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Honestly, I had no idea. When I blogged yesterday about the possibility that EVE Online players might soon get new governance tools, little did I know that Seth Schiesel would have an article about it in today’s New York Times. And indeed, the announcement today is that EVE players will soon be able to elect a player-staffed oversight committee that will be regularly flown to Iceland to “audit CCP’s operations and report back to their player-constituents.” To insure the elections are free and fair, “CCP says it will call in election monitors from universities in Europe and the United States.” Pretty brilliant. (And thanks to empeekay for the screenshot.) (more…)

Second Life resident Dalian Hansen sends word that he will soon publish ANIMA, a novel set largely in the virtual world itself. From Dalian’s description:

Ben Tao is the avatar of a fired programmer who hacks Second Life. His goal is to profit from a false intellectual property claim. However, instead of changing the creation date for the items he has stolen, he is actually sending them back in time to the creation of the 3D world. This software exploit opens a wormhole of conflicting realities that unfold in a disjointed nightmare. Ben quickly finds himself controlled by an entity who robs him of all free will. Or is he just going insane? As the digital and real worlds merge in his mental interchange, he uncovers a secret that affects all of humanity. From this bleak future, Ben has only one chance to escape.

Cool! Dalian says preview editions will be published as a prim book in SL and as a paperback available from CafePress.com, both due July 7, with a hardcover edition available on Amazon.com as of July 27. That said, I couldn’t find listings on either CafePress or Amazon, hence the question mark in the title of this post. Looking forward to getting my review copy either way. I don’t know of another complete novel that’s been written in/around SL, so this should be a milestone of sorts. Can’t wait.

Advance word comes to 3pointD that the Long Now Foundation (which has to be one of the coolest organizations on the face of the planet) will bring Brian Eno’s art installation, 77 Million Paintings, to the virtual world of Second Life at the end of June, concurrent with the show’s real-world opening. The virtual show is being built out by a startup metaverse services firm known as blueair.tv. For those who don’t know it, the Long Now Foundation is developing the world’s slowest computer, which is meant to “do for thinking about time what the photographs of Earth from space have done for thinking about the environment.” As the site points out, “Such icons reframe the way people think.” The term “long now” was coined by Eno, who, for those who don’t know him, is one of the most influential contemporary musicians around, and also a Long Now board member. Eno has also been more closely involved with things metaversal of late, having hooked up with Will Wright some time back. (And if you don’t know who Will Wright is, you had really better start doing your homework.) No details yet of what the SL opening and build will feature, but if Eno is making an appearance it’s sure to be extra cool.

I was just over in Iceland, visiting with CCP Games, makers of my favorite massively multiplayer online game, EVE Online. I was there to swap wisdom with some devs and attend CCP’s tenth anniversary party. We heard about a raft of new developments EVE has in the pipeline, most of which have been previously reported. One, though, was merely a tantalizing hint from CEO Hilmar Petursson, though it merits closer inspection, if you ask me. EVE and CCP have been hit lately by a raft of accusations that close ties between players and devs have made it easier for some in-game groups to dominate. In a blog post, the company acknowledges that a previous accusation has merit, while denying more recent claims. I haven’t followed the issue closely enough to have an opinion on either side, but it has certainly rocked the community and had a big impact within CCP itself, where there is now an Internal Affairs team to look into such allegations. It also sounds as if EVE may be in store for some new governance tools at some point in the future, tools that could help players resolve these sorts of conflicts for themselves. I’m basing that only on comments from Hilmar that “something big” is in store in that area, but considering that it’s EVE, that something could be very interesting indeed. [UPDATE: EVE will indeed get a player-led oversight committee.] (more…)

The new virtual world that MindArk, makers of Entropia Universe, are developing for China will focus on business transactions and avoid politics, according to an Assoicated Press story.

David Liu, chief executive of Beijing-based Cyber Recreation Development Corp., compared the upcoming Chinese virtual world with a three-dimensional eBay, where users can shop online through a more visually appealing interface.

(CRDC is backed by the Beijing government and is responsible for the project.) (more…)

Comcast, the largest provider of cable services in the US — and one of the world’s leading communications companies, providing broadband Internet and a host of other digital services — have had »an island« under development in the virtual world of Second Life for what seems like an eternity. I have tried on numerous occasions to gain access, since it looks rather intriguing on the Satellite Map view. Last night I gave it another go, and was pleasantly surprised to find myself standing in front of a teleport board, offering all manner of interesting pursuits. I had not picked up any hints that this site was due to open, and certainly the only other person present when I arrived was a developer, beavering away on various bits of fine tuning.

The build, from Millions of Us, is really too much to describe in one post — but I will give it a go. Most of the island is geared toward entertainment, with much for the seasoned traveller to try out. The main feature is a snaking tubular arrangement, which brought to my mind images of a particularly bizarre accident in a pipe factory. This turns out to be a raceway where up to four teams can compete against each other, around three laps of the tubular track, in zippy little flying cars. Unfortunately, as a solo adventurer, I evidently didn’t count as a team and it flatly refused to rez me a race craft. I had more luck outside, where I took the opportunity to ride (and repeatedly crash) a rather skittish jet-ski. Again, a track has been laid out to allow you and your friends to race these unmanageable brutes. (more…)

June 13 will see cable new network CNN kick off something it’s calling a Future Summit with a “landmark television event.” Why does 3pointD care? Because the series, which looks like it will unfold more on the Web than on the air, starts with Future Summit: Virtual Worlds, featuring everyone from Linden Lab CEO Phhilip Rosedale to Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield, Funcom CEO Trond Aas, and people like EA co-founder Trip Hawkins, Jimmy Wales and Nick Yee, among others. There’s precious little information on the site about just what’s happening and when, but it sounds like it should contain a lot of information of interest to metaversal types. (more…)

Second Life resident Forseti Svarog (aka the Electric Sheep Company’s Giff Constable) has put together a cool collection of SL screenshots showing, at last count, 46 bridges that have been built in Second Life, including the quite beautiful example above, from the Svarga region of SL. Forseti’s looking for more, so drop him a landmark in SL if you know of any bridges that aren’t in his set. If he can find enough, maybe he’ll make a book out of them, as he’s done in the past with shots of SL avatars (a physical book) and the great builds of SL (a virtual one).

Cool British journo-researcher Aleks Krotoski has a couple of really good interviews up on the Guardian Gamesblog with veteran games designer Mark Eyles, who’s now in academia. In part one of their interview, Eyles talks about “ambient gaming,” and describes the thinking behind his game, Ambient Quest. (In part two, he talks about academia.) Ambient Quest is PC-only and requires a game-master, of all things, so I haven’t checked it out yet (and I actually have a hard time understanding how it works based on the description on its Web site), but the idea is cool — although it strikes me that it’s hardly as ambient as Justin Hall’s Passively Multiplayer Online Game, where I’ve become a level 77 Seer by dint of doing almost exactly nothing. Regardless, the ideas that Eyles is exploring are fascinating (read his paper on ambient RPGs), and dovetail with thoughts that have appeared on 3pointD and elsewhere in the guise of things like lifelogging and ideas about bringing game-like feedback mechanisms into the workplace (a la Seriosity). The interview raises some interesting questions — Where is the line between gaming and recording behavior? Does PMOG qualify as a game just because it lays the trappings of games atop a record of the things I do every day anyway? — and is well worth the read. And if you can figure out how to play the damn thing, let me know.

Sky News, the leading satellite news broadcaster in the UK, assisted by brand consultants and SL builders Rivers Run Red, recently launched »an island« in the virtual world of Second Life. The launch event was tied into a broadcast from the Guardian Hay Festival, an annual literary festival held in the picturesque and distinctly bibliophilic town of Hay-on-Wye. Sky News are setting out to be the first real-world television news service to establish a permanent bridgehead in the virtual world, and thus steal a march on their opposition. Until now, UK television news and current affairs programmes have had only sporadic involvement in Second Life, most recently with the broadcast of BBC2’s “The Money Programme” (also managed by Rivers Run Red).

I understand there were virtual queues of around 700 people trying to gain access to the launch event, which garnered a lot of good press in the blogosphere. However, as I tend to avoid such functions and their attendant lag, I did not venture into the island until much later, once the fuss had died down. To say the site is now quiet is something of an understatement. I have been back a few times, and on each occasion there have been at most 3 or 4 other visitors. (more…)

With thousands of islands to choose from in the virtual world of Second Life, you would think finding something new would be easy. Not so. Most islands are either given over to resident plots or are blocked to ramblers — or sometimes, both. Tonight I, once again, spent ages trawling for something I thought sufficiently worthy of blogging — and eventually I think I found it.

It may come as no surprise to regular readers of my personal blog to hear that this is another Dutch site, this time belonging to Faasen & Partners. According to the notecard supplied, “Faasen & Partners is a fast-growing young law firm and civil law notaries office in The Netherlands with offices in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. We have a specialization in corporate and employment law and distinguish ourselves from other law firms by our entrepreneurial way of thinking.” (more…)

MindArk, makers of the virtual world Entropia Universe, will build a virtual world for the Cyber Recreation Development Corporation, which is backed by the Beijing Municipal People’s Government, that will support up to 7 million users connected at the same time, according to a press release. The press release isn’t entirely clear on whether the 7 million concurrency figure is in a single shard, or copy of the virtual world (as in Second Life), or across many shards (as in World of Warcraft). A clue: “The cooperation agreement with China will generate hundreds of new planets and open up space for travel between the planets.”

It does sound like Entropia will be opened up to other companies and governments who want to build their own “planets” there: “The technology introduced with this project will enable other companies within media, film, music and gaming industries, or other content providers, to acquire their own planet within Entropia Universe. In turn, this will provide a diverse, entertaining and interesting three-dimensional virtual universe of vast proportions for participants to explore. A number of the world’s largest corporations within the aforementioned business sectors are currently in negotiations to purchase their own planet within Entropia Universe.” (more…)