Snowman Building Contest in Steelhead

Being a community where mad scientists are respected, Steelhead has seen many interesting creations. Question is, what would these creative minds do when asked to make a snowman? Well, the steampunk community is about to find out, as leader TotalLunar Eclipse has announced a snowman building contest.

The rules are, "Fifteen prims per snowman you can enter up to two times. The winner and runner up will have their unique snowman displayed in front of town hall until the snow thaws for all to see." "It could be anything you want it to be, except lewd." So any creative designs inspired by "Calvin and Hobbes" are acceptable, if not encouraged.

Those entering the contest are asked to drop their snowmen (or snowwomen or snowbeast) at Steelhead Port Harbor (96, 111, 1028). This will be the location for Steelhead's Friday Night dance this week, the theme being "A Snowball's Chance in Hell." Which may be a hint as to what happens to the losers.

A Look at Linden Lab's "Patterns"

Last week, Linden Lab revealed two of the projects they were working on, "Creatorverse" and "Patterns." Seeing the pictures and description of Patterns, some dismissed it as the Lab trying to rip off Minecraft without coming up with anything original. Just after the announcement, gaming Internet magazine IGN published an article by Anthony Gallegos in which he looked at the game and had a few words with Rod Humble about it. His observation was that it was "dramatically different" from the familiar sandbox game.

Rod Humble admitted Minecraft was an influence, "So the notion was you take a very simple 3D Creation tool you take that lovely elegance of the resources that's in Minecraft, and them make the whole thing have physics from the ground up." In both, one has an avatar in a world gathering up resources. But in Minecraft the avatar builds tools which it can use. It doesn't in Patterns. Nor are there monsters and hot lava to make survival a question. The world itself is different, alien looking compared to the familiar grass, trees, and hills. And instead of cubes, the world is made up of triangular tiles, as is the avatar.

What can one do with the triangular tiles? They can be used to create three dimensional blocks. And these blocks can be used to build larger structures. The tiles can come from a variety of materials, wood, stone, clay, etc. And the hardness and weight of the cubes can have an effect on what one can build. Physics and gravity matter here much more than Minecraft. If one keeps extending a horizontal column of blocks, it will eventually break and fall. And a mostly stone column with a clay base will break sooner than a clay column with a stone one.

When working with the world, sometimes the physics acted in ways that surprised the Linden team. The Lindens are hoping to get users on board to continue to see what can be done with the place, as Humble stated in the video trailer from Linden Lab, he wanted "creators in from the earliest possible moment." A few days after the  IGN article was published, Linden Lab began taking pre-orders for the game's "Genesis version" for $9.95. The page stated those buying would be "entitled to have your name featured in the credits of the game in version 1.0."

Hamlet Au commented that  in giving an advance peek to IGN, it looked like Linden Lab was aiming at gamers rather than users of Second Life as more likely to give Patterns a try. He also states he managed to get in touch with Minecraft's creator Markus Persson. Of Patterns, he thought, "Looks great."





Once again, Patterns Genesis can be pre-ordered at: http://buildpatterns.com/buy/.

Sources: IGN, New World Notes  

Bixyl Shuftan

CEO Rod Humble/Rodvik Linden “Getting Immersed in Second Life”

Some of you may remember when Paisley Bebee observed many Lindens didn’t seem to have much of a clue how to go about Second Life, not knowing how to change their avatar’s clothes or shop for them, let alone build something. Taking a look at the recent blog post by CEO Rod Humble, or Rodvik Linden as he’s known in-avatar, he is determined not to be part of that problem.


One of my highest priorities, over the last few weeks, was spending as much time as possible exploring inworld (with an alt and now Rodvik Linden) to better understand the product experience, your needs, and the culture of Second Life. I have discovered so much. I am amazed on a daily basis by what you have created. Over the holidays, I enjoyed many winter landscapes and seasonal activities. And, more recently, I have been playing around with vehicles and animals.


He’s also been doing a little landscaping, and building, the blog pictures showing a simple log cabin, and a river raft, “Getting immersed in Second Life is the fun part of the job and I can see why you love the world that you’ve created.”

Considering that Linden Labs has so often appeared without a clue, especially in the past several months, it’s refreshing to see the new boss not just cheering the new product, but being shown using it and getting to know it's users, whom he recognized as "customers." Hopefully this is an example of times to come, not just with Rodvik, but other Lindens.

Another thing I noticed, his choice of clothes. He was wearing a toga. Perhaps he had been visiting a Roman-themed sim, such as SPQR. Or maybe as Hamlet Au wondered, dropping in on a fraternity party. ;-)

Welcome to the Grid, Rodvik. We hope you keep on coming back.

To see Rodvik's post, and the comments below, Click Here.


Bixyl Shuftan