New World Notes

Here's Your Regular Reminder That Skywind Might be the Most Amazing Mod Ever

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

We're long overdue for another chat about Skywind, the ridicilously ambitious modding project that aims to import the entire world of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind into the series' most recent (single-player) incarnation, Skyrim. 

The Skywind team have begun releasing trailers for their massive project monthly, teasing everything from armor models to environments (like the Ashlands) and even the soundtrack. Unfortunately due to the scale of the mod it's hard to say when (of if) we'll ever be able to get our hands on it, but either way these haunting trailers provide a glimpse into a more updated version of a world that so many gamers hold dear.

Watch all of the Skywind trailers for yourself on YouTube, or check out the TES Renewal Project for the latest news on Skywind, as well as its sister mods Morroblivion and Skyblivion.

Linden Lab to Allow Real Money Payouts for Winning Games of Skill in Second Life

In a move with both potential promise and peril, Linden Lab just announced it will soon allow Linden Dollar payouts for games of skill (i.e. no casino games) in tightly regulated, zoned areas of Second Life. Since L$ can be bought and sold for US$, this basically enables online gaming with real money payouts. Many have tried to offer such a service, but for various reasons, none have really gained much traction. However, because Second Life already has a relatively large userbase using Linden Dollars, there's a lot of potential here -- if ambitious game developers are willing to jump through all the regulatory hurdles Linden Lab has waiting for them. Here's just one of the clauses:

The Good, the Bad, and the Unclear: My First Impressions of The Sims 4 Create-a-Sim Demo

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

On Tuesday, many members of The Sims 3 community were invited to test out The Sims 4 Create-a-Sim Demo on EA's Origin distribution platform, ahead of the demo's public release later this summer. I was lucky enough to be among them, so I spent the better part of yesterday evening pushing, pulling, pinching and tweaking my way through the very familiar and simultaneously very alien systems. 

So how was it? There were lots of things I loved, a few things I hated, and a couple things I can't wait to learn more about as we approach The Sims 4's launch date. Until then, here are my thoughts on the Create-a-Sim demo:

AM Radio, Revealed: My Profile of the Acclaimed Second Life Artist Who Mysteriously Disappeared -- Now on Polygon

Polygon is now featuring my long, lavishly illustrated feature profile of the man behind AM Radio, one of the most beloved and acclaimed artists to use Second Life as a medium -- and who, after years of fame both in SL and the outside world (he was profiled in The New York Times), rather mysteriously disappeared from the virtual world.

But thanks to the intercession of my friend Beverly "Bettina Tizzy" Nillson -- not to mention the man himself -- I learned, over a conversation that went beyond a year, the full story of AM Radio. (That's him, somewhere in the photo here, at Austin during South by Southwest in 2013, where we first met.) He told me how AM Radio came to be, why he created in Second Life what he did, the impact his rising virtual fame had on his real life... and why, at pretty much the peak of his avatar celebrity, he decided to go away. And as virtual reality returns to the fore, and we begin to wonder what kind of profound experiences we have within it, and how they will change us, AM Radio has much to teach us there too. Read it all here.

Oh yeah, one more thing to add before you go:

Iris Wants to Know: Do You Totally Love or Utterly Hate Your Second Life Mesh Avatar Enhancements?

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

Now that mesh bodies are starting to cement their place on the list of must-have items for many virtual fashionistas, it seems like the piece-by-piece conversion of Second Life avatars from outdated vanilla models to mesh-enhanced creations that would be at home in any modern game is essentially complete. Heads, hands, feet, lips, ears, eyelids, butts, boobs, bodies... Even I'm rarely willing to take off my animated mesh head from Snow Rabbit, though it's not the most popular (or flexible) mesh head on the market any more.

For many (including myself) mesh enhancements like these offer the opportunity to augment avatars and smooth over rough edges. For others however, they're just a pain in the polygonal backside. They're expensive, they can be quite fiddly to adjust, and they come with a boatload of compatibility concerns. Sometimes it can certaily seem like a lot more trouble than it's worth.

So here's what I want to know: Do you love your mesh enhancements, or loathe them? Would your sooner die than wear them, or not be caught dead without them? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Second Life Creators and Bloggers Are Making Low-Poly into High Art

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

If you're a computer graphics snob, you might not be thrilled to see the low-poly trend that's already made its way into indie games and aesthetics. Late 90s gaming nostalgia seems like the natural evolution of all those Pixel-based throwbacks as creators who grew up with N64s rather than Super Nintendos find and share their inspiration. That's why Half-Deer's Low-Poly Lullaby set (available in Second Life) maybe won't be to everyone's tastes. Nevertheless, I doubt anyone can argue that blogger Nana Minuet's pictures of the critters and props in the set, one of which you can see above, are beyond adorable -- like something plucked from the pages of a very stylish picture book.

