The re-enactment of the Henry the 8th coronation

I found some photos on my hard drive from this event. It was a hoot. It was fun to watch as well as colorful, historically accurate. They had definitely done their research. They had avatars for all the main characters who gave all the important speeches. They had clothes for the visitors so we'd all fit in with the event's theme. They even had a jousting tournament. The scripting for the jousting was amazing - it registered hits and damage and determined a winner.

Enjoy the pictures.



They had child avatars dressed up to match the actual costumes of children in the original ceremony. It's always kind of strange to see kiddie avatars, but these were necessary for historical accuracy.

Check out the background - that's a photograph of the real cathedral where the ceremony took place. Someone recreated robes, gowns and the crown.






They had a parade up to the church. We all stood outside to cheer as the king and his party approached the church.

You thought your game play situation was bad...

check out this blog post - they had people submit their saddest game set ups. ANd some are pretty darned sad. Tho I do want multiple tv's like the last picture - but maybe not such small ones

Here's a pic from the blog post - click it to go to the blog - http://www.wiiland.com/nintendo-wii/news/saddestlooking-game-room-setups-010601.php.

They also have a post with pics of awesome game set ups...http://www.wiiland.com/nintendo-wii/news/badass-gaming-setups-ha-ha-mines-better-than-yours-010721.php

Whoa - looks what's in my SL backyard

I own a little piece of land all my own (not owned by the college). I build there, go there to stomp up and down when I'm aggravated, and invite people there to talk. I used to have a jungle gym like collection of platforms. Then this summer I built a cave (and didn't take pictures - what a dummy). I tore the cave down, smoothed out the land and built a cube house. I put in 2 walls of windows because the view was all open land. Here is a nitetime and daytime pic of my house, one of me sitting on the couch I made looking out the window behind me, and one of the sculptures I built there.

The view isn't all open and green like last week. I was working on the sculpture in my back yard and wham - a whole lot of vampire role play stuff appeared, including a castle, crypts, and a blood fountain. I haven't seen too many people yet, just some folks building. From their profile info they seem to be from Brazil. This could get interesting. They now own the land all around me, except for one plot right behind me, in a U shape.

I have ban lines around my property and so do they for the moment. You have to be on a list to come onto my property. I'm not sure what they're using. However in SL you can just move your calendar around to take a look so there's not much real privacy.

Here are some pics of the vampire stuff. In a couple you can see my little cube house in the distance.

Sad Day for Kim Chihuly (my SL avie)

I had to contact Linden Lab and have one of the islands I control for school shut down. The department didn't want to use it anymore. Makes me wish it was ok to kick administrators in the butt. But it's not...so ok...let's move on.

Here's a pic of me standing on our remaining island looking at our soon to be bridge to nowhere. The island to be shut down is in the distance. And the second picture is a close up of the bridge - built by one of our students when he was a freshman.

And here's a couple of pictures of me sitting on the construction barricades on our new bridge to nowhere. (hey - it's my blog - i can put pictures of me on it occasionally - and I think i look particularly cool in this outfit - ok?)

one last post from the netroots nation event

(just a note - I'm not stying at these events for very long - so this is not meant as any kind of detailed report. I just wanted to see how they set up their events, how many people were attending, etc.)

They hosted a video stream of a candidate forum with senate candidates from Pennsylvania. Arlen Specter was there. He talked (too long I guess - the moderator cut him off and said this wasn't the Senate so there wouldn't be any filibusters) and then people from the audience asked him difficult questions about his voting record.

I noticed more people in staff tshirts than this morning or yesterday. And someone in the audience with a tag that said security. Maybe because of the griefer earlier today, maybe not. Anyway - some more pictures.

More Netroot Nation Pics

At anther event for this conference, Howard Dean talking aout healthcare, they streamed the video from the live event into SecondLife. They had a twitter connection so people in world could send questions to be considered. Here are some pictures.

They had a griefer at the beginning. An avatar named Negro Nirvana. He ran up and down the aisles of the arena. He was smoking. He sat in a chair and spun around. He stood on the stage and spun around. He was using voice chat to cuss and make rude comments to people in the audience. He drowned out a lot of hte video audio at first. Eventually someone in charge turned off voice chat (no one else was using it because of the video) and then the avatar either left of his own accord or he was banned because he disappeared. Here are a couple of pics of the griefer avatar spinning around in front of the screen.

Another event - the annual conference of Netroots Nation in SL

They have some very specific events thata are in SL and RL that could be interesting. They're streaming their opening ceremonies and a speech by former President Clinton. There's a health care forum and a leadership seminar. Not sure how much interaction will take place between SL and RL but at least they have a variety of events.

Here are some pictures of the training area they have set up for new users - very impressive way to get noobies up and running.

Here are some pictures of the trade show area - vendors area.

And here are some pics of the space for the presentations and some of the avies who were there for the opening ceremony.Once President Clinton started speaking there were about 45 avies in the arena area.

The conference had a twitter link so you could tweet messages that would show up on the screen in world and in Second Life.

Another event at the Smarter Technology sim

Today they had someone from Cisco who's involved in education - not in terms of employee training but in terms of what do students need to learn to succeed in the future. Skills for the 21st century. He's the avatar on the right and the picture is the cover of a book that he wrote that's coming out soon.

I like the space Smarter Technology has - there's a raised stage, seats that are sloped so you can see without throwing your camera around. There's not muchin the background to be distracting. They ahve some big spaces for product demonstrations too.

Nice mix of avatars too - almost always a good size crowd. A few furries, a tiny or two. And that's Mitch Wagner the robot in the picture on the right.

Second Skin documentary

I watched the SecondSkin documentary about gamers over the weekend on Hulu. It was in a limited release in New York City over the weekend too. The documentary focused mostly on World of Warcraft and Everquest2. They had interviews with lots of gamers including some couples who met playing and a couple of people seriously addicted to game playing.

Then Monday evening Smarter Technology hosted a talk with the director/writer in SecondLife (which makes a cameo appearance in the movie). Here are a couple of pictures that I took of the presentation so you can see the set up and the speakers.

What I read this summer

the 2nd Mass Effect book
the 1st Resident Evil book
the 1st Doom3 book
Monopoly by Philip Orbanes

Hard Core Diaries by Mick Foley
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Anonymous Rex by Greg Garcia
Empire by Orson Scott Card

HUDs and MMOs

I'm thinking about having the juniors in our program create a game of some kind in SL. It has 3d building; you can make animations; you can put scripts in objects to make them do things; there is an audience of people looking for things to do who know the ins and outs of SL already - in other words, you could create an interesting game. There are a variety of games - role play, arcade, board in SL already.

Some of these games use HUDs (heads up displays) to control combat. Here is info on a couple of them

Osiris (originally called roleplay combat system) - http://www.osiris-sl.com/default.cfm and here's more specific info about the RPCS - http://www.osiris-sl.com/products.cfm and they're set up to sell the player's HUD thru XStreetSL - https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=1516549
- has an open licensed API so people can develop weapons and can have NPCs --- they use this one on the Erie island rpg - here's a new world notes post about it under the old name - http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/07/kanomi-plays.html

Info on a Naruto themed game on Hinode Shima island with Ninja Control System (NCS) - http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/06/sl-naruto.html
SLURL for a boxing sim with a Combat Evolution HUD - http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=2781326&date=1244768400

2 HUDs discussed in this new world notes post - http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/07/weapons-of-choi.html
DCS2 (Dark Combat System v2)
the company handles most of the set up and runs the server with user stats, stats carry across multiple sims and so do weapons - not too customizable but very easy to get started. they keep 90% of revenues from weapons sales to make their money so the game probably won't make any money

CCS (Community Combat System)
you have to do all the set up and can customize the heck out of it - you have to run the server for user stats and they don't go from sim to sim. Possible to make money since you pay a little up front nd then keep all revenues from weapons sales

list of combat systems used in the stra wars themed rpg - http://swrp.wikia.com/wiki/Combat_System

Some role play places
Deadwood 178 Wild West role play - http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=2695563&date=1245286800

Toxian City - here's a YouTube video about it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B_zhYtz5to

Erie Isle - http://www.erie-isle.com/ - there's a very active calendar of events, groups for new players, they use the Osiris combat system, separate areas for humans and supernaturals, lots of weapons, good role play

Other SL games
Here's info on a turn based combat game played with deck of virtul cards in an arena - http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/12/play-with-vidal.html

Back into SecondLife

I hadn't been in SecondLIfe except for school stuff in awhile. But the last coule of weeks I remembered all the fun to be had there.

I went to an art gallery. I viisted a Dr. Who themed area and got a cyberman avatar. I heard a folklorist reading an amazing European fairy tale. I built a cave on my little piece of land and put in a waterfall. I"ve been trying to build a sound cube floor when when you bump into hte cubes the play strange sounds and change colors - got the sounds to work and found some interesting collections fo electrical and industrial sounds, but when I added the color, it broke. Stupid LSL And I went to a discussion of space exploration and watched the NASA TV stream of the film from when man landed on the Moon. It was the 40th anniversary of the landing. That made me feel old.

And I"ve talked to vampires and tiny rabbits and a wind up doll. I've been to classes on role playing. And visited a role play island that uses a combat HUD (tho I have to figure it out and learn how to shoot weapons. I got a blindfold to see about walking thru the sound cubes in the dark (since I can't figure out how to make it dark in my cave).

I bought new hair - don't laugh. Good hair and a new skin and my avie feels like a new woman!

I'm having fun. Building, creating, and socializing. The essence of SL to me.

(pictures to come tomorrow

And I