Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
about
Category: Guest Post
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Above: Daly in Stars Reach Matt Daly's early first-person explorations of Star's Reach, the sandbox MMO from Raph Koster and his company Playable Worlds, have been so intriguing (as featured here last week), I asked him to expand them in this guest post! – WJA The whole reason many of us work in Games and…
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Hari Sutherland is a longtime SLer and author of the new book, SECOND LIFE: The First, Best Metaverse in Words and Pictures There’s been a lot of discussion lately on the problem of retention of new users in Second Life. While the focus has largely been on the daunting UI and learning curve, along with…
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When I ran an anonymous survey of Second Life merchants to help prepare this Patreon report on the Second Life economy, I included an open form option that asked, "Is there anything you'd like to say that wasn't covered by this survey?" One merchant delivered in thunder and fire. Read it all below, and if…
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Adam Frisby, CEO of metaverse platform creator Sine Wave Entertainment, has been developing with the Unity 3D engine since 2006. So in the wake of former CEO John Riccitiello's self-defenestration from the company earlier this week, he's one of the best qualified people to explain what the company needs to do, to build back its…
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LSL LinksetData is a relatively new addition to Second Life scripting that veteran devs say can powerfully transform interactive experiences in Second Life. To illustrate how, longtime scripter Grace Ling, creator of the popular roleplay app, Really Needy HUD, explains how it's used in her roleplay system — and how it can be used in…
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Pioneering MMO game designer Richard Bartle, author of the monumentally influential book Designing Virtual Worlds, recently started playing the MMO New World. Here's his hands-on review, including design tips for the developers: I've been playing New World for the past couple of months. There was an update yesterday, bringing a whole new 50 hours…
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Richard Bartle, the game industry's most respected expert on virtual worlds and the virtual economies in them, was recently invited to speak at a UK cryptocurrency conference about the immense challenges of integrating NFTs and blockchain into a virtual world (to put it diplomatically). He recently posted on social media what happened next, and…
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Longtime urban fantasy author Victor Ziblis is — or rather, was — a longtime member of the Second Life roleplay community, who first joined the world to promote his novels. "[I]t was actually a marketing stunt suggested by my publicist," he tells me, "The advertising stunt went off pretty well, but I found Second Life…
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Whiskey Monday is an acclaimed SL artist; follow her on Twitter @Whiskey_Day Dear Makers of Amazing Things in Second Life, Let me start by saying: I LOVE YOU. I would not be in Second Life without you. I could not do what I do without your inventive, beautiful, well-crafted creations. Thank you for all that…
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Robert Scoble has co-authored four books on technology, the latest of which, “The Infinite Retina” lays out why Spatial Computing will reshape seven industries. He grew up in Silicon Valley and has had a front-row seat on the technology industry since he toured Apple Computer back in 1977. Here he takes some time away from…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 