New World Notes

GTA Online Roleplay Tips from Top Second Life YouTuber Meela Vanderbuilt!

Meela Vanderbuilt is one of Second Life's top YouTubers and she recently expanded her fun, chatty, seriously glamorous brand of videos into the world of GTA Online roleplay. (Watch above.) Here's her expert take on the similarities and differences between roleplay in GTA versus SL:

"The general concept is the same. GTA is more focused on voice role play and the majority of Second Life role play is text based. Over the years, SL role play has evolved from strict guidelines and paragraph-emoting roleplay to various types existing, including just playing out different lifestyles and not focusing much on the delivery, just the overall story.

"The later is closest to Grand Theft Auto roleplay. In GTA, people create a character, have a general background story and then navigate through cities as that character. Story progression will depend on their interactions with other characters and the features of the role play server.

"Servers are comparable to Second Life sims. They’re independently owned and will have different features or stories even though they share the same general framework of GTA’s Los Santos. A lot are centered around crime because of the nature of GTA, so gangs, police, general civilians may be a large part. Some cities may focus on the university, some on commerce and business ownership, etc."

As with Second Life, you can customize your avatar quite a bit in GTA Online, but options vary from server to server -- and unfortunately, are still somewhat limited for women and non-white avatars:

Play Gloomwood: Immersive Steampunk Indie Sim Consciously Evoke Classic, Beloved Thief Games of the Early 2000s

Gloomwood, the new steampunk-themed indie sim game now in Steam Early Access, consciously evokes the classic Thief PC games so much, the publisher Newblood Games even got a special URL to promote it: ThiefWithGuns.com.

It is very much Thief with steampunky guns -- but as with the original Thief games from the early 2000s, the whole point is not to use noisy weapons unless you have to. And instead, to stealthily stay in darkness, using the light meter (yes, there's a Thief-style light meter!) to check how visible you are, and also, avoid stepping on noisy surfaces. The overall experience is incredibly immersive, making you constantly aware of your virtual environment. 

I played an earlier version of Gloomwood last month and instantly adored it; the visuals, the emerging story, and above all, the stealthy gameplay and the sense of truly being immersed in the world of the game. It's what got me into immersive games two decades ago, including (eventually) the Metaverse. 

As it happens, Newblood's Dave Oshry tells me, veterans of late-lamented Thief creator Looking Glass Studios are very much aware of Gloomwood, and even advised on it -- including acclaimed designer Warren Spector (Deus Ex/System Shock), who did some early work on Thief: 

Dual Universe, Dark Horse Contender to Become the "True Metaverse" Launches Today -- And I Have Access Codes For Five Readers!

At long last, Dual Universe has officially launched on Steam for PCs. While on the surface it may seem mainly like a sci-fi MMO of the Eve Online/Star Citizen variety, the breadth of its creative possibilities and scale does make it a contender for arguably becoming the Metaverse. Originally crowdfunded and developed by Novaquark ("Building the metaverse, one voxel at  a time"), it was very much conceived with that goal in mind.

Here's my long conversation with founder J.C. Baille back in 2019, who painted his vision for Dual Universe becoming the Metaverse.

And here's my 2018 chat with Will Burns, Vice-Chair for IEEE's Virtual Worlds Standard Group, who made a case this way:

“I'm not saying [Dual Universe is] the Metaverse. But I will say they and projects similar have the best chance of actually evolving into it... It all arises not because you arbitrarily placed them there. But because you created a system that fosters it all naturally. That's what I see in things like Dual Universe or No Man's Sky. Not that they are a Metaverse, but that they begin with the right premise to build on that soundly to create a virtual universe that fosters all those things naturally and not arbitrarily. Those I see as most likely to evolve into the Metaverse. Solid foundation and bigger picture thinking.”

As for getting started, Novaquark CEO Nouredine Abboud has this advice for fans of metaverse platforms:

Rockstar Vet Creating Everywhere, Another Possible "Roblox, But Not for Kids" Platform - Watch the Teaser!

Despite all the dune buggies in the teaser trailer, it's not There, but Everywhere. However, detailed information about it exists nowhere -- except, that is, in the studio of Build A Rocket Boy, founded former Rockstar North head Leslie Benzies. The montage video shows glimpses of many environments and some Fortnite-type combat, and from what a game industry reporter could glean, it's going to be a metaverse-ish platform of some kind: 

Breaking: Axie Infinity Lost 1 Million Daily Active Users In the Last 4 Months!

