VTOR - Virtual TO Reality

SL land sells … and then sits [extra prim space?]

TD Goodliffe — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:18:38 +0000

Sold most of my SL land a couple months ago and went from paying $8/month to using less than half of the 512m provided to paid accounts. The curious thing is what has happened with the land since the new owner took over.

Nothing. In the old days (ouch, can 1-2 years ago be a long time ago?) this size land would likely have been used for something visual. The most likely use would have been to split into small sections and put up a bunch of gaudy virtual real estate signs. Or [gasp] how about a neighbor building a house or business next door?

Alas, that doesn’t happen as much any more. I’m sure the current owner of the land is using it for prim space. You don’t just buy up a bunch of land and let it sit. Or maybe you do.

What are your virtual world neighbors doing with their land?
Question for other Second Life land owners: what’s happening with your virtual neighbors? Building new, innovative businesses? Constructing elaborate homes? Are they doing much in world or just letting tumbleweeds roll across their plots? I couldn’t see paying for something that wasn’t being used very much.

Open Source Virtual Worlds

JohnnyRS — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:31:57 +0000

I haven’t been active in Second Life for months now and figured I’d check up on it again. When I was reading other blogs I found a link to Opensim which is an open source project working on their own server similar to Second Life. In fact with every grid I checked out I used the Second Life client to connect. The servers I tried weren’t very busy but I was really only checking out how it compares to Second Life. There’s plenty of stuff that is missing and they are maybe years from getting everything to the level of Second Life.

Just by copying the shortcut for second life and adding some parameters you can log into one of these servers easily. Changing your appearance isn’t explained very well. You start off with a basic female avatar. You have to create a body, eye, skin and hair parts so you can wear and change them. On OSgrid you can play around with web pages on a prim! The most interesting thing I found was when I read articles about how they want to hook these grids up to Second Life and be able to move your avatar from one grid to another. It also seems like Second Life have plans of something like that too. With IBM and Microsoft interested in this project it looks very promising for the future.

After I played around with the other servers I decided to see if I can start a server of my own on my computer. I tried building with the source code but I got errors. Didn’t want to figure out why so I downloaded the already built server file. Got a server running on my windows system in minutes. Logged in and could walk and fly around a small island. To me that’s impressive and if these servers get more popular it could be very competitive to Second Life.

Fantastic article of the history of the open source grids
Wiki Page for OpenSimulator

DeepGrid
OsGrid
OpenLifeGrid
CentralGrid

ROCK FOR LIFE LIVE MUSIC EVENT

Weirdharold — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:13:58 +0000

Relay for Life in SecondLife is back in full swing again, and I would like to call you attention to the Rock For Life Music Even taking place at Kay’s Tiki Lounge next Saturday throught Sunday the 22nd of June.

Here is the line up thus far…..

Saturday 21st June - SL times
11.00 am - Welcome To the Tiki Lounge
11.30 am - Official Opening RFL Party
12.00 am - TBA
01:00 pm - Patrick LaSalle

02:00 pm - Maximillion Kleene
03:00 pm - Torben Asp
04:00 pm - Lonnie Rocket

05:00 pm - Kim Seifert
06:00 pm - Paul Hedrick
07:00 pm - Bill and Pam Havercamp
08:00 pm - Truelie Telling
09:00 pm - Jaggpro McCann
10:00 pm - Melodee McDonnell
11:00 pm - CTM Underwood
Sunday 22nd June - SL times
00:00 am - Astromimus Randt
01:00 am - Ernst Edman
02:00 am - Artel Brando
03:00 am - Mash Rhode
04:00 am - Fyrm Fouroux
05:00 am - XanderNichting Writer
06:00 am - Lyn Carlberg
07:00 am - Pa Decosta
08:00 am - Quinton Whitman
09:00 am - Norris Shepherd
10:00 am BubbaC John
11:00 am - Barra Jonson
12:00 am -Starr Singer
01.00 pm - ATOMIC ( Blondie Tribute )
02:00pm - Cintura Torrente Boa
03:00pm - Freestar Tammas
04:00pm - Silas Scarborough
05:00pm - Kim Seifert/Silas Scarborough/FinalSaga Sodwind/Romote Hudson
06:00pm - CLOSEING- FAYANDRIA FOLEY AND DAVID JACOB

This will be an excellent event for a more than worthy cause, so if you find time on your hands and would like to hear some great live entertainment…. drop in and please don’t forget to make a donatation you can afford which will benefit the American Cancer Society.

