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: New World Gaming
-
Originally published on my Patreon here Nyric is an upcoming game (on Steam here, watch the trailer above) that blends sandbox/virtual world creativity, survival/crafting gameplay, and generative AI in an ambitiously fresh way — so much so, it's almost a new subgenre. ("Minecraft meets Midjourney" might be a fair elevator pitch.) Kayla Comalli, CEO/co-founder of Nyric…
-
This long inZOI playthrough by Rudi Rennkamel (watch above) is from a few months ago, but it's the most thorough I've seen so far. The avatar creation and 3D building system is quite impressive, with some caveats. Unless I missed it, sadly no mention of inZOI's cat god though. Brendan "PLAYERUNKNOWN" Greene is making a…
-
The Kickstarter for Stars Reach, Raph Koster's highly ambitious galaxy sandbox MMORPG I wrote about last month, just launched earlier today… and surpassed its initial $200K target goal within an hour. So far it has over 1400 backers, with the majority pledging between $30-100 for early access to play the game, along with other benefits.…
-
Just posted: Nyric is an upcoming game (on Steam here, watch the trailer above) that blends sandbox/virtual world creativity, survival/crafting gameplay, and generative AI in an ambitiously fresh way — so much so, it's almost a new subgenre. ("Minecraft meets Midjourney" might be a fair elevator pitch.) The lead developer, Kayla Comalli of Lovelace Studio,…
-
Originally published on my Patreon When I last chatted with Gizem Mishi Akin a few months ago, she had just launched her new SL-only brand, KiwiCo, and it sure seemed like her days as a cross-platform metaverse entrepreneur were over. But then she went ahead and created her own mini-metaverse platform: Behold Simthing (watch the teaser…
-
When I last checked in with inZOI, it was an upcoming life sim with an amazing character generator and a whole simulated city somehow controlled by a cat god. (Yes, really.) So I'm somewhat surprised to see this new trailer pop up, promoting inZOI's ability to build/customize whole massive "rooms", everything from art museums to…
-
Stars Reach, Raph Koster’s Ambitious Galaxy Sandbox MMORPG, is Crowdfunding Its Launch — Here’s Why.
Stars Reach, Raph Koster's highly ambitious "galaxy sandbox MMORPG", has been in development for several years, but just took a somewhat unexpected direction — a Kickstarter to finalize development: Developed by industry veterans, including the visionary behind Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, Stars Reach pushes the boundaries of simulation and immersion in MMOs, delivering…
-
Now on Netflix (at least in the US), The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is an acclaimed documentary about the amazing secret life of a young man with muscle-wasting disorder who flourished within his World of Warcraft guild (trailer above). As regular readers know, stories like these happen all the time across all virtual worlds, but…
-
Veteran game journalist Stephen Totilo has the most in-depth story I've read so far on inZOI, the very viral upcoming life sim game from South Korean company KRAFTON. You should subscribe and read the whole thing on his newsletter (maybe get your company to expense it!), but here's some keys details, gleaned from his interview…
-
Good question from reader Elle Couerblanc on Once Human and its cozy virtual world gameplay: Well, this game looks interesting! I see there is combat involved? Is it more PVE or PVP-oriented? I thought cozy MMOs did not have combat. OK, technically Once Human isn't cozy; instead, say cozy-ish, or at least, cozy-able. Gogo, who I…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 