New Drax Files World Makers Episode 30: Maylee Oh

Tags

drax files, draxtor despres

Another splendid Drax Files episode has been released today, as usual Draxtor Despres managed to make an impressive and wonderful short documentary about one of Second Life’s creative and talented inhabitants.

Enjoy and share!

Drax writes;

Paris, France based Maylee Oh makes a living by designing female apparel for avatars who live in the virtual world of Second Life.

“I can run my own business the way I like in terms of product and customer service!” says the 28-year old who worked for the better part of 8 years to establish her brand “The Secret Store”.

She is using a mix of creative tools such as Blender and Photoshop to arrive at a a unique and simple style that is quite popular among the millions of avatars from all around the world roaming the vast digital universe.

And even being a freelance designer does not mean being lonely in front of a computer because Maylee’s international collaborators share a virtual workspace in Second Life, they work indeed side by side and can productively socialize as if they were together in the physical realm.

The concept of virtual goods and services as a means of income may still be esoteric for many says Maylee but she adds: “…when skeptical friends say it is a waste to spend money on dressing up an avatar I usually reply that they are buying my time, my idea of style that they can make their own. It is not a waste. A lot of thought and work went into this. Everyone including me wants to make their avatar look good, because clothing is personal expression! What is wrong with that?”

Quite so!

For more information about Maylee check out http://www.thesecretstoresl.com/

Big thanks to Marianne McCann and all the great extra actors who participated in making this episode. Special thanks to Maylee’s
office colleagues – sorry to keep you from working during this production!

All animated images by Maylee Oh.

Oculus announcement about the Rift Headset; it is coming.

Tags

oculus rift, virtual reality

Today Oculus had a special presentation with the latest news regarding their Rift Virtual Reality head set.

The commercial version will be available in the first quarter of 2016.

The design is pretty impressive, small and smooth, wearable like a baseball cap.

It comes with integrated 360 degrees special audio and headphones, but these can easily be removed if you prefer to use your own.

Comes with X-box 1 controller.

It will also work with a sensor you will place on your desk, not sure if this will just help locate which way you’re looking at, standing or sitting or if it will also be able to track gestures, like the leap motion.
It looks like this;

Here is the official Oculus introduction video;

At launch you will be able to experience a few games straight out the box.
Eve Valkyrie, a space ship shooting game, sounds interesting but I always wonder why anyone would want to do some science fiction space flying if you could also be flying a Spitfire!
Nevertheless, this looks very exciting and I can imagine that such a game is perfect for the VR experience as you’re sitting in a seat in RL and VR, looking all around you.
I can’t wait till I can defend London during a dogfight in 1940, suddenly being shot af from behind and as you try to look over your shoulder to see who is shooting at you, you see a Messerschmitt pass over your cockpit.
Anyway, a good game for the Rift either way.

Another game coming, ready for the Rift, is Chronos.
Doesn’t look very impressive and again, it is a fantasy theme, I’m allergic to those.
But technically it is all about a labyrinth, a RPG, again a rather good test case for the Rift.

‘Edge of nowhere’ is the next VR Rift made game, this again, sigh, is a fantasy theme, but it takes place somewhere in the Antarctic.
So atmosphere wise it is very nice and cold.
Other games are a shooter, a sports game, a kids puzzle game, etc.

To me this illustrates perfectly why Second Life is the best VR tool there is, none of these games or experiences are appealing to me.
I want to see some of the things I’ve seen in SL or even better yet, create my own VR experiences.

It is such a shame Sansar is not at that level yet to be part of this Rift deal, part of the package that is ready for VR users who have just bought the brand new Rift.
Lets hope Sansar is ready next year when the Rift hits the market anyway, although I think that is too soon.

Oculus has also developed ‘Oculus Home’, the virtual ‘desk top’ sort of library where you’ll have access to all your Oculus ready software or game.
You’ll see what your friends are playing, you can buy a game, manage downloads, join games, etc, without removing your headset.
But it is nowhere near a virtual world, so there is at least one company not developing a virtual world… yet.

I was quite amused when one of the chaps said that with VR we’re able to watch movies in a virtual cinema and that one day we could even do that with friends…
Seriously?
I’m pretty sure some of the VR cinema demo’s already have that but either way, we’ve been doing that in Second Life for over a decade…

The next, quite big news was the revealing of their secret project; Oculus Touch.
It is, according to Palmer Luckey himself, the best way to interact inside VR.
In short it is a sort of joystick or controller you wear in each hand and that allows you to, for instance, pick up things, shoot a gun, give a thumbs up, etc.
It looks interesting and it is smart, even impressive to come with a whole new way of controlling a game inworld.
But I can’t help wondering why they didn’t just go with an improved version of the good old VR glove.
Or improve their table sensor with something like Leap Motion technology.
People want to wear less stuff while in VR, not more.

It was not mentioned if these came with the Oculus Rift when bought, so I assume you have to buy them separately.
It seems like the Rift is going to be quite the expensive toy and although lots of rumours about how much it will eventually cost have been going around, we still don’t know how much money we’ll have to spend and it wasn’t announced during this presentation either.
Tech specifications were also not released.

Why I hate Gachas

Tags

"second life", caca, gacha, shopping

Gachas are very popular in Second Life.

In short it is a system that combines a lottery with shopping.

A shopkeeper puts a bunch of things into a machine, display or poster and every time the customer pays an amount they get one of the items inside at random.

The odds of getting some of these items is rarer than others, making a few of them ‘rare’.
I guess this makes it more fun and exiting to some people to try and get some of these items.

I can sort of understand why this is entertainment for some people, but to say I hate it is an understatement.

Let me illustrate my situation.

Somewhere on Flickr I see a picture of something I like, something I want to buy, but it seems that I can only buy it at a busy Gacha event.

So I set my graphics to minimum and rush to the place, fighting myself trough lag and crowds I finally find the machine I want with the things I want to have.

I throw money at it and get a bunch of items I don’t want and one or two I do want.

But the item I really like of course refuses to come outside.

Eventually, broke, I give up and go back home to see what I got.

Most of the things I bought turn out to have no edit permissions, no copy permissions and have a land impact I can’t afford.

I ended up with a folder full of useless things I didn’t want.

I guess I can resell them, spend ages filling up marketplace with even more stuff in the hope I one day get rid of these things.

In some cases I can sell them on in my sim, but that uses up prims.

When I try to look for these Gacha items I want on marketplace myself, I realise that most people who do sell these things on can’t be bothered to share the land impact either.

Is everyone drowning in free prims in their regions or something?
Am I the last person in Sl to whom it matters if something is 2 or 20 land impact?

But even if manage to find the item you want, you still get something that rarely has any of those permissions I consider to be the ones you should almost always get; edit & copy.

I found the ‘rare’ item I wanted on marketplace, paid trough the teeth to get it to find out it is way too big, one of those items made for giants of which there are still so many in SL.
But without edit permissions I can’t make it smaller and even if I could the animations would have to be tweaked as well and I might break it… and it would be gone for ever.
I can’t even change the textures or tweak them and make them a little darker, I can’t even delink that little added thingy I hate but uses up so many prims.

In short, the whole Gacha system is very customer unfriendly in many ways.
As a little game on its own that offers you the chance to get something you want for perhaps cheaper than it is for sale, it could be fun.
But if the items inside are not also for sale with proper permissions, it mostly is just very frustrating.

For me anyway, this is the last time I fall for this trick.
No more Gachas for me, both as a customer and a shopkeeper myself.

The end of Desura? Desura Owner Files For Bankruptcy.

Tags

desura, linden lab

Several news sources are saying that Bad Juju, the parent company of Indie Royale and Desura, has filed for bankruptcy.

Desura is a digital distribution platform that was once owned by Linden Lab, who sold it to Bad Juju last year.

Recently they had already been negatively in the news because they weren’t paying some of their developers and now it seems the problems may have been even bigger than that.

Although it is not yet official (so it seems), but according to the Gamasutra article (which you can read here) their employees have been told not to speak to anyone by the company lawyers and have been ‘locked out’.

Other employees also found an online bankruptcy file for the claim.

Probably a good thing Linden Lab got rid of it in time.

Relaxed Rules day in 1920s Berlin

Always wanted to explore 1920s Berlin but didn’t feel like dressing up or changing your avatar?
Tomorrow is your chance;

The 1920s Berlin Project

As part of our 6th anniversary celebrations we are organising a so called ‘Relaxed Rules Day’.

As you may know, Berlin has a dress code, we ask all our visitors to look realistic and authentic for the theme of our sim.
But now and then we decide to relax these rules to give new people a chance to explore our sim even if they don’t feel like dressing up or having a realistic avatar.

So, on Relaxed Rules Day we will NOT be asking people to dress in the 1920s style and we will be welcoming avatars such as furries, tinies, demons, fantasy animals, etc.
The only rules we will be enforcing are that we will not accept public nudity or Nazi related behaviour and dress.
Of course anyone bothering or harassing people will also be send home.

This may be a good day to show Berlin to your friends…

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Why the banning of Second Life by Twitch is nonsense

Tags

"second life", gaming, online, streaming, twitch, video

Twitch is a website that allows you to broadcast video of whatever game you’re playing and when a while back a few people decided to start streaming (thats what kids these days call it) Second Life, the company was shocked and horrified.

Because apparently there is nudity in Second Life.
Did you know that?
It’s news to me.

They banned Second Life because it violates their Terms of Service / Rules of conduct.
They also prohibit all versions of games rated Adults-Only according to the ESRB’s Rating Guide.

Now lets see how this applies to Second Life.
I think SL has not been rated by the ‘Entertainment Software Rating Board’, I can’t find it there yet.
Maybe if Linden Lab could get it classified and if they have competent staff there, we could get a sophisticated and sensible rating.

If ESRB would rate it adult, it, according to the ESRB website this would classify the game as;

ADULTS ONLY
Content suitable only for adults ages 18 and up. May include prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency.

Maybe it is just me, but that is not my Second Life.
Except for a riot on Mayday, there is very rarely intense violence in 1920s Berlin and as I never visit the local brothel (the action happens on another sim) there is no graphic sexual content in 1920s Berlin (as long as you don’t spy on people in the privacy of their bedroom) and there’s no gambling to be seen, honest gov’nor, I never touched those dice.

These things are also not part of the sims I visit.
Sometimes someone’s clothes don’t rez, but Twitch writes;

Sexually explicit acts or content: Nudity can’t be a core focus or feature of the game in question and modded nudity is disallowed in its entirety. Occurrences in game are okay, so long as you do not make them a primary focus of your stream and only spend as much time as needed in the area to progress the game’s story.

Someone’s clothes not rezzing to me is a glitch, a lag related issue, not something someone does on purpose.
And outside our nudists corner at the beach in a neighbouring region, seeing nude people is rare.
Either way it is not the core or focus of the “game”.

You may mention griefing, sure that still happens in Second Life although generally it is rare, at least as part of my Second Life.
The sim I live in has capable managers who eject or even ban someone, often before they even get to the actual sim.
The last time I was seriously griefed by someone is years ago and the only reason I couldn’t do anything about it was because I had a duty towards my tenants to keep an eye on this person, otherwise simply muting him would have solved it.

I know that videos about griefing and adult entertainment in Second Life has flooded sites like youtube, but that simply does not represent SL as it is to many of its users.

In short, I could easily stream Second Life directly to the internet without there being a risk of nudity, kinky hanky panky, graphic violence, etc.

If I wanted to, I could make a SL video with all those naughty things in it, true.
And I wouldn’t mind Twitch not allowing that.
But I could make videos like that with a lot of other games Twitch does allow…

So not only does their ruling on Second Life not make any sense, it is hypocritical.

Just look at the games they do allow; Minecraft, Counter Strike, The Witcher, GTA 5, etc, etc.
These games CAN have nudity and sex in them, if the gamer wants to.
In GTA 5 it is even a pre-programmed part of it, you can hire a prostitute for a bit of action in your car and then violently murder her.
Which, apparently is fine.

To me some of these games are also a school example of containing “prolonged scenes of intense violence”.
Trust me I know.
I am the equivalent of a 42 year old soccer mum (even though I luckily don’t have kids and if I did I wouldn’t let them play soccer and by the way it is called FOOTBALL), one of the least likely people to be a hardcore gamer.
Yet I regularly play violent games, just the other day I was sniping Hitler in the face.

So, in short, they allow plenty of games that allow adult content in one way or another and banning Second Life for those rules, makes no sense.
They could and should ban individual users who stream such SL content or stuff like that from the games they do allow.

Do we care?
No not really, I never even heard of Twitch till very recently, I don’t really see the entertainment value of streaming game videos and there are other options out there.
Personally I prefer edited videos that show the interesting bits of games or virtual worlds, not just gameplay.

Nevertheless, Twitch is being hypocritical, and I’m allergic to that.
I’m also annoyed when the reputation of Second Life is being dragged trough the dirt again.
Sorry to disappoint everyone but there is no adult content, nudity, griefing or hardcore violence EVERYWHERE in Second Life.
I’ve only witnessed particle griefing once in the last couple of years and people from all over came to have a look.
But seek and ye shall find.

Just because it CAN be part of SL, doesn’t mean it ALWAYS IS part of SL.
And that is the same with some of the games they do allow.

The only thing that should matter is;

Can you easily stream SL onto the internet and avoid nudity, hanky panky and graphic violence?
Yes.
Can you easily stream SL onto the internet without breaking the Twitch rules?
Yes.
Ipso Facto; Twitch is talking nonsense.

Open door day in 1920s Berlin

The 1920s Berlin Project

As part of our 6th Anniversary celebrations we start 6 days of events with our annual Open Door day.

For 24 hours (ish) lots of tenants in our city open their doors to the public.

Visit today and for once you’ll be allowed to come explore the apartments and houses of our locals.

From luxurious villas to damp, moldy, stinky, dirty, tiny one room apartments in back streets, you can finally go inside them without a police officer coming to kick you out.

Just wander around our neighbourhood and keep an eye out for the big red ‘Open door house’ signs.

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Group limit in Second Life raised to 60… if you’re a premium member

Tags

"second life", groups, improvements

As of immediately Linden Lab has raised the group limit for Second Life members with a premium account from 42 to 60!

A gift that is actually useful and will be welcomed by most premium members and may even entice a few people to become one.

Linden Lab announced this today in this blogpost.

I am one of those ‘power users’ Linden Lab speaks of and I’m very happy with this improvement.

For 1920s Berlin alone we have over a dozen groups!

Of course, if Linden Lab followed my advice we wouldn’t need this many groups.
In a previous blog post I suggested adding more functionality to groups, adding subgroups, more roles, selective group messaging, etc.

And as far as I know, the official Linden Lab viewer still does not allow you to turn certain group chats or notifications off, some other viewers do.
So having 60 groups and using the official viewer may mean you’ll get flooded by group chats and spam, even more than before.

Nevertheless, this is a good step forward and I hope Linden Lab gives us more gifts like these that make it actually interesting and worth our while to be premium members.

The 1920s Berlin project celebrates its 6th anniversary!

The 1920s Berlin Project

On May the 30th 2009 I opened the door to a little very basic, noob build bar and let the public in for the first time.
The 1920s Berlin Project was born!
Only 3 months after joining Second Life, barely understanding how to glue prims together, I had started something that would soon grow into a vibrant active community of wonderful people.

And there is more to come…

But first we need to celebrate the 6th (!) anniversary of our little neighbourhood and we’re doing this by organizing 6 days of fun events and inviting everyone to come visit.

You can find 1920s Berlin by clicking this link: http://slurl.com/secondlife/1920s%20Berlin/236/232/751

We look forward to seeing lots of familiar but also new faces visiting us.

Prosit!

Jo Yardley
Schedule of events:

Friday, May 29

All day: Open Door Day

On this day everyone is welcome to visit our sim and take a…

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show #69: the young person’s guide to svvr 2015

the drax files radio hour

show #69

two days of goggle madness in san jose: the vrexpo on 40k square meters at the san jose convention center wrapped tuesday night.

drax & assistant were there for one day & got a good sense of the state of vr in 2015:

if you have the time, read on please:

– our new sponsor dutchie

dutchie’s stuff in sl is just awesome

– ben lang from roadtovr moderates an interesting panel on consumer vr:

– valve’s basestation for positional tracking = the lighthouse!

little drax interviews kite & lightning founder ikrima because he looks like his dad’s avatar

– fove eyetracking headset = great start on kickstarter

non sequitur = cybermind ad = the best pitch for exiting rl

– my fave: nonny’s company emblematic group makes a trayvon martin experience

nonny and partner at their booth

– xxarray captures you in 3d and puts you into a…

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