Following on from my mention of the Dune Project roleplay sim in Second Life, here’s an article on New World Notes that talks about another roleplay sim that looks far and away better developed, coded and styled:

[Image lifted from original article at New World Notes blog; please contact if removal is required.]

“There’s a pretty elaborate backstory to CoLA , but to sum up: you are playing in a world that saw the Apocalypse but forgot to die. Most of humanity is wiped out, undead, mutated or cursed. As a role-player you get a nice spread of species to choose from, so no matter what mood you’re in, we have you covered.”

Much like the Dune Project, it looks a little too hardcore for me - I left my roleplay days behind long ago, not through any sense of shame but through lack of time to devote to them. But it’s interesting to see these things develop - sure, there are plenty of MMORPGs out there, but the way that Second Life can act as an adaptable host platform for a multitude of different user-created games is nothing short of unique. When the server code goes open-source and peer-to-peer, things are going to get very strange very quickly.

If the current trends of growth in ’synthtic worlds’ such as Second Life and the multitude of MMORPGs continue, there will be a whole lot of new realities for people to explore from the comfort of their own armchairs. What future will science fiction have in an ever-expanding multiverse? Continue reading “Science fiction and the multiverse”

There’s a lot of talk about virtual environments these days, largely due to the proliferation of online roleplaying games. The futurists (myself included) see a harbinger of new worlds being created, ouside the ‘meatspace’ of reality, but just as alive. Continue reading “Playing God”

Man, I’ve been badly slack on posting here, apart from the link dumps. What can I say, I’ve been a busy person. But today I saw a little gem of a post about the economics of online games and I have half an hour to spare…  Continue reading “Online economies reach across the divide”