May 2008 VTOR Author revenue split

TD Goodliffe — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:12:05 +0000

We split the revenue earned from this blog based on the number of posts/activity from the various VTOR authors and all monies this month have been paid in $USD. The following are the figures compiled for May 2008.

Based on a total of 7 posts and after site expenses the VTOR blog earned in April 2008: $29.24 USD. Our group elected to put Linden$500 or 5%, whichever is greater each month into a promotional fund which equals this month’s contribution: L$500 and a total promotional balance of: Linden$5,682. This left a balance to be split among those who posted in the group of: $27.37 USD as shown below.

# of posts - VTOR Author
May 2008
5 - Darius……..…………………….……= 71.43% = $19.55 USD
1 - TD Goodliffe….….…………..……= 14.29% = $3.91 USD
1 - JohnnyRS….….….…………..……= 14.29% = $3.91 USD
=====================
7 total posts ……………………..…..=100% = $27.37

To learn more about VTOReality.com and the authors visit the VTOR about page. If you’re interested in becoming one of the VTOR authors contact TD Goodliffe inside Second Life for details.

SciFi bringing hybrid mmorpg television show

Darius Sartre — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:08:59 +0000

The SciFi channel is bringing a hybrid MMORPG and television show. On one level, I’m pretty excited about this since this is exactly the type of audience participation that is needed now in television. Forget reality television. It’s like mixing World of Warcraft with American Idol.

SciFi has partnered with Trion World Network, which will do the gaming side of things and has some serious backers in this gaming corporation. There obviously are really good and bad things that could come from this experiment. Not only is it a high cost venture, but it has to be done correctly. The game in itself has to have a lot of politics and story lines that are already drawn out for each “race” or “nation”. There needs to be a team of writers that have not only written background stories of some of the NPCs that guide the story arc, but they also need to help guide it along in case it goes haywire since there is a television arc that is based off of it.

What’s interesting is that this reminds me a lot of the imagination realm of mudding back when I played Wheel of Time muds. The storyline was pretty much set, but depending on who the players were, it actually made it exciting in the same environment that the books but in a different parallel plane. Similarly, this could be a very exciting venture if the game itself is actually fun to play but on the flip side is complex enough to actually generate stories that can be episodic. Since there isn’t too much to go off of, no one really knows what this will be about except it’ll be futuristic Earth.

Personally? Post-apocalyptic is a much more imaginative than utopian. Just look at how Battlestar Galactica turned out. In fact, I’m sort of disappointed that they didn’t use this story, since it’s a good one. In not choosing an already made arc with defined good-bad roles, that makes extremely more difficult to write for and requires a talented staff that can improvise on the fly. Hats off the SciFi to try this but we’ll see if the end product flies.

Photo Credit: ( [ dg ] )

Dr. Mario Online RX coming to WiiWare

Darius Sartre — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:10:47 +0000

Dr. Mario is back! And coming to WiiWare! And hopefully it’s this week, since I’ve been craving Dr. Mario action since it was on the Super Nintendo.

It looks like while it does cost 1,000 Wii Points ($10USD), it does add some functionality that we all have been begging for back when we’ve heard of the Internet, but were too enthralled by the music to even care about playing more than two players. These days, you want as many people as you can stack on a large LCD screen TV. Truthfully, I could totally see sports bars setting up a nice 16 player competition all at once if the Wii allowed 16 people to play. Alas, we can only do four at a time. That’s okay. Small bar maybe.

