"Hunchback of Notre Dame" at the Royal Opera House

On Sunday August 13, Gemma Cleanslate headed over to the Royal Opera House in the Oceanea sim. The theater was showing a musical, titled "Notre Dame de Paris." But it might be better known by the movie that's based on the same story, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." So what did Gemma think of the performance?

Read Gemma's article in Events.

SL Video: "Second Life - A Much Closer Look Into The Virtual World"

(Click here if the video fails to load)

Earlier this month, Luca Grabacr did an infographic video of various statistics about Second Life, such as it's size and numbers. A few days ago, she decided to follow up with another trying to describe what the virtual world can be, in ways the mainstream media often miss.

"Have we looked beyond what have been shown to us about Second Life and give enough time to make sense of the more intricate meanings behind the virtual things that resides inside it? Maybe now's the time.

"Look and presentation are very important factors in how we perceive and see things. And back then, SL might look 'unpleasantly weird' to take its place as "the Virtual World" we have dreamed of for decades. To the majority of its users, media people trying to cover it, and therefore the mass public in general. As a result, SL didn't get the prolonged mainstream attention it deserves, and initial hype died out.

"But times have changed, people are getting more and more tech-savvy each day, technology are getting better, hardware availability and computing power are growing exponentially, channels to show and present things have branched out far beyond the mainstream media of the old, and powerful computers are getting cheaper and more accessible even as you read this.

"If there's a time to make Second Life, and the concept of Virtual Worlds cool again, now's the time. This is my attempt."

 Luca posted the video on threads on the SL Universe forum, and Reddit. So far, it's the Reddit thread which has gotten the most responses. One wondered if Luca's depiction was also inaccurate, albeit with "the best of intentions; you show it at its finest. You show the carefully landscaped lawns and delicate topiaries of some properties while ignoring the windmills, gnomes, and pink flamingos decorating others. SL is a raucous place. It isn't just a contemplative escape from mundane FL, it's parties and sex and combat and music. Art and vision. Steampunk running into Star Trek -- it's a cacophony of colliding creative concepts -- an atom-smasher of ideas!"

Other people had other thoughts, such as Saffia Widdershins' response to Hamlet Au's article on New World Notes, "Second Life is an elephant inspected by the blindfolded. ... there are more people with more diverse ways of enjoying Second Life that there are wrinkles on the hide of the elephant. One of the joys of doing Designing Worlds is that we discover new ones all the time. Some people's Second Lives will focus on one thing, many people's will overlap a range of areas." Saffia brought up Pooky Amsterdam's "A Year in the Life - Second Life" (2011) as another example.

So what are the thoughts of you, the readers?

Bixyl Shuftan

Early Showing of Project Sansar by Linden Lab This Friday

Linden Lab announced that they will be giving a "hands on preview" of their next generation virtual world this Friday. The news was given over a San Francisco events website.

This interactive virtual reality workshop will provide a hands-on preview of the new 3D virtual experience platform, code-named Project Sansar, being developed by Linden Lab, the makers of the popular virtual world Second Life. This new platform will enable people to virtually walk through 3D...

Hamlet Au of New World Notes commented, "Pretty strange to see this apparently open-to-the-public event promoted on a popular general interest SF event site when Project Sansar is supposed to be in closed Alpha with early users under heavy NDA. But there it is. So if you happen to be in San Francisco this Friday and can attend, please report your reactions ..."

But before anyone out there who hasn't heard this news before books a flight to California, Hamlet stated that the event is sold out. Curiously, Linden Lab's Peter Gray called it a "AIA event," which could mean the American Institute of Architects.

So on Friday evening, we should be getting a better look at Linden Lab's next generation virtual world.

*Update* In other Project Sansar news, Inara Pey posted on her blog that Linden Lab that one of the possible permanent names for the world being considered could be "Created Reality."  As she put it however, "while the name ... may doubtless describe the platform’s function in presenting spaces where people can create their own virtual realities, it does actually read rather, well, bland."