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'Second Life' studio invites VR players to try 'Project Sansar'
Linden Lab, the creative minds behind the bizarre social game Second Life, is unveiling its latest project, planted firmly within the roots of the virtual world.
Blizzard wins court case over patent troll Worlds Inc.
A Boston court ruled in Blizzard's favor last week against a lawsuit brought on by Worlds Inc. (aka Worlds.com) that claimed the studio infringed on four patents that Worlds Inc. made in the mid-1990s. This ruling is the latest development in a case that spans back to 2012, when Worlds Inc. filed the suit. The company claimed that Blizzard violated patents that showed the invention of "a method for enabling a first user to interact with other users in a virtual space," among other items. A U.S. District Judge ruled that these patents are invalid because those inventions already existed prior to the filings. This isn't Worlds' first attempt to sue an MMO studio over these allegations, as it went after (and lost to) NCsoft and Linden Lab several years ago.
MV Guide: February 6-12, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
MV Guide: January 30-February 5, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
Previously on MV TV: Week of January 23rd
Welcome to Previously on MV TV! Our livestreaming schedule has picked up a lot over the past few weeks, and our readers have busy lives, so we know it's impossible to watch every single streaming event live. Fortunately for you, we save all of our streams all for posterity on Massively's Twitch TV channel, so you can view them at your leisure. Even better, we've got a roundup of a few of last week's MV TV highlights from the livestream team. Follow along after the jump for the best of the best, and check out our full library of videos for the other games we've streamed last week as we begin to ramp up our streaming even more in February!
MV Guide: January 23-29, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
MV Guide: January 16-22, 2012
MV Guide is a weekly rundown of the MMO gaming events planned on Massively TV. Every week, the Massively staff logs in to play various MMOs live and in person, and we'd love for you to drop by the channel and visit. We have a combination of regular weekly games and new surprises, so you'll find a variety of titles to take a look at. During our streamed events, you can participate in the live chat, ask questions to learn about the game, and simply spend some time with Massively staff and readers. (Of course, streaming is subject to the whims of outside forces like server-side gremlins once in a while.) Follow along after the jump to see what's on this week's schedule!
Previously on MV TV: Week of January 9th, 2012
Welcome to the brand-new Previously on MV TV! Our livestreaming schedule has picked up a lot over the past few weeks, and our readers have busy lives, so we know it's impossible to watch every single streaming event live. Fortunately for you, we save all of our streams all for posterity on Massively's Twitch TV channel, so you can view them at your leisure. Even better, we've got a roundup of a few of last week's MV TV highlights from the livestream team. Follow along after the jump for the best of the best!
Some Assembly Required: A virtual world roundup
If you are perusing this column, chances are you are a fan of virtual worlds and the sandbox genre. Join the club! (Dues will be due on the third Tuesday.) The aspect that compels many aficionados to delve into a game is the ability to make an impact on the world in some small respect instead of making them into Hive Member 1593072 running a static, predetermined gauntlet. How that impact is accomplished, however, varies; there are multiple features that can facilitate it, and which ones are considered most important depends on the player. With the loss of one of the best sandbox games just last month, some players may be feeling a void. Others still are looking/hoping for the "ultimate" sandbox that contains nearly every virtual world feature. Certainly, there are some upcoming games that make some drool-worthy promises, but what about playing something now? There are actually games out on the market that have at least one aspect of the genre, if not more. To start off the new year, Some Assembly Required looks at some of the top features of virtual worlds and lists games that incorporate these features. While this list isn't exhaustive (considering the sheer number of games when you include all of the smaller free-to-play titles, I'd run out of column space!), it is a comprehensive enough overview to point you toward some games worth playing that perhaps you hadn't considered before.
Second Life rolls out Linden Realms publicly on December 1st
Something very unusual is coming to Second Life on December 1st: a game. All right, that in and of itself isn't all that unusual, since the virtual world has long empowered users to create their own systems and their own games. But this is still something different because it's not a user-created game. Linden Realms has been developed specifically by Linden Lab, and as of December 1st all users will be able to experience what a first-party game for the virtual environment feels like. Second Life content creators will, rather unfortunately, be facing off against an in-house project. Luckily, the tools used in the development of Linden Realms will also be made available to the community, giving everyone a chance to play with the new tools and improve upon gameplay experiences. Whether or not this is a good thing or not for the game's overall health remains to be seen, but it may well provide an interesting boost to the community's user-created content.
Rod Humble details experimentation and innovation at Linden Lab
Linden Lab's popular Second Life is known for being one of the more creative, outside-the-box titles available on the market. That tradition carries over into Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble's newest initiative, which he says "puts the 'lab' in Linden Lab." Rather than having his developers spend all their time between projects working on bug-fixes, Humble has begun a rapid-prototyping R&D initiative. For all the information on this new project, head on over to Gamasutra and check out the full feature.
Second Life competitor Blue Mars drops PC development for Apple's iOS
If you were hoping that Blue Mars was going to rise to directly challenge Second Life's virtual world dominance, you may be in for disappointment today. In a letter to Avatar Reality's fans, CEO Jim Sink announced that the company is restructuring and dropping Blue Mars' PC development to focus solely on Apple's iOS. As a result, Blue Mars is now Blue Mars Mobile. "With over 50 million new tablet devices projected to reach consumers this year along with tens of millions of iPhones and iPod Touch devices, the market for Blue Mars Mobile is a massive opportunity for our company and our customers. We already have a functioning alpha in house and we aim to release the first builds of Blue Mars on iOS next month," Sink said. Sink also announced that a number of Avatar Reality employees, including himself, have been let go from the company. Unfortunately for PC users, Avatar Reality is limiting development to mere bug fixes for the forseeable future. While the company will not charge users of the PC client, there will also be no technical support for the user client.
