New World Notes

Fashion Friday: SL Style & Houseware Choices from Mrs. Sassypants

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

I like warm, colorful kitchens like the one in Mrs. Sasypant's post Groove Is In the Heart in her blog Layers upon Layas. The name is a pun on her old avatar name Laya Felisimo, something I learned in her About page. Every blogger should have one. This kitchen is wonderful and I like everything. I decided to focus on the foundation pieces, the Mediterranean Kitchen pieces. They were for Happy Weekend, but they will be still be available at full price. 

• KOPFKINO – Mediterranean Kitchen – Counter blue LI:10 
• KOPFKINO – Mediterranean Kitchen – Her stool blue LI:1 
• KOPFKINO – Mediterranean Kitchen – His Stool blue LI:1 
• KOPFKINO – Mediterranean Kitchen – Shelf long blue LI:1 
• KOPFKINO – Mediterranean Kitchen – Wall Cabinet blue LI:4 
• KOPFKINO – Mediterranean Kitchen – Wine Island blue LI:4 

For a look at her fashion style, click here:

Linden Lab Unveils $25/Month Second Life Subscription to Replace Eroding Revenue of Virtual Land

As hinted at in a recent in-world Q&A, Linden Lab just announced Second Life's new "Premium Plus" subscription plan, with greatly enhanced content and features for $24.99/month or $249.99 a year -- see above, with a helpful compare/contrast with the existing Premium Plan. As my heated reader commentary suggests (some choice samples below), this new offering is sure to cause controversy. But it's a necessary move by the company, nudging players toward a sustainable revenue base built on user subscriptions, versus unsustainable sim tier. (Also reflected in the new event region offerings, high capacity sims designed for short term use.)

Or to put it another way on this day, which happens to be Second Life's official 19th birthday: If you want Second Life to be around and still active for SL30B, better consider getting Premium or Premium Plus.

Reader feedback below:

Cajsa's Choices: Favorite Photos from Second Life's 19th Birthday Bash

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

I thought after a week of celebrating Second Life’s 19th birthday, it was time to look at the pictures being tagged on Flickr with "sl19b". And wow! This pic from Kiva is amazing. Someone get her a job at NASA. This is such a powerful picture. This is exciting! [Click here to visit the location yourself] 

For more from SL1919B, click here:

Today's SL Flickr Pic: Unique & Amazing Avatar Portraits by Sonic

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

Sonic is such a great Second Life artist, I page past her pictures, assuming I have featured her before, because how could I not? But then I wondered and Googled and now I am making up for my oversight. Now, her photostream is dangerous because you could fall in and never come out. It has that kind of creative energy. Take “Enlightenment is the unfolding of divinity within.” for example. It’ s not just the makeup, the flowers, the eyes, or the pose, it’s all of them together. Her work is the perfect example of synergy, of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. 

For more synergistic creations, click here:

Get Early Access to Second Life's Hair Fair to Benefit Wigs for Kids!

Second Life's famed annual Hair Fair to benefit RL charity Wigs for Kids is unfurling this weekend, and empresario Sasy Scarborough is offering 5 (five) New World Notes readers special early access to the event. Here's how:

Coming Soon to Second Life: "Premium Plus" Subscriptions Offering Free Texture Uploads, Expanded Land Tier/Group Limits, Much More. Watch Here!

Starting at around 24.00, Linden Lab's VP of Product, known in-world as Patch Linden, teased out a new Second Life product offering coming (hopefully) on SL's 19 anniversary of June 23: Premium Plus.

Offerings for the monthly subscription include:

• Texture upload fees eliminated
• Land tier expanded to 2048 square meters
• Up to 140 groups
• L$3000 sign-up bonus, L$650 regular stipend
• Special support phone line
• Group creation fees reduced from L$100 to L$10

All yours with a special introductory offer of $24.99, then moving to $29.99/month or $249/year. A pretty solid offer for core content creators, who end up paying quite a lot to Linden Lab.

Gorgeous Aurelia has a good comparison explainer here, with an infographic to boot. The full interview with Saffia Widdershins includes some interesting tidbits beyond that, including:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Great Western Roleplay Photos from Rafael Correia

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

Rafael Correia shoots amazing black and white photos, mostly of wildlife and landscapes. However, I can’t resist the man and his horse photos. I used to ride the Linden Road on horseback for hours. He is riding much more scenic routes. 

For more horse pictures, click here:

Core Metaverse Platform Adds NFT Option -- But Why? CEO Explains

Core, the upcoming Unreal-based, Epic-backed, user-generated game development platform, just announced (somewhat unexpectedly) that it's adding NFT integration to its platform:

Today we’re excited to announce Core is expanding to include blockchain technology, starting by integrating with the largest crypto wallet, MetaMask, and the largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, for a first-of-its-kind API that enables creators to make full metaverse experiences based on their NFT collections.

I say "somewhat unexpectedly" because key funder Epic CEO Tim Sweeney isn't exactly a fan of NFTs, and since the crypto crash, the already tiny NFT market has gotten even tinier. So why even bother?

"We understand not everyone is interested in NFTs and that is why it's not a requirement to connect a wallet or engage with NFT content on Core,” CEO Frederic Descamps, CEO of Core developer of Manticore Games, tells me in response. 

However, he goes on, many third party developers are interested in adding NFTs to their own metaverse experiences in Core:

Expanding My History of Second Life from 2003 With a "Best Of" Archive

"People can't tell how far back this blog goes!", was some very helpful advice a friend recently offered, and so I'm slowly expanding my archive of posts tracking the history of Second Life and the Metaverse in general starting from 2003 (when I was still with Linden Lab) up until now. (If you're on desktop, they're available on the right column.)

That includes classics like "Fighting the Front" from 2007 (above), "Impeachable Offense" from 2005, and, of course, 2003's "The War of the Jessie Wall". Adding more years soon!

Tom Boellstorff: We Need to Define the Metaverse Before Moneyed Interests Define It For Us

Really good essay from Tom Boellstorff, a professor at UC Irvine and a longtime researcher of virtual worlds. While the definition of the Metaverse might seem, well, academic, Tom points out how corporate and moneyed interests are already trying to define it to conveniently suit their own interests:

For instance, many pundits define the metaverse as based on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. But many existing virtual worlds use means other than blockchain for confirming ownership of digital assets. Many use national currencies like the U.S. dollar, or metaverse currencies pegged to a national currency.

Another such rhetorical move appears when [Meta communications head Nick] Clegg uses an image of a building with a foundation and two floors to argue not only that interoperability will be part of “the foundations of the building” but that it’s “the common theme across these floors.”

But Clegg’s warning that “without a significant degree of interoperability baked into each floor, the metaverse will become fragmented” ignores how interoperability isn’t prototypical for the metaverse. In many cases, fragmentation is desirable. I might not want the same identity in two different virtual worlds, or on Facebook and an online game.

Much more here. I am in fierce agreement with this point. (See my own take on Clegg's Metaverse vision statement.) In my view, Tom's take is yet another reason for adhering to a definition that's as close as feasibly possible to the one from Snow Crash: