New World Notes

Richard Bartle: If You Don't Want Young Men Dropping Out of Real Life to Live in Virtual Worlds, Make the Real World Better

Interesting conversation on my Facebook wall about the phenomenon of many young men seemingly dropping out of the work force and real life to live in virtual worlds/games, to the point where their withdrawal is visible on an economic level. Richard Bartle, who's basically one of the godfathers of virtual worlds, had this response:

"If you don't want people to live in a virtual world, make the real world better. Virtual worlds were invented precisely because  the real world sucks. It sucked back then and it still sucks today. Roy Trubshaw and I had this view when we were creating MUD nearly 40 years ago. We discussed it with our friends. It's not something that has only come to us by reflecting upon it years later. If these young men weren't playing games, what would they be doing instead? I don't mean what The Economist would like them to be doing instead, I mean what they'd actually be doing instead. The games-playing is a symptom; remove the symptom and the cause is still there - it'll just manifest with different symptoms."

I don't quite agree so I put a question to Richard:

"I doubt we'd devote our careers to developing virtual worlds unless we thought they were incredibly compelling and immersive for most people, whatever their specific circumstances. And since it'll take years to address bad economic conditions (if they can be substantially improved) and may not even be reversible for some, shouldn't we be more proactive rather than just saying 'not our problem'?"

Bartle's reply:

NWN Open Form: Say Anything About Any Virtual World

NWN is on a brief hiatus today, so the microphone is yours -- post opinions, events, pics, videos, etc. in Comments, include links whenever possible for possible highlighting later! And as always, self-promotion is always encouraged (long as you're promoting something cool).

Top Eight New World Notes Posts from Last Week!

• Subscription Fees For Sansar Will Be Optional, Linden Lab Clarifies
• Cajsa's Choices: How Kake Broek Turns Second Life Images Into Satirical Art
• Play Clusters: Artificial Life Simulator For IOS Modeled On Gaia Hypothesis Theories, Created By MMO Pioneer Jeffrey Ventrella
• Salvador Dali's Scandalous "In Voluptas Mors" Recreated With SL Avatars
• Second Life Now On Track To Lose ~ 6.5% Of Its Private Sims In 2017
• How Many Men Are Dropping Out Of Real Life To Live In Virtual Worlds? We May Need Federal Funding To Find Out, Says Expert
• SL Mesh Avatar Brands Maitreya & CATWA Dominate, Survey Suggests
• Flying Penis Lesson Learned, Sansar's Summer Beta To Forbid Adult Content

Space Event, June 24th, 4-7 PM PST: Creators Ball With DJ Ghaelen

Space, the upcoming Unity 3D-based virtual world from SL/OpenSim vets (a proud NWN sponsor!), has a fun event this weekend (Saturday, June 24, 4-7pm): A Creators Ball in a new sim called GuitaraHala, featuring a live stream by DJ Ghaelen. (Who I believe also DJs across Second Life too.) Fun way to check out how Space is developing, chat with some developers on the Space team and creators already working in the platform, check out their killer outfits, enjoy some epic rock tracks, maybe make some new friends. Click here to get the Space desktop viewer.

Subscription Fees for Sansar Will Be Optional, Linden Lab Clarifies

Update to yesterday's post citing Kotaku that Sansar may have a subscription fee for access -- Linden Lab spokesman Peter Gray posted a clarification in Comments:

You will be able to access Sansar for free. There will also be subscription packages available, and the details of those offerings and pricing will be announced at the opening of creator beta this Summer

Kinda surprised Linden Lab didn't clarify this when they talked to Kotaku for the hands-on demo, but there it is. Anyway, if you're in New York this weekend (and don't you wish you were?) you can get a hands-on demo for yourself, at least for Sansar's NASA co-created project.

 

Watch Strawberry Singh Live Stream SL 14B Live Now

If you're not there already you probably can't because it's an over-crowded laggy-ass mess, but SL blogger doyenne Ms. Strawberry Singh is on the damn scene and streaming.

Cajsa's Choices: How Kake Broek Turns Second Life Images Into Satirical Art

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Sometimes when you come across a new artist, there is this shock of recognition. I felt that when I first discovered Kake Broek’s work. Not that his art is like anything I would do; I am not that imaginative. It’s not like anyone else is either. It is not the style I recognized, it was the sensibility, seeing the absurd in contemporary life and challenging us to laugh, even when what we laugh at is painful.

It’s worth digging deep into his photostream. He satirizes pop culture, politicians, and Second Life. His avatar is incredibly versatile, seemingly able to represent anyone and everyone: Broek as Osama, as Spock, as Mao, as Trump, and as dozens of others, all instantly recognizable in their absurdity.

Broek does not think of himself as an artist, but more as a craftsman, a collage-maker. Art or craft is an eternal debate, but if we think of art as the expression of emotion, then we know with certainty, Broek is an artist. His work is deeply emotional, even when the predominant emotion is humor.  To learn more about Broek and his creative worldview, read my conversation with him below:  

Sansar May Launch With "Small Subscription" Fee, Kotaku Reports UPDATE, 6/23: Basic Access Free, Subscriptions Optional, Linden Lab Clarifies

Update, 6/23: Linden Lab clarifies that Sansar subscriptions will be optional.

Cecilia D'Anastasio has written a lot of great, provocative stories incorporating Second Life (such as this deeply dark one), so I'm impressed that she's impressed by her "Hands-On With Sansar, The New Second Life". Her demo, as managed by Linden Lab, didn't include much content that hasn't already been written about before, but she does drop this mini-bomb scooplet:

Right now, only 2,000 select virtual artists, builders and designers have access to Sansar, but later this summer, Sansar will open its doors to everybody with its open beta. Users may pay a small subscription for access.

Subscriptions! You mean like WoW? Wow. First time I've heard about that. Another point worth pointing out is when the Sansar demo literally makes her want to hurl:

Play Clusters: Artificial Life Simulator for iOS Modeled on Gaia Hypothesis Theories, Created by MMO Pioneer Jeffrey Ventrella

Clusters is an ambitious new artificial life game/toy in the iOS App Store created by Jeffrey Ventrella, a developer who did some pioneering work for Second Life and other virtual worlds. As you might imagine, his version of an artificial life simulator is equally ambitious.

“In the spirit of classic artificial life models, such as the Game of Life,” says Jeffrey, “Clusters doesn't literally mimic life forms, but it does echo certain fundamental dynamics which are the basis of all life, such as self-assembly, sensitivity to environmental conditions, self-similarity, and dynamic equilibria.”

Clusters is based on the theories of biologist Lynn Margulis, which run counter to Darwin’s competition-based model: “She showed that cooperation and symbiosis are just as important, and perhaps even more important. She championed the theory of endosymbiosis, which claims that early organisms were so mutually dependent that they actually fused their identities, and became more complex organisms. And this is what made complex life possible on Earth.” Margulis later incorporated these ideas into the famed Gaia Hypothesis she helped James Lovelock develop, ”which claims that the Earth is an organism, with its own self-regulating dynamics… it gives power to the idea that we are all connected.”

Fricking heady stuff for an iOS app! Unsurprisingly, emergent patterns occur when Clusters runs:

Salvador Dali's Scandalous "In Voluptas Mors" Recreated With SL Avatars

So this is one of the most brilliant uses of customized Second Life pose animations I've ever seen -- a recreation of Salvador Dali's notorious photo, “In Voluptas Mors”. It was created by SLer Serendipity Dyrssen, whose avatar is also one of the models. "I put the poses in balls and I edited them with the models sitting on them, to create the skull," she tells me. In a nice coincidence, Serendipity happens to be a Spaniard in real life, like Dali. (Serendipitous, you might say.)

To compare and contrast, here's the original Dali image and some history about it below, though it's possibly not worksafe reading (unless you, say, work at a surrealist art gallery):