New World Notes

Now Available: Second Life's First Illustrated Coffee Table Book!

SECOND LIFE: The First, Best Metaverse in Words and Pictures is a new book from metaverse media partner Hari Sutherland, a professional author IRL with several published books, both fiction and nonfiction. His new book, as the title suggests, is devoted to Second Life, and I’m thrilled to recommend it, both for longtime SL veterans and the uninitiated wondering why this unique and quirky virtual world has thrived for so long.

It's also the very first paper and ink coffee table book fully focused on Second Life -- that I can recall, at least! -- and it’s sumptuously illustrated and narrated by Hari. A beautiful tribute to the virtual world, both the platform and the global community who've come together to build it, it also features moving stories of the many people who've transform themselves for the better through their avatars.

"As is often the case, a number of things — thoughts, ideas — collided," Hari tells me, explaining the source of its inspiration. "Serendipity, really, or perhaps an honest-to-goodness zeitgeist. A lot of exciting things seem to be happening around Second Life right now."

More below, including a look at the hardcopy:

Join My Patreon for Special Holiday Offer from Aardvark: Get 55% Off All SL Mainstore Items Until December 3!

Join my Patreon for free for some fun holiday shopping specials! Starting with a Patreon-only special from Aardvark, home of hilariously charming SL items like his legendary rideable unicorn balloon and mini-pig unicorn (pictured, adorably).

55% off all items in the Aardvark mainstore until December 3.

Sign up and go here for the details, and stay tuned for other shopping Patreon specials.

And don't forget you can also gift people subscription to my Patreon: Go here to do that (please)!

Can AI Review Second Life Images Better Than Cajsa? To Find Out, We Got Claude to Describe the Images She Selected Here!

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

Pan Aeon is a wonderful storyteller with his pictures. I interviewed him back in 2018 and, oddly enough, that article began with a motorcycle, too. I thought revisiting his work might be a fun chance to try out AI writing. 

So as an experiment, I gave Claude the text of that 2018 interview and described Pan’s pictures to Claude. (The LLM does not access links or pictures, so it relies on my description.)

Let’s see what Claude has to say about this picture:

In Pan's evocative photograph "Badlands", we witness a profound meditation on movement, solitude, and the liminal spaces between reality and imagination. The image captures a moment of existential freedom - a lone rider against a sepia-toned landscape, where the motorcycle becomes both a vehicle of physical transportation and metaphorical transformation.

The duotone palette speaks to a deliberate artistic choice, stripping away chromatic distractions to focus on texture, light, and emotional resonance. The sun's harsh glare over the rider's shoulder creates a stark contrast, symbolizing both illumination and potential blinding - a visual metaphor for the complex journey of self-discovery through digital landscapes.

This photograph emerges as another example of Pan's philosophy of allowing images to "evolve unto themselves" - a spontaneous capture that transcends mere documentation to become a nuanced exploration of identity and transition. The cityscape in the background suggests the tension between structured urban existence and the wild, uncharted territories of personal exploration.

Wow, profound. For more from Pan (and Claude), click here:

Give the Gift of New World Notes! Send Someone Special a Patreon Membership or My Book Autographed

You can now send someone a membership to my Patreon as a gift here. If you enjoy reading New World Worlds, I hope you consider sharing and supporting it over the holidays -- plus get quality early/exclusive content via the Patreon app, plus other benefits!

I'm also giving away my autograph plate to anyone who buys a copy of Making of Second Life or Making a Metaverse That Matters. I'll even write a special (short!) dedication message to you or a special someone.

Here's how:

Kat Verde-Dillingham Completely Transforms SL Screenshots in Incredibly Exciting Ways

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

Kat Verde-Dillingham transformed her screenshot from Bryn Oh’s most recent exhibition into something so brilliantly different that it tells a completely different story. For reference, I popped in and took a WYSIWYG snapshot using Bryn Oh’s experience. There is such exuberant joy in Kat’s version. The way she filled the elements with patterns reminds me of Gustav Klimpt -- a very merry Gustav Klimpt. I love this picture. It’s one I would happily hang on my walls.