Above screengrab taken from the Axie Growth Data spreadsheet 

When we last checked in with Axie Infinity, widely touted as the model of "play-to-earn", NFT/blockchain-based games, it had dropped from 1.3 million daily active users in April to under 600,000 in June. That's a huge drop, but 600K DAU is still quite impressive, ranking it (for example) in the top 20 of Google Play mobile games by daily usage. 

Since then, however, DAU rates have continued plummeting -- from under 600K DAU at the beginning of June, to under 300K DAU as of yesterday. 

If you pull back the camera to April, 16 weeks ago, the drop in usage is even greater:

Dual Universe Releases Huge Update With New First-Time User Experience

Dual Universe, the single-shard MMO that some experts say is the best candidate to become the Metaverse, just announced a huge expansion to their beta release, code-named Mercury. (Teaser above.) That includes a new first-time user experience, so this long weekend is a good time to give it a try, or a revisit.

"Take time to explore the possibilities listed in the intro of the game," Nouredine Abboud, CEO at Dual Universe publisher Novaquark, advises. "This is a game like no other so let’s play it like no other."

Abboud, a game industry veteran from Ubisoft, took over the CEO role from founder J.C. Baille last year. And while Dual Universe is still in beta and has a relatively small active userbase, he tells me the most important signs of engagement are there:

Quintin Smith: Questions ROBLOX Still Hasn't Answered About Its Platform

The Washington Post recently ran this great article on the power and influence of the YouTube channel People Make Games, which ROBLOX reportedly "pressured" to make a retraction when it started looking into serious allegations about the metaverse platform. The Washington Post confirms that the company did request a retraction, and gets what People Make Games couldn't get, despite many tries -- an official reply from ROBLOX:

In a statement to The Post, Roblox’s Nevius characterized both of PMG’s videos as “not accurate,” saying they contain claims “in pursuit of clicks that downplay or outright ignore numerous features and parental controls we have in place to ensure our platform provides a safe, civil and welcoming space for people of all ages to play and connect.”

Nevius also pointed to parents’ ability to set in-game spending limits on their kids, as well as a “large, expertly trained” moderation team that targets scams and inappropriate content and “aggressively deters” users moving “Roblox”-related transactions to unsafe websites. He also said that, despite “Roblox’s” young audience, the “vast majority” of top-earning and most-played developers on the platform are over 18.

People Make Games' Quintin Smith (that's him on the couch up there), however, isn't satisficed with that answer, and told me why in great detail:

Watch: How BONELAB Could Become the Garry's Mod for VR

Via VR scout Adeon, here's a very good case from YouTuber ThrillSeeker to keep an eye (and a haptic finger in the wind) out for BONELAB, from indie studio Stress Level Zero, creator of the unexpected VR hit BONEWORKS from 2019. Like that game, BONELAB has highly responsive physics and avatar customization, with this new version compatible with the Quest 2 and its install base of some 11-12 million consumers. Even more intriguing, BONELAB's teaser trailer strongly suggests that player modding will be a major feature to the game after it rolls out. Or to put it another way: BONELAB could become the Garry's Mod for VR.

Teaser trailer and feature description below from the Steam page:

Buy a Bundle for Ukraine: Donate $10+ to NGOs Helping Ukrainians, Get 100s of Indie Games Including Acclaimed Titles SUPERHOT, CrossCode, Baba Is You -- $3M Raised Already!

Bundle for Ukraine is an epic sale of indie games with all proceeds benefiting the International Medical Corps in Ukraine and Voices of Children, a Ukrainian NGO which helps kids in the region. The Bundle comes with nearly 1000 games valued at $6520, all for a minimum donation of $10. (But you can and should pay much more than $10, of course.)

Click here to see the full list, which includes hits like the excellent bullet-time masterpiece SUPERHOT, and the critically acclaimed Baba is You.

About 14,000 People Watched Geoff Keighley's Game Awards in Geoff Keighley's World in Core

I told you about Core hosting a live in-world viewing of Geoff Keihley's Game Awards show which streamed last night, so here's a pretty good data point on user interest right now:

Based on the "total played" count of Axial Tilt (the Core experience where the show was streamed, which also has Geoff in the credits) about 14,000 people showed up for the Awards. (Only a few hundred had played before the show.) That's not too bad, given that Core probably has monthly active users in the mid six figures. It also suggests not many new people joined Core to watch the show from there, but that's not surprising, as gamers are already accustomed to watching it from their streaming option of choice.

Speaking of the Awards themselves: