I’ve been doing lots of cool stuff for the sequel game Something’s In The Air (SITA), but I don’t want to show it all because that would spoil the game.  But a few teaser renders wouldn’t hurt.  Back in October 2010, I was showing off sets I built for downtown locations.  Those sets will show up in SITA as well, but so will a few others.

Heidi’s Salon

The above picture is Heidi, one of the datable characters in the game, but the salon shows up in three different stories, so I had to build a set for it.  After searching every 3D source I could find, no one has ever built a “hair salon”, not even a barber shop.  I found a few pieces scattered here and there, and found a tanning salon that I could convert.  Basically it took a while to come up with something resembling a beauty parlor.

For you sticklers of continuity, Heidi’s Salon does make a brief appearance in the Date Ariane game:

And if you are really a stickler of continuity and still upset about Ariane’s change of hair style.  She does shows up at the salon for a change of hair style:

Looks, like Heidi has her work cut out for her.

The Dress Shop

The second set I’ll share with you is the new Dress Shop.  The dress shop is of course very familiar to players of Date Ariane, and was built using props from The Sims 2.  In fact it is the last thing in the Date Ariane game that uses stuff “borrowed” from other games (earlier versions were mostly made from video game screenshots).

Well I had much better luck finding a pre-made boutique set I could exploit. So dress shopping in SITA looks like this:

Maybe if I have time, I’ll redo the dress shop in the first game to match.  I’ll add it to the bottom of a very long “to do” list.  Hope you enjoy the preview.  Next on my list to do is a giant crowd scene at the night club. What was I thinking when I wrote that scene?

It has been about 6 months since I actively started working on the “sequel”, so you are due for an update.  The biggest news is that I have settled on a title, which is quite an accomplishment considering that the original Date Ariane Simulator never really had an official title.  After toying with “Second Date” (which is the project folder name) and the lame but descriptive “Date Night in America”, the title I have finally settled on is “Something’s In The Air“.

Not only is it a more poetic title, which evokes a romantic feeling, but like all good titles it is actually descriptive of a couple of different plot points, which I am not going to describe here.  Above is one of 7 title screens which circulate when you get to them each showing 2 to 3 characters you will meet along the way.

I’m now in mood for development again, and doing as much as I can while the feeling is still here.  Above is one of the pictures I did this week.  Part of the fun I am having in doing these crowd pictures is putting in little stuff in the background.  In this scene, you are in a bar chatting it up with the girl in blue, while your friend Dave is hitting on the owner of the strip club next to her.  At one point, he disappears, only to return with a copy of the magazine she is in.  Meanwhile, the red headed dude in the back is ogling the bartender whenever she is not looking at him.  None of this is in the dialog, it is just fun throwing in little details like that.

The game plan is 6 main stories, each with a different style, and different objectives.  The first story is The Second Date, and its style is similar to the first date.  Traditional date stuff, with a slightly surreal twist.  The second I can only describe as “noir” featuring two women, one poor, and one rich.  There is a mystery to solve here, too.  The third I have decided on a “storybook romance” theme between a rock star and a temp “roadie” (you). I have not written this one yet, and I may even outsource it.  I’m using this story as inspiration.  The fourth is a true “visual novel” storyline involving many possible paths, probably the most complicated one with lots of possible endings.  The fifth has two possible women, I decided to do this one comic book style: occasional multi-pane, and dumping the first person perspective for stylish angles, flashbacks, and onomatopoeia action descriptions.  The sixth and final story is “video game epic”: an adventure game in the style of an alternate reality game.  Its the “end game”; you can only play it after playing the other 5 (which can be played in any order).

While I have done some work on all 6, only story 1 is near completion.  My plan is to release story 1 (the second date) as a demo within the next 6 months.  Depending on what I have done and the rate of completion, I’ll decide how to release the rest of the game.

Here’s the other 6 title screens:

Click the image for a higher resolution version.

I have spent the last 15 years employed in the internet industry.  Not with one particular company, but with multiple companies, supporting pretty much every aspect of the web.  I did modem support, wireless support, search engine support, DNS support, domain name support, web server configuration, and I have run half a dozen websites, including forum administration, design practices, and kept 3 separate blogs on average 5 years each.  I have played every type of online game from the MMORPG to the ARG.  I think I know enough about the internet to be considered an expert.  So when I speak against the massive amounts of propaganda in favor of the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA), and say “SOPA will kill the Internet”, I know what I am talking about.

If you don’t know what SOPA is, start at Wikipedia, then check out the writing of Declan McCullough at C-Net.

If SOPA passes without a massive major rewrite, the collapse of the internet will start with the literal or pragmatical shutdown of some of the most popular websites like Wikipedia, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr.  I say pragmatical shutdown, because some of these popular sites will likely continue, but as gimped shadows of their former selves.  You Tube for example will likely only accept content from proven and advertising promoted sources.  No more video blogs, no more you tube stars, no more viral videos, You Tube will primarily become corporate content tube.

After the big name sites are effectively killed, the more underground sites like 4chan and something awful forums will be targeted by complaints.  Pretty much all private forums will be targeted, leaving only “official” forums as the only place for people to gather, and they will be heavily monitored for possible copyright infringing content. Second Life, IMVU and other virtual worlds that allow for user created content, will likely be forced to shutdown too.

What will the internet be like after SOPA?  Imagine a library filled with nothing but fliers, catalogues, and calling cards.  That will be the internet in a nutshell.  If content holders go crazy with copyright complaints, the only websites left will be sites belonging to companies with teams of lawyers, or advertising sites, or personal or organizational sites made by people who know how to build non-copyright infringing sites, none of which will have comment sections.  In other words, it will be boring.

There will be efforts to get around SOPA restrictions.  People in the know (like me) will change our DNS server pointers to foreign DNS hosts, and use foreign proxy servers.  Web sites will move to foreign web hosts, all in an effort to get around the “Great American Firewall“.  If the DOJ decides to start blocking these loopholes, it would break the internet completely, the IP protocol system would break down, and the reliability of the internet would be seriously harmed.

People not in the know, would simply lose interest in the internet, and will stop using it.  Internet providers, would lose billions in subscriptions, hardware builders would lose billions in sales.  One of the most recession proof industries, would go into a recession, at the cost of millions of jobs, including mine.  If that happens, I’ll surely pack my bags and get the hell out of the US, looking for a country that does not insist on up to five years in jail just for posting a video backed by a song you like.

What is the intent of this industry killing draconian monstrosity?  All they want to do is shut down American access to thepiratebay.org, and whatever sites try to impersonate it.  If that was all this bill did, I’d support it myself.  So why not just pass a law outlawing access to specifically that site and sites like it that ignore DMCA copyright complaints?  The DMCA take down process is a proven winner of a program for handling copyright complaints, and has led to the innovative internet we have today.  Why mess with perfection?

The problem is that the DMCA process is too much work for content owners like RIAA and the MPAA. They would rather force the job onto the websites themselves, or have the Department of Justice do it at taxpayer expense. That is the real issue with this bill, and that is why the internet community is so uniformly against it.  It is strange these days for a bill to get both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition at the same time, but SOPA is generating that kind of divide.

The latest is that the pro SOPA people have made amendments to the bill in hopes of narrowing the scope, but the same critics are coming out saying the “improvements” are so vaguely worded that they basically do the same damage when broadly interpreted.

I’m watching SOPA as if my livelihood depended on it, because it does.

UPDATE:  Latest word is that the House has scrubbed a vote on SOPA, killing it for now.  Meanwhile, the Senate version known as PIPA is still alive and kicking.  On Jan 18, I’m joining a very large list of websites who are shutting down for 12 hours to protest in hopes of killing PIPA too.

Today, Linden Labs launched a new area called LL Realms.  The purpose is to demonstrate the game making potential of Second Life.  It is basically a simple MMORPG built on the SL platform.  While not in itself impressive, it represents a major leap forward in what is possible with Second Life.

To start you go to the Violet Welcome Area.  I heard rumors that only premium accounts can enter for the time being, but luckily that includes me.  Just outside the patio on Violet is an archway.  Stepping into the archway works like a hypergrid teleport (to borrow a phrase from Open Sim).  You end up in a new region, and a game HUD is automatically loaded onto your browser.  You receive a message from a “Tarah” who tells you to go to her workshop.  When you get there you find a machine that crunches red yellow and orange crystals together, and a message appears to bring those crystals to this spot.

Wandering around the island the crystals you need spawn in the pathways, but also on the paths are rock monsters who chase you down.  If you touch one, you are teleported to a “Ressurection Shrine” (to borrow a phrase from Guild Wars), which can get annoying, especially when you are trying to run into the crystals you need while three rock monsters are chasing you, one wrong turn and you have to start over.

I did not get a chance to fully explore the game, maybe later, but the real point of the game I totally understood:  Linden Labs is developing tools for online game developers, that will no doubt be released eventually.

The ability to force direct teleports has never been seen before, nor is the ability to force attach HUDs.  These would be major griefer tools if allowed to happen everywhere, so my guess is these will eventually become estate level powers for game regions only.  I could think of a few other “force” powers that would be handy for game makers, too.  This represents a whole new direction for Second Life.  I’ve said repeatedly, that SL can be divided in three, the RPers, the social chatters, and the merchants.  Adding a new class — the gamers — is a huge step forward and could be the thing that potentially saves SL and keeps it going for a few more years.

For some reason, “Tablet” computers are taking off, and competition is getting fierce.   A tablet computer is something that pretty much did not exist two years ago (well technically they have been around for a while, but nobody paid attention), until the release of the iPad by Apple in early 2010.  Before the iPad, the hierarchy of computers went: desktop > laptop > netbook > smart phone.  Well the netbook was an underpowered incompatible piece of crap, and already the netbooks, and that travesty of an OS Windows CE, is pretty much dead, and good riddance.  Today it goes desktop > laptop >tablet > smart phone.

