As Second Life loses its grip on me, I find myself exploring other places and worlds.  Today I tried, for the first time, eve online.

I got very excited about this game as I was downloading it.  I've been a long time fan of SCI-FI novels, and the thought of a game spanning a galaxy seemed like such an amazing idea.  And Eve is an amazing game.  After choosing a race, bloodline, attributes, etc, I got to the fun part - customizing my avatar.  The options are not as comprehensive as in SL, but I found the process lots of fun anyway, and ended up with a face I could be happy with.

Soon after, I find myself out in the depths of space battling pirates and mining for ore.  And, once that was done, selling the ore, and running missions for some agent fellow.

After a bit of initial trouble, I completed the tutorial in about one or two hours.

The Good:

• The Eve universe is very pretty.  The avatars are highly detailed, as are the ships, the stars, the stations and the asteroids.  (I'm not sure about planets yet - I haven't found any to have a look at!)
• Looking at the galaxy map blew me away.  I just wanted to zoom in and see what was going on in all the different parts of the universe.
• There are so many options and ways of playing, it looks like it's possible to obtain wealth and power in so many different ways.

The Bad:

• The learning curve for Eve is so steep.  I didn't know what any of my character-creation choices meant, and even once I was in the game, there was a lot going on that was confusing.  The tutorial took me through so many different windows and UIs, I think I'll get lost trying to navigate on my own.  The first part of the tutorial was simply a sentence telling me "warp to the deadspace zone", without giving me any information on what that was or how to do it.
• It seems that the player is, at the end of the day, a ship.  The best part of sci-fi is not the bit when ships are buzzing about in space - it's the human interaction.  The gadgets and devices that make life in the future cool.  I could see a massive space station from the outside, I could dock my ship, but I could not get out of my ship and explore the place.  Maybe go to an alien bar and talk to something with three heads.  The thought that the entire game is going to be played in the deep blackness of space is a little depressing.
• The object of the game seems to be to acquire power and money.  And then what?  I'm sure there will be some kind of storyline at some point, but from what I've read, it's not the main part of the game.  Being a huge fan of Iain M Bank's culture novels, I had wanted to play as somebody very culture-esqe.  This doesn't seem to be possible, considering the Culture attitude of money being a sign of poverty and the money-centric gameplay of Eve.

The verdict:

Well, I'm not quite at the verdict stage yet.  There are still 13 days left in my free trial, if I can will myself to spend them in Eve.  But the general feeling at the moment is that Eve, for all its amazingness, misses the mark.  At least for me.  It's too complex and daunting, while at the same time, not giving me the freedom to leave my ship and explore the universe as a human.

Of course, I'm posting this in a place where I hope a few of my eve playing friends will read it.  ^_^  So please feel free to comment and encourage me to keep at it  :)

And I'm not sure why.

Life seems to be an endless cycle of waiting for something that I know won't turn out to be fulfilling at all.

I've been spending less and less time in Second life, and I think the trend will continue.

Thanks to everyone who's been there to support me lately.

If you could give your Avatar in Second Life one super power, what would it be, and why?

Super speed would be useful in RP/Combat
Super hearing could let you spy on Avatars 5 sims away.
Super spelling - this is one I could do with.  My spelling is terrible!
Super cuteness, which comes with Irresistible Puppy-dog eyes(TM), for convincing people to do things.
Super sexual powers - for causing massive orgasms across a sim simply by sneezing  (This one was Kata's idea  -_-)
Super building powers.  Somebody I know has these.  You know who you are, Mr Speedy McBuild!

I'm not sure which to choose.  The cuteness and the spelling appeal quite a bit though!

It's something I've been considering saying for a while now.  SL has changed so much for me from when I started.  It's become more involving, the characters more real, and the hurt more painful.

But, my friends in-world are the best bunch of people there are, so I've stuck at it.

Today, though, one of those friends has said goodbye to me.  I miss her so much already.  I was never all that I could have been for her - the evil timezones saw to that.  But still, the time we spent together was wonderful, and I was just so happy to have such a wonderful person call me her friend.

Wherever you are, and whatever you do, I hope you find what you are looking for.  And that you don't forget me...  I know I won't ever forget you. :(

Tonight in fact.

Voice.

That dreaded feature.  The residents of SL cried out against it, but the folks down at linden labs gave it to us anyway.

For quite some time it had no effect on me at all.  I didn't use it, and it wasn't used on me.  Tonight changed all that.  Tonight I heard two of my good SL friends for the first time.

"Enable voice chat," I was told as soon as I appeared.  I panicked.  just a little.

But in no time at all, I was hearing two voices.  Two surprisingly pleasant voices.  I don't know quite what I expected, but what I got was quite something.  The initial shock took a bit of time to wear off.

We floated around in SL.  Those would could talk, talked.  Those who could not, typed.  It was fun.  I saw(heard?) a side of my friends that I had never expected to.  And that's good.

I am worried though.  Worried that those who don't want to go to voice will be left out.  Already I can see how this could happen.  people using voice are less likely to be able to spare a few seconds to spend on an IM to a friend.

Also, the noise is a worry.  I tend to play SL with the  sound down.  There are others in the house who I don't want to disturb.

My own voice is a quiet one.  I'll have to try it out with some hardware, but I wouldn't be surprised if everyone has to strain to hear me.  I imagine I'll use a lot of text, even when/if I'm decked out for voice.  At lest thats how I feel now.

And my friends...  how can my mental image of them not change to fit the sounds I can now hear?  How will their mental image of me change?  I'm hardly a good speaker at the best of times.  (I'm one of those people who have to wave their hands around a lot, because they can't think of the words.  thats what emotes are for, I guess...  ^_^')

Oh, and the smileys!  How do you say "^_^" or ":p"?

This is a brave new world, people.  I don't know how it will turn out....

She took me in her virtual arms, and held me tightly.
I cried virtual tears onto her virtual shoulder.
I opened my virtual heart and let my virtual feelings spill out.
More virtual tears fell, and I wiped them away with a virtual hand.
I spoke about my virtual problems, and she listened with her virtual ears.
The virtual hours slowly ticked away.
Finally I stood, it was time to leave her virtual house.

After this virtual encounter, I felt so much better...  Actually.

Thank you so much.  ^_^

Well, it's getting to that time of year again...  the summer time!

Good weather, trips to the beach, late nights spent at a friends house just relaxing, watching the stars come out to play....  I can't wait!

Today I went on a trip to a local beach with some friends, and it was a blast.  The sun on our faces, the cool breeze in our hair.  Mmmm!

Sadly, I cannot be in two places at once, however.  And the best parts of the summer day are also the hours that I've been spending with all of you wonderful people in SL.  So, on weekends I may see less of everyone, and you all may see less of me.  Not to the extent that I'm never on on the weekend, mind you.  Just...  think of it as a higher chance each saturday/sunday that I won't be on.  And not a hugely big chance, either.

On the upside, we have entered into daylight savings.  And _that_ means that I'll be able to be on an hour earlier each night.  And as the northern hemisphere exits their daylight savings, they will be on later!  And so I should be able to see more of you on weekdays.

It's a bit of a shift.  And I don't want anyone to be feeling as if I'm neglecting them, or leaving SL.  Thats not it at all.  But I wanted to mention that there may be an impact to my regular times.

All that said...  I'm looking forward to the summer.  I wish you could all share it with me...  ^_^

Thanks to Mavia, I now have a place to sell stuff!  yay!

I've put up a vendor there, and tested it...  And it seems to work perfectly!  I don't know how much money it will bring in...  Cages sell best when you have a live demo of them set up for people to play with.  And when they have elaborate features.

But the point was not to make a best selling object.  the point was to make something.  To get a space set up, with a working vendor.  Something that just might once in a while fire off a few lindens my way, keeping me motivated.  And I've done it!

Yay me!

And yay Mavia!  ^_^

They say that first impressions last.
Honestly, I can't remember what happened the first time I met most of my friends, let alone my impression of them that first time.

What does stand out in my mind though, are bad impressions.  The man at my office who yelled at the work experience kid and threw his mouse across the room.  I'll remember that.  I don't remember when I first spoke to him, or how he acted then.

But from now on, whenever I see him, I'll think of the look on the poor kid's face, and the sound of the mouse banging up against the glass window.  And any respect I once had is gone.  That's the thing...  It's insanely hard to recover from a bad impression.  I'll view his comments in a new light.

Behavior that I would not think twice about if it came from another person will, from him, make me cringe.  I ( and everyone else in the office) will avoid him.

I think I had a point somewhere in there.  I'm running late, I'll have to fish it out later.  ^_^

I've been feeling down for a while now.

The reasons are various, and I don't want to go into them here.  And I have tried.  Each time I write out what's on my mind, I read it over, and see that nothing good can come from my ranting.  I delete those posts - never to see the light of day.

Yes, it's good to express myself, but not at the expense of alienating the people who read this...  (I can't think there would be many!  ^_^)

So, my question to you all (If I'm lucky there are at least three!), is how do _you_ cope when you are in a bad mood?  When you feel like nobody cares, or listens.  When the world is moving in one direction and you are moving in the other?  What do you do?

My Sculpties are done!  And I am learning to love blender.  Some of the UI is just insane, but if you look past that it has some very useful features.  And some odd ones...  as I found out tonight when I turned my sculptie inside out.  ^_^'

Two more things I need to do before the money starts rolling in!

1) Add a touch of scripting to one of my sculpties to allow an avatar to lay down on it
2) build a vendor!

#2 will probably be much more interesting.  I'm not entirely sure how money transfers work in SL...  somebody can pay money to an object owned by me...  does that mean that _I_ get the money?  Or does it sit about inside the object until I call some function to send it on?

So many questions...  ^_^

My goals for the weekend were:

1. Complete the Echo project I'm working on.
   
2. Produce my product.  Something simple.  Easy to build, easy to use.  Something cheap.  Something to get my foot in the door.

And I think I pretty much achieved them.  The Echo project is ready to deploy, I just need to find a good location...  Somewhere Flat would be good.

The product, I've completed as much as I thought I would do.  However, I've now decided that it will have a couple of extra parts (sculpties, no less!) so that might take some time before they are ready.

Sculpties are an interesting thing...  I'm still trying to figure out if they are worth the pain.   could make a prim-object in a tenth of the time.  It wouldn't look as sculpted, but perhaps the time savings would be worth it?  Perhaps...  perhaps not.  For now, I'll push on with a few ideas, and see where I get.

And if I ever meet the person who designed the Blender user interface...  They will envy the person who designed lists in LSL!  >_<

With the recent obsession with RP sweeping my small circle of friends, it's been hard not to get swept away a little bit.  But, as I'm always the odd one out* my current obsession involves building.

Not just building, but setting up a shop in SL to earn myself a ton of money.  Well...  setting up a shop anyway!

The money would be nice of course.  When I first came to SL, I had heard stories of Anshe Chung, and other success stories.  My ambition was perhaps not that high, but I began the game with a vow - I would not put more money into SL than I was getting out of it.  Well...  it's been about 9 months, and so far I haven't put any money into the game at all.  Nor have I made any money from it.

All the "things" I have in-game come from my very kind and supportive circle of friends.  They have been great to me, raising me up from a skinless noob to the stunning AV I am today ;)  But it's time for me to start paying my own way.  And if I refuse to put money into SL...  I'll have to make some in-game!

So, my goal is, by the end of the month, to have a stall set up selling something.  Luckily, Mavia has offered me a small corner near her main shop for me to use...  We still need to work out how much rent I'll be paying though...  ^_^

So!  To get to that end, I will need to:

1. Complete the Echo project I'm working on.  I'm very close - one more weekend will do it
2. Produce my product.  Something simple.  Easy to build, easy to use.  Something cheap.  Something to get my foot in the door.
3. Produce a vendor object of some kind.
4. Put together a picture to display on my vendor.  It's all in the packaging!

Depending on how things turn out, I hope to get 1 and 2 out of the way this weekend.

<Fingers crossed!>
*My LJ is named "Odd one out" because thats what I always seem to be.  while the world is obsessed with IPods, I'm the only person without one...  When everyone around me is doing X, I'm doing Y.  RL or SL, I'm the odd one out.  I'll probably do a blog post on the phenomenon at some point...

In live journal!!!

Yay!

Now that I'm here...  I don't quite know that to do.

*Pokes about at things*  Oh, I wonder what that does....

Oh, it lets me edit my entry!  ^_^