Happenings

Upon returning from a quick skiing trip, I noticed I won the fourth prize at CK's Blog banter contest! Thanks a lot CK, my email address is seredsecondlife at gmail dot com. Looking forward to ordering some cool stuff from the Eve store!

This seemed a nice opportunity to change the blog template, too. The previous template worked fine for a while, but somehow it changed last week, probably due to a change at the Blogger side. I'm still fiddling with the layout. Not yet sure, for instance, whether I want to go to two columns or stay with three. Let me know what you think!

Finally, tomorrow my Second Life land fees are due. This is the best moment to check wether the land rentals are profitable or not, and I'm happy to report we are profitable once again! We're off to a good start in 2010; let's hope it stays this way.

Twinity: In the eye

Another visit to the London Eye. The view is nice, from up here..



Twinity has come a long way, in 2009. A much more stable client, three cities online, activities to do and an emerging community. Yet, there's always room for improvement, isn't there? Here's some suggestions!

The first one, is draw distance. In Second Life I can choose to set the draw distance to a large value. Of course it will take a lot of time to load the environment if you do so, but snapshots like this one would certainly improve:



The other thing is the day and night cycle. I understand why Twinity - a mirror world after all - would have a natural day and night cycle. But, given that I usually work during the day, it means I'm mostly confined to seeing dark cities.. Enjoying the city in broad daylight, or catching a sunset or sunrise for a particular picture is, to me, not always possible! That's why I would like to be able to override the default day and night cycle.

And I miss the fog. Especially with London not yet being finished, it might be a good idea to introduce some atmospheric haze. With a bit of haze in the air, loss of detail becomes a natural thing at larger distances; currently it looks like a texture that didn't load right. It would also serve to soften the hard edges of virtual London, where the city isn't finished yet. Especially when viewed from a higher viewpoint!

Finally: I would like some movement. Now that there's a London Eye, I'd like to ride it too! Same for the sightseeing buses strewn through virtual London. Why not let me hop on to one, and do an automatic guided tour through the city? Or a boat ride over the river Thames, through Singapore harbour, the Spree river in Berlin? This might actually require quite a bit of programming; I don't know how difficult it is to build this in Twinity. But would be a very valuable addition in my opinion.

See you in London!

Twinity expands virtual London

One of the most appealing parts of virtual worlds, is the ability to show world famous landmarks to anyone with a computer strong enough to run the necessary software. I can't afford to visit the Forbidden City in Beijing for instance, but I can get the gist of it through the virtual rendering, as you can see here. Another example: I have visited the Vatican's Sistine Chapel in real life, but in Second Life I could really take the time to appreciate the build, and view it from very unusual angles.

Twinity is perhaps the virtual world best suited to showing real world landmarks in a virtual setting. The platform also provides the opportunity to integrate the past and present, as Metaversum demonstrated when they celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Today, Twinity's virtual London became a lot bigger. Famous landmarks along the Thames river such as the Big Ben, the Westminster Abbey and the 'London Eye' became available. Due to family matters I couldn't spend too much time, and it was already evening, but here's a few snapshots of the Westminster Abbey and the London Eye, the way a real world tourist would never be able to view them. Enjoy!




More Twinity London snapshots: at my Koinup page as usual.

Second Life: Dutchie's houseboat

House boats are a common sight in larger Dutch cities, where many an old ship spends it's days converted into someone's living quarters. On my way to the office, I pass quite a few of them; some old and squalid, some pretty and well maintained. Dutchie decided to bring this local specialty to Second Life, and I must say I'm impressed with the results. The interior is beautifully done, the style matching what I'd expect a dutch houseboat to look like. I have owned houses before, but nothing comes close to this one! I am already looking for a place to put one, perhaps for rent via TBRentals. I think it looks best if there's a bit of room around it, though. Too bad I haven't got 1024m left in my tier or I'd do it immediately. Here's some snaps:




More snapshots: at my Koinup page. Want to see the houseboat for yourself? Pay a visit to Dutchie!

Eve Online: what's the appeal?

In a special edition of the Eve Blog Banter, CrazyKinux asks: Why do you love Eve Online so much?

Good question. I have been active in virtual worlds from mid 2006, when the Second Life hype hit. IBM went head first into virtual worlds, and I, being an IBM watcher and corporate blogger, followed suit to see what the fuss was all about.

I never was much of a gamer. I don't own a console and never bought a PC game; I never really made it past Minesweeper as far as PC gaming goes. And yet I have been in Eve Online for nearly two years, and I'm not about to leave; because Eve Online is, to me, one of the most interesting and advanced virtual worlds currently in existence. Let me explain why.

Mythology
Tranquility's single shard model allowed Eve Online to develop a coherent mythology, that is relevant to pilots every day. It's not just a nice backdrop for staging internet spaceship fights; New Eden wouldn't be the same without the lore. But this mythology not just found in the CCP written official history of New Eden; it is created anew, time and time again, by the pilots themselves. Epic clashes between major alliances, infamous heists, notorious characters, battles won and lost! It all adds to the player created lore. These are tomorrow's myths, to be narrated to n00bs in local and corp chat for years to come. It's possible in the continuum that is New Eden, but only there.

Economy
But other than impressive stories, the single shard has also given rise to an advanced economy. One of the things that make Second Life interesting, is that SL residents design unique objects. But there is no such thing as geographical distance which would necessitate transport, or which would allow trade hubs to evolve. And: in SL you can create anything out of thin air, meaning there's no raw materials to build from; there's almost no initial cost. New Eden's economy doesn't know unique objects, but distances really count, and raw materials are needed. Sources of these raw materials need to be exploited, ores transported and sold before goods are made, which can then be sold off. Hence the need for miners, freighters, industrialists, all making a living off the production of goods. It's much more developed and realistic than other virtual economies I've seen. All in all, I'd say Second Life has a market, but Eve Online has an economy.

Corps and alliances
Lots has been said about the social side of the capsuleers' universe. Here, too, the single shard design is instrumental in bringing about something special. New Eden's player driven infrastructure of corporations and alliances - and the dynamics of trade and conflicts between those - is what's keeping Eve Online alive and vibrant. It facilitates a lot of interesting and meaningful social interaction, and it also provides the framework of much of the player driven mythology mentioned above. And again, it wouldn't be possible - not on this epic scale at least - in a sharded environment.

World view
Another interesting point is Eve Online's world view. It's not pretty, but much of the real world - unfortunately - isn't either. Second Life has more of a sixties love & peace vibe, and while it's entertaining it doesn't always feel right to me - because I don't think humanity, in itself, is like that. Eve Online shows this darker side of humanity.

While writing this down, I realised I'm missing something here. There's more! Eve Online, interesting, fascinating, gritty and dark as it can be, is also beautiful to see, plain engaging, and often fun. In the end, that's what seals the deal, that's why I love Eve Online.

Eve Online: A different mindset

Helicity Boson penned a long, expletive filled rant detailing how much he hates the average carebear miner in Eve Online. I'm not a miner, but here's my thoughts on the subject.


Eve Online is often touted as a sandbox environment. Everyone’s free to choose their own direction! One of which is: being a miner. Miners provide much of the raw ore that keeps Eve’s industrialists occupied, and as such it’s one of the cornerstones of Eve’s economy – of which CCP is quite proud. I can’t state it with any certainty, but I don’t think Eve Online could sustain a meaningful economy without the miners. Yet the most vocal inhabitants of New Eden are those who chose a completely different career: the PVP pilots and pirates who insist it's fun to blow up these same miners.

From my point of view, there's a deeper difference in mindset separating the pirates from the miners, that's causing the strife between the two. Allow me to elaborate - I'll try not to be as long as Helicity, I promise ;-)

A while ago I read Edward Castranova's "Synthetic Worlds", which deals with virtual worlds, MMO games and such. Dating from 2006 it was, as far as I know, one of the first attempts at a scientific explanation of the MMO/virtual world phenomenon. Castranova describes four typical categories of inhabitants of these worlds: explorers, socializers, achievers and controllers. Explorers want to discover beautiful and new vistas, the new, the unexpected, "to boldly go..". Socializers seek the company, corp chat, doing stuff together. Achievers want to build value, hoard wealth, get somewhere the peaceful way. Finally, the controllers want to be in charge. They compete, defeat, dominate and if necessary decimate. And yet, in Castranova's words, "to them, it's all a sport".

I consider myself an explorer. I'm in New Eden to find out what's there, to try new things every now and then, to enjoy the scenery. I'm also a socializer, as I like the company, and I'm an achiever insofar that I want to be wealthy enough to replace anything I might lose. Most miners and industrialists (and mission runners) definitely fall in the socializers and achievers category. And pirates, well, I hate state the obvious, but they are of course the controllers of New Eden.

Speaking in Castranova's terms, socializers and achievers are really of a different mindset than the controllers, and these differences in mindset and character have always been a source of irritation between 'carebears' and 'griefers', in many an MMO game and perhaps in real life too. It's nothing new, really.

I recognize this difference, also. To me, personally, reading Helicity's rant is like reading the utterings of a completely alien mind. I can't for the life of me understand what's so funny about blowing up miners, why it's fun to deny some harmless n00b miner his achievement. I can't understand why he hates these people so much (apart from the insults hurled at him, that is). I don't understand why anyone would enjoy inflicting harm on (and triggering anger in) those hapless miners who are explicitly not looking for pvp. The whole concept is just alien to me. And frankly, I really doubt whether it's healthy to display so much hatred while, at the same time, saying 'it's all just a game, people' (as any controller would) to those who are angry with him.

So, even while I may not agree with Helicity - because I really don't recognize anything of his motives and urges - I can, in the framework of Castranova's descriptions, see where he's coming from. And I can also understand why an achiever type pilot would be hurt and confused with someone like Helicity blowing up their stuff. Achievers and controllers differ so much in mindset, world view and game perception, that they are almost mutually exclusive.

For achievers, the bad news is, that in the setting of New Eden, much of the game mechanics are geared to accommodate the Helicities, the controllers of space. There's (some) room for explorers and socializers, but achievers are, however important they may be for Eve's economy, very low on CCP's priority list. This is not an accident; this is by design.

CCP may probably have a low new player retention for achiever type pilots because of this, and because my own instincts are more akin to socializers/achievers than to controllers, I'm not happy with that. I have, earlier, advocated more protection for new players, perhaps in 1.0 space only. I still think CCP could financially benefit from that: it would make the learning curve more of a curve than, well, a virtual graveyard. But at the same time, I recognize it may be very hard to balance achievers and controllers in a better way, without hurting the whole premise of New Eden.

In the mean time.. fly safe, all :)

Eve Online: Roaming through nullsec

I rarely leave highsec. Lowsec is definitely not appealing; it's dangerous and not very rewarding to visit. Why even bother? Nullsec however is different, and I've wanted to visit it for a long time. I first went there a few months ago, and I made it a few jumps in, until I ran into Wensley who quickly ridded me of my vessel, pod and clone. He did, however, give me some advice on how to avoid warp bubbles the next time!

A few days ago I decided it was time for another go. I bought an Incursus, fitted it with cheap T1 stuff and set sail for Poitot, where Wensley killed me before. The first few jumps through lowsec and 0.0 were somewhat exiting as I had to dodge a few pirates, but pretty soon space became almost empty. Very few people in local, no chat, nothing. At one jumpgate a disabled mobile warp disruptor hung idle in space. In another system I got caught in a warp bubble again but there was no one to shoot at me; I drifted out of the bubble and jumped safely. Jump after jump, and nothing happens! Along the way I pick up some loot in an abandoned NPC wreck, which I put up for sale.

I stayed overnight at a station in A-SJ8X, at the edge of Syndicate, not certain whether to push for Cloud Ring or Outer Ring. Knowing I wouldn't be able to dock anywhere in Cloud Ring, which is currently owned by Ev0ke alliance, I opted for Outer Ring, which is an NPC region; anyone can dock there. But still, it was quite a trip as I had to do eleven jumps to get to the nearest Outer Ring station with a medical bay.

