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Trillian gets there first, brings Continuous Client features to latest build
Well this is rather awesome. Cerulean Studios may have just become the first company in the world to implement some of the ideas I hatched in an editorial I wrote about a little something called the Continuous Client. If you need a refresher you can read the article here, but the gist of my argument is that the work you're doing in applications on your phone, tablet, or PC should follow you around. You shouldn't have to restart each conversation or refocus your Twitter stream or re-open applications and load up files you were working on. Your devices (and their clients) should talk to each other so that you can placeshift your session from screen to screen. Well, believe it or not, someone took this to heart. The makers of the super-popular chat client Trillian have implemented Continuous Client features in the latest beta build for Windows (5.0 build 30). Amongst the new features added is the ability to share chats between devices "in realtime," allowing you to switch from PC to phone to iPad without losing the thread. Using "presence technology" the client can make logical guesses about when you're at (and not at) your PC or phone, and reroutes your notifications accordingly. The company has a blog post on all of the features of the new build, but of course, the best way to experience it is to download the software and try it out for yourself. We'd love to see your reactions and find out if it's making life easier, so sound off in the comments below.
Storyboard: Putting the RP out of the G
Roleplaying happens in the game, that much is a given. For some players, it's a supplement to the other parts of the game; for others, it's the whole point of playing. And there's nothing wrong with leaving your roleplaying as just an in-game thing, something you put down as casually as any other in-game activity. But there's also nothing wrong with working on developing your character and her story when you aren't logged into the game, and this week, I'm going to look at some of the more effective ways to do just that. The obvious question about taking RP out of the game in part is the question of why. It could be for any number of reasons -- maybe you can't access your main game computer at a given time, maybe you want to fill in the gaps in your character's life, or maybe you just want to make the experience of the character herself more immersive. Whatever your reasons, there are three main ways to keep your character interactive and living even if you haven't logged into the game proper.
A look at METAbolt -- a non-graphical Second Life viewer
Ever log in to Second Life, run around awhile, and then shake your head and think, "this place is nothing but a glorified chat room! And that's what I like! I don't care about all this graphics stuff!" Well, frustrated, graphics-hating Second Life user, METAbolt has what you crave. When we heard someone had written a text-based Second Life client for computers that just couldn't hack the graphics, we were sort of expecting something like a regular graphical client, except where all the images were made of tiny little text characters... like the picture above, which is not from METAbolt, alas. (It's Second Life on Linux run through the aalib graphics-to-text library)As a chat room, though, METAbolt has some good points and some not so good points. For one, every time you log in, you are placed in the Welcome area. While this may be the fastest way to put you with potential chat-mates, it's not really the sort of thing you expect. Gone were all saved landmarks as well. You will arrive in the Welcome Area, and you will enjoy your time there.
