New World Notes

Weekend Read: The Four Types of Second Life Places

Canary Beck has a really interesting and provocative and long analysis of the types of Second Life, based on her 8 years of being an SLer, which she categories in four ways: Real-Fake, Real-Real, Fake-Fake, Fake-Real. You should read it all here, but I wanted to highlight a couple of my favorite insights before you go:

The very most popular SL places in terms of traffic are Fake-Fake:

[F]ake-fake sims are not what they say they are, and not true to themselves. Sims like this are harder to find because they tend to not be often photographed, or written about. I believe we tend to model most simulations on either originals we have experienced in the real world or build them in ways that are entirely impossible in the real world. Fake-fake sims, however, seem to be a haphazard mixture of the two.

Frank’s Place Jazz Club

Self-touted as Second Life’s Premier Dance Venue (to be fair they did win at least one Avi’s Choice award in their category), nearly everyone in Second Life is aware of Frank’s. According to Metaverse Business, Frank’s currently places as Second Life’s 2nd most popular sim – and its most popularGeneral sim. The interesting thing about Frank’s (pictured below), is that it’s neither a “ballroom” (as it says in its description), nor does it really play jazz. What you actually get is a mall leading to a palatial open-air dance floor that bears little resemblance to any jazz music venue I’ve ever seen. It has a formal dress code where men dress in tails and the ladies dress in ball gowns (clothing which isn’t at all associated with most jazz clubs in real life) and instead of jazz, Frank’s mainly streams easy-listening music.

And she gives many other examples in that category. (By the way, she's not saying "Fake-fake" as a value judgement.) She's very astute to note that a popular sim like Frank's Place doesn't, well, feel like an actual place (though clearly, a lot of people love it all the same.) By contrast:

SL Go Subscribers Get One Month Free Due to Recent Teleport Issues (NWN Partner News)

If you're a regular user of SL Go (an NWN partner), you probably noticed some problems teleporting with the streaming service. (This issue only impacts people using the Linden Lab viewer through SL Go, but not the SL Go through Firestorm, so OnLive is now working with the Lindens to resolve the issue.) In any case, OnLive's Dennis Harper wanted to pass along this nice consolation announcement for existing subscribers:

We understand your frustration and apologize for the inconvenience. We will give all SL Go subscribers a free month of SL Go to make up for time lost. The next time your subscription renews, you will not be charged.

So you got that going for you. And always, feel free to post Comments for the SL Go team below.

Here's the 13 VR Startups Philip Rosedale & Other Leaders Chose for the 1st Virtual Reality Accelerator

VentureBeat's Dan Terdiman* has a good summary on the startups selected to get seed funding and other support in the first venture capitalist accelerator for virtual reality startups. The selections were made by High Fidelity's Philip Rosedale and other leaders in the space, so this is a good survey of where they think VR is going as an industry:

The 13 companies are:

• Fove, which is making “the world’s first headset to use eye tracking to create an immersive experience.
• DeepStream VR, which is developing virtual reality heath care games aimed at relieving pain and assisting with rehabilitation.
• Emblematic Group, an immersive virtual reality journalism project.
• Psious, which is developing VR-based immersion therapy for mental health practitioners helping patients overcome their fears.
• SDK, a startup developing industrial training and travel tools in virtual reality.
• Solirax, a VR education platform for “exploration, discovery, and creativity.”
• EmergentVR, which calls itself the “Instagram of VR,” is making an application for making and sharing 360-degree VR experiences.
• Vantage VR, which fashions itself the “Ticketmaster for VR events” with a 180-degree concert and live events viewing experience.
• Triggar, another system for capturing and sharing 360-degree VR imagery.
• Reload Studios, a VR game studio.
• Innerspace, which is developing “high quality content focused on artistic and cultural expression.”
• Discovr, which is working on “immersive learning experiences about exploring the ancient world.”
• Thotwise, a VR game studio.

Follow a Manta Ray on a Tour of One of Second Life's Most Beautiful Underwater Landscapes

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

Speaking of deep sea adventures, one of the most disappointing things about exploring Second Life sims is often how little attention is generally given to designing underwater spaces. While the shores and even surface of the water will get the full five-star treatment, what lies below is often left in it's plainest, blandest, most unremarkable state. On the other hand, every so often you'll come across a sim with just as much care given to designing the submerged sections as those on dry land. Those rare locations are perfect for exploring with (or without) your virtual scuba gear.

... Or your mesh manta ray avatar.

This machinima from SL user Laurent Rathle is the perfect way to get a taste of that experience. Laurent took to the waters of the AlaFolie sim to record ten minutes of uncut underwater exploration, and the results are a perfectly relaxing virtual tour of the kind of area that most players have never seen unless they've deliberately sought it out.

Of course, if you'd rather experience things first hand you can always swing by AlaFolie [teleport link] and dive for yourself.

DX Exchange Now Open for Selling OpenSim Grid Currency

DX Exchange (a proud NWN partner) has just opened its virtual currency trading service up to OpenSim grids, starting with the Sunlight Grid (based in France). So now OpenSim grid operators can sell their currency through DX Exchange. (And if you own an OpenSim, and you're interested in using this service on your grid, drop an e-mail to [email protected].)

For consumers, the purchase process is pretty simple:

Rod Humble's Life After Linden Lab: New Multimedia Studio & Ambitious Strategy Game About Religious Cults

Cults & Daggers is an ambitious new strategy game hitting Steam next February 12, sort of Age of Empires but with religious sects instead of national leaders, and its lead creator is someone New World Notes leaders know well: Rob Humble, a game industry veteran from Electronic Arts (Sims 2 & 3) and Sony Online Entertainment (EverQuest), and most recently, Linden Lab's last CEO, a role which ended almost exactly a year ago. And while Cults & Daggers isn't an open sandbox virtual world like Second Life, Rod tells me there's aspects of it that SLers will find appealing:

"Second Life users are incredibly intellectually curious, particularly about creative and social dynamics," he says, "so I hope they will be interested in the way I have modeled class and power structures within the game!"

The game takes during the birth of Christianity and Buddhism, so I asked Rod if the game might convey anything insightful about actual religion as it's practiced today:

The Circle of Life: F2P Mobile Game Survive! Mola mola! Turns Cartoonish Death into Satisfying Progress

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

January's been a rough month. I've died a couple dozen times. I've choked on plastic bags, washed up on the shore, had my stomach all clogged up with squid, and stopped breathing while careening wildly towards a scary-looking sea turtle.

I've been playing Survive! Mola mola!, a free game available on iOS and Android from Select Button Inc. It's become a surprise sensation, and from what I've played I'd say their success is well deserved. Why? Well, it all comes down to Death.

Why We Shouldn't Accept Silicon Valley's Lame Excuses for Not Hiring Enough Women, Expressed in 3 Tweets

This:

Google, FB, MS: "We try to hire women but it's REALLY HARD!" Alibaba: "Half our staff is women." pic.twitter.com/waLun0Lz3s

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) January 28, 2015

Which is citing this:

Jack Ma says women are 47% of Alibaba’s employees, 24% of management http://t.co/Usm2axOK6m pic.twitter.com/jnm6acbxf0

— Tech in Asia (@Techinasia) January 24, 2015

Which I followed up with this:

Virtual Reality-Based Assertiveness Training Reportedly Leads to Less Sexual Victimization, Pilot Program Finds

Can virtual reality and 3D gaming help people stand up for themselves in real life? In a pilot study developed by Southern Methodist University, a group of young women practiced assertiveness against male sexual aggression using a modified version of Half-Life 2 and a VR headset. After the training (dubbed "My Voice, My Choice"), as this summary indicates, the early results were extremely positive:  “22 percent in the control group reported sexual victimization during the three-month follow-up period, compared to only 10 percent in the 'My Voice, My Choice' group.” (Emphasis mine, because it bears emphasis.) While this is just initial data working from a small sample, the growth of virtual reality makes this study one worth repeating in other pilot programs, so I reached out to the lead researchers, Dr. Lorelei Simpson Rowe and Anthony Cuevas, for more details on their training program:

What were some of the most interesting personal reactions to this simulation?

Dr. Lorelei Simpson Rowe: "Many participants were surprised at how difficult it was to be assertive. They thought of themselves as being able to be assertive, but found it more challenging in the simulations than they expected. At the same time, many of the participants also seemed to feel more confident after they successfully used the skills and got positive feedback from others.

"Most students chose to participate in the study because they were given gift cards to thank them for their time - they weren't initially interested in the program - but afterward, they told us how important it was and that they felt all students should go through MVMC."

What advice would you give other researchers and developers working on similar VR experiences?

Dr. Lorelei Simpson Rowe: "I think important next steps will include developing fully computerized protocols (i.e., those that don't require an actor). Additionally, the simulations need to be realistic and consistent with experiences that participants might actually have."

As I said, they used a variation of Half-Life 2 to create the simulation: 

5 Questions to Ask Yourself if You Want to Be an SL Blogger

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

Two weeks ago, I laid out something that had been on my mind for awhile. I shared five painfully honest questions that I think every aspiring designer should ask themselves before they dig into the world of SL fashion. But there's another side of this equation, a role in the Second Life ecosystem that comes with almost as much idolization as designing: Blogging.

I'll be the first person to tell you that blogging (fashion or otherwise) is not as glorious and glamorous as it might seem. I'll also be the first person to tell you how rewarding blogging can be, again regardless of the subject... As long as you're doing it for the right reasons.

So if you're thinking of starting your own Second Life blog, here are five questions you absolutely need to answer: