The 'Send Postcard' functionality in Twinity is actually easy to use, but doesn't allow you to hide the interface yet. But, so far, it's well done. A valuable addition to Twinity, in my opinion.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Eve Online: evaporating the rocks
I usually don't mine, but sometimes you just have to. Here a small asteroid almost vaporizes under the intense beams of my mining lasers.
embedded reality
It's obvious to many that gaming is here to stay. For instance, the most popular Dutch news site has a gaming section these days, and the gaming industry involves billions of dollars and euros.
And yet, games are, to many, 'just' games. It's not real, it's just a game! Well.. not entirely. It may be true for many games out there, but it's not true for MMO environments. Whether they be sandbox games like Eve Online, virtual worlds like Second Life or kid's adventures like RunEscape (which my not-yet-teenage-kids love btw), there's a human element in those games that sets them apart, elevates them from other games. It's not just you sitting behind your PC or game console; it's you and your guild members, your corporation, your enemies, your opponents and allies. There's politics, spying, buying and selling, trade and combat; there's madness, love and war, marriage and divorce, and the emotions all of these generate, the feelings involved are very real - and sometimes the monetary losses or gains are too.
This brings a human element to these environments which cannot be discounted too easily. Of course the MMO environments in which all this takes place is computer generated, and as such not 'real' in the common sense. But, more and more, I have
come to realise that there's a lot of reality embedded in these virtual worlds.
They are a canvas, upon which very real, human stories are painted.
And yet, games are, to many, 'just' games. It's not real, it's just a game! Well.. not entirely. It may be true for many games out there, but it's not true for MMO environments. Whether they be sandbox games like Eve Online, virtual worlds like Second Life or kid's adventures like RunEscape (which my not-yet-teenage-kids love btw), there's a human element in those games that sets them apart, elevates them from other games. It's not just you sitting behind your PC or game console; it's you and your guild members, your corporation, your enemies, your opponents and allies. There's politics, spying, buying and selling, trade and combat; there's madness, love and war, marriage and divorce, and the emotions all of these generate, the feelings involved are very real - and sometimes the monetary losses or gains are too.
This brings a human element to these environments which cannot be discounted too easily. Of course the MMO environments in which all this takes place is computer generated, and as such not 'real' in the common sense. But, more and more, I have
come to realise that there's a lot of reality embedded in these virtual worlds.
They are a canvas, upon which very real, human stories are painted.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Virtual conferences, again
Funny how, at the end of the hype cycle, stuff from the earlier days seems to return! One of the reasons for me to become a Second Life resident, was IBM's involvement; more specifically, the IBM Lotus guys seemed very active there. And again it's IBM and IBM Lotus people who pick up where they left off a while ago. A few weeks ago we noticed the IBM and Linden Labs case study on conferences in Second Life. And now, via Massively, we get the Beyond Blogging conference, organised by IBM's Jo Grant a.k.a. Jaymin Carthage. This conference is about..
This event is slated to take place on April 7 and 8, and it looks like it's going to be an interesting event. I plan to spend some time there, if I can! Tateru said, in her Massively writeup, that non IBM people who wish to attend, need an IBM sponsor, but, having read Jo's blog entry, I do not think that she's right. Non IBM people are free to attend, they just need an IBM sponsor if they want to present or speak at the conference.. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong!
But IBM isn't alone. The Clever Zebras are at it again, too: the third vBusiness Expo is planned for May 2009. I visited a lot of the sessions at vBusinessExpo 2008, and I still regard it as a changing experience, where the power of conferences and meetings in virtual worlds became obvious to me. Keep an eye on this one, and register if you can!
IBM:
..Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if we could do a conference where we could talk about what was important to use: how we use virtual worlds in our work and personal life.
This event is slated to take place on April 7 and 8, and it looks like it's going to be an interesting event. I plan to spend some time there, if I can! Tateru said, in her Massively writeup, that non IBM people who wish to attend, need an IBM sponsor, but, having read Jo's blog entry, I do not think that she's right. Non IBM people are free to attend, they just need an IBM sponsor if they want to present or speak at the conference.. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong!
But IBM isn't alone. The Clever Zebras are at it again, too: the third vBusiness Expo is planned for May 2009. I visited a lot of the sessions at vBusinessExpo 2008, and I still regard it as a changing experience, where the power of conferences and meetings in virtual worlds became obvious to me. Keep an eye on this one, and register if you can!
IBM:
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Patching is always hard
We've been through this before a dozen times if not more, on all sorts of games, platforms and virtual worlds: a patch upgrade initially often leads to instability, lagginess and other weird stuff. Today's massive Eve Online Apocrypha patch isn't any different. It works, but the universe is so laggy it's almost impossible to fly. Some of the new visuals are good, but CCP has some ironing to do before calling it a day. Meanwhile, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Good night!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
IBM rediscovers Second Life?
Tateru Ninu writes about a Linden Labs case study on how IBM successfully used Second Life for conferences and meetings, late last year. It's an interesting read, but somehow it feels out of place in 2009. It's like an echo from two years ago; this report could have been written during the 2006/2007 SL hype, when IBM Lotus even had a virtual LotuSphere conference (snapshot above). Yet, this report deals with events that happened in late 2008! It seems another part of IBM is only just now discovering what's possible in virtual world environments? Anyway it's good to see new initiatives coming from IBM, once again. A few quotes:
“The immersion [in Second Life] resulted in a very strange, yet compelling psychological effect, where part of me really felt like I was physically there."
And:
“When people woke up the morning after the virtual meetings and thought about the day before, it wasn’t like remembering a webcast or a phone conference. We truly felt as if we had attended a real-time meeting, interacting with others and carrying home practical information.”
This is something I recognize from last year, when I attended the Virtual Business Expo. It may seem unlikely for those who've never tried it, but Second Life really is a good place to hold a conference.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Star Trek roleplay coming in Second Life
Speaking of social space, via Hamlet, we get to take a look at the Star Trek roleplay environment being prepared in Second Life.
Social space
Many hardcore gamers have had difficulties in classifying Second Life, as it is not really a game. It’s an MMO of course, but without any gameplay! This is, incidentally, why always cringe a bit when someone says they "play" Second Life.
One of the categories that has been devised to classify Second Life and similar worlds, is ‘social world’ which nicely describes Second Life’s main attraction: interaction with other residents.
Eve Online is nothing like that, at least not yet. It’s a real game with gameplay, goals and rules, where pilots make a profit, get shot at and occasionally even get podkilled (not a permanent form of death, luckily).
And yet, Eve Online is not like the average MMORPG either. Eve’s single shard universe and it’s open design allow for interaction between all players online on any given moment, and a freedom of (career) choices and things to do that is really unique. There is almost no grind and, apart from some specific missions, there are very few linear paths you must follow. You get to do what you'd like to do within your possiblities, it's really up to you! In this regard, Eve Online shares the openness of social worlds like Second Life.
And I think will get even more social in the foreseeable future. For years now, there has been talk about "ambulation" or “walking in stations”, which is the ability in Eve Online to dock your spaceship at a station, leave your spaceship, walk to a bar or your captains' quarters and interact there with other avatars like the one depicted here. This is quite a big development, given that there has never been a true avatar in Eve Online! I have never seen more than my avatars' mugshot, which is on the login page, but this is set to change with “walking in stations”.
In development for years and repeatedly demonstrated, this development could potentially alter the way Eve Online is inhabited by it’s pilots, as it is truly a social innovation in the game, liberating the avatar from the spacecraft and allowing for more social interaction than already possible now. Certain parts of Eve Online – for instance the bars to be opened at the promenades of high security space stations – may soon resemble Second Life more than some of Eve’s hardcore pirates may find appealing. I wonder if that will lead to new usages of Eve Online? Will there be business meetings at a space bar, somewhere in Eve's near future? It's certainly possible, even though the current subscription structure prevents irregular casual use and makes such scenarios unlikely.
We don't know when "walking in stations" will hit Eve Online. I'm hoping for the first post Apocrypha expansion, which is set for late 2009, but CCP hasn't made any official announcements yet.
One of the categories that has been devised to classify Second Life and similar worlds, is ‘social world’ which nicely describes Second Life’s main attraction: interaction with other residents.
Eve Online is nothing like that, at least not yet. It’s a real game with gameplay, goals and rules, where pilots make a profit, get shot at and occasionally even get podkilled (not a permanent form of death, luckily).
And yet, Eve Online is not like the average MMORPG either. Eve’s single shard universe and it’s open design allow for interaction between all players online on any given moment, and a freedom of (career) choices and things to do that is really unique. There is almost no grind and, apart from some specific missions, there are very few linear paths you must follow. You get to do what you'd like to do within your possiblities, it's really up to you! In this regard, Eve Online shares the openness of social worlds like Second Life.
And I think will get even more social in the foreseeable future. For years now, there has been talk about "ambulation" or “walking in stations”, which is the ability in Eve Online to dock your spaceship at a station, leave your spaceship, walk to a bar or your captains' quarters and interact there with other avatars like the one depicted here. This is quite a big development, given that there has never been a true avatar in Eve Online! I have never seen more than my avatars' mugshot, which is on the login page, but this is set to change with “walking in stations”. In development for years and repeatedly demonstrated, this development could potentially alter the way Eve Online is inhabited by it’s pilots, as it is truly a social innovation in the game, liberating the avatar from the spacecraft and allowing for more social interaction than already possible now. Certain parts of Eve Online – for instance the bars to be opened at the promenades of high security space stations – may soon resemble Second Life more than some of Eve’s hardcore pirates may find appealing. I wonder if that will lead to new usages of Eve Online? Will there be business meetings at a space bar, somewhere in Eve's near future? It's certainly possible, even though the current subscription structure prevents irregular casual use and makes such scenarios unlikely.
We don't know when "walking in stations" will hit Eve Online. I'm hoping for the first post Apocrypha expansion, which is set for late 2009, but CCP hasn't made any official announcements yet.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Master the game: your attitude helps, too
For any MMO game or virtual world developer, attracting sufficient numbers of paying customers is a crucial part of running their business. There has to be a critical mass of players to keep the game going, and these players also have to foot the bills. After all, these developers are in it for the money, or at least they need enough of it to stay afloat!
That'ss why game developers keep a keen eye on user retention: what percentage of new users decides to stay?. It is often difficult enough to attract new players with free trials and such, and of the few people who come to give a product a spin, even less decide to spend money and stay around. Hence the interest in any games' new player experience: if it's too difficult to master the basics of the game, user retention will be low. For example, a friend of mine decided to try out Second Life, but after bumping aimlessly into trees and other dazed newbies for about thirty minutes, he just gave up, never to return.
Linden Labs has been struggling with this for years, but apparently they are not alone. CCP, Eve Online's creator, is ramping up an expansion to Eve which will feature a completely revamped new player experience, mostly to counter Eve Online's reputation as being notoriously hard to master.
To be honest, I didn't find Eve Online that hard. I didn't have any MMORPG experience at all, so I blamed the difficulties I encountered on myself, thinking it was my problem instead of Eve Online's! Perhaps this attitude allowed me to appreciate the game more than others, who might have expected an experience similar to games they played earlier. Being a total n00b sometimes does have it advantages!
But I think it's more than that. It's also an attitude thing! It's about a new players' willingness to accept a new game as is; it's about having an open mind to the new environment and it's possibilities or problems. It's also about having a certain curiousity and persistance, which helped me overcome the first hurdles in more than one environment. Perhaps something to keep in mind, the next time you try out a new game?
Unfortunately for game developers though, they can't expect the average user to be so forgiving. Hence the need for exquisitely honed and perfectly balanced new player experiences..
That'ss why game developers keep a keen eye on user retention: what percentage of new users decides to stay?. It is often difficult enough to attract new players with free trials and such, and of the few people who come to give a product a spin, even less decide to spend money and stay around. Hence the interest in any games' new player experience: if it's too difficult to master the basics of the game, user retention will be low. For example, a friend of mine decided to try out Second Life, but after bumping aimlessly into trees and other dazed newbies for about thirty minutes, he just gave up, never to return.
Linden Labs has been struggling with this for years, but apparently they are not alone. CCP, Eve Online's creator, is ramping up an expansion to Eve which will feature a completely revamped new player experience, mostly to counter Eve Online's reputation as being notoriously hard to master.
To be honest, I didn't find Eve Online that hard. I didn't have any MMORPG experience at all, so I blamed the difficulties I encountered on myself, thinking it was my problem instead of Eve Online's! Perhaps this attitude allowed me to appreciate the game more than others, who might have expected an experience similar to games they played earlier. Being a total n00b sometimes does have it advantages!
But I think it's more than that. It's also an attitude thing! It's about a new players' willingness to accept a new game as is; it's about having an open mind to the new environment and it's possibilities or problems. It's also about having a certain curiousity and persistance, which helped me overcome the first hurdles in more than one environment. Perhaps something to keep in mind, the next time you try out a new game?
Unfortunately for game developers though, they can't expect the average user to be so forgiving. Hence the need for exquisitely honed and perfectly balanced new player experiences..
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Shiny new hardware
Last friday, I picked up my old server from our local computer shop. They helpfully transformed it for me into a new family pc, complete with ATI HD3800 gpu and a 19 inch widescreen monitor. And yes, it does make a huge difference when compared to the laptop I used before! Especially the Eve Online graphics are much better. Unfortunately I haven't been able to enter Second Life on it yet; each time I try, the graphics driver crashes. Any hints would be welcome..
Meanwhile, here's a shot from Eve Online. It shows the shark fin or mohawk on top of my Myrmidon battlecruiser, which reflects the dust and gas clouds surrounding it, complete with the greenish colour of the skies in this particular system. The level of detail is really stunning, especially when viewed in large format of course!
Meanwhile, here's a shot from Eve Online. It shows the shark fin or mohawk on top of my Myrmidon battlecruiser, which reflects the dust and gas clouds surrounding it, complete with the greenish colour of the skies in this particular system. The level of detail is really stunning, especially when viewed in large format of course!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Twinity: homebase lounge
This is Twinity's Homebase Lounge in Berlin, where some of the Berlinale film festival activities take place. Unfortunately there's no activities planned for tonight; hence it remains quiet here for the time being.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Twinity goes mixed
In a couple of days, Berlin will be host to the Berlinale Film festival, and Twinity's virtual Berlin takes part in several activities. There will for instance be live streams from events, but also a mixed reality panel discussion which will, in both worlds, take place at the same location! Mixed reality events have of course been done before, in Second Life and probably some other venues as well. But, as far as I know, it's a first mirror mixed event for Twinity. The fact that it's not only mixed but also mirrored is quite interesting as well; I wonder if this a first, for virtual worlds in general? Good for Twinity, as an event like this a natural fit with their mirror world philosophy! Here's a quote from a press release they emailed to Twinity's citizens:
"A particular highlight of these exclusive Berlinale livecasts is the 'Akademie Breaks' panel "Because they know what they are talking about – How first hand film teaching inspires!" with Michael Ballhaus, Thomas Binotto, and Peter R. Adam. This panel discussion will be held on 11 February in the real and the virtual HomeBase Lounge in Twinity simultaneously. The Twinity 3D community can catch the entire 'Akademie Breaks' program, organized by the German Film Academy from 09 - 12 February, and the event series 'DigiDays' live in the virtual HomeBase Lounge. "
Even though I'm not much of a film fan, I plan to take a look next week to see how it works out. See you there, perhaps? If you plan on visiting, make sure to start on time; installing Twinity and getting used to the interface isn't that hard, but it takes a while to load the virtual Berlin environment if you go there for the first time.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Lost Body
There's something eerie and artistic about this Twinity snapshot.. this poor fellow lost several bodyparts in Twinity's virtual Berlin. He didn't respond to my enquiries, so perhaps he lost his tongue too :)
Saturday, January 24, 2009
A carebear with claws
Tonight I had a little bit more excitement in Eve Online than I initially bargained for: someone very nearly destroyed my Myrmidon. If that would have happened, I wouldn't have survived either.
But first, let's go back a bit. I bought this ship a few days ago, because the Vexor cruiser I was flying just didn't have what it takes for some of the more heavier missions. The Myrmidon is more resilient and has more options, so I bought one, fitted the modules I was allowed to use or saw fit, and did my first level 3 mission. That mission happened to take place in a 0.4 system, which makes every pilot there fair game for pirates, griefers and other scum. Between 0.5 and 1.0 systems are reasonably safe (with 0.5 as least safe and 1.0 as the safest) because Concord provides a certain degree of protection against these guys, but below 0.5 that's no longer the case.