Second Life's Emerald client facing obsolescence
Recent months have not been wholly kind to Second Life, and those circumstances don't seem finished just yet. The Emerald client, one of the most popular third-party viewers -- estimated to be used by as many as half of all players -- has fallen out of favor with Linden Labs and is no longer an officially endorsed option. Scott Jennings has posted a full rundown of the client's history, charting its progress from the earliest inception of the project to its current status of having fallen from grace. The short version (or as short a version as you can get for drama four years in the making) is that Emerald's coders included some rather... hack-tacular backdoors in the client's coding. This is a downside for reasons that should not need to be specified, but does add up to some major problems for the large playerbase still using Emerald. Second Life has had a hard time getting its users to switch to the 2.0 viewer, and about the only upside may be that the removal of Emerald will change that... but the overall drama isn't going to be kind for either the Emerald project or Linden Labs itself.
Linden Lab acquires Avatars United, Enemy Unknown AB
In a move that will no doubt perplex, flummox and befuddle many media commentators and technology columnists who erroneously believed that Second Life was a Web 2.0 social networking tool, Linden Lab has acquired social networking site, Avatars United (and developers of same, Enemy Unknown AB). This also has the side-effect of shooting down any semblance of Wallace Linden's identity piece last week being an overture of a conversation, instead making it look like the usual introduction to a Linden Lab fait accompli. We've written about Avatars United on a couple of previous occasions, but never really had much call to get involved ourselves. The social networking tool includes a large number of MMOGs and non-game virtual environments, being best known for it's strong application support of open-ended space-based MMOG, EVE Online.
Second Life CEO stepping down, remaining active in development
Linden Lab's CEO Philip Rosedale, the man behind Second Life, told Reuters today that he'll be stepping down from his position and the company will seek someone with more management expertise to replace him. Rosedale will become chairman of the Linden Lab board when a successor is found and he'll stay active at the company in product development and strategy.Rosedale's replacement will be tasked with regaining the momentum that Second Life once had when it was the hip thing for academics and business journalists to write and talk about. Although nothing is expected to be announced in the next year, Bill Gurley of Bechmark Capital believes the company could go public "at some point in the future."[Via Massively, GameDaily]
Second Life gathers no moss in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone has a sprawling article about Second Life that focuses on its creator, Philip Rosedale, and it's pretty eye-opening. Rosedale equates Second Life to Burning Man, rants and raves about virtual reality, and says, "Once we have enough computing power, we can remake the world using simulation."It's pretty obvious that without Rosedale's fanaticism for the project, Second Life never would have been born, but reading this article makes him seem a bit driven to the point of megalomania. Kushner compares Rosedale's "Rig" that he built to start the virtual experience a "Lawnmower Man-like contraption," and you probably remember how crazy that guy got.Give the article a spin and find out a little bit behind the man who built Second Life, the problems they face, and where it'll all go from here.
Sweden to open virtual embassy in Second Life
Of course, since there isn't an actual Sweden within the world of Second Life, the plans for opening a virtual Swedish embassy (not to be mistaken for the ABBA Club, which is virtually a Swedish embassy) are really part of an effort to increase tourism to the Nordic country. Illustriously dubbed, "The House of Sweden," the polygonal building will is expected to open its digital doors within the next few weeks and is said to modeled on the newly erected embassy in Washington -- not Sweden's considerably more impressive Turning Torso skyscraper (as seen to the right). "It will have answers to questions on all aspects of Sweden," explains the Swedish Institute's Olle Wastberg. Indeed, the virtual embassy will likely serve as an enthusiastic and interactive knowledge hub, hoping to lure Second Life users into visiting Sweden in their first lives. [Via Aeropause]
Get a First Life. Membership is FREE!
Blogger Darren Barefoot has published a clever Second Life parody at Get A First Life dot com. The community boast over 6.5 billion residents (not inflated), free membership, and is the first 3D analog world sans server lag. Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, even sent the site a "Proceed and Permitted" letter (the opposite of a "Cease and Desist"). Nice to see the company appreciates a sense of humor. Now go outside and enjoy the beauty that is First Life.[via Boing Boing]
Grey goo attacks Second Life
Second Life was attacked over the weekend by a worm that created self-replicating rings, similar to the ones from Sonic games. When users touched them, the rings multiplied, clogging the game world with what Linden Labs called "grey goo." The service was closed briefly to clean up the rings and their nefarious code.While we don't play much Second Life, we're fascinated by its culture. We think that that a big part of general society will eventually meet in an MMO world; these interfaces may turn into the next generation of the internet. And the attack reminds us that pranksters -- or worse -- will always be present.Second Life is still a miniscule scale of what MMOs could become. Will these sorts of hacks prevent MMOs from reaching the general population?[Via Slashdot]
Second Life's user database breached
Hackers broke into the Second Life user databases on Thursday, according to this post on the official blog of Second Life parent company Linden Labs. Intruders gained access to Second Life account names, real life names, contact information, encrypted account passwords and encrypted payment information. So what? Well, there's something scarier about this theft. Name, address and credit card information is stolen daily from various inept ecommerce sites. We're kind of accustomed to that level of theft. But how many of us are really comfortable with data stolen from the place where we spend our leisure time? To put a finer point on it, what happens when archived MMOG chat logs are breached? It's going to be ugly, like AOL ugly: "I swear honey, that Furry meant nothing to me. It was totally just research for my new book. I'll sell the teledildonics equipment on eBay first thing tomorrow." Gamers haven't been paying much attention to privacy of in-game communications. Given how intimate some of those communications have become, maybe it's time for more scrutiny of privacy protection measures taken by MMOG providers. [Via Techcrunch] [Image via furry.wikia.com]
