3pointD.com

A new game company planning to bring free massively multiplayer online gaming to U.S. gamers is seeking to capitalize on the flood of press attention being devoted to the virtual world of Second Life in recent months. The strangely named OGPlanet will be offering “PC games built on a ‘Second Life-like’ model that lets anyone play for free, but offers players the opportunity to purchase game pieces, clothing and accessories,” according to a press release. OGPlanet’s first offering is Albatross18, a free massively multiplayer golf game with a unique fantasy twist in which players drink magic potions and meet various enchanted characters along the way. (Take care not to slice your shot into the troll trap!) Rrecently acquired by OGPlanet, the game lets players customize their avatars with clothing and equipment bought in the game, thus providing a revenue stream. All of OGPlanet’s games will work in a similar way, but if they’re hoping to capitalize on the strengths of Second Life, rather than simply the hype, they may need to take a closer look. (more…)

The real-time weather visualization system that Aimee Weber has been building for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association can now be viewed in the virtual world of Second Life, on »Info Island II«. This is pretty neat stuff, and a nice real-world / virtual-world interface and application. While at this stage it’s not as detailed or interactive as a Web-based weather map, it’s definitely worth checking out. As you can see in the screenshot above, it’s snowing in Wyoming and the Dakotas. More details on SL Insider.

While the complex artificial ecosystem of the »Svarga« sim in the virtual world of Second Life has gotten a lot of notice (and rightly so) as a robust simulation running in the virtual world, you may not have heard as much about the Terminus sim, where SL resident Luciftias Neurocam, a neuroscientist with an interest in self-organizing systems, has created a virtual ecosystem which, while not yet as complex as Svarga’s, comes complete with an open API that other residents may use to add their own species to the mix. So far, according to the project’s Web page, there are only 11 species roaming around (or standing still, in the case of the plants), but the project wiki’s developer resources pages seem to give fairly clear if basic instructions on how to create more, and there is even a bit of open-source code to check out. (Though the gridlouse is currently being “rebuilt from the ground up.”) (more…)

If you’re interested in finding out what’s happening in the 3D online spaces that make up ActiveWorlds, drop into the ActiveWorlds Expo this coming weekend, November 3-5 [via Virtual Worldlets]. Nearly three dozen exhibitors will occupy a virtual trade show floor, showing off models, textures, products, bots, builds, cities, towns, worlds and more. It’s an impressive event merely for the number of participants the show’s organizers have gathered, but it’s also probably a good way to get a look at what’s going on in another open virtual world platform. I suspect there will be some very interesting things to see there that most of us who spend our virtual time mainly in Second Life don’t already know about. I’m going to try to make it, but I’d also be interested to hear from anyone else as to what they find.