New World Notes

Here's My Virtual World & VR Predictions for 2019 -- What Are Yours?

SL photo by Ann Beedit

• VR headset sales for the 2018 holiday season will be disappointing, below 10% growth for Q42018 compared to Q4 2017, with total Oculus/Vive sales in the six figures. Prepare for another round of "Is the VR hype truly over?" articles, though probably not by me (because why beat a dead virtual horse)?
• VR-centric social VR worlds Sansar and High Fidelity will continue to see peak daily concurrency levels in the two-three figures.
• As a result of the above, there will be a major corporate shift by Linden Lab, possibly a change in executive leadership, or a high profile content partnership or even sell-off of Sansar.
• Fortnite will deploy some kind of real money trading or monetization system for user-generated builds. 

What are yours, reader? I will highlight the best 2019 predictions having to do with VR, AR, AI, social VR, virtual worlds including (but not exclusively) Second Life, Fortnite, Sansar, High Fidelity, and beyond. (Pro-tip: The more specific and easier to verify, the better!) Post in Comments below, and enjoy a few more holiday/NYE-themed virtual world images after the break:

Top 5 Posts from Last Week: Best of Year Recaps, Cassie's Winter Carol in SL

• Cassie's Clips: Singing "Winter Wonderland" While In SL's Winter Project
• Top 5 NWN Posts From Last Week: Spector In Sinespace, High Polycount Mesh In Second Life, And Much More
• Cajsa’s SL Flickr Choice Of The Day: Abel Streeter's American Nativity Scene
• Best Of 2018: The Top 12 Most Read & Shared New World Notes Stories
• My Personal Favorite New World Notes Posts Of 2018

My Personal Favorite New World Notes Posts of 2018

SpyParty: Creator Chris Hecker On His Hit Indie Game That's Like An Avatar-Based Turing Test Meets James Bond

Siggy Romulus: A Life & Love Remembered By His Wife, Nephilaine

Twitter Use In United States Stagnant Since 2016 Election -- No Trump Bump, According To SimilarWeb

Avatar Users Saw The "Real You Online" Catastrophe Coming Years Ago

Ana Ribeiro On Creating Pixel Ripped 1989, Her Acclaimed VR Game That Virtually Recreates The Retro Games Of Childhood

Now Popular In Second Life: Realistic Imperfection, Including Cellulite & Stretch Marks For Female Avatars

Many more beyond the break!

Best of 2018: The Top 12 Most Read & Shared New World Notes Stories

• Facebook Loses 1.3 Billion Monthly Visits In Wake Of Cambridge Analytica Scandal, According To SimilarWeb - Down 5% Of Average
• How MS Windows Once Caused Second Life To Break An Inkjet Printer (Probably the very top post of 2018!)
• Online Worlds With User-Generated Content Like VRChat, Roblox & Second Life Threatened By Upcoming EU Regulation, Says EFF's Cory Doctorow
• Survey: Strong Majority Of Tech Workers Want Twitter To Ban Alex Jones -- But Most Tech Workers AT Twitter Don't
• In Massive Gamer Survey, 79% Of Females Under 30 Classify As Core/Hardcore -- Overwatch, LoL & Fallout 4 Among Their Favorites
  
• Watch: MICA, Magic Leap's Eerily Human AI Avatar Who Looks You In The Eye
• Oculus Co-Founder Who Wanted To Build A "Billion Person Virtual World" Departs Facebook, Decrying Company's "Race To The Bottom" With Standalone Headsets
• Oculus & Vive Usage Appears To Be Flat Or Declining, According To Steam Stats, Sales Estimates

• Humans Want Struggle, Not Perfection: What The Matrix's Agent Smith Teaches Us About Creating Successful Virtual Worlds
• Philip Rosedale: Why Virtual Reality Offers A Better Consumer Experience Over AR Devices Like HoloLens & Magic Leap
• 1 In 10 Second Life Merchants Surveyed Earn USD $100,000+ A Year From Selling Virtual Goods
• Top-Selling Mesh Avatar Bodies Drastically Hurting Overall Second Life Performance, Says 3D Graphics Expert -- Calls For Boycott Of Poorly Optimized Products

Cajsa’s SL Flickr Choice Of The Day: Abel Streeter's American Nativity Scene

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

"I've been saving this picture, 'Snowed In', for Christmas. It's a sort of American Nativity, isn't it? Last year there were 200,000 Americans living out of their cars, enough people that some cities are enacting laws to make their already difficult lives more difficult. Parking ban and ordinances that criminalize living in your car are everywhere. Seattle alone has twenty ordinances criminalizing vehicle residency. On the other hand, some cities are creating 'safe parking zones' where homeless people are encouraged to park their cars and feel more secure against theft and assault. I admit the hot air balloon in the background intrigues me with the possibility of another story, but still, to me, the primary story of a father and son sheltering under a tarp by their vehicle is charming at first glance and heartbreaking when thinking of the far too many families who have no alternative."

More sobering thoughts from Cajsa on what this image by Abel Streeter evokes:

Cassie's Clips: Singing "Winter Wonderland" While in SL's Winter Project

Braving the cold, New World Notes YouTube correspondent Cassie Middles warms up her lilting and lovely vocal cords with a Christmas-time classic while touring The Winter Project in Backdrop City. (More about the Project on Strawberry Singh's blog.)

Happy holidays from NWN! See you after the presents are opened.

Top 5 NWN Posts from Last Week: Spector in Sinespace, High Polycount Mesh in Second Life, and Much More

• Watch: Warren Spector Visits Sinespace To Talk Underworld Ascendant, System Shock 3, And A Legendary Career In Games
• New iPhone App Remakes Massive Attack's Mezzanine Into Adaptive, Mixed Reality Experience
• Want To See How Resource Heavy SL Mesh Bodies Really Are? Use Black Dragon's Advanced Complexity Tool
• Watch: Adorable Bird In VRChat Flies From Korea To Meet Fellow Avatar In Canada, Proves Power Of VR To Create RL Connections
• Does Epic Not Linden Lab Better Deserve The Title Of Metaverse Builder?

Watch: Warren Spector Visits Sinespace to Talk Underworld Ascendant, System Shock 3, and a Legendary Career in Games

Thanks to The Escapist and game video production studio Down Right Epic, here's an edited version of my recent interview with game design luminary Warren Spector, interviewed before a live audience in Sinespace. I'm joined by Russ Pitts of the Escapist (with the cowboy hat and scarf), and Adam Frisby, lead developer of Sinespace (wearing the Deus Ex-style business suit) and by dial-in Will Teixeira, Warren’s Lead Engineer at OtherSide Entertainment. (I also had to do the interview via dial-in, so my avatar isn't featured.)

Our conversation touches on many topics, including the new game he worked on, Underworld Ascendant (on sale on Steam right now), his upcoming game System Shock 3, developing in Unity, his skepticism with VR, and much more. Here's highpoints of our near-hour long conversation annotated by timecode:

• 45 seconds: Warren on getting OtherSide Entertainment out of startup mode and launching Underworld Ascendant as its first game. (Which was the #1 game on Steam on launch day!)
• 1:27: Warren reflects on a series of articles he wrote in 2006 for Escapist (“Gaming in the Margins”) predicting that indie games, not AAA, would be the future of games, and how that came to pass through platforms like Steam and Unity, and the growth of education programs for game developers.
• 4:30: Warren talks about the relationship between Underworld Ascendant and the groundbreaking PC game Ultima Underworld, which he produced in 1992, and discusses the influence of that game on the simulation genre in general.
• 8:02: Warren discusses the Underworld Ascendant characters which were imported into Sinespace to join Warren on the show, and the role they play in his game.
• 9:40: Warren discusses emergent problem-solving in UA. “I tell my team the word ‘puzzle’ is not allowed in this studio… We create challenges, we create problems, then we give the player tools to solve those problems and overcome those challenges.”
• 12:05: Russ and Warren talk about how high-end graphics in AAA games are becoming a limit on development — and how Otherside is dealing with this challenge, including the highly stylized look of UA which is inspired by miniatures gaming. 
• 15:20: Warren and Will from his team discuss the advantages of creating immersive worlds in Unity.
• 18:04: Warren discusses the development cycle of UA.
• 19:10: What’s next for Warren after such a long and storied career, most recently after the end of his stint at Junction Point and Disney, and the founding of OtherSide Entertainment. Russ and Wagner ask what brings him back? And will he get back to creating more Deus Ex games? 
• 22:26: Warren talks about Otherside’s development of System Shock 3, how the studio got the license to make the sequel, and what we can expect from the game.
• 25:00: Why Warren is skeptical about VR, which he predicted three years ago had deep “cultural and social problems”. Warren then goes on to talk about VR hype, its future and uses, his own experiences working on VR games back in the 90s — and worrying about your wife coming up from behind you with a baseball bat when you’re in virtual reality.

Much more notes below!

New iPhone App Remakes Massive Attack's Mezzanine Into Adaptive, Mixed Reality Experience

Fantom Mezzanine is a free new iOS app from legendary UK group Massive Act which recreates their classic, masterpiece album Mezzanine into an immersive, interactive format. It's co-created by adaptive music/sound artist Robert Thomas, who's been designing ambitious audio experiences across many mediums and technologies over the years, including in Second Life.  (Disclosure: Also a pal.)

"It's a continuation of many previous discussions really about music and tech, what we could explore," Robert tells me. "In this app, you shoot a video and the app generates a realtime remix which is like a soundtrack to the action in the video. If you move around in the image, the drums come in and glitch out, if the device moves some of the sounds modulate and change. If you smile the vocals come in. Lots of interactions, some secrets to discover too."

I'm just starting to play with the app, and it's a dreamy way to walk around in the world, where your camera and microphone inputs integrate with indelible audio clips from (in my opinion), one of the best albums of the last two decades. And it's an amazing creative pinnacle for Robert, who many readers might have met in SL back in the day. He worked closely with Massive Attack's Rob Del Naja to create personalized remixes of Mezzanine.

"I was very into Mezzanine when it came out. Working with the multitracks from that album was a real honor."

Download it here, and if you do create videos, be sure to put links to them in Comments!

Sinespace Winter Sale: Hundreds of Items on Sale Up to 50% Off Every Day

NWN partner Sinespace has a massive sale of fashion and other fun content, running from now until the early new year, with hundreds of items discounted from 15 to 50 percent off. Part of the fun is finding out which item is for sale an any given day, because the discounts are changed daily:

We will be running a series of time limited store-wide discounts on selected content from today until January 3rd. Each day we'll be changing what's for sale - so check back every day for new items on sale, each item will only be on sale for only 24hrs before being replaced with a new item. 

More details on the Sinespace blog!