Even if the low-poly look doesn't appeal, be sure to check out Nana's blog for more pics and, naturally, her outfit notes. If you'd like to get your hands on Low-Poly Lullaby, drop by The Chapter Four event [SLURL] to pick them up for yourself.

ISIS Contemplating Financing Holy War With Bitcoin (Which Would Be One of ISIS' Biggest Mistakes)

Above: Title to the ISIS-associated whitepaper advocating Bitcoin financing

I was only recently marveling at how news from the Middle East feels close to cyberpunk, and now it entirely is: A blog associated with The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is seriously arguing that the terror army's war to establish a caliphate should be financed through Bitcoin. You can read the actual essay (basically an ISIS white paper), a bizarre amalgam of Salafist-Qutbist theology and virtual currency economics, at the .pdf here. Excerpt:

To set up a totally anonymous donation system that could send millions of dollars worthof Bitcoin instantly from the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Ghana,  Malaysia, Sri Lanka, or wherever else right to the pockets of the mujahideen, very  little would be done. Dark Wallet’s beta release will be published within the next  coming months, the mujahideen of DawlatulIslam would simply need to set up a wallet andpost their wallet address online. Then, Muslims from across the globe could simply copy the wallet address, login to their Dark Wallets, purchase whatever amount of Bitcoin  they wish to send, and send them over. The mujahideen would then have someone on the  other side convert Bitcoin into whatever currency they wish at optimal Bitcoin to  currency transaction rates to receive the donations from the whole ummah. 

I hope this happens, because it would be one of the worst mistakes ISIS ever made (i.e. good news for everyone else):

Update, Emily Short's Blood & Laurels: From Linden Limbo to New York Times Feature in Four Months

In March, interactive fiction pioneer's Emily Short's "Blood & Laurels", a passion project 15 years in the making, was in limbo at Linden Lab, which owns the AI-powered Versu Engine she created it with (as she told Iris then) -- but thanks to some negotiation with the company, in June the two sides agreed to collaborate on publication, and yesterday, the story was featured in The New York Times:

A more novel, even radical, form of digital storytelling with text arrived last month on the iPad in the form of Blood & Laurels by Emily Short, an author of interactive fiction... Blood & Laurels is interesting in its own right but even more so for the promise of what might come after it. Blood & Laurels was written with a software engine called Versu, designed by Ms. Short and Richard Evans, who worked on the artificial intelligence aspects of notable games like Black & White and The Sims 3.

(Evans developed Versu with Emily at Linden Lab.) Here's what the Times' Chris Sullentrop says what it's capable of doing:

Upcoming MMO-Flavored Sandbox Survival Game No Man's Sky Sorta Like Minecraft Meets the Universe

Memo to Iris: Let's keep keeping an eye on No Man's Sky, for in this upcoming, procedurally generated PC PS4 game, this happens:

No Man’s Sky spurns the conventional structures of pre-written narratives, set-piece action sequences, and discrete levels. There are no quests in this game. You don’t go planet-hopping to find a damsel or a merchant in distress and then fetch them three healing salves and four wolf pelts of varying colors. In fact, at the outset, you can’t hop very far at all. Each player is handed only the bare necessities for survival, dropped onto a planet on the rim of a galaxy, and left to his or her own devices. A basic life pod will putter you up to the nearest space station where you can begin to figure out how to get such devices, upgrade them, and do something useful or interesting with your life. Most people will start by either mining resources or trying their luck as a bounty hunter or freight security guard. What career paths lie beyond those basic professions is part of the exploration you’ll have to do.

So pretty much Minecraft meets the known, explorable universe. Speaking of which, there's still some contention whether this game qualifies as an MMO, or just MMO-like -- here's why:

Good Guidelines for Productively Dealing with Online Sexism

I also wrote a primer of do's and don'ts for responding to online sexism http://t.co/kcJdFmKv6L

— Leigh Alexander (@leighalexander) July 7, 2014

Leigh Alexander has an excellent starter guide for dealing with sexism online, which we sometimes have to contend with on New World Notes. One particular point stands out to me as strongest, because it illustrates the tension of confronting sexism while not allowing it to define the victim:

Boost the individual and her work, not her victimhood. No woman who experiences sexism in her profession wants to be known primarily for “being a woman who experiences sexism.” It is right to defend and support women, and it is right to condemn sexism, but sometimes the best way to do that is by supporting their work. Hundreds of hair-tearing tweets protesting all the terrible sexist things that are happening to so-and-so can actually have the same ultimate effect as sexism: In both cases, the woman is reduced simply to “victim of sexism”.

Obviously applies not just to Twitter, but any online community. Plus, fellow dudes, read this, take it to heart: