New World Notes

Second Life Users Literally Pile on Top Each Other to See Sansar, Share Excitement & Skepticism

While Sansar's open beta launch today has been featured on Variety, VentureBeat, and numerous other tech/game/entertainment industry news media outlets, it's likely that most actual new users to Sansar are coming over from Second Life. To judge by my social feeds, most any avid SLer who has a PC powerful enough to try it out is doing so right now. Indeed, they're showing up in such rapid numbers that their avatars are literally piling up on top of each other in some places (as above). Some immediate reactions via Plurk:

“I’ve been trying to download for the past 40 minutes from the download page. It just keeps saying ‘Waiting for sansar.com’ and circling circling circling - 1angelcaresWriter

“It's pretty. I don't like the camera controls, and I miss being able to run and jump and fly, unless that's just something I haven't learned how to do yet. And the avatars are completely ugly. But the experiences are pretty.” - Alicia Chenaux

“There seems to be no way of knowing who is who if you don't have headset. Otherwise it looks gorgeous.” - AJ Arabello

Speaking of names, longtime SL blogger Ciaran Laval has some important advice on creating a Sansar avatar and avatar name. After the break, a live video feed from SL YouTube star Strawberry Singh, and some early Sansar tourism photos from Flickr. Post your own reactions and video/photo links in Comments!

As Sansar Launches Let's Look at Social VR's Small, Ungrowing User Numbers

Here's a handy link for tracking nine social VR apps on Steam, which are now Sansar's leading competitors with the departure of Altspace VR. As you can see, usage is tiny -- yesterday, there were not even 500 daily users combined. That includes Philip Rosedale's High Fidelity, with less than 15 daily users, and Altspace VR, with less than 20.

When I referenced VR stats for Steam last week during my conversation with Palmer Luckey, many VR evangelists pointed out that not all Steam users allow their activity to be tracked, and that not all Vive and Oculus users are logged into Steam. That's fair to a certain extent, but only goes so far: Even if total usage were 2X, 3x, even 10X the number tracked by Steam, these would still be tiny numbers -- not even compared to Facebook or mobile games, but to other virtual reality platforms. Second Life was touted as the metaverse 10 years ago, and then written off by Silicon Valley as a failed platform, but it still gets concurrency rates in the mid-five figures -- far, far greater usage than any new social VR product.

There's an bigger problem for this new wave of social VR:

Sansar Officially Opens to Public With Hundreds of User-Made Experiences

What you're looking at here are hundreds of experiences created for Sansar, Linden Lab's new social VR platform, by users during its closed Alpha period. Anyone with the the requisite OS/hardware (Windows 7 SP1 or newer and an NVIDIA GTX 970 or better graphics card, for starters) can now create a free account and start exploring and creating. That's right -- at long last and after much anticipation, Sansar is now in "open Creator Beta":

Top Six New World Notes Posts from Last Week!

• New Second Life Terms Of Service Agreement Includes Stricter DMCA/IP Enforcement Policies (Among Other Things)
• Altspace's Demise Suggests Dark, Difficult Future For Social VR
• Cajsa's Choices: The Breathtaking Action Imagery Of Eripom Moonwall, A Virtual Weapons Manufacturer In Second Life
• Why Would People Wear VR/AR Glasses When Most Of Us Don't Even Like Wearing 3D Glasses To Watch Movies?
• Palmer Luckey's Belief In Virtual Reality's "Inevitability" Seems Non-Falsifiable
• To Survive, Second Life's Modeling Industry Must Modernize And Be Less Drama-Filled Than The RL Modeling Industry

Space MMO Adds Custom Snapshot Tool With Customizable Presets, 360 Panoramics, Social Uploads

Space, the upcoming Unity 3D-based virtual world from Second Life and OpenSim pioneers (a proud NWN sponsor!) just added some fun snapshot tools for virtual worlds fashionistas and photographers to play with this weekend: A snapshot tool with user-customizable presets including WindLight-type filters, props that can be spawned into the scene, and text/image overlays (see below) for added coolness. Also, creators can sell their custom-made presets on the Space marketplace.

The photo tool includes the ability to record short GIF animations, and take 360 degree panorama photos (as below, by Spacer Nebadon) which can be uploaded to social networks like Facebook and Flickr. In fact, the tool comes with automatic upload support for Flickr.

New Second Life Terms of Service Agreement Includes Stricter DMCA/IP Enforcement Policies (Among Other Things)

Next time you log into Second Life (at least through the official viewer), you're going to get hit with an imposing new Terms of Service agreement. One of the key changes I highlighted a couple weeks ago: Stricter IP rights/DMCA enforcement requirements, where a user who feels their copyrights are being infringement must actually snail mail or fax the DMCA notice rather than send via e-mail, and Linden Lab mentions that they can sue users who file frivolous claims.

I'm sure there's other changes SLers are being asked to accept -- discuss in Comments if you notice anything drastic!

Altspace's Demise Suggests Dark, Difficult Future for Social VR

AltSpace VR is closing soon, and everyone reading this blog should wonder why that is, at least for a couple reasons:

• The social VR platform was widely covered by gaming and high tech media outlets over the last couple years, generating awareness among tens of millions of early adopter tech/VR fans.
• Altspace VR is cross-platform, compatible not just with Oculus and Vive, but Samsung's Gear VR and Google Daydream -- a potential VR market, roughly speaking, of ten million conumsers.

From Altspace's announcements, here's how many people actually wound up using Altspace VR:

Around 35,000 people use our product every month, which we think is pretty good for the size of the VR market. The average user spends 35 minutes a day in AltspaceVR, and in big events we typically see around a thousand attendees. We have active developer and event organizer communities and have attracted marquee partners for our events.

As a point of contrast, Second Life (now in its 14th year) still has a daily mean concurrency between around 31,000-41,000 (see Grid Survey for those stats).

So from a potential userbase of 10 million or so VR owners, far less than 1% became Altspace users. As another point of contrast, both High Fidelity and Sansar (both spinoffs of Second Life to a certain extent) are only optimally usable through Oculus and Vive, which have an install base of less than a million.

What went wrong with Altspace, and what's that mean for High Fidelity and Sansar? I put questions to Gwenette Writer Sinclair, a longtime metaverse developer who considered Altspace as a platform for herself and her clients:

Get Well, Cajsa Lilliehook! Famed SL Blogger Recovering from RL Surgery

Above: Cajsa's RL view of recovery featuring Oscar the cat

If you're just as dazzled as I am by Cajsa Lilliehook's incredible NWN profiles of great virtual photographers on Flicker, such as Eripom Moonwall or Ilyra Chardin, or posts on her own blog SL fashion blog It's Only Fashion, let me add to that amazement: Cajsa created these posts while preparing for surgery to stave off uterine cancer. She's out of surgery now, and I'm relieved and happy to say he's now in recovery.

"[I probably] will not need radiation or chemo," she tells me. "I am not even taking ibuprofen, that's how little post-pain there is. My only real problem is I keep forgetting not to touch the patch behind my ear that itches, but when I touch it, I get too big a dose of the medicine and it makes me dizzy. Insta-intoxication."

Good news all around, and I hope readers consider sending her a nice virtual Get Well message in Comments below, or on her Twitter, or on Plurk. One request from Cajsa: If you're a woman, please check yourself for Uterine Cancer symptoms.

Grab Ample Avi's Latest Shape For Free This Weekend!

Ample Avi group members are in for a pleasant treat this weekend: Designer (and proud NWN partner) Xme Xue will be releasing her latest shape, Curvy Lombard, to the brand's VIPs for free.

As Xme tells me, Curvy Lombard is named for the famous Lombard street in San Francisco, a one-block section of road with 8 iconic curves to it. Lombard is referred to as the most crooked street in the world — which makes it a pretty perfect namesake for a shape from one of Second Life's most enduring shape brands specializing in curvy, plus-sized, natural avatars.

Group members will get Curvy Lombard for free with copy permissions only, while the full version with mod and copy permissions enabled will be released in-store and on the SL Marketplace after two weeks. So not only are VIP group members getting a gorgeous figure for free, they're also getting it ahead of the curve.

Be sure to visit Ample Avi in world [Teleport link] or check out their SL Marketplace storefront for more shapes ranging from full-figured to buxom bombshells. And if you're interested in snagging Curvy Lombard early, don't forget to join Ample Avi Updates for access to her and future freebies! 

 

 

Cajsa's Choices: The Breathtaking Action Imagery of Eripom Moonwall, a Virtual Weapons Manufacturer in Second Life

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

When I first saw Eripom Moonwall’s photostream I was struck by the vivid action scenes portrayed in her photos and the realistic scene-setting as brilliant and complete as a Hollywood set dresser. NSFW warning: Her photostream is a mix of her fabulous action photos -- and extreme BDSM erotica that many may find disturbing, and definitely not worksafe. She content rates her photos correctly, however, so if your Flickr settings are on Moderate, you will only see her action scenes and avoid any issues on a shared or restricted computer.

A thirtysomething securities analyst from Tokyo Chiyoda-Ku, Eri has a secret Second Life as an arms manufacturer. Really, I was amazed to learn that many of her photos are the result of her work producing machinima advertising her firearms in Second Life. Her company is called SAC, an acronym for SSOC Armament Co. Her YouTube videos and Flickr photos (featured on NWN last week here) are a big part of her marketing. She estimates that Flickr increases her sales by 20 to 30% per month.

Eripom Moonwall self-portrait

After the break, meet Ms. Moonwall: Real world stock market expert, virtual world weaponsmith and artist.