Leaving the station in A-SJ8X, I quickly jumped to the first Ev0ke owned system, 1-3HWZ in Cloud Ring. Most systems here are deserted; I noticed a few miners and an IT alliance pilot in local, but that was it. A few uneventful jumps brought me quickly and safely to IZ-AOB, the entry to Outer Ring. A few uneventful jumps. I pick up a few abandoned drones at a jumpgate. Then another series of uneventful jumps. Finally I am at my destination, 4C-B7X. This system seems to be quite busy; 26 in local, which is the most I've seen so far.

Frankly, I've been a bit disappointed by the lack of excitement. Most of the systems in Syndicate and Outer Ring I've visited, are more or less empty and there's just not that much going on there. Perhaps this is different in the other nullsec regions, but I haven't seen it yet..

Eve Online: searching for directions in 2010

Eve Online is, famously so, a sandbox environment which leaves almost all choices up to the pilot. What career to pursue, where to live and what to do: within the bounds of the setting of New Eden, you're in charge of your own destiny. That's why CrazyKinux, the Eve Online blogfather, poses the following question:

"As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves "What Now?" What will I attempt next? What haven't I done so far in EVE?"

My answer, very short: I don't know - yet. I have been a miner for a short while, but for most of my Eve career I have been a mission runner. Recently I have taken up the habit of exploring systems with scanner probes, discovering hidden npc PVE sites. I've also, occasionally, spent some time in wormholes. But what's next? I haven't decided yet.

I have been offered a spot in a wormhole mining team. But while I haven't ruled it out yet, I don't exactly see myself as a WH miner in the near future. I can also keep doing what I'm doing now: run missions, scan down complexes and such, together with corp mates or alone. Having relocated to Everyshore recently, I think that will be the short term plan, but for some reason I don't feel quite at home in Everyshore; not sure I'll stay here long term.

I would very much like to spend some time in a 0.0 corp, perhaps as a miner/ratter with some incidental PVP when necessary, but I don't really have anything in terms of PVP experience. Also, given that I have a family, a busy job and loads of other stuff going on, I really need to be in a 'real life comes first' corporation and alliance, which severely limits the options when it comes to moving to 0.0.

Finally, I'd hate to leave the alliance I'm a part of. It's not that big, but I've known these pilots for quite some time, and I wouldn't want to say goodbye at this moment.

So - short term, 2010 looks like it's going to be an extension of 2009, but I'm open for new developments. Who knows what will happen!

Second Life rental update

Late last year, I bought new land in Lutestring in order to create more rentals there. I provided the land, but most of the heavy lifting was done by Tropical Beach Rentals, and together we created a new project called "Lute Harbour". When it was ready, I really liked it and pretty soon the first tenants arrived. But after that, it didn't really pick up pace. Tenants came, some stayed, others left and we never got the occupancy rates we wanted or even needed. After a while we gained a few long term tenants, providing a solid financial basis, but still it's not what we needed. So after some prospective customer feedback and scant deliberation, the TBRentals team took out two of the smaller existing houses and created a new, larger house with a higher prim allowance. Let's see if that works..

One thing I've noticed, is a difference in tenants in the several regions where I own land. The homes in Fortimus Harbour and Timandra are often rented for a short period: most tenants pay per week. The occupants of Lute Harbour however, tend to pay for multiple weeks, often a month in advance. It would be interesting to know why!

Twinity: the end of London

When exploring Twinity Singapore for the first time, I wandered far enough from the city center to get to the point where the city, quite literally, stopped. Metaversum hadn't gotten around to building those remote parts of Singapore. I was looking at the seams of the city, so to speak! Today the same happened, but this time in London.


Somewhere between Picadilly Circus and Knightsbridge, near Green Park, the city ends abruptly. I was on my way to Hyde Park and Kensington, but it seems those areas haven't been built yet.

By the way, as I Tweeted before: from my admittedly anecdotal evidence, I'd say Twinity London is busier than Singapore, and perhaps Berlin as well.

More snapshots at my Koinup page.

My RL job in Eve terms

Yargok at Wherever I may Roam asks: 'how would your RL job be described in Eve terms'? Here's my attempt!

