Laura Seabrook's Ramblings

Now one day I also hope to find a decent yacht racing simulator (loved the idea ever since playing the board game Regatta,  , a Motor Bike Racing simulator (I already have some GTR versions for car racing) and a skating simulator (I skated poorly in Real life, but always wanted to stunt skate on roller blades or boards).

Thought I'd try VSide - yet another Virtual World. This one's the "Big City" type where most of what one does is: decorate your AV and apartment; go shopping; or dance with friends to music. Sounds a bit dull, but it seems to be one of the smoother versions of this. Twinity and Kaneva come in second to this (the jury's still out on Onverse).

It's possible to create and upload custom clothing to a certain degree (as the T-Shirt above shows), though on my first go at this it wouldn't stick and had to be reloaded after I travelled to each new location. I suspect in the long run this one'd be a money trap.

I tried There just after discovering Second Life and for a while it was a contender for the main virtual world that I'd be interacting with. But there were a number of problems back then. There didn't seem to have much in the way of freebies with which to play with, to see if it was worth developing. Also, because I'd tried SL first, There's interface seemed utterly alien to me. The biggest fun I had in There back than was riding my hoverboard about (and it was fun!).

Elsie_Broek and her hoverboard

Anyway, I heard it was closing and decided to take another look - much the same strange "Island Paradise" thing but also much more developed. And I actually had a lot of fun exploring and riding my hover board (again).In a way, I'm sad to see this go, even with all the quirks it had. Whatever There was in general, in many ways it was original, and that should not discarded casually.

Came across this clip after watching one robot trying to pick a fight with another.

Oddly enough it reminds me of Second Life in how it behaves.

Maybe it won't be that long before we have Avatars in real life (or maybe they're already here)! I know that there's a film called Surrogates (featuring Bruce Willis) which is "set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots". They're almost doing that now.

You know, I think the "real future" is a lot weirder than anything dreamt up in fiction at times!

You ought to know know that I like to try different virtual worlds. Well I've just had a bit of a play with 3DEE.

Not exactly either Second Life or There, but it doesn't seem to try to be. You download and install the client, and can then login as a Tourist. If you like it you can later become a citizen. Once you're a citizen you have greater choice of your avatar (all pre-set) and can visit more than the town square.

I decided to become a free citizen and became a duck, checking out Architecture and Animal worlds. It was simple and fun to look around. Occasionally other avatars would pop into existence, but few stayed. I suspect that as it all seems to be based in the Netherlands, everyone else is busy in the real world.

For one reason or another (see my post in second_lifers) I decided to revisit OpenLife to see if it'd changed much. It has a bit. The following snapshots show some development and changes:

( Images under cut )

I find these developments interesting, and will probably pop back in a month or so to see how things have changed. One thing that hasn't changed, is not finding other avatars. They just don't seem to be there! It's hard enough finding folk in Second Life lately (though I must confess I haven't been in-world terribly much lately) let alone in OpenLife.

Also see my later post.

I was exploring just now in Second Life and came across the Duchy of Primverness and Lovelac which is in Caledon Primverness.

What I found really interesting was the Caledon Library up there:

You can select an author and then a book, and a link will take you to a facsimile of that book at Open Library. I'm impressed, though I'm not sure I'd want to read a whole book there. At least Project Gutenberg has the text in plain text format (so you can download and read it in whatever format you like).

Still, I have to admire the virtual nature of this. Check out the title page of volume three of The Works of Edgar Allen Poe. Yes, there's a tissue separator between the plate and the title, and you can even turn it!

I finally finished Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson this morning. I can remember seeing this in the discard bins for years, but never getting around to buying a copy for $2. I still haven't as it was a library copy.

The style of this book reminds me of Mick Farren in it's combination of high/low tech and streetwise anarchic savvy. Very neat depiction of a dystopia that hasn't quite happened yet. It also depicts the Metaverse (apparently the term is coined from this novel) with avatars. Although Stephenson may not have invented the term, he popularised its use.

I found the description of the Metaverse interesting after having played Second Life. In the book the entire VR world takes place on a black sphere where everything is black until something is created there. There are subsystems (called daemons) at work that do automated tasks, but these (and almost everything else in the world) have been created by hackers.

There are nightclubs, businesses and homes in the metaverse. There's no flying or teleportation however, and avatars have either catch a monorail or have their own transport to travel any faster than walking (and also have to climb into and out of the metaverse to login/logout). Avatars become semitransparent in the main street to avoid traffic congestion but are solid otherwise, and can be "killed" in world, forcing the user a delay in logging back in.

The novel certainly paints a vivid description of both the metaverse and of a future America, balkanised by franchises and the disintegration of government. Somehow though, it ends flat when the current crisis is resolved. While it's tempting to want another chapter (what happens to Raven?) I can understand why it ends there.

Also, check out The Web Site of Aleph for some interesting essays about the book.

I thought I'd try a free account at Second Life after reading about jenndolari's experiences there, and reading a review at Virtual Worlds Review. Signed up with a free account, downloaded and installed the client, and... ...the bugger doesn't seem to be able to connect to a server (maybe my PC is too slow?) even though I now have broadband access!

How annoying!