The Localhost Connection Cafe is a gorgeous new cyberpunk-themed hangout in Sinespace, and it’s amazingly detailed and sumptuously, stylishly lit. It was created by Carsten Stark and Artemis Bane, who also host “Geek Weekly” get-togethers there. And it would probably not exist, at least in its current form,, but for two occurences:
An unexpected romance.
A global pandemic, quite frankly.
First the romance: It also started virtually, and wasn’t part of either creator’s original plan.
“We just happened to start talking about projects we wanted to do in Sinespace,” as Carsten puts it. “[We] just really hit it off… It was totally unexpected. Neither of us was looking for anything.”
They made the trip to meet each other in person last Summer -- back in the olden days, when people could still fly, and go on first dates -- and things proceeded swimmingly from there.
“The spark we had translated really well into real life and we both felt like we've finally found our other half (soulmates if you will),” says Carsten. “She moved up here in January so that we could be together.“
And then they were really together. Because shortly after she moved in, the quarantine was imposed in Carsten’s home state. So now they were also in lockdown together,
But being creatively and technically compatible (along with the relationship part) helped inspire and drive a new collaborative project:
“Immediately Carsten and I had synergy and the brainstorming on localhost just blew up,” as Artemis puts it. “He’s a coder and I’m a texture artist. We both model in 3D. There was pretty much nothing stopping this idea from happening.”
A virtual traveler who has explored many online worlds, Artemis once owned a version of localhost in Second Life:
“Prior to Sinespace, I had a personal version of localhost [in Second Life],” she tells me.“It was like a designer social club I’d run from my friend’s list. I was often AFK but had friend designers in voice almost the entire time I was in SL. I hosted private DJ events on my build platform and we’d listen to music, interact in SL and keep social while working.”
She sees the creation of her cafe as a kind of case study for what’s possible in her new world:
“It moved from being 100% custom work to being created from the pool of assets in the in-world Sinespace store, and the Unity Asset Store,” she tells me. “Localhost shows what anyone can create. It’s remarkably simple to build in there. You don’t need to know a lick of code. You decorate the same as you do in Second Life. I basically decorated it in less than a day.”
At first the creators’ chief goal was a place to grow the virtual world community. But again, Carsten Stark and Artemis Bane were creating it while mostly trapped at home away from their friends, family, neighbors. And so their concept of community for their virtual space grew, too:
“I wanted a place we could get my parents into. My son. I got my friends in from real life.
I've even got my dad coming in to code and he's 70.”
That led to a mini-epiphany:
“If non-tech people are coming in… how can me make this more about what the community wants instead?”
So she started reaching out to real world social groups, including her neighbors on Nextdoor, inviting them to visit localhost in Sinespace. She even reached out to some organizers of Star Trek fan conventions. (“I don't think people realize how cool it could be to ‘beam in’ to a Ten Forward and walk around a space station. People that have never been in virtual worlds before.”)
She also sees localhost as an alternative to popular video conferencing systems that people have turned to for get-togethers during quarantine.
“A lot of meetups are on hold right now without any other way of interacting except for Zoom,” as she puts it. “I think everyone has a little bit of Zoom fatigue. I know I do.”
So what began as a virtual world-only project evolved as something else, due to the desperate isolation that suddenly erupted in the real world -- and the fact that she met her real world partner in a virtual world.
“[I]n meeting Carsten and having his input, it's now a joint project that satisfies needs that also developed since the COVID-19 quarantine,” as Artemis Bane says it.
However, this is a creative partnership that they never plan to end:
“Localhost isn't the end goal for us,” she says. “There is no end goal. We have so many interesting projects [in Sinespace] underway. And just working through them. It's interesting pushing at the boundaries. If something isn't currently able to be done, then you just figure out a way to code it. It's not because it's not possible. It's only not been done yet.”
Disclosure: Sinespace is a sponsoring media partner to New World Notes.
Oh, you can actually meet someone in Sinespace? I thought only developers hang out there :)
Posted by: goose | Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 12:16 AM