New World Notes

Tomorrow at 10am SLT: Sinespace Party With New Welcome Center Opening, Live DJ, Quiz & Interior Design Contest With Prizes

Sinespace, the upcoming Unity 3D-based virtual world from SL pioneers (an awesome NWN media sponsor!) is kicking off a party tomorrow (30th of September) at 10:00am Pacific:

The event will take place on the 30th September at 17:00 UTC/10:00 PST, in the all new Welcome Center, which is being unveiled on the day. Our resident DJ, Astoria, will welcome you with the flowing notes of classic rock. After DJ Astoria finishes up, we will be holding a trivia quiz. The quiz will have two subjects; virtual world and general knowledge. Get your thinking caps ready! The prizes for the quiz are 2500 Gold for the winner and 1500 for the runner-up.  [i.e. $25 or $15 worth of gold. - ed.]

The Sinespace crew is also judging the interior design contest I mentioned the other day. So if you still want to enter, you have some 16 whole hours left to finish decorating your house. (Details here.)

Sansar Updates Soon Include More Desktop Interactivity, Social Search

Linden Lab just published a roadmap for upcoming updates, a couple that immediately stand out to me:

The Discovery Release will also bring more interactivity to Sansar experiences - you’ll be able to pick up, carry, and throw objects in desktop mode! 

My strong guess is that many more people trying out Sansar are accessing it via desktop than a VR rig, and the Lindens are adjusting to serve them better. Another key update to look forward to:

You’ll be able to grow your friends list and connect with people you know in Sansar by simply searching for them by name. Additionally, a new events section in the Atlas will showcase virtual meet-ups and special events to attend - you never know who’ll you’ll meet!

The social features have been so far seriously lacking in Sansar's social VR, and to judge by sceenshots and video footage, most users are mostly wandering the world alone, so alone. So seems like that might change somewhat soon.

UK Guardian's Emily Gera on Playing Ever, Jane, the Jane Austen-Themed MMO from a Linden Lab Alum

Here's Emily Gera's whimsical and fascinating UK Guardian feature on Ever, Jane, the Jane Austen-themed MMO lead developed by Linden alum Judy Tyer after her successful 2013 Kickstarter. It includes some quotes from members of the passionate Ever, Jane player base who posted comments to NWN last week.

"I was amazed at how active and organized the community already is," Emily tells me. "The game is only in beta and there are weekly community gatherings and regular players, veterans of over a year. I was really welcomed in by the players in a way I hadn't anticipated - I've never experienced a nicer MMO community."

The beta by the way is free for download here. Emily's advice for new players:

Veridical: New Blog on Second Life Arts & Culture, RL Artists in SL

Blog Veridical by "theoremfix" is a blog devoted to Second Life arts and culture apparently launched a few months ago, and it's already full of provocative posts. I particularly like the profiles on established real life artists who are also active in SL. For instance, there's Swiss artist Jean-François Réveillard (his own site here), who's shown work at Art Basel and other impressive venues, and says this about the art scene in Second Life:

Second life is a good opportunity for amateurs to show up work and make a sort of roleplay to be a daily artist. The number of professional and real artist is very small, maybe because it’s time consuming, personally I use Second Life as a sort of laboratory, and experimental media for my artwork, also an opportunity to show what we can do with it tomorrow as a media, like the Virtual contemporary art fair that I produce...

Then there's French artist Patrick Moya, who has his own Wikipedia page, and perhaps as impressive, a Second Life island (above, teleport link here). His own approach to art in the virtual world:

Twitter's Mismanagement of Anonymous Accounts Caused a Global Crisis

Remember back in the good old days (by which I mean 2013) when I thought it was so great that Twitter stuck to its policy of allowing anonymous/pseudonymous accounts, since it seemed to be a great advantage for free and democratic expression? Well, big oops there:

[T]here is evidence that Twitter may have been used even more extensively than Facebook in the Russian influence campaign last year. In addition to Russia-linked Twitter accounts that posed as Americans, the platform was also used for large-scale automated messaging, using “bot” accounts to spread false stories and promote news articles about emails from Democratic operatives that had been obtained by Russian hackers. Twitter has struggled for years to rein in the fake accounts overrunning its platform. Unlike Facebook, the service does not require its users to provide their real name (or at least a facsimile of one) and allows automated accounts — arguing that they are a useful tool for tasks such as customer service. Beyond those restrictions, there is also an online black market for services that can allow for the creation of large numbers of Twitter bots, which can be controlled by a single person while still being difficult to distinguish from real accounts.