The aging yellow-and-blue public transportation shuttle drops me off at one of the regional traffic hubs. Even though this is isn't exactly known as the business heart of the area, this is where our headquarters are located. I am, after all, working at a financial institution of modest origins, founded by farmers, many years ago. When the fancy city banks wouldn't lift a finger to help them, these hardworking folks decided to help themselves: they created their own bank, much to the amusement of the city bankers. How the times have changed! When, recently, the aforementioned fancy city banks needed trillions of bailout ISK from any and all corp, alliance or empire that would try and rescue them, the modest farmers' bank didn't need any help at all. We're solid and we're going strong.

Before I dock up at my desk, I grab myself a quick coffee. Black, extra strong with just a little bit of sugar: that's my morning fuel. After logging on I check the vital signs of the transaction system I'm maintaining, usually even before I scan the incoming comms channels for stuff I should respond to.
All those traders, farmers and miners, selling and buying, attempting to make a few ISK: they can't operate without someone handling the ISK flow. And that's where I am, right on top of one of the main cash transport systems this bank has. Hundreds of thousands, millions, even billions of ISK change hands - daily - under our watchful eyes.


Not that I am a moneyman. On the contrary, I'm really bad at complicated constructions, small print, insurance clauses, tax forms and such afflictions of modern mankind. No, I'm one of the tech guys who keeps the wheels of this system turning. I have been for several years; I am, by now, one of the senior and most experienced team members. And the pay is pretty good, even in these times. What's not to like?

Twinity: London seesighting

Once, when visiting London with my parents, my mother mentioned she would like to do 'one of those seesighting tours'. We've been teasing her with it ever since!

Today, I planned on doing another guided 'seesighting' tour through London; this time one through Twinity's virtual London. This virtual rendering of the English capital has been open to the public for a few days now, but I haven't yet had the time to really check it out, and I thought I could use this tour to make up for that. Unfortunately, the preparations took a bit too long. Apparently, many people are still having issues with voice and sound, and they kept trying to fix it while I ran out of time, so I had to drop out. Hopefully another time..

Eve Online: Arraron gate

Here I am, waiting at the Arraron stargate in Chantrousse, enjoying the view of the ringed planet below. After the Dominion expansion, Eve is looking better than ever. See my Koinup page for more snapshots!

Eve Online: Dominion planet

One of my first snapshot of the Dominion expansion on the main Eve grid, Trinity.This one was taken on a laptop with a lower end GPU, but I still like it! Visually, the main changes of the Dominion expansion are the star fields and the planets. Here, my Minmatar destroyer flies past an earthlike planet.

More of my Dominion snapshots can be found at Koinup.

Eve Online: weekend billionaire

Today marks a special occassion: for the first time, my wallet contains more than one billion ISK. I'm a regular weekend billionaire, me! Of course I know there are traders, miners and such who make much more, but for a casual mission runner, it's not bad. Furthermore, it's more than the average Eve pilot has, according to the Q2 quarterly Economic Newsletter, which said the average Eve pilot has roughly something like 300 to 450 million ISK in cash.

Of course, now that I have this much ISK, I need to consider my options. Buying new ships? Rigs? Skills?

Speaking of which: I am now over 16 million skillpoints, as I completed Armor Compensation Explosive level 5 today. It was the last armor compensation skill I needed, I have all of them up to level 5 now. It seems I'm done learning the basic armor skills, as the certification system awarded me the Elite Armor Tanking certificate. Next up: shield skills! Currently working on shield management level 5, but that will take another 11 days.

Eve Online: A look at Dominion

After seeing the Dominion trailer at CK's, I thought I'd take a look at it myself. You can already get a preview on Eve Online's test environment, codenamed 'Singularity', even though the Dominion expansion is still a month away. Getting online was easy, using these excellent instructions by Cyleus Taestar, and so (after a bit of tinkering with directories, files, shortcuts and a 479 MB upgrade) I found myself flying through New Eden Dominion style. I must say I'm impressed by some of the art work on the planets and moons! Behold:




Some of the moons look very natural, almost like a reworked picture of our own moon.



Of course there's also the Gas Giants. We have those planets too, in our own solar system, and they often look a bit bland, as pictures of Saturn and Neptune show. New Eden's gas giants are true to nature in this regard, but that makes them a bit less attractive to see as well. Our own Jupiter is more colorful, and to my taste the New Eden gaseous planets that I have seen (only a few!) could have had a bit more 'Jupiter' in them.



By the way: all planets revolve naturally and on some of them I spotted thunderstorms.

New Eden's background skies, often consisting of nebulae and stars, also seemed to have undergone an upgrade but not as dramatic as the planets and moons.

Of course Dominion is more than just this artwork update, but so far I like what I've seen. I will definitely spend more time on Singularity in the coming weeks, if only to explore the New Eden we'll all get to see when Dominion is released.

-update- Added more snapshots to my Koinup Eve Online group.

Sinterklaas has arrived

Sinterklaas, the supposedly Spanish bishop Saint Nicholas dearly loved by every Dutch child, has arrived in the port of Schiedam earlier today, with his steamboat full of gifts for all wellbehaved children. He is of course accompanied by his trusted helpers, the Zwarte Pieten! In the coming weeks, Sinterklaas (often called 'Sint') and his helpers will spread presents and candy throughout The Netherlands. Sint rides his white horse over the roofs and houses, while his helpers deliver the good stuff: kids put their shoes by the chimney, and Zwarte Piet is supposed to climb down and put candy or small presents in them. Often kids will leave something nice for Sinterklaas' horse in return: a bit of water and a carrot or a sugar lump for instance.

On the evening of December 5th, Sinterklaas Evening is celebrated, with giving larger presents (both to kids and grownups), seasonal candy (chocolate letters!) and such. Often the extended family is involved, and a typical feature of this evening is, that the grownups write silly poems to go with the gifts. First you read the poem, in which someone usually sets you straight, teases you or mildy vents some frustrations; only after that you are allowed to open the present. Soon after December 5th, Sint leaves the country only to return mid November next year, when the whole ritual begins anew.

This children's feast is a real national tradition and has been celebrated in The Netherlands for hundreds of years. It (more or less) marks the start of the winter and to a lesser extend the christmas season over here. Our 'Sinterklaas' may also have been a source of inspiration for the American Santa Claus!

BlogHUD: an SL history book

The very first post on this blog, dated july 2nd 2007, is about me trying out BlogHUD, Koz Farina's blogging tool from within SL. I have been using it ever since, on and off. Looking back at my own BlogHUD archive, I wondered how many snapshots and blog entries there are at BlogHUD, and so I went to find the very first post. It took some effort, but as I write this, the oldest surviving post is on page 2731. It is 174 weeks, 2 days and 22 hours old!

Given that BlogHUD currently has 2731 archive pages, and that there are ten entries per page on them, there should be over 27.000 entries in Koz Farina's database. That is an astounding collection of chronologically ordered text and images in one place. It's a tremendous timeline! Browsing through it, familiar names and places drift by, some of them long gone, others still active. It's like a history book of Second Life, one I'm glad to be part of. I'll make sure to keep contributing, too!

SL Residential

Last night I was standing on a tower in Lutestring, looking in the direction of Timandra and Promissa and wondered how the view would be if I cranked up all my graphics settings to the max. After I did that, I waited for a few minutes for the view to fully rez, and here's the result:



These are generally residential sims, but the great variety in Second Life shows here as well. Towers, houses, water, mountains, beaches, clubs, a pirate ship, offices: it's all there. Too bad there's a 512 meter view range limit!

I'm going to do this again from another PC with a more powerful graphics card, see if the results get better.

The new rentals

Yesterday, Tropical Beach Rentals' Zena and Ronon prepared my new rentals in Lutestring. It's a nice bay, and so we decided to call it 'Lute Harbour'. I'm quite happy with the way they turned out! Hopefully tenants will like them too; occupancy is important, after all.

Speaking of which: my rentals are still doing relatively well. A month ago, we saw a serious drop in occupancy, but it seems to have been an incident and not a trend, as occupancy rates quickly rebounded to their usual, higher levels. Financially speaking this means I'm earning, but not much, just the tier with a few dollars margin. With Lute Harbour however, I have gone up in tier, and it will take a while before it's all rented, so it remains to be seen whether the coming months will be profitable at all. But, of course, that's the business risk I'll have to accept!