean we're giving up on Second Life?