After this mission I returned to this 0.4 system and even though I knew it wasn't secure, I was still quite shocked when another pilot locked on to me and opened fire, completely unprovoked. I tried to warp out but that wouldn't work; the other guy used a warp scrambler which effectively disabled my engines. I was dead in the water! There was no option but to fight and as fast as I could I enabled my damage control and armor modules, while simultaneously returning fire and launching my scout drones. So the battle was on and initially it didn't look good for me, as I lost shields and armor in a quicker pace than he; I just couldn't match his firepower. It seemed to be only a matter of time before I lost my ship and lots of my possessions. Then I remembered to enable my armor repair units and that seemed to turn the battle; my armor held steady, while his was quickly blown away.
In the mean time, I completely lost control over what was going on around me. Our ships, our drones, and then to my surprise someone elses ship and drones circled one another, exchanging rapid fire at only a few thousand meters apart. I couldn't figure out who the third ship was, or who exactly was firing at whom, but I assumed I had a whole gang of pirates blasting away at me - and yet my armor held, while the assailant's didn't!
After two or three agitated minutes, the enemy exploded, which broke the warp scramble, so I attempted another warp at the nearest stargate. Ordinary, after a kill, one would try to loot and salvage or at least take the other guys' drones, but I was happy to be alive and completely unsure about the third persons' intentions so I just tried to get out as fast as I could. As luck would have it the third person didn't scrable my warp and I got out - in one piece. I survived a PVP encounter!
Later, while checking the Battleclinic killboards, I found out that the third person was not fighting against me, but with me. He was the one who destroyed the enemy; he inflicted significantly more damage. I don't know why he sided with me, but he saved me, and for that I am grateful.
A little while later, I returned in a fast and small frigate to see if there was anything left to loot or salvage. I found the enemies' drones still flying around, so I quickly scooped those to my cargo hold and flew back home.
I've learned a valuable lesson: trust no one in space if you're in low sec sectors - i.e. anything below 0.5. And, even when you're a carebear, remember to bring your claws.. they may save you one day!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Twinity: Mirrors
This Twinity room looks a lot bigger than it actually is, because of the large mirror on the wall in the back. I'm in there too! I can't remember seeing mirrors in Second Life, by the way. Do those even exist?
Been there done that? Nope
I just read up on Jeran Tek's epic trek across all of the EVE Online universe - yes, all 5000+ systems. A great achievement, for which he got a nomination for the E-ON Magazine Award 2009. I never quite realised how big this place really is! Here's the map of the entire EVE galaxy; the grey dots are systems I haven't been to yet. Still lots of room for exploration!
I can't imagine something like this in Second Life, though. In SL, the map changes continuously as islands are added or vacated; buyers change the names of the regions they just bought on a whim. But then, Second Life isn't intended for travel or exploration, even though there are some really nice places to explore.
I can't imagine something like this in Second Life, though. In SL, the map changes continuously as islands are added or vacated; buyers change the names of the regions they just bought on a whim. But then, Second Life isn't intended for travel or exploration, even though there are some really nice places to explore.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Koinup
I have, for quite some time, been publishing snapshots of all sort of virtual worlds at Flickr, and I'm quite happy about the service there. The tooling is sufficient for me, generally it's not too difficult to get things done, and there's a sizeable (potential) audience. Yet, something is missing: an audience!
Flickr is not really geared towards the virtual audience; it's aimed at real world photograps. At Flickr, you're welcome with your Second Life snapshots, but it's not what Flickr is really about. For a while I was wondering if I should stick to Flickr or if I should look for another service, and in response to a blog item about that dilemma, a reader of this blog pointed be to Koinup. After checking it out I decided to give Koinup a go, and so far, the results are positive. The audience at Koinup is specifically interested in virtual worlds, meaning there's quite a bit of interest, even in non regular virtual worlds like Eve Online where I am currently quite active. In plain language: my snapshots get more eyeballs, and I am happy with that.
An added bonus: one can automatically have the snapshots uploaded to Flickr as well, so even when I'm not really paying attention to Flickr, my pictures still end up there too.
So for those of you who have an interest in sharing visual impressions (pictures, but also movies for instance) of virtual environments: give Koinup a try!
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Second Life and Eve Online market comparison: geography
One of the more interesting areas of virtual worlds, is their economy. Much has been said about that in recent years, most of it by people much smarter than I. But, living in multiple virtual worlds makes for some interesting observations, and today I’d like to make some comparisons between two virtual worlds I’m familiar with: Second Life and Eve Online. More specifically, I'd like to discuss the impact of geography on the markets in those worlds. And I'll throw in some Twinity as well; the picture here was taken in Twinity's Wundervoll underwear store.
Second Life shortcuts
Before entering Second Life, I imagined it to have cities, more or less like real life: concentrations of people, goods and services, lots of these available (preferrably) within walking distance. Pretty soon however I realised that almost no one walks to a shop in Second Life. Instead, you'll look for something in the Second Life viewer's search menu, and when you find it, you teleport to the location where the item is on offer. Once there, you make your purchase and teleport out again; sometimes you’ll shop a bit in the neighbourhood if you see something appealing nearby, but usually it ends there. Granted, there are a few (RPG or themed) villages where one might find multiple shops, and there are shopping malls, but the main locator for goods or services is still the search directory. This means there’s no need to physically concentrate shops or services; hence, there are no real large shopping or trade hubs in Second Life as far as I know of. Shopping is not driven or constrained by geography; it's governed by the search directory.
New Eden's rocky roads
In EVE Online, the situation is much different. The EVE galaxy (called New Eden) is divided in some 5000 solar systems, connected by stargates which allow pilots to travel between them. Solar systems are grouped into regions, regions in empires. Each region has it’s own market for goods, because in New Eden, geography is a factor: travel and transport take real time! Flying from stargate to stargate, jumping from system to system, a trip from one place to another may take a lot of time (perhaps even more than an hour), and there's no shortcut or instant teleportation like in Second Life. Add in the constraints on the amounts of goods ships can carry (not everyone can transport large amounts of goods in the cargo hull) and the risks of low security systems where you might be ambushed by pirates, and it will be clear that in EVE Online’s marketplace geography is a strong factor, much like real life I might add. Most people are lazy, they are willing to pay a bit more if they can get an item here and now instead of flying around the galaxy to acquire it. they just prefer to buy their goods as close by as possible, for a acceptable price of course.
Lorry drivers in space
And this is also why Eve Online has a logistical sector and professional traders, the haulers and merchants of space. Price differences between certain items in different regions can make for good trade! Buy low in this region, sell high in another.. merchants and traders know these differences and act upon them. Other players do the transport of these trade goods, they are the lorry drivers of space, flying their enormous freighers from station to station. They will - if the price is right - transport the trade goods throughout Eve Online, as per the agreed contracts. In Second Life, you'd just transfer stuff from your inventory to another person's, but in Eve Online, real transport is involved, and real players accept the transport contracts offered by traders and haul the goods and materials all over Eve Online for a real reward.
Natural change
Still, even with all the hauling and trading going on, supply and demand will vary per system or region and, more or less naturally, certain systems will emerge as preferred places to do trade. And so, Eve Online has real trade hubs: well known across New Eden are places like Jita, Oursulaert and Dodixie for instance. But most regions too have their hotspots; regional hubs with less appeal and a smaller market, but still interesting places to sell your stuff. These days, I sell most of my goods at Alentene, a regional trade hub of the Verge Vendor region.
Interesting things happen to trade hubs. They were not intentionally created or maintained to be hubs. They just happened, probably because of the circumstance which the gameplay made possible, for instance the availability of good mission agents or the opportunity to do factional warfare. This means they are not static, and changes in the circumstances (gameplay) will affect their regional and supraregional markets. Todays’ busy trade hub may be a quiet backwater in a years’ time. As alliances and balances of power shift, as corporations, agents or certain types of gameplay move to different systems, pilots and merchants might find themselves compelled to move to greener pastures in order to keep their businesses going, and within a short time, the place may be virtually deserted. A natural process, which has happened uncounted times on planet earth, repeats itself in New Eden.
Twinity
So where does Twinity fit in? Is geography a factor? How about teleportation? As said before, Twinity attempts to be a mix between real and virtual life. Twinity does have virtual recreations or real world cities: Berlin most notably, but there's talk about Singapore and London as well. If you own a store in the real Berlin, you can hire the same spot in Twinity's Berlin as well, and you can sell virtual copies of your original goods there. You can teleport to this location, but geography is still a factor; not in terms of distance, but certainly in terms of location.
In a next post (expected later this weekend) I want to explore some more differences between these three virtual environments!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Profit!
My land tier fees are due on the twelfth of each month. I really didn't have an idea of how much Lindens I was earning and how much the whole operation set me back, so I decided to create a baseline. I would sell off all my L$ just prior to the tier billing date, so I would start the next period with no L$ and no credit. That way I would be able to determine whether it costs me money and if so, how much!
So, on 11 December, I sold off all my Linden Dollars, and fell just three dollars short to cover that months' land tier cost. Close, but a few Lindens short! Today, though, the situation is different: my account now holds enough Linden Dollars to cover the monthly land tier, and I still have 11 days (or about one third of the tier period) left to earn even more. It looks like this is going to be a profitable month after all!
To be honest, there's 1200 L$ stipend money included in the current account balance. Without that, I'm still a few L$ short, but I think that will be compensated in the next ten days or so. Other than the stipend, there were no other expenses or income, so it's easy to figure out where I stand with regards to earning back the tier fee.
Still a few hours removed from 2009, I wish you all the best, in the virtual and the real. Let's hope it's going to be a good year for all of us!
So, on 11 December, I sold off all my Linden Dollars, and fell just three dollars short to cover that months' land tier cost. Close, but a few Lindens short! Today, though, the situation is different: my account now holds enough Linden Dollars to cover the monthly land tier, and I still have 11 days (or about one third of the tier period) left to earn even more. It looks like this is going to be a profitable month after all!
To be honest, there's 1200 L$ stipend money included in the current account balance. Without that, I'm still a few L$ short, but I think that will be compensated in the next ten days or so. Other than the stipend, there were no other expenses or income, so it's easy to figure out where I stand with regards to earning back the tier fee.
Still a few hours removed from 2009, I wish you all the best, in the virtual and the real. Let's hope it's going to be a good year for all of us!
Retention in Second Life and Eve Online
Of course, the tens of thousands of experienced EVE Online pilots didn't start out like that. They all started as a rookie, piloting their first fragile frigate ship through the insecure depths of space. Yet they managed to get through the first days and weeks, they managed to acquire the necessary skills and the money to buy better ships, they found a corporation and decided to stay. These first steps are notoriously hard; EVE Online has a reputation for having a steep learning curve for newbie pilots. Especially without the help of more experienced pilots, conquering EVE can be a daunting task.
SL retention
We know that the retention rate for Second Life is about one in ten, meaning that about ten percent of all newly created accounts will become active members of the SL community; the rest will not. In other words, nine out of ten people who try SL decide not to stay in world, even though it costs nothing. Linden Labs has been trying to get this percentage up, for instance by changing the welcome islands, by trying out a new welcome page. It's even one of the top 'strategic initiatives' of M Linden's End of Year blog post.
Eve Online retention
I think the retention rate for EVE Online may even be lower than one out of ten, given the steep learning curve mentioned earlier. Also a factor is that EVE Online doesn't know free accounts. There's a 14 day trial; but after that you need to pay for your game time, somewhere between 11 to 15 Euro a month depending on your subscription plan. That may be asking quite a bit. Yet, googling around for hard data, there's plenty indications that EVE has a high retention rate, and there is data from the 2003-2006 timeframe that suggests that retention amongst the first EVE pilots was quite high at the time. But, I haven't found hard data concerning the retention rate amongst trial accounts in, say, 2007 or 2008. If anyone has it, I'd appreciate it.
Making the most..
Luckily for rookie pilots, help's on the way. Massively just published a nice EVE Online newbie guide: EVE Evolved: Making the most of your EVE Online free trial. It contains some useful advice; stuff I'd like to have known when I was a rookie pilot. If you want to check out EVE Online, reading this guide would be a good start. A trial account is available by clicking on the banner to the left!
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Christmas
Today it's Christmas. In a couple of minutes we'll go to church; I'll be taking a look at the spiritual instead of the virtual. After that it's a family Christmas dinner; we all prepare something for that. We usually eat well, but not too excessive! For me, Christmas is a holiday of faith and family, which I enjoy again year after year.
I hope the same goes for you too; I wish you all a good Christmas. Take some time off and reflect!
I hope the same goes for you too; I wish you all a good Christmas. Take some time off and reflect!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Flickr or here?
I've always enjoyed taking screenshots about the virtual world stuff I was doing, whether it was experimenting with the SL Windlight betas, OpenSim, Twinity or Eve Online. Most of these snapshots ended up on my Flickr page and in several Flickr groups. I wonder whether that's sufficient, though. If I want to share these with a wide audience, is it enough to keep it on Flickr, or should I create a separate blog to post these snapshots to?
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Are you a stereotype gamer?
Something that’s been bothering me for a while now, is the way many non gaming people view gaming. My parents, wife and kids for instance didn’t get (at first) why I was in Second Life; they worried about why any sane person would want to spend time in this (as they saw it) useless, fake, oversexualized environment. Then I started playing EVE-Online and again they worried, why is a grown up man spending time playing a game? Several times I needed to justify my behaviour, especially to people not really familiar with my gaming pattern. The strange thing is that, if I had spend those hours sitting in front of the television, most people would have found that perfectly normal behaviour.
Yet, for me, gaming (in the broadest sense, so ranging from Second Life to Twinity to EVE-Online and even hobbying with OpenSim) has been an active, stimulating and rewarding experience. It’s about enjoying the social aspects, about meeting new people and being part of a team. It’s also about being active on an intellectual level: exploring, learning new concepts, understanding people and processes. It’s about satisfying my curiosity at multiple levels. It's about doing things and achieving results, although that is not a big issue for me; achieving something is often a means, but it’s not usually a goal in itself. I am happy to get to a new level of missions in Eve Online, because it means new experiences, not because I have an inherent drive to reach that level. Same with my land rental business in Second Life: it’s an experience I want to have, something I want to try; I don’t need to achieve a goal with it (i.e. I don't need to make lots of money). In EVE Online, this makes me a ‘carebear’ by the way.
I rarely watch TV anymore these days. With my wife I sometimes watch series like the English detective series Frost, or stuff like CSI and Bones, because that's what she likes. A few times a month I spend some time on Discovery, NGC or (I admit it!) the Comedy Channel, but that's about it really; most TV isn't worth my time as far as I am concerned. To quote Roger Waters: "I Got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from.."
So why is sitting idly in front of the television considered normal or acceptable social behaviour, while spending the same amount of time playing an MMO is regarded as slightly weird? I think that this has a lot to do with the stereotype of a gamer as a lonesome, overweight geek living in his parents' basement; who wants to be identified with that!
Yet this stereotype is far from accurate these days, according to this BBC article. One of the trends the BBC notes, is the rising numbers of female gamers; something I can confirm personally, as my thirteen year old niece, my nine year old daughter and most of her friends think it's perfectly normal to play Runescape, Habbo Hotel and the likes. The BBC says it has something to do with the social nature of the average MMO, which requires different skills and appeals to a different audience than standalone console games, and I think they're correct.
Perhaps it's time for the non gaming population to notice something's changed. The socially inept and the loners aren't MMO gaming these days; they are probably watching TV!
Yet, for me, gaming (in the broadest sense, so ranging from Second Life to Twinity to EVE-Online and even hobbying with OpenSim) has been an active, stimulating and rewarding experience. It’s about enjoying the social aspects, about meeting new people and being part of a team. It’s also about being active on an intellectual level: exploring, learning new concepts, understanding people and processes. It’s about satisfying my curiosity at multiple levels. It's about doing things and achieving results, although that is not a big issue for me; achieving something is often a means, but it’s not usually a goal in itself. I am happy to get to a new level of missions in Eve Online, because it means new experiences, not because I have an inherent drive to reach that level. Same with my land rental business in Second Life: it’s an experience I want to have, something I want to try; I don’t need to achieve a goal with it (i.e. I don't need to make lots of money). In EVE Online, this makes me a ‘carebear’ by the way.
I rarely watch TV anymore these days. With my wife I sometimes watch series like the English detective series Frost, or stuff like CSI and Bones, because that's what she likes. A few times a month I spend some time on Discovery, NGC or (I admit it!) the Comedy Channel, but that's about it really; most TV isn't worth my time as far as I am concerned. To quote Roger Waters: "I Got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from.."
So why is sitting idly in front of the television considered normal or acceptable social behaviour, while spending the same amount of time playing an MMO is regarded as slightly weird? I think that this has a lot to do with the stereotype of a gamer as a lonesome, overweight geek living in his parents' basement; who wants to be identified with that!
Yet this stereotype is far from accurate these days, according to this BBC article. One of the trends the BBC notes, is the rising numbers of female gamers; something I can confirm personally, as my thirteen year old niece, my nine year old daughter and most of her friends think it's perfectly normal to play Runescape, Habbo Hotel and the likes. The BBC says it has something to do with the social nature of the average MMO, which requires different skills and appeals to a different audience than standalone console games, and I think they're correct.
Perhaps it's time for the non gaming population to notice something's changed. The socially inept and the loners aren't MMO gaming these days; they are probably watching TV!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
OpenSim, OpenGrid, HyperGrid
Despite all the bits and pieces of information floating around, I have not been able to build a working OpenSim environment on a 64 bits CentOS server. Luckily I still have a 32 bits Linux rental too so I just reverted back to that environment, and got both my sims (the Open Grid beta sim and the standalone OpenSim which the kids use) back online in a snap.
OpenSim is doing fine these days, it's picking up steam as more parties begin to use it for serious stuff, as this post by Vint Falken shows.
But, the question on how the open grid will look like is not answered, and I think it won't be in quite some time.
Open Grid
One of the architectural directions that's being pursued, is the Open Grid Beta being done by Linden Labs with cooperation of the OpenSim dev team. The Open Grid beta is the result of the work of the Architecture Working Group, again a Linden sponsored effort. OGP has been successfully beta tested. In the Open Grid, you can teleport to any Open Grid enabled sim, provided that you know the address, but the current implementation does not support inventory yet. OGP is not only server side, there's also some client side work being done. In recent weeks it has been a bit quiet with OGP.
Hyper Grid
And then, there's this: The OpenSim HyperGrid, explained and discusses by Justincc here. It deals explicitly with inventory and looks to be server side only. One of the confusing things of Hyper Grid is, that world maps may change from region to region, as grid admins create their own grid maps. If you are in my region and you check the world map, you may see my region bordering on one from OSGrid. But if you teleport to that OSGrid region and then check the world map once you're there, you may never see mine! This allows for great flexibility but also for confusion.
Which one will it be, Hyper Grid or OGP? I'm not sure and I don't think anyone is. Perhaps we'll end up with a bit of both as they both have their strong sides. Hyper Grid has some issues to solve regarding protection of copyrights for objects in inventory, but it looks like the most 'open' solution. OGP is backed by Linden Labs and may in the future give access to Linden Labs owned grids, which is definitely interesting, but inventory hasn't been dealt with at all at this moment.
I tried to Hyper Grid enable by Open Grid Beta sim yesterday. that wouldn't work due to configuration issues, but I am certainly going to try again. Wouldn't that be interesting, a OpenSim that is both HyperGridded and OGP enabled?
OpenSim is doing fine these days, it's picking up steam as more parties begin to use it for serious stuff, as this post by Vint Falken shows.
But, the question on how the open grid will look like is not answered, and I think it won't be in quite some time.
Open Grid
One of the architectural directions that's being pursued, is the Open Grid Beta being done by Linden Labs with cooperation of the OpenSim dev team. The Open Grid beta is the result of the work of the Architecture Working Group, again a Linden sponsored effort. OGP has been successfully beta tested. In the Open Grid, you can teleport to any Open Grid enabled sim, provided that you know the address, but the current implementation does not support inventory yet. OGP is not only server side, there's also some client side work being done. In recent weeks it has been a bit quiet with OGP.
Hyper Grid
And then, there's this: The OpenSim HyperGrid, explained and discusses by Justincc here. It deals explicitly with inventory and looks to be server side only. One of the confusing things of Hyper Grid is, that world maps may change from region to region, as grid admins create their own grid maps. If you are in my region and you check the world map, you may see my region bordering on one from OSGrid. But if you teleport to that OSGrid region and then check the world map once you're there, you may never see mine! This allows for great flexibility but also for confusion.
Which one will it be, Hyper Grid or OGP? I'm not sure and I don't think anyone is. Perhaps we'll end up with a bit of both as they both have their strong sides. Hyper Grid has some issues to solve regarding protection of copyrights for objects in inventory, but it looks like the most 'open' solution. OGP is backed by Linden Labs and may in the future give access to Linden Labs owned grids, which is definitely interesting, but inventory hasn't been dealt with at all at this moment.
I tried to Hyper Grid enable by Open Grid Beta sim yesterday. that wouldn't work due to configuration issues, but I am certainly going to try again. Wouldn't that be interesting, a OpenSim that is both HyperGridded and OGP enabled?
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Rental update
For those of you who think I only fly around in Eve's space ships, shooting bad guys and generally enjoying the corporation's company: you are almost, but not quite entirely, correct! I am of course still a Second Life resident too, and one that owns a few parcels of land at that. My rentals are doing fine; occupancy is usually high these days. This was a fortnight ago:
Yes, this is 100% occupancy! Zena Silverstar and her team of Tropical Beach Rentals made some improvements in the way communications, business and other affairs with tenants are handled, and this has so far been a successful change. After selling my Linden Dollars on the LindEx, the December land tier was almost paid for; it's going to be interesting to see what will happen in Januari.
Yes, this is 100% occupancy! Zena Silverstar and her team of Tropical Beach Rentals made some improvements in the way communications, business and other affairs with tenants are handled, and this has so far been a successful change. After selling my Linden Dollars on the LindEx, the December land tier was almost paid for; it's going to be interesting to see what will happen in Januari.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Eve Online - A frozen corpse
Sometimes, it just doesn't end well.. a frozen corpse floats in space, a victim of the pirates I just exterminated. I came too late to rescue this one..
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Eve Online - In Amarr space
This station is Zoar and Sons Factory, Ashokon XII. This is Amarr space where I don't usually stay, but I need to run some Amarr missions to get my standings with them and the Caldari up a bit.
As an upside, Amarr agents give new missions and enemies and also some new loot. And it's only four jumps to my main residence in Alentene, where most of that stuff brings in good ISK!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Want to try Eve Online?
I am again having a good time in the Eve Online universe, enjoying the beautiful scenery, the company of my corporation fellows while shooting and being shot at by belt rats, rogue drones and incidentally my friends during corporation PVP, all the while earning money by destroying said drones or rats and salvaging and looting their wrecks.
For those who want to give that a try too: I have invitations for 21 day trials, a week longer than the default 14 days you get on www.eve-online.com. Email me or post a response here, then I'll send you an invite. Sign up, join the Trader's Academy Corporation and have fun out there!
Obviously, there's something in it for me too. If you sign up for a paid account after the trial, I get free game time :-)
For those who want to give that a try too: I have invitations for 21 day trials, a week longer than the default 14 days you get on www.eve-online.com. Email me or post a response here, then I'll send you an invite. Sign up, join the Trader's Academy Corporation and have fun out there!
Obviously, there's something in it for me too. If you sign up for a paid account after the trial, I get free game time :-)
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Eve Online: how to sell your stuff
Yesterday, fellow Trade Academy pilot Zach Starcrusher and I had a discussion on trading goods. When I just started out in Eve, I used to sell everything if the highest buying offer was above regional average - in other words, if behind the price the green text " xx % above regional average" was printed, I would sell immediately.
After a while I realised, that I was selling to the highest offered *buying* price, which is often much less as the price other eve pilots are willing to pay. I was selling stuff way under the market price, effectively spoiling the market for other pilots at my own expense. Doubly so because there are pilots who will offer ridiculously low buying prices for certain items, in the hopes that n00b pilots will sell. Yesterday for instance I had a buying offer of 150 ISK a piece for Caldari Navy rockets, which I sold for 1800 ISK a piece an hour later. The price difference can be huge!
After that, I started pricing my goods more or less in line with what others are selling for in my station, system or region. Remember, people are often lazy or in a hurry, so distance between available objects plays a role in pricing: supply and demand on the levels of station - system - region. If an item is for sale in my station, I'll sell for about the same price others are asking; a bit lower if I need cash, a bit higher if I have time. If an item is for sale in my system but not my station, I'll sell for a slightly higher price, and if an item is one or more jumps out, the price goes up a bit for every jump.
This system has brought me much more ISK than I would have had if I were to sell for the highest buying price. To be honest, I've never been much of an economic or merchant, so if other pilots have better systems for selling, please share so that we all make more profit :)
After a while I realised, that I was selling to the highest offered *buying* price, which is often much less as the price other eve pilots are willing to pay. I was selling stuff way under the market price, effectively spoiling the market for other pilots at my own expense. Doubly so because there are pilots who will offer ridiculously low buying prices for certain items, in the hopes that n00b pilots will sell. Yesterday for instance I had a buying offer of 150 ISK a piece for Caldari Navy rockets, which I sold for 1800 ISK a piece an hour later. The price difference can be huge!
After that, I started pricing my goods more or less in line with what others are selling for in my station, system or region. Remember, people are often lazy or in a hurry, so distance between available objects plays a role in pricing: supply and demand on the levels of station - system - region. If an item is for sale in my station, I'll sell for about the same price others are asking; a bit lower if I need cash, a bit higher if I have time. If an item is for sale in my system but not my station, I'll sell for a slightly higher price, and if an item is one or more jumps out, the price goes up a bit for every jump.
This system has brought me much more ISK than I would have had if I were to sell for the highest buying price. To be honest, I've never been much of an economic or merchant, so if other pilots have better systems for selling, please share so that we all make more profit :)
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Eve Online - The Enemy II
I've got to be careful with this one. For me, as a Gallente pilot, I often get Caldari as the enemy in missions. These are their ships, owned by the Caldari state: State Nagasa's, which I engaged earlier tonight. None of them survived.. but the Eve universe is a strange and mixed up one. People from all races and creed often end up in the same corporation, so I may actually have Caldari colleagues. I'd better not say too much..
Eve Online - the enemy
This is one of tonight's enemies, a rogue drone. It looks menacing too, especially when viewed in close up.. with their mean little red eyes. There were a lot of them and they tried to gang up on me, but in the end they were an easy prey for my own Hobgoblin drones - and my 200 mm carbide railguns of course.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Eve Online - parked in a Minmatar station
I'm done for today, I parked by Vexor somewhere in a Minmatar station. Until the next mission!
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Finally, the plateau of productivity?
IBM Lotus Connections is IBM's social software suite for behind the firewall. I've been using and testing Connections at my previous job and I liked it a lot, especially the modules that let you work together on a task (Activities) and the del.icio.us like DogEar module. And now Forterra, the company behind There, released Olive 2.2; a 3D environment that tightly integrates with Lotus Connections,Sametime and other IBM software products. I haven't had the time to watch the demo yet, but here's the news as related by Luis Benitez: Lotus Connections goes 3D ! and by Ian Hughes on the IBM Eightbar blog: Some more good news Forterra Olive and Lotus Sametime.
In the same vein, and launched a few months ago: Rivers Run Red's Immersive Workspaces. While we're obviously way past the 3D hype of 2006 and 2007, there's apparently enough market for these products to be funded, developed and pushed. Does this mean we're finally getting near the plateau of productivity for 3D environments?
In the same vein, and launched a few months ago: Rivers Run Red's Immersive Workspaces. While we're obviously way past the 3D hype of 2006 and 2007, there's apparently enough market for these products to be funded, developed and pushed. Does this mean we're finally getting near the plateau of productivity for 3D environments?
Friday, December 5, 2008
Eve Online - an earthlike planet in Alenia
A beautiful, earthlike planet in the Alenia system, near the Alentene stargate.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
beta: breathe deep..
One difference between Twinity and Metaplace on the one hand and Second Life on the other, is that avatars in both Twinity and Metaplace visibly breathe, while avatars in Second Life do not. Certainly for Twinity, this makes a lot of sense, given their strategy of mixing real and virtual. This is how it looks like (movie courtesy of my wife Maria):
This movie shows her sitting quietly in a cinema chair; yet she breathes like she completed the Berlin marathon a few seconds ago! Watch that clip again and try to breathe in the same pace as Maria; it feels really uncomfortable. Same for Metaplace, the avatar breathes at a much high pace than a normal person does. The point is that I as a player identify with the avatars, and the breathing movement of the avatar somehow impacts my breathing. Just looking at it makes me feel like I'm running out of breath myself!
So here's to both Twinity and Metaplace: I like the natural breathing effect, but please, slow it down to a more natural pace?
As an aside, this movie was made with Twinity's built in movie camera, which records .ogg and lets you convert to .avi on the fly if so desired. Neat!
This movie shows her sitting quietly in a cinema chair; yet she breathes like she completed the Berlin marathon a few seconds ago! Watch that clip again and try to breathe in the same pace as Maria; it feels really uncomfortable. Same for Metaplace, the avatar breathes at a much high pace than a normal person does. The point is that I as a player identify with the avatars, and the breathing movement of the avatar somehow impacts my breathing. Just looking at it makes me feel like I'm running out of breath myself!
So here's to both Twinity and Metaplace: I like the natural breathing effect, but please, slow it down to a more natural pace?
As an aside, this movie was made with Twinity's built in movie camera, which records .ogg and lets you convert to .avi on the fly if so desired. Neat!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Twinity: another real world brand goes virtual
One of the things I have written about before and that distinguishes Twinity from other virtual worlds, is the mix between the real and the virtual. This is clearly visible in Twinity's Berlin and, hopefully, it will be in London and Singapore as well. A strong example of this mix is the Drykorn store, which in Twinity looks exactly like the real world shop!
Recently, another real world brand opened a virtual branch in Twinity: the German underwear company Wundervoll, which sells in the (real) Berlin shop Blush. The Twinity Wundervoll store however is at another address and has a different name; I have not yet found a connection to a real world Wundervoll store.
To the visitors however, that doesn't seem to matter much. Already, Wundervoll is one of Twinity Berlin's most popular places. I wonder why..
Recently, another real world brand opened a virtual branch in Twinity: the German underwear company Wundervoll, which sells in the (real) Berlin shop Blush. The Twinity Wundervoll store however is at another address and has a different name; I have not yet found a connection to a real world Wundervoll store.
To the visitors however, that doesn't seem to matter much. Already, Wundervoll is one of Twinity Berlin's most popular places. I wonder why..
Metaplace invites
Today, Hamlet offered 50 NWN invite codes for Raph Koster's Metaplace platform. I've been a Metaplace member for a while now, and the first and last time I blogged about it, Raph admonished me that Metaplace is still under beta NDA! I have since reviewed this agreement and he's obviously right, so I'm not really sure what I am allowed to write or show at this point. After all, the beta agreement states that ..
I can understand why one would want to keep control over what's being blogged about your new product when it's still in beta. During this phase, it's very easy to damage a products' reputation by unjustly trashing it, before it is even finished. Especially if a tester doesn't really get the 'beta' part, this is a real risk. A few weeks ago, I noticed a similar effect with regards to OpenSim too.
Perhaps Google is to blame here. They keep many of their products in perpetual beta; millions of users have gotten used to using full fledged, essentially finished services which still carry the 'beta' designation and I guess most of them don't pay attention to that label anymore.
Yet, I'm not sure that being restrictive about what publicity you allow during beta, is the best way to create a buzz about a new product. Metaplace might, after all, be able to get some free publicity out of the blogging community, and as far as I'm concerned they are missing out on part of that now.
Back to Metaplace. I think it's pretty safe to tell you that I was able to use it with Minefield, the daily Firefox 3.1 development build. I created my own place, and some new tiles which I used to dress it up a bit:
Anyway, if you want to try Metaplace, I can invite another five persons if the NWN invite codes are all used!
"Recipient may not use, copy, reproduce, modify, publicly perform or display, create derivative works of, sell, auction, loan, lease, rent, distribute, transfer or disclose all or any part of the Service (including, without limitation, any screenshots, videos, documentation or manuals relating to the Service) except as provided in this Agreement."
I can understand why one would want to keep control over what's being blogged about your new product when it's still in beta. During this phase, it's very easy to damage a products' reputation by unjustly trashing it, before it is even finished. Especially if a tester doesn't really get the 'beta' part, this is a real risk. A few weeks ago, I noticed a similar effect with regards to OpenSim too.
Perhaps Google is to blame here. They keep many of their products in perpetual beta; millions of users have gotten used to using full fledged, essentially finished services which still carry the 'beta' designation and I guess most of them don't pay attention to that label anymore.
Yet, I'm not sure that being restrictive about what publicity you allow during beta, is the best way to create a buzz about a new product. Metaplace might, after all, be able to get some free publicity out of the blogging community, and as far as I'm concerned they are missing out on part of that now.
Back to Metaplace. I think it's pretty safe to tell you that I was able to use it with Minefield, the daily Firefox 3.1 development build. I created my own place, and some new tiles which I used to dress it up a bit:
Anyway, if you want to try Metaplace, I can invite another five persons if the NWN invite codes are all used!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A Quantum of Twinity
Sony and Twinity cooperated in a virtual launch of "A Quantum of Solace" for the German audience. At the Sony center in Twinity, the red carpet is still there! Funny, because of the German audience in Twinity the movie is titled "Ein quantum Trost". In The Netherlands, we never translate or lip sync movies, we just subtitle them; this allows for a foreign audience to capture the original language too, so you don't miss the little quips and jokes in the dialogs. On the other hand, I doubt there's many Dutch people who could explain what the movie title "A Quantum of Solace" means; most Germans don't have to think about that!
There's also a couple of Bond themed minigames to be played:
Overall, the Twinity environment is still improving. It finally begins to feel polished and well integrated, even though it's still in beta: I'm no longer dreading to start Twinity up, it will no longer crash about every couple of minutes. But incidentally, something still goes wrong.. a teleport failed and I ended up in Twinity heaven!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Only two to go
Things are improving on the real estate front, at least as far as my rentals are concerned:
This means I am currently at 85% occupancy, which is quite high! Perhaps we'll grow to even higher levels, with the weekend about to start. But, I'm not sure what impact the Thanksgiving holiday has on the US market. Are people spending more or less time in world during holiday weekends like these? I don't know, but perhaps the weekend will bring the last two tenants!
This means I am currently at 85% occupancy, which is quite high! Perhaps we'll grow to even higher levels, with the weekend about to start. But, I'm not sure what impact the Thanksgiving holiday has on the US market. Are people spending more or less time in world during holiday weekends like these? I don't know, but perhaps the weekend will bring the last two tenants!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Eve Online - Salvaging an income
I'm using the tractorbeam to pull wreckage of a defeated enemy to my ship, in order to take loot from it and salvage useful parts. Most of it gets sold; salvaging can bring in quite an income.
Speaking of income, the people running most of the day to day business of my Second Life rentals made some adjustments to their advertising and a couple of other things. The results are positive, as occupancy is way up. And so my Linden dollar balance..
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Eve Online - Shuttle and station
Today was a difficult day in Eve Online.. at least for me an some other members of my corporation. In Eve, you learn, complete skill trainings and gain standings, and over time you grow to new mission levels. The problem is: these are really harder than those you got used to! I lost two ships in battle today, as did one of our corp members. The value of the ships she lost was way higher than mine; I lost for about 10 million ISK, she lost over 200.. ouch!
But still, EVE Online is a special environment. I just can't get enough of the environment - the graphics are so appealing to me. For a small sampling, check out the other snapshots at my Flickr page.
Friday, November 21, 2008
A few thoughts on the Google Lively demise
When Google Lively launched earlier this year, I soon found out it wasn't really appealing or interesting to me. Lively is an enhanced 3D chatbox, but not a virtual world; I didn't pay much attention anymore after the launch. Obviously that goes for lots of others, too, as Lively is about to be shut down by Google. What this all means for virtual worlds and 3D environments remains to be seen.
One of the drawbacks, at launch, was the closed nature of Lively. As said in this interview:
"As far as 3D user-created content and textures, it’s by invite only. You send a request and we approve the request as a developer and you sign a developer TOS. We’re going to be very aggressive about that, much more so than others"
At the time, I thought that was a bit foolish. Lively could have been a nice addition to many a corporate website, if properly branded. But by creating barriers in content creation process, Google effectively blocked the creative minds, the hobbyist pioneers, the pathfinders from toying around with certain important features of the Lively environment. I didn't think that was a smart move, but we'll never know if things could have been different if Google hadn't implemented this policy.
Another contestant in pretty much the same space as Lively, is Just Leap In. It's also a room based 3D environment, but less cartoonish than Google Lively. To me, it just looks a whole lot better, really, while having many of Lively's features. It's going to be interesting to see whether JLI can pull off where Google decided to call it quits.
MIA: the bad guys
Yesterday I had a weird mission in Eve Online. For those of you who are not familiar with Eve: every player can request a mission from an agent, who's a non player character (NPC). One gets missions according to your levels and standings and there are lots of different missions and types. Missions bring in money and improve your standings, which in turn brings in better missions, more money etcetera.
Yesterday I had one called "Lost Records". I had to retrieve some court documents, lost when the courier ship got blown up. The documents can be found in a container that floats around in deadspace, which are areas of space where mission fights usually take place. First you warp to the first deadspace room; there's a warp gate there that brings you to the second room where the cargo is. Both the warp gate and the cargo container are protected: when you get close enough, NPC enemies suddenly appear. At that point, you either grab the goods and run, or you stand and fight in which case you earn extra money and loot.. if you survive, of course.
But yesterday, nothing happened. I warped to the first deadspace room, approached the warp gate.. nothing. No enemy fighters protected the gate. A bit suprised, I activated the gate which transported me to the second deadspace room. Cautiously I flew to the cargo container, took the lost records on board.. nothing. Not an enemy in sight. They were supposed to appear when I got close enough to the cargo container, but zip, zilch! I hung around for a while, guns locked and loaded, waiting for a brawl which never came. I checked the mission status, which indicated the mission objective had been achieved. I was done, without having to fire one single shot!
I asked around with several corp members, but no one recognized it. Must have been some sort of bug..
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Eve Online: activating the gate
It's time to head out back into deep space once again. I still have 30 days of Eve game time left, time to use it! Here I am activating the jump gate to a deadspace region, where a gang of Angel Cartel thugs is waiting for me. Battle!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Rock intros: what's your favorite?
At my day job, they're organizing a concert for charity, and I am playing in one of the participating bands. Some seven or eight bands will perform, and it's going to be a mixed bag with all sorts of music. I've never done this before, so I'm a bit anxious, but I think we'll have a lot of fun.
While preparing for the show, I had to listen to a lot of rock songs I usually don't listen to, and I noticed again how important the intro is. Often the intro will literally set the tone for the rest of the song; many songs are best known for or defined by their intro.
A good example is ACDC's Thunderstruck. Or, from another era, The Who's Pinball Wizard; a great intro by Pete Townshend. Similarly, the intro for Dire Straits' Money for Nothing builds up to a climax. Other intros however prefer to bring a mood instead of pure adrenaline, like GnR's November Rain or U2's With or Without you.
The examples are plenty..So what is your favorite rock song intro?
While preparing for the show, I had to listen to a lot of rock songs I usually don't listen to, and I noticed again how important the intro is. Often the intro will literally set the tone for the rest of the song; many songs are best known for or defined by their intro.
A good example is ACDC's Thunderstruck. Or, from another era, The Who's Pinball Wizard; a great intro by Pete Townshend. Similarly, the intro for Dire Straits' Money for Nothing builds up to a climax. Other intros however prefer to bring a mood instead of pure adrenaline, like GnR's November Rain or U2's With or Without you.
The examples are plenty..So what is your favorite rock song intro?
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The nature of the open grid
Yesterday, an interesting discussion evolved on the OpenGrid mailing list. Participant Thomas Grimshaw brought up the subject of cross grid currency exchanges and trust between grids; how are we going to do that?
Intranet or Internet
From the discussion that followed I gather that several OpenGrid beta participants think individual grids will establish their own economies, and currencies which should perhaps be exchanged in some sort of way. It seems they expect grids to be very independent from one another; connected perhaps, but essentially standalone at the core. Connected intranets, so to speak.
Personally, I had a much more interconnected grid in mind. One grid, consisting of individual sims or gridlets (a sim hosting one or a few regions) operated by many different parties, but with a lot of shared properties like a currency. Very similar to the internet, which consists of countless web servers hosted and operated by perhaps millions of entities.
Gridlets
Currently, many people experimenting with OpenSim are geeks, hobbyists who run one or a few simulators, hosting a handful of regions. Gridlets, so to speak. On that scale, it does not make sense to invent your own currency. You can't normally get a meaningful economy going there. For those people, having one single currency and micropayment system to plugin to, makes much more sense.
How many currencies?
From and enduser perspective, it doesn't seem very userfriendly to create a multitude of (probably low trust) currencies either. They'd have to track ever changing exchange rates, and perhaps buy currency on each grid they want to buy stuff on. That's hardly a scalable solution, which also requires a lot of technical and procedural attention with regards to setting exchange rates and facilitating cross grid exchanges. And if you bought SeredBucks on my grid and I decide to pull the plug, where's your money then? I'd rather have an account with one reliable authority, which doesn't depend on one grid operator. Adam Frisby suggested as much when he mentioned Amazon's micropayment system in this discussion.
Whatever the grid will end up to be, it will probably be a little of both. We've got interesting times ahead of us!
Saturday, November 8, 2008
OpenSim: still under development, remember
As Linden Labs struggled with a virtual revolt after their OpenSpace announcements, some of Second Life's residents decided to check out the alternatives, most notably the OpenSim based OpenLife Grid. As reported by Hamlet, their experiences weren't all that good.
As I mentioned on Hamlet's blog: it's worth remembering that OpenSim is still very young. Officially, it's in Alpha stage. "Alpha" is is software development speak for "it's a partial, incomplete build, unpolished and probably unstable, but may incidentally work." A quote from the OpenSim site:
"Please note: As OpenSim is still at an alpha code maturity stage, there is absolutely no guarantee that functionality works or is stable, even in the numbered releases. Certain features may not work either because the code is in rapid evolution, or because functionality expected by the Linden Labs Second Life viewer has simply not been implemented yet. However, constructive feedback is still welcomed."
When dealing with customers, expectation management is an important thing, which should be handled correctly. OpenSim users should not expect to find a copy of Second Life when entering OpenSim based grids, simply because the base product isn't finished yet! OpenSim will evolve, and the OpenSim based grids will too. But it will take time, patience and lots of effort from people who code OpenSim in their spare time.
I love toying around with my OpenSim simulators, building stuff with the kids, the fun of creating your own sim, to be your own Linden! But I know and accept it's still under development, and so should other users.
SL on Ubuntu 8.10 no improvement
I have used quite a few Second Life viewers, both release candidates and normal viewers, on Ubuntu 8.04 - and with success. I had to disable visual effects for the desktop to get it running, but it worked smoothly. Yet, after installing Ubuntu 8.10, it doesn't work that good anymore. Performance is bad, screen redraws are slow, simulator crossings become obstacles on which the client will occassionally crash, especially when flying an airplane. I know 8.10 has new versions of Gnome and Compiz on board, perhaps something changed there. Any other experiences?
Thursday, November 6, 2008
No pay per prim, but close
Today, M Linden posted an announcement regarding the Openspace controversy: A Letter to Second Life Residents. In this item, he announces a new pricing strategy: openspace sims and homestead sims. It's not my pay per prim proposal, but close enough. At least there's going to be a relation between usage and pricing, which seems reasonable enough to me. But, the exact prim and load limitations to be put on 'pure' openspace sims is going to be the defining factor for this new proposals' succes, and I haven't seen those yet.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Cross and lose
Last night I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10. I must say it was a smooth upgrade, with all my own programs, like Second Life and Lotus Notes 8.5 beta 2,and my ATI card (!) still working perfectly after the process finished.
The current Second Life client however didn't perform well tonight. Earlier versions on 8.04 often made for a more smooth experience than Windows, but such that wasn't the case here. I don't know whether that had anything to do with Ubuntu, the SL client or Second Life itself however; I will reserve judgment on that until I have logged more user hours with it.
But, as I said, tonight it wasn't what it should be. Twice I lost an airplane while crossing a sim boundary, and I found myself alone in the dark skies, without a plane to pilot!
The current Second Life client however didn't perform well tonight. Earlier versions on 8.04 often made for a more smooth experience than Windows, but such that wasn't the case here. I don't know whether that had anything to do with Ubuntu, the SL client or Second Life itself however; I will reserve judgment on that until I have logged more user hours with it.
But, as I said, tonight it wasn't what it should be. Twice I lost an airplane while crossing a sim boundary, and I found myself alone in the dark skies, without a plane to pilot!
Monday, November 3, 2008
The neverending Linux Lib chase - part two
Yesterday I blogged about my problems with getting Mono and Nant going on a CentOS 5.2 64-bits Linux server. I need those to compile and run OpenSim, and I get stuck at the compiling part - the Nant task dies with an error.
Today I received notice from my old hosting provider, that my account cancellation was processed and will be effective - in april 2009! Apparently there's a six month period for cancelling. So I took the opportunity to use my old server there, a brand new CentOS 5.2 32 bits install, for another go at Mono/Nant/Opensim. And it worked, very easy even! Got Mono and Nant installed with Yum using the trick described in yesterdays' post, downloaded OpenSim, compile - it all just worked, at the first go.
Apparently the problem is with the 64 bits distro. There's no official Mono for RHEL 5 64-bits, so neither is there for Centos. The most recent available official Mono, is for RHEL 4 32 bits! I need to figure out what I have installed on the CentOS 64 bits server, and see if I can fix it to run reliably.
I don't pretend to understand why RHEL and CentOS are left out at Mono, but maybe the fact that much of the Mono downloads reside on Novell owned servers is a clue. Novell is RedHat's competitor in the Linux field, now that they own Suse, and they are sponsoring the Mono project. Perhaps that's why only recent Suse/OpenSuse distros are officially supported; all other Linux distros including RHEL, CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu, are not. Well, hhat'll help if you want to turn Mono into an industry standard, right?
Today I received notice from my old hosting provider, that my account cancellation was processed and will be effective - in april 2009! Apparently there's a six month period for cancelling. So I took the opportunity to use my old server there, a brand new CentOS 5.2 32 bits install, for another go at Mono/Nant/Opensim. And it worked, very easy even! Got Mono and Nant installed with Yum using the trick described in yesterdays' post, downloaded OpenSim, compile - it all just worked, at the first go.
Apparently the problem is with the 64 bits distro. There's no official Mono for RHEL 5 64-bits, so neither is there for Centos. The most recent available official Mono, is for RHEL 4 32 bits! I need to figure out what I have installed on the CentOS 64 bits server, and see if I can fix it to run reliably.
I don't pretend to understand why RHEL and CentOS are left out at Mono, but maybe the fact that much of the Mono downloads reside on Novell owned servers is a clue. Novell is RedHat's competitor in the Linux field, now that they own Suse, and they are sponsoring the Mono project. Perhaps that's why only recent Suse/OpenSuse distros are officially supported; all other Linux distros including RHEL, CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu, are not. Well, hhat'll help if you want to turn Mono into an industry standard, right?
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The neverending Linux Lib chase
I am getting *so* tired of Linux, every now and then! I had some issues with my previous hosting party, so I switched to a new one, and I am currently renting a CentOs 5.2 64-bits server there. I got my IBM Lotus Domino server installed just fine, but the fun started when I tried to build an OpenSim install. I know I need Mono and Nant for that, so I installed those with a couple of yum commands, after adding the necessary repositories (see here). Getting OpenSim is easy, running prebuild too, but the fun starts with Nant. Nant actually builds the necessary executables, and this process fails with this error:
After this, it's been nothing but trying to install and reinstall mono, nant and other stuff, different versions and components, only to run into missing dependencies time and time again. Missing this.so, missing lib.xyz..0.08.so, missing another.yaddayadda.so - it goes on and on, two evenings in a row.
The worst are people who suggest that you should install a certain library to fix this. How am I supposed to know what package to install to get that library?? Half of the time is lost with googling names just to find out what the heck it is I need to install. And of course, when I fin$d the right package for that library, it will fail because of a missing dependency..
[csc] /opt/opensim/OpenSim/Region/ScriptEngine/Shared/CodeTools/Compiler.cs(34,17): error CS0234: The type or namespace name `JScript' does not exist in the namespace `Microsoft'. Are you missing an assembly reference?
[csc] Compilation failed: 1 error(s), 0 warnings
BUILD FAILED - 0 non-fatal error(s), 1 warning(s)
/opt/opensim/OpenSim/Region/ScriptEngine/Shared/CodeTools/OpenSim.Region.ScriptEngine.Shared.CodeTools.dll.build(14,10):
External Program Failed: /usr/lib/mono/2.0/gmcs.exe (return code was 1)
Total time: 0.9 seconds.
After this, it's been nothing but trying to install and reinstall mono, nant and other stuff, different versions and components, only to run into missing dependencies time and time again. Missing this.so, missing lib.xyz..0.08.so, missing another.yaddayadda.so - it goes on and on, two evenings in a row.
The worst are people who suggest that you should install a certain library to fix this. How am I supposed to know what package to install to get that library?? Half of the time is lost with googling names just to find out what the heck it is I need to install. And of course, when I fin$d the right package for that library, it will fail because of a missing dependency..
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