Here's the original:

For more of Kat’s wonderfully unique art, click here:

Give New SL Users Their Own Private Second Life Instance or Noob Continent (Comment of the Week)

Interesting comment thread on Second Life's nooby-booting problem. (I.E.,  that many of the best Second Life hangouts and locations have orbiters banning new users with accounts under 30 days old.) My suggestion is to add a VRChat-style trust system, which is just one (imperfect) way to help address this challenge; I also like this one from longtime reader Martin K:

What about putting new users in their own private instance of a world instead of banning them? In this way, new users could at least visit and explore a world on their own. Visiting private instances of a world has the added benefit of protecting new users from the toxicity of other users in many worlds.

Their own private Second Life! I imagine you'd want select veteran SLers to also be able to access the private instance, as greeters, tutors, and event staff. But something like this has promise. 

I've been thinking about a variation of this:

Top 5 Posts Including an SL Social Media Shift to Bluesky, Debunking Affleck's AI Opinion & an Ambitious New User-Made VRChat Game

• Seven Spectacular Second Life Sims to See -- Before It’s Too Late!
• Watch: This Game Trailer is Actually an Amazing User-Created VRChat World Made by One Guy Over the Last 4 Years
• I'm Seeing a Strong Shift to Bluesky by SLers --- Including Cajsa, Who Just Closed Her Huge Twitter/X Account
• Ben Affleck is Both Too Bullish & Bearish About Gen AI's Impact on Movies
• Second Life Has a Nooby Insta-Boot Problem. Would a VRChat-Style Trust System Fix It?

Seven Spectacular Second Life Sims to See -- Before It’s Too Late!

Originally published on my Patreon

I started writing this post as a fun casual guide for exploring Second Life sims I’ve admired and written about in recent years. But as I quickly discovered, many of my favorite, popular places featured in my long-running New World SLurl series have since changed hands. A surfing spot had been converted into castles; a seaside cyberpunk city had been turned into an island vacation home, and so on.

But Second Life goes on. After a furious round of teleporting in August to make sure these places were still in-world, here’s seven sims to see, explore, and photograph now -- while you still can!

Forks [above]: Click SLurl to teleport here

A rolling rural scene with hills and meadows that could evoke paintings like Wyeth’s “Christina’s World”, a note on the sim info window notes that it might be going away soon!

Six more below:

Watch: This Game Trailer is Actually an Amazing User-Created VRChat World Made by One Guy Over the Last 4 Years

Originally posted on my Patreon

Update: The game is live. Here's the world links for the PC/PC VR version, and for the Quest version.

This video above could be gameplay footage from an upcoming PS4 game by a professional studio, but it's actually only available in VRChat. Bullet Time Agent is a one person labor of love by a longtime VRC community creator known only as "Lakuza", who I've been following since at least early 2020.

Yes, he's been developing this game in his spare time for almost 4 years, mostly working on his own.

Available to play in VRChat today at 4pm PT, you'll be able to find it in the Quest store and in-world search under "Bullet Time Agent 1-1", "Bullet Time Agent 1-2", and "Bullet Time Agent 1-3".

"I'd easily be putting in at least 6 hours per day, and then on weekends, most of the day would be spent on the project," Lakuza tells me.

As the game name suggests, it turns Matrix-style bullet time into a major gameplay mechanic, in a story where you're a reformed thief with a world to save. Somewhat surprisingly, the game will be completely free-to-play, Lakuza's only reward being peer recognition by the VRChat community. Then again, you know a metaverse platform is successful when people create amazing things for their community as an end in itself.

I'm Seeing a Strong Shift to Bluesky by SLers --- Including Cajsa, Who Just Closed Her Huge Twitter/X Account

New World Notes columnist Cajsa Lilliehook just locked up her fairly large X/Twitter account (with nearly 20,000 followers) and opened up shop in Bluesky here.

I wasn't surprised when she told me this last night (for reasons I'll explain below), but it's actually part of a larger trend:

In the last couple weeks, my mostly dormant Bluesky account suddenly exploded with hundreds of new followers, most of them SL/virtual world-themed. (OK, maybe "exploded" is a bit hyperbolic, but certainly a fierce fucking puff of activity.) And there's more:

Philip Rosedale just joined Bluesky.

The official Second Life account too.

Plus here's a large Bluesky thread of SLers to announce yourself and meet others there! 

Also other metaverse platforms including Rec Room and VRChat are active on Bluesky.

This is part of an even larger trend, as Bluesky recently hit 20 million active users, in great part in an exile move from Twitter/X in the wake of the US election. That was the thing which pushed Cajsa herself over the blue edge: