I know what you are thinking, “Oh no not another review of Spore”. I won’t insult your intelligence by trying to explain the game, or do an in depth review like the hundreds of others that are out there. This blog is more or less dedicated to the social 3D web, and I want to focus on that.

I know someone who downloaded a broken pirated version of the game off the web. The problem with doing so is that you can’t get any of the online content. He hated the fact that once you reach the Civilization stage you have to make all your own buildings and vehicles, etc.

My experience is different. I bought the game, and created an online account (arianeb of course) and on the So There Forum that I frequent, many of the people have also bought the game and posted their online account name. I made them all buddies.

The upshot is this: Things my buddies make for the game are easily accessible via the “Sporepedia” (third button in the bottom left corner). I got through the Civilization stage without bothering to make anything of my own, I just sponged off my friends.

Every level of the game is enhanced with stuff your buddies make and do for the game. The other creatures you encounter, the planets you visit, etc are derived from buddy content first. There is also tons of Maxis content online if you don’t like your buddies stuff.

One of my buddies made a “star trek” like vehicle, and I saw it flying around while I was still at the tribal level. When I finally made it to space, I used it myself.

Maybe my second venture through the game I’ll make my own stuff, but for now I’m just learning, and content from the sporepedia is fine.

Metaverse News reviews, spore, videogame

I have mentioned before that a lot of the early beta members of There came from the now defunct The Sims Online. We found in There many of the things we wished we could do in The Sims Online but could not due to the 2.5D nature of TSO. There were a few things we missed from TSO though, the most common requested was a two person hug emote.

That was five years ago, today we finally have it!

So, how do you hug in There? Well first you and the person you want to hug have to install the updated client. Don’t try updating your old client to the new one, that is generally just asking for trouble in There.

Next you have to be in the same chat group, so talk to one another until you join the group. Then you have to look at each other. Then you both have to say ‘hug within five seconds of each other. I’m not sure why it is so short. If you plan on giving lots of hugs, you better make a macro.

The video below shows hugs are useable in all gender combinations, and they are even different depending on the gender.

Metaverse News animation, Sims Online, There, updates, video

Sometimes its fun to pick a word, type it into the SL search, and see what comes up. So I decided to try typing in “Museum”. The usual assortment of art galleries came up, but the cool thing about SL is that you don’t have to build a museum according to typical real world rules. Lots of walls with lots of pretty pictures, is not that interesting in a virtual world.

I was on the lookout for something different. The above picture is a good example. You may recognize it as Nighthawks, what you may not recognize is that its a 3D representation of the famous Edward Hopper painting without the people, and I’m sitting in one of the occupied chairs from the painting. The 3D model is located in a lot called Primtings, which hopes to make more 3D models of famous paintings but only has the one for now.

I previously did a There version of Nighthawks you can see on my There Magic page.

One of the first museums that came up on a word search of “museum” was the Museum of Robots, which sounds just strange enough for what I was looking for. This is a more traditional museum, with lots of 2D and three or 4 3D models of famous robots from TVs and movies. There is also an art gallery in the back featuring a set of paintings called “Robots and Donuts” that I thought was quite an original subject to paint about.

Back to the more interactive museums is the Museum of Prog Rock. Being a longtime fan of progressive rock, I had to check this out. It contains a lot of 3D representations of famous album covers from Genesis to Pink Floyd. Many you can pose for, including costumes you can purchase. Above is the famous cover of Rush Moving Pictures.

Below I decided to pose for a couple of other Rush poses. Left is the Rush logo, on the right is the cover of Hemispheres. The originals have naked men on them, thought I’d try the feminine touch.

Virtual Society art, exploring, interactive, museum, Music, robots, Rush, secondlife

There are a few new Virtual World conferences this time of year, and many companies are making announcements. Twinity is now open beta, so anyone can try it. Mycosm is now demoing at one conference in LA as it moves from alpha to beta. Red Light Center has a new section called Rude Virtual.

Anyways the announcement that I was interested in was the open beta of Myrl social network.

This is a social network designed primarily around virtual worlds, especially 3D virtual worlds. You can set up your account as your avatar. Here is my page.

Currently Myrl supports 19 different virtual worlds. You create one account in your favorite world, then in the “Switch To” box, you can add additional avatars for all the other virtual worlds you participate in. I added 7 others, all linked together. The profile details center around your virtual world characters not the real you.

You can get an attachment for SL or a download add-on for There if you want people to track your movements in those programs. You can also add You Tube Favorites, Flickr Feeds, or blog via RSS feed, so its low maintenance. If I blog on my web page, it shows up as a Myrl blog as well easily.

Koinup.com is another social network site working with virtual world IDs, Here’s my page. This site has more of a digg feel to it as you can add screenshots, videos, etc. and if they get popular they get featured. Koinup has been around for a little while now.

Finally, since I am on the topic, there is a fascinating article in the New York Times about the phenomenon of social networking in general, and how the mundane updates on Facebook and Twitter are changing the way we view relationships.

Check it out!

Media, Metaverse News avatars, Koinup, Mycosm, Myrl, secondlife, social networks, Twinity