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Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

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  • 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!

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  • Cajsa’s Choices: Mr. G Creates Deceptively Simple Images That Pack Incredible Power

    April 9, 2025

    Screenshot (1530)Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    Known as Mr. G. takes deceptively simple pictures. There are few elements, usually his avatar and a relatively barren landscape of sand, rocks, and sometimes ocean. He eschews the bucolic, tamed landscapes of pastures and cottage gardens.  In his work, the landscape is vast and powerful. His avatar is often quite small in the distance. 

    In “What Do You Want From Me?”, he’s closer to the viewer and yet still you sense the power of the land. The wind batters and blows his clothing about. There is this constant in his work, appreciating the awesome power of the land. There is no sense that he is out to conquer the land, but just to see and acknowledge it like a man on a pilgrimage. 

    For more of his work on the wild side of SL, click here:

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  • BREAKING: Project Mesh Revolution’s Cardboard Avatars Evolve from April Fool’s Prank into Genuine Second Life Social Phenomenon

    April 8, 2025

    Originally published on my Patreon

    Longtime SLer Ciaran Astral was in a hopping club last Sunday when they realized an unexpected thing: Though surrounded by upwards of one hundred avatars, they were dancing and socializing in a space free from lag. (Watch above!)

    "It was amazing," as they recall it now. "I remember saying to someone, 'Holy crap there's this many people, and I have 150fps."

    But it wasn't just a matter of feeling liberated from lag:

    "It reminded me of the old days of Second Life," Ciaran tells me. "Loads of people making silly fun stuff and either giving it away for free or just charging a tiny amount for it — makers coming together to create a community event, a sort of 'DIY it, let's have fun' atmosphere." (Ciaran created the cardboard club, of course.)

    All this was possible, because everyone in the club was outfitted in the new Project Mesh Revolution mesh avatars — low poly cardboard cutouts that began as an April Fool's prank, but have quickly become a genuine Second Life phenomenon:

    "Lots of people made their own mods or clothes; what was cool to see was looking around at everyone, almost nobody had the same outfits/looks. Which, considering these 'Bodies' came out less than a week ago (at the time), is quite a testament to the creative power of the Second Life userbase."

    And I do mean "phenomenon": Since becoming available early last week, roughly 1 in 5 of the entire Second Life user base has gotten themselves copies of the PMR avatars:

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  • Is This Updated List of Sunsetted Virtual Worlds Missing Any Titles?

    April 8, 2025

    Cloude Party virtual world islands

    Above: Cloud Party before being acquired and shuttered by Yahoo!

    Thanks to everyone, especially VR legend Jacki Morie, for helping update this list of sunsetted virtual worlds that I'm compiling with Julian Reyes and the Virtual Worlds Museum. Based on that feedback, we're adding these three to the VWM's exhibit:

    Barbie Girls  – 2007 to 2011

    Browser-based virtual world based on the Barbie IP where players could customize their own room and avatar, and communicate with each through pre-selected phrases. Discontinued by Mattel, with the company directing players to enjoy Barbe-themed avatars on Stardoll.

    WorldsAway – 1995 to 1998

    A 2.5D world developed by a subsidiary of Fujitsu and first launched on CompuServe, users had customizable avatars and rentable, customizable homes called "turfs". Acquired in 1998 and rebranded as VZones. Reference.

    Cloud Party – 2012 to 2014

    Browser-based virtual world backed with funding by Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka, developed by ex-Cryptic Studios CTO Bruce Rogers, with robust creation tools. Acquired by Yahoo! In 2014 and taken offline. Reference.

    I'm a bit embarrassed for missing Cloud Party from the first draft, especially as I was the first person to blog about it!

    See the rest of the sunsetted worlds documented here or below. Now that we have our final (or near-final) list, we'll be moving on to Specialized virtual worlds, especially those for Education/Training, Meetings, and Enterprise. Check for that next week!

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  • Second Life Creators Contribute Pics to “Hands Off” Anti-Trump/Musk March, Including This Literal Face-Eating Leopard on a Cybertruck

    April 8, 2025

    Leopards Face Trump meme

    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    Alsatian Kidd brings the viral “Leopards ate my face” meme to literal life in Second Life, with a Cybertruck added for good measure. After the “Hands Off” anti-Trump/Musk marches across the country this weekend, I was curious if Second Lifers were showing their concerns in their pictures. There were not as many pictures as I anticipated, probably because we are being habituated to ineptitude and corruption. But not all are exhausted by outrage and for Alsatian, there is a strong, consistent commitment to resistance.

    What are some other Second Life folks up to in the wake of "Hands Off"?  Click here for more:

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  • Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2025年3月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan

    April 8, 2025

    6a00d8341bf74053ef02b75197f9d9200c

    Sanny Yoshikawa が、New World Notesのなかから、毎月おすすめのバーチャルワールドニュースを日本語で紹介します

    Sanny Yoshikawa covers the monthly virtual world highlights from New World Notes for virtual Japan.

     

     

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  • Is the Second Life Controversy Over Gen AI Mainly About SL Images That No Longer Look Like Second Life — Not Over AI Per Se? (Comments of the Week)

    April 7, 2025

    Gen AI sl survey

    Since writing about Primfeed's survey on whether AI-enhanced images should be allowed on the social media site, the vote continues to lean heavily on No. 

    One challenge, however, is that "AI" is still broadly or loosely defined. As SL creator  Jennifer Fluffington comments:

    We need to define more what is considered 'AI' to be allowed in the public forum. I.E., I use Photoshop Generative AI to make minor repairs that would take me 5-6 steps and layers to do in one click.

    Am I lazy? I don't think so, I being smart with my time spent on a project that I am making pennies on the hour for.

    Yes I enjoy my craft, but let's face it, we all have limited time in a day and many things to do, so if I can shave 15-20 mins off 3 different defects on a project that almost an hour saved in my day.

    So, because of those repairs that don't alter the overall aesthetic of the photos, are my photos going to be rejected from the public forum? This is a discussion we need.

    Fair question! One possible answer is implied in a comment from Kate Nova — when an avatar image no longer looks like the avatar themselves does in Second Life:

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  • Top 5 Posts Including: More Gen AI in Virtual Worlds Backlash, and an April Fool’s Mesh Prank Takes on a Second Life of Its Own

    April 7, 2025

    Susanne Drechsler PMR avatars

    • Everwinter Unveiled: New Cyberpunk City MMO in Second Life with AI Companion, Deep Story Building, Launches Tomorrow
    • Second Life's Gen AI Controversy Leads to Drama Over Banning of AI-Altered Images on Primfeed — And This Primfeed Survey
    • Cajsa's Choices: Morgan Talbot Creates Story-Rich Adventure Tableaus in Second Life, Then Writes Evocative Stories to Accompany Them
    • SL Mobile App Hits 300K Downloads, Partly for Hilarious Reasons
    • Project Mesh Revolution is What Second Life Needs Right Now — No Fooling!
  • Everwinter Unveiled: New Cyberpunk City MMO in Second Life with AI Companion, Deep Story Building, Launches Tomorrow

    April 4, 2025

    April 4 Update: Everwinter is officially opening tomorrow (April 5) at Noon SLT — details here, click here to directly teleport.

    Read my Everwinter preview, originally posted on my Patreon, below: 

    Click here to teleport to start adventuring in Everwinter, an ambitious new Second Life-based cyberpunk MMO from Nadir Taov, lead creator of the long-running Crack Den urban roleplay game/community. (Inevitably incredible Everwinter trailer by Teal Aurelia above!) Everwinter is set in a fantastically detailed city surrounded by snowy wasteland, with six interconnected regions for gameplay and exploration. Or, of course, you're free to just wander around as a tourist taking cool photos of the PBR-enabled surroundings.

    Everwinter also gives players an AI companion, but unlike the humanoid NPCs of Convai, Nadir's version is much more immersive to the Everwinter backstory:

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  • Second Life’s Gen AI Controversy Leads to Drama Over Banning of AI-Altered Images on Primfeed — And This Primfeed Survey

    April 3, 2025

    Primfeed Gen AI survey drama SL

    Primfeed recently became the most popular website focused on Second Life not owned by Linden Lab, and so inevitably, the "Flickr-for-SL" social platform is now a flashpoint for the key controversy among SLers: Whether AI programs like LLM-powered NPCs like those from Convai and Gen AI platforms like Midjourney should exist in the virtual world at all. The drama around the platform's current "no AI images" policy became so heated, owner Luke Rowley posted this survey, asking:  

    Do you think Primfeed should allow AI edited Second Life images in the Public Gallery?

    Launched earlier this week and running for 11 more days, it's already garnered nearly 2,000 votes — about 10% of Primfeed's weekly active users. (Which is quite a lot for online surveys, which typically get less than 5% engagement.)

    This survey comes after hundreds of angry posts, many on other social networks (of course), complaining to Luke about Primfeed's no-AI policy — one of them from a top SL content creator. (Who perhaps not coincidentally, used Gen AI in a recent promotional video.) Luke even created new code to make a poll on Primfeed like this possible, he tells me:

     

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  • World to Wishlist: BitCraft, Voxel-Based, Single-Shard MMO

    April 3, 2025

    Set for early access next May, BitCraft from ClockWork Laboratories is worth wishlisting on Steam for including several features we want to see work: It's a rare single shard MMO, for one thing; for another, it's voxel-based, allowing players to edit/modify/build on the world with a high degree of freedom. Watch the Early Access trailer above, more info below: 

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