In any case, this is definitely a joy for those that are caught in the early 90s and can’t let go. So let me go pop my red and blue pill call the doc in the morning.

Photo Credit: (nathangibbs)

Resident Evil 5 to have cooperative system?

Darius Sartre — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:18:57 +0000

No way. Say it’s true.

Rumor has it that Resident Evil 5 is going to come out with a cooperative campaign mode where players will be playing a campaign and other players can join in to help out with cover and shooting. When players drop from this mode, the AI takes over.

If this is indeed true, then this makes the game all the more interesting. Truthfully, with all of the high definition televisions and broadband that’s out there now, I’m surprised that you can’t do some sort of online campaign mode between the players locally, and with online. Something like Mario Kart Wii but a little less cutesy and a lot more just “kill the zombies” style play. Would be interesting since tactics, and weaponry would come into play and if it’s based on similar types of RE series games, you can’t just “come back” when you die like in Halo.

Having seen the graphics on RE5, I have to admit that if this rumor is indeed true, then we’re one step closer to action adventure games where people just join in on the fun during one person’s campaign mode. And that would definitely be crazy. Crazy fun that is.

Photo Credit: (nickstone333)

Disney launches DGamer service

Darius Sartre — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:36:11 +0000

Disney is now launching a service called DGamer aimed at younger gamers. Get it? D for Disney? Ah ha. I knew you would. And if you didn’t… we’ll need to talk afterwards. Anyways, it started out with the launch of The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian which basically incorporates in their DS games the WiFi connection capability to set up an account and interact directly with this network. You can do a bunch of things such as chat and earn honors in your DGamer games kind of like the things you can do with Xbox Live.

Another game is coming out for the wee-folk. Yes, during the holiday season, Disney will release Disney Fairies. This is pretty much minigame central type DS game, with a lot of accessorizing. Think of a Tamagotchi type game or Nintendogs, and it’s pretty much similar but in a fairy sort of way. Could very well capture the younger female demographic but unless you just have a fascination with all things Disney, there won’t be too many adults that get this for themselves.

Now the day they roll the DGamer service in with Pirates of the Caribbean, we might actually see a shift at trying to capture an older generation. Until then, look to having this for your younger siblings or kids.

Warhammer 40k MMORPG? WHA?

Darius Sartre — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:03:31 +0000

Whoa. This is some pretty fascinating news that Vigil is releasing this MMORPG. Why?

During the 1990s, one of the biggest things that have come out of the D&D era was Warhammer 40k. It was the coolest strategy board game due to the fact that you painted these mini-plastic and metallic pieces. I myself, owned a couple and had played Warhammer 40k and some of the PC and console games that have spun out of this trademarked name. Now, it seems like it’s going to take the expansive board game virtual. Which is actually pretty sweet.

Somehow or another, I have a feeling that if there is a box sold for this, the preorder might be a limited edition figurine as the bonus. Maybe it’s just me, but that would definitely grab a lot of the 40k players. Would definitely be curious as far as if each person would join as a ranking unit, or if players would be able to command legions. Either way, if done right, this could be extremely successful. Can’t wait. Can’t wait. Maybe it’s about time to dust off the figurines.

Photo Credit: (r3v || cis)

Lotro - Welcome back weekend

JohnnyRS — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:43:24 +0000

LOTRO, Lord of the Rings Online, is having a special weekend for previous players. If you have played this game before you will be able to log on with your account and play free through May 8th to May 12th. There’s been plenty of new updates since this game started a year ago. They also have a special new pricing for this month. You can pay for a 3, 6 or 12 month plan and get the special pricing of $9.99 a month! You can also pay for a lifetime subscription for $199. I’m sure there will be new players trying it out but I think AOC, Age of Conan, beta will still be a big draw for ones who have their key. I was lucky enough to get a key and I’ll be reviewing it soon.

LOTRO Welcome Back Page