New World Notes

Weekend Second Life Machinima: "Smooth Criminal" Dance Video That's One-Take, Shot-Handheld, Super-Cool

SLer Blaq Magik recently shot this excellent Second Life machinima dance video, and it's just about the coolest SL machinima I've seen in quite awhile. (And not because it's shot to what's just about MJ's coolest song.) For one thing, it's shot in a single take, which seems like a miracle of matching SL dance animations to every downbeat of "Smooth Criminal". (And the dancers hit their mark almost every time.) That's impressive in itself, but Mr. Magik does something to make it even cooler:

Look for the Rose and Find a Bargain on Ample Avi's Voluptuous Avatar Shapes (NWN Partner News)

This weekend, NWN sponsoring partner Ample Avi will be having a rather unique sale on their original curvy shapes. Between the 13th and the 15th of February, Ample Avi designer Xme Xue will be placing a rose on the photo of a shape in her main store [Teleport link]. While the rose is on the photo, that shape will be steeply discounted to L$100. Xme will be moving the rose several times over the course of the Valentine's day weekend, so if you've had an eye on any particular shape then you may want to stop by a few times to make sure you don't miss your chance.

As I mentioned last month, Ample Avi's plus sized shapes have become some of the most used shapes in my inventory. Though it was a gradual and completely unconscious shift, these days I wear them more often than the shape that i had been wearing and tweaking since I joined SL.

Be sure to swing by Ample Avi's in-world location [Teleport link] to take advantage of the sale before it ends this Sunday. Unfortunately the reduced prices won't be available on Ample Avi's Second Life Marketplace storefront, but it's still a good place to browse what's available. 

How to Slim Down Your Second Life Avatar's Draw Weight

This is a great tutorial by SL content creator Penny Patton on how to trim a Second Life avatar's Draw Weight. That Linden Lab feature shows you how much effort it takes to render your SL avatar onscreen (green being fast, red being slow), but as Penny notes, it's caused SLers to complain that the range "was unrealistic, that we'd all have to wander around naked to get ourselves down into the green, or even the orange." However, she goes on, "the truth is, the rendering levels displayed by Draw Weight are not unreasonable at all, it's just that content creators are making no effort to produce reasonably optimized content for avatars." (And so, thanks to the Tragedy of the Commons, we have a whole world of slow-ass rendering avatars.)

However, there's some solutions to this, which Penny lists in much detail -- and as you can at right, it's possible to greatly trim down avatar Draw Weight without hardly changing an avatar's appearance. Solutions such as:

Rod Humble's Cults & Daggers Now Available (and Featured!) on Steam - Watch His Playthrough Here!

Rod Humble's ambitious new strategy game Cults & Daggers is available on Steam now, and there's good news for the former Linden Lab CEO who left the company to start his new studio: Valve is now also featuring the game, too. (And good thing, because indie games on the service tend to get lost in the maelstrom of content on Steam otherwise.) Sort of Age of Empires but with religious sects instead of nations, I interviewed Rod about the game last month, who told me how he hopes it provokes people to think about religion:

"This is a game about the religions that did not make it and the people who devoutly believed in them. It takes a view point that individuals make a difference in the trajectory of a belief. My hope is that people of faith and non believers will both enjoy it, there is nothing in here which is likely to offend anyone, but some I hope to provoke thought."

This is ambition on a grand scale. Still not convinced? Watch this playthrough video from Rod himself, who gets deep into the Cults & Dagger details despite a nagging cough:

Stop and Rewind: The First Episode of Life is Strange is Flawed, but it Still Deserves to Exist

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

I went into Life is Strange Episode 1 trying very hard to like it. I knew it wouldn't be perfect; as much as I love Remember Me, developer DONTNOD's previous release, that game still had its problems. Even so, Life is Strange looked different. It promised to take a thread of Remember Me's interesting but underutilized Remixing mechanic and weave it into a more contemporary, more relatable tapestry. Given that the combat was one of the more awkward parts of Remember Me I also wasn't too upset to hear that Life is Strange would be an episodic adventure game, heavily inspired by Gone Home and Telltale Games' recent work. So far, so good.

But after playing episode one, I feel conflicted. While I still admire what DONTNOD is trying to do with this game, its heavy-handed approach risks souring something that could be quite special. Here's why:

"Just the Right Amount of Weird for Me": Meet Emiliana, Star Second Life Fashion Photographer

One day, a girl named Emiliana was watching TV when a segment on Second Life showed up. "I saw them making fun of it on a show," she remembers, laughing, "and I thought, 'Hey, that's just the right amount of weird for me.' And I love taking pics in real life, always have, so it was only natural I brought that into SL also."

Consequently, she now takes spectacular Second Life images that look like this:

Emiliana entitles it, of course, Charlie Bob and me defending the universe against the spiders from Mars and about 40 prim cats, and it's simultaneously the geekiest and hippest image I've seen in quite awhile. (Seriously: I live near Silverlake in Los Angeles, a global epicenter of hipster-ness, and hipsters who look exactly like these two are fricking everywhere. Except maybe without white bazookas.)

See much more great SL fashion pics by Emiliana on the blog she co-produces right here. (Iris is a fan too.) Speaking of which, here's how Emi gave this pic its extra luster:

Five Tips for The Perfect Virtual World Valentine's Day

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

Valentine's Day is almost upon us, and if you're planning on celebrating with that special someone in the SL then there's a good chance that you've already lined everything up for this coming weekend. 

Either that, or you're scrambling.

And I don't blame you. Second Life has its limitations, and those limitations just love to get in the way. Even the best laid plans can be ruined when you realize that perfectly boxed item isn't transferable, or that leisurely drive around the mainland in your mesh convertible will get a little too bumpy whenever you're crossing sims.

Whether you're looking to polish up some existing plans or you're not even sure where to begin, I've got a few simple pointers in mind to help you have an utterly seamless evening with your virtual Valentine. First up:

That Time Jon Stewart Gave Second Life the Daily Show Treatment (Without Actually Using Second Life)

Jon Stewart, America's longtime voice of reason, is leaving The Daily Show to pursue a second life, so let's remember that time back in 2008 when Jon Stewart talked about Second Life on The Daily Show:

Player Creativity is King in Physics-Based Building Game Besiege, Now in Early Access

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

I've got three words for you: DIY Siege Engines. That's the pitch for Besiege, a physics-based medieval destruction sandbox which launched in Steam's Early Access program late last month. Although the game's current version only offers a slice of what will presumably be included in the final release, players are already sharing their own clever, creative constructs like the one above by Besiege player zeroharker.

"I've been working on trying to make the smallest most concealable weapons so far in this," zeroharker wrote in their original post on the Besiege forums. "This latest invention," they continued, "Combines my collapsible crossbow with the siege wagon into a tiny terror."

So what exactly does this unassuming little contraption do? Well, just take a look:

Take This Quiz to Find Out How Much You Know About the History of Second Life

Take this quiz by Canary Beck to find out how much you know about the history of Second Life. I only got 82%, even though I actually, you know, wrote a book about the making of Second Life. To prepare for the test, there is, as Canary herself points out, a history of Second Life in Second Life - a year-by-year, first-person, walking tour of the would-be metaverse (made by a guy named Sniper Siemens), which you can visit for a short time by copy/pasting this place in the SL viewer of your choice:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA17/26/237/22

I definitely flaked on at least a couple questions, though in my defense, some others are not strictly accurate or open to interpretation. For instance, here's a hint for one of them from my book, which might (or might not!) totally throw you off in this quiz: