Category Archives: Game Development

Sansar: Character Customization

by

0

With Project Sansar in development at the Lab the inhabitants of Second Life™ are wondering what avatars will look like in the new world. I don’t know. But, a game just reaching its final Beta test may give a clue. It certainly shows what is possible. Check this video.

The game is Bless – Embers in the storm. An MMO. The Korean developers have been working on this game without much hype. The video shows an AWESOME character customization capability. You may have noticed it includes tattoos and even scares. You can tweak the eyelashes… (Note: Bless is just completing its 3rd closed beta and headed toward open beta. Bless news. And we have no idea when a US version will be available.)  Continue reading →

Second Life Bits week 30

by

0

Yeah… week 30. I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and it got lost. The information is still good, so today it gets published.

How Big is Wow

Massively Overpowered pointed me to a video showing how big World of Warcraft is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=32&v=ihF0wJlYSus

Voicing Opinion

SL Blogger Support has an article about problems some bloggers are having. One is in regard to voicing opinions. Check out comments below the article: She’s mad as hell and she’s not going to take this anymore!  Continue reading →

Dinosaurs

by

0

An in-development game named Ark: Survival Evolved is available through Steam. It apparently is drawing a crowd of players. Everyone likes dinosaurs. Gamasutra has an interview with one of the developers. See: Cretaceous creativity: Designing dinos for Ark: Survival Evolved.

D is for Dinosaur

D is for Dinosaur by Oona, on Flickr

With Project Sansar approaching and Advanced Experience Tools on the verge of release game design is going to be a bigger part of Second Life. We will  likely have more people like Loki Elliot and more teams like MadPea making games in SL and/or Sansar. I expect to see more people move beyond just making things.

Who is Winning the Virtual Reality Race?

by

1

The financial people think it is Facebook and Apple that are positioned to win in the Virtual Reality War. But, it won’t be a fast war. It will last years.  Quoting Chris Ciaccia :

[A] Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster stated that virtual reality is likely the next key trend in technology, writing, “We liken the state of virtual and augmented reality today as similar to the state of mobile phones 15 years ago. It likely will take a decade before mainstream adoption as necessary improvements in displays and applications as well as lower pricing are needed to drive demand.”

Breaking bad$$$$

Breaking bad💵💵💵💵 by pokute Burt, on Flickr

They expect new virtual everythings to open up; gaming (obviously), live sports, concerts, immersive cinema and social experiences will have a VR version. The article, Facebook and Apple are Poised to Win the Virtual Reality Wars, gives us, at least me, some new ideas about VR can be used. Continue reading →

Second Life: Designing for Newbies and Oldies

by

0

Second Life has its challenges for new players/users. Massively Overpowered started a conversation with the question: How Can MMO’s Design For Both Vets And Newbies? There are quite a few comments being added. It got me thinking about our challenges for new users in Second Life™.

Cassie and Ciara

Cassie and Ciara by Caitlin ‘Caity’ Tobias, on Flickr

Many of the comments on Massively suggest removing leveling. Fortunately we don’t have leveling as a basic part of SL.

In 19 screens of comments no one mentioned user interface and only a couple of times mentioned learning how to play. In SL I think learning is a significant obstacle for new users. With 3,000+ viewer controls SL is on a level similar to Photoshop or AutoCAD.

Considering new users in SL, I think the design challenge is making it usable and reducing the learning curve. For the experienced users the Lab needs to keep as many creative options as possible, which adds complication. These seem to be opposing goals. I am curious to see how the Lab handles these challenges in SANSAR aka SL 2.0.

Second Life: The New New User Tutorial

by

0

Hamlet is on about a video that shows the new user experience. I find those interesting. You can see Hamlet’s comments here: Second Life First-Hour User Experience by Returning SLer. I have the video just below. It is an hour long. Sheeeesh. Will anyone watch the whole thing?

Beau Hindman (YouTube name) made the video. He says he was first in Second Life™ (SL) in 2004 and has not been in SL for some years. So, this is a semi-new user experience.

Beau rambles a lot and stumbles on what he wants to say. He keeps his umm, errr’s to a level I can tolerate. The first 10 minutes is more just telling us what SL is than it is a logical ordered tutorial. Continue reading →