Emphasis mine, because it's something that we'll need to emphasize for many years to come. Bots, as longtime Second Life users can tell you, run rampant when there's no requirement to associate a user account with a real identity. The same is true of Internet trolling, which gets greatly magnified through anonymous/pseudonymous accounts. Twitter has known this to be a serious problem for years, culminating in the "Gamergate" abuse disaster of 2014. (Fun fact: Many of the same abusive individuals associated with Gamergate are now associated with the spread of fake US news cultivated in Russia, which is unsurprising, since Donald Trump's key adviser actively and successfully leveraged Gamergaters in the campaign.*)

Note that I say "mismanagement" was Twitter's greatest failing, because pseudonymous accounts in and of themselves weren't the fundamental problem:

Cajsa's Pics: 6 Second Life Photographers With Gorgeous, Androgynous Style

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

I often like bloggers and photographers who explore very different aesthetics from my own. Some of my favorites favor androgynous fashions. Androgyny is sometimes misunderstood. It is an aesthetic that recognizes the fluidity of gender, but it is not an orientation. It is fashion, art, and self-presentation, but it is not an identity.

Jack Valentine Yuitza is a blogger with an eponymous Tumblr blog. He also has a store called Boys to the Bone that caters to androgyne tastes. I like the way he composes his photos, a head shot and full body shot with a cheeky text:

This is what androgyny looks like. Fluid and free.

"Ephemeral" Skye Nefekalum (Azram Belwraith in SL) is the person I first think of when I think of androgynous bloggers in Second Life. His work is distinctive and instantly recognizable. I love the fantasy elements as well. He blogs at Ephemeral Skye. I love his experimentation in fashion and the bold styling. I love the fantastical aesthetic.

Three more below the break!

Second Life Legend Torely Linden Now Making Sansar Tutorials

Here's a noteworthy tutorial if you want to import Paint 3D content into Sansar. Also noteworthy is it's by the ever-ebullient Torley Linden, who's been a community leader in Second Life since at least 2005, when I first profiled him, when he was known as Torley Torgeson, then joined Linden Lab around 2007, and has been making tutorials for Second Life ever since. Hopefully he's able to be a known and loved figure in both worlds.

Here's another Torley tutorial for Sansar, for streaming audio from the web into the virtual world:

Excellent Facebook Group for Discussing VR With Industry Figures

Now with nearly 36,000 subscribers, VIRTUAL REALITY is one of my regular go-to pages on Facebook; it's a chatty bunch which counts many leading figures in the VR industry, including many Linden Lab alum and VR evangelist Robert Scoble, but is still diverse enough so it's not a never-ending stream of "VR is the future" posts. In fact, some of the more interesting posts are from VR developers who've scaled back their expectations for the technology based on actual sales of their own content. For instance, here's the discussion thread on my post yesterday on Sony's commanding lead over Vive and Oculus Rift, which also includes commentary from Palmer Luckey, who was nice enough to correct some sloppy language on my part which distracted from its larger point.

How to Host a Harry Potter Roleplay Community in Second Life for $10,000

I was asking New World Notes readers the most money they ever spent on a virtual item, and while some spent $25 or $60 or so on, one figure in particular made my jaw drop:

“I spent more than $600 USD and to create a custom Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.”

So said Daeberethwen Arbenlow, a well-known figure in the Second Life fashion world. But nearly 10 years ago, she was roleplaying in an SL-based Harry Potter community through an avatar known as “Belladora Darkfold”. Until, that is, the virtual wizard drama became too damn much:

“I had worked as a GM at a different Hogwarts sim and it was really corrupt and they had big issues with favoritism,” as she puts it. “So I decided I wanted to make my own Hogwarts sim and that I wanted to make it look as much like Hogwarts and Hogsmeade as possible.” She hired an SL-based design studio which specialized in Harry Potter-themed content. (Yes, those exist). “I had a quidditch pitch, Hogwarts with the chamber of secrets you could access with parseltongue, Hagrid's hut, haunted forest and Hogsmeade. Oh and the Ministry of Magic.”

Cost to build? $600. Creative and community benefit: Priceless.  

“I like creating worlds that are immersive,” she says. “Roleplayers loved it, because at the time, it was the only place that really looked like Hogwarts. and everything was true to the books... I had a great bunch. Just people who shared my love of the Harry Potter universe and who really got into their characters. And my administrative team at the time worked really hard and they were fair minded.”

And if you’re wondering, no, she wasn’t worried that Warner Brothers or JK Rowling would sicc their lawyers on them:

 

 

Sinespace Interior Design Contest: Create Cool Home, Win 2500/5000 in Gold

Sinespace, the upcoming Unity 3D-based virtual world from SL pioneers (a proud NWN media sponsor!), has an interior design contest if you're interested in getting creative with the free room editor over the next few days: Customize your home by September 30th at 10:00am PST, show it off to the Sinespace judging team, and get a chance to win 5000 or 2500 in Sinespace gold. (Worth $50 or 25, respectively.)  More details on the Sinespace blog -- info for editing your room after the break: