Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

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Hypnotic Romance, an SL sim with secluded spaces for couples. Click here to teleport.

The Virtual Worlds Museum. Click here to teleport to their Second Life hub with tribute to sunsetted worlds!

“TV POWWW!” by Tom Boellstorff & Braxton Soderman. Read about the first televised videogame here.

The Fitting Room: Try out new SL fits in a secure, private space. Click here to teleport.

Breedables CoOp, helping the SL pet community grow through shared resources. Go here to get started.

  • Level Up by Exercising & Exploring Second Life With the Really Needy HUD Fitness Game — With L$ Prizes for Top Three Players!

    Really Needy HUD Fitness game running

    There’s a new fitness game in the Really Needy HUD system (a proud sponsoring media partner to New World Notes) and it brings a fun new way of exploring and socializing in Second Life — basically, you earn points by doing physical activities through the virtual world. 

    “You start at level 0, and by jogging outdoors or running on a treadmill, you gain Fitness Points, and level up,” Really Needy HUD creator Grace7 Ling explains. “As you unlock new levels, there are a wider variety of activities you can do to earn Fitness Points, such as swimming, boxing, weights, or you gain new abilities, for example, making protein shakes. Most importantly, your avatar’s Health meter, which normally has a maximum of 100, can rise above 100. This simulates the avatar’s physical constitution improving as fitness increases.” 

    So basically, it’s a Sims-meets-MMO mini-game you can play in Second Life — but Ms. Ling hopes it also leads to a deeper experience in the virtual world:

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  • How to Track Total VRChat User Concurrency Across All Platforms

    VRChat concurrency Steam Oculus

    A bot on the official VRChat Discord (link here) regularly updates the number of online users — or you can just click here to get that number.

    For instance, as I write this at around 1:30pm PT, for example, there are 29,414 concurrent users. Which is interesting, because if you check VRChat's concurrency via Steam (see screen capture at right), 16,446 are logged into the world via Valve's platform.

    Which is interesting! Because that suggests almost half VRChat's userbase is logging in not through Steam but though Oculus Home (for PC) and Oculus Quest. (Vive owners can log in via Viveport, but are likely to go in through Steam.)

    Thanks to Adeon for the tip and analysis help!

  • Fashion Friday Blog: Fantastic Asian Pop Culture Style Inspirations by Bloom

    123

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

    Bloom’s blog is the perfectly named Bloom-ing. In post 123, I love the jacket and the way it lies over her shoulders. It’s a different option and perfect for casual around-the-house wear, as are the socks. 

    For a truly sporty look, click here:

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  • How to Buy NFTs of Virtual Art Made by AI Artists Created by AI With ETH

    … is a title to a post I never guessed I'd write even 12 months ago. But here we are. As to what the F it all actually means:

    NFT Mirage Gallery Taylor MIntableThey're being sold on Mintable, a community-run NFT marketplace. And if that's still somewhat intimidating but you're interested in the fairly delirious buzz around NFT, here are step-by-step instructions for buying the art of Taylor and Alejandro — or for that matter, any other item on Mintable — from August Rosedale himself. 

    First, however, please caveat the hell out of your emptor purchasing decision beforehand. For instance, read this tweet thread highly critical of NFT's long-term fortunes.

    That to one side, here's young Rosedale:

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  • Today’s Flickr Pick: Jules Verne’s Nemo Cosplay, Human Chess & a French Tribute to American Friends by Seb

    51038637436_9569d29c4e_c

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

    Seb decided to shoot “The Untold Story of Captain Nemo” and it’s gorgeous. It’s untold because this scene is not in the book, but comes from Seb’s adventurous imagination.To make it even better, Ethan Lane, the person who posed as Captain Nemo, took his own snaps from his point-of-view:

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  • South by Southwest Conference Launches XR Experience in VRChat

    If people citing postmodern theorists in VRChat videos isn't enough of a sign of the virtual world's growing cultural prominence, here's another one: South by Southwest (i.e. SXSW), generally considered one of the leading tech and culture (music, movies, etc.) conferences in the US if not the world, is staging some of its events and showcases in VRChat this year:

    Using the SXSW 2021 look and feel, SXSW Online XR will showcase live panels, meet ups, special events, a selection of 360° videos from the Virtual Cinema program, as well as 2D video feeds of SXSW programming. Austin venues recreated in the space include The Paramount Theatre, the Contemporary Austin, Mohawk, Empire Control Room & Garage, and Cedar Street Courtyard. SXSW worked with world-renowned artists and the social XR events studio VRrOOm to design and produce the festival’s virtual edition, which will be hosted on VRChat. The complete Virtual Cinema Program, including previously-announced Virtual Cinema Competition and Virtual Cinema Spotlight projects, will also be accessible and downloadable via the VRrOOm store online. The VRChat worlds can be experienced on PC, PCVR and Oculus Quest headsets.

    I like the abstract, dreamlike version of Austin, Texas they've created for VRChat, and am curious if the platform allows enough local concurrency to capture anything like the wild serendipity that SXSW itself is beloved for, possible only when enough creative and zany people can be close together in the same place. (Three random personal examples off the top of my head: Joining a live klezmer band street party at 3am, watching a Japanese punk band turn themselves into human bowling pins, and playing real life Frogger on Austin's busiest street with a remote-controlled Roomba from a hotel balcony.)  

    Anyway, info for joining the VRChat conference below:

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  • Why Second Life’s Most Famous Cyberpunk City Now Has a Homeless Camp

    Hangars Liquides homeless camp SL

    A descendant of migrants and anti-fascist resistors brings their memory to the metaverse

    You can have a virtual home in Hangars Liquides, the massive and awesome cyberpunk city in Second Life which boasts a skyline of skyscrapers before which Oprah Winfrey once gave a speech, and William Gibson himself once praised. But why pay to live in a well-appointed penthouse of a dystopian future, when you can live in a tent from our near-dystopian present?

    Click here to visit, and if you like, find a free place for your avatar to squat, in Hangars Liquides’ new homeless encampment.

    “I know there are quite a few wanderers in SL that like to go around, so they could have a little spot in a place that is community-oriented to get together and talk and just have simple good times,” Hangars creator Djehan Kidd tells me.  “And of course I hope people will reflect on the subjects of current homelessness and migration crisis.”

    Djehan spent many days creating the camp, not only making sure it worked as an immersive space, but that it evoked the homeless camps that have sprouted up across the real world in recent years:

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  • How to Gain New Users to Virtual Worlds from Collective Experiences

    Metaverse vitual world design tips Alexia Mandeville

    Here's a handy guide for growing user numbers and engagement in virtual worlds by veteran game designer Alexia Mandeville (High Fidelity, Facebook's Horizon, Niantic), who was last seen on New World Notes offering tips to Linden Lab on growing Second Life. Her specific focus here is the value of collective experiences which start on 2D platforms:

    Intent to enter into a virtual world starts on flat surfaces. A phone, a messaging platform, a social media platform, a website. How do we get people to dip their toes into the virtual world from these surfaces? We can increase information sharing and acquire new users to join in by implementing some of the following tactics:

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  • Today’s Flickr Pick: Amazingly Photos of Male Avatars, and a Powerful Image Inspired by a Banksy Quote — And the Artist’s Real Life Patients

    SL Flickr Male avatar art photo

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

    “They say you die twice” is a picture by "Big D" that I almost missed. I stopped to look more closely because I recognized the quote and wanted to see how the picture illustrated. The full quote from Banksy is, “They say you die twice, Once when you stop breathing and again when your name is spoken for the last time.” D's idea is subtle but perfect as the avatar is erased in the diamonds of the fencing, disappearing bit by bit as people’s memories of him disappear.

    In the description, he suggests the image is in honor of people he's helped as medical worker in real life: "This is my tribute to all my patients who have gone and those that are about to. They've all enriched my life in their own little ways and they will all live on in my heart." Great concept and done brilliantly. 

    He also has some very slice-of-life pics like the next one, click here:

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  • Why Virtual Mirrors Are Popular in VRChat: A Philosophical Explanation

    In this new video from Strasz (previously featured here), the VRChat sociologist deep dives into the obsession with staring at one's avatar in virtual mirrors. (It's such a popular VRChat pastime, we devoted two posts and an original comic to it.) Heavily citing French postmodernist theory ("Foucault* would have a field day in VRChat"),  Strasz argues that VRChat users aren't simply being narcissistic:

    "I think ultimately a lot of behaviors in VR (like standing in front of a mirror) are misunderstood," as he puts it to me. "People tend to see them in a negative light, or see them as anti-social, when in reality they serve a powerful purpose. The mirror in VR isn't just a thing that lets you see yourself — it's one that lets you calibrate your body, and get a sense of how you fit into the virtual space."

    Given his Strasz's previous report, suggesting that a majority of VRChat users would literally like to be their avatar in real life, that sounds right.

    And once a virtual mirror anchors the individual VRChat user, Strasz adds, it then becomes a social hub:

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