The “tablet” computer is already invading the laptop turf.  Understandable, since most people find laptops extremely awkward to actually use on their laps.  Tablets feel natural on the lap, or holding like a book, and the touch screen is much more user friendly than those touch pad thingies that you are supposed to use instead of a mouse.  So tablets are the new laptops.  But, do not feel bad for the laptops, they are quickly supplanting the desktops.  Its the desktop market that is ultimately on its way out.

On the other hand, tablets are just smart phones with 7 to 10 inch screens.  They need either unreliable wi-fi or expensive 3G/4G connections to be useful.  Unlike smartphones you can’t carry them in your wallet, and are too big to double as phones.  The question I keep having to ask myself when studying the tablet market is, why would any one want one?  I believe the answer is that as smart phones become more and more powerful and do more stuff, there is an obvious inherent weakness: the 3 and a half inch screen.  That is just not enough screen real estate to really engage the user, unless you hold it up a few inches from your face, which gets awkward.  Ten inch screen tablets are less portable than phones, but more engaging.  In a way they are more engaging than laptops too, since laptops are always at least arms length away, while tablets can be held up close.

So what is a tablet good for?  Well the big 4 uses are surfing the web, watching videos, reading books/magazines/newspapers, and playing games.   A ten inch screen a foot and a half away is like a 50 inch big screen TV 7 feet away, only more portable and $3000 less expensive.  The tablet computer seems to be here to stay.

That seems to be the conclusion of every computer tech company, too.  Everyone seems to be in the tablet business these days hoping to become the standard.  iOS is the dominant operating system, but because Apple is stingy with their licensing, Android (by Google based on the Linux kernel) is coming up very fast.  Based on useability and software support, I’d say there is no difference between the two. The only iOS apps you will not see Android versions of are the ones made by Apple.  On the up side, “Adult” rated apps can be found in Android stores, but not on Apple.

Threatened but planning a comeback is Microsoft, who is obviously designing Windows 8 with tablet PCs in mind.  Tablets that run Windows 7 already exist, they are basically laptops without keyboards, and just as heavy and expensive.  It is inevitable that the tech will catch up to where PC tablets will be as small as iPads, and Microsoft wants them to run Windows 8.  (Note: for you keyboard lovers, cheap bluetooth keyboards are available that work on any tablet computer, so the lack of a keyboard is a very minor negative.)

The Competition Today

The growing interest in tablets looks to mushroom this holiday season, and there are tons of hot new tablets in all price ranges, as well as older tablets at clearance prices.  Here are the biggest players today from top to bottom (in technological order):

1. Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime – The name does not roll off the tongue like iPad does, but this tablet is the first ever quad core tablet with a battery life of 12 hours.  This pretty much beats the iPad 2 in every stat, and its cheaper.  It won’t be out until early December though, and will likely be popular with geeks that want the very latest thing. Lets face it, by March there will be a half dozen other tablets out with similar stats.  Maybe even an iPad 3?
2. iPad 2 – Steve Jobs’ final legacy product is still the number one seller, and thus the most widely supported.  The more iTunes movies and videos you own, the more likely this will be the best choice for you.
3. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 – The android equivalent of the iPad 2, same size, same thinness, same specs. Just released in September.  The Galaxy Tab was the first tablet after the iPad, and has proven to be the most popular Android based tablet.  The 10.1 is a larger and more powerful version of the original Galaxy Tab. There is also a 7.7 version out.
4. Sony Tablet S – If “thinness” is not important to you, this ergonomically designed tablet may be a better choice.  Not only can it run Android apps, but it can also run PSP and  Playstation games.  The thicker case allowed Sony to fit in an SD memory card slot.  Yes you read that right, SONY’s latest gadget has an industry standard SD memory card slot!!
5. Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet – On the low end of the scale hardware wise, but the $200 price range is generating a lot of interest.  For reading e-books, I prefer reading on an e-paper readers.  It is easier on the eyes than a back lit glossy touch screen.  But booksellers Amazon and Barnes & Noble are putting out tablets that do a lot more than just let you read books, they play videos and run most android apps too.  If you are a little shy about spending $400-$700 for one of the big guys listed above, this might be a good place to start.

I suspect 1 and 5 are going to be hot ticket items this holiday season, and difficult to find. The middle 3 should be easier.  These are just the ones generating a lot of interest, there are dozens of others between $200 and $700 to choose from.

Time for an update on whats going on with “the sequel” which still does not have a title yet.  Actually, I have not been working on it much the last month.   I knew this would happen though, because I know how I work.  I start by doing something creative which is rewarding but also a lot of work, and after a while I start to burn out.  So I start playing video games, which is relaxing and fun and easy, but after a while I start to get bored, and feel the need to do something creative.  And, the circle repeats.  This has been my pattern going on 20 years now, probably longer.  I figure this winter I’ll be back into creative mode until spring when I’ll be back into gaming mode.  This is why I gave myself a year to do something I could probably do in 6 months if I pushed myself.  Since I also know I do my best work when I am not pushing myself, its all good.  I just had to get that out.

Anyways, the last time I mentioned what was going on, I introduced a new version of Ariane.  When I did so, I was already done with her part of the story.  So I decided that for my next update I would introduce characters, that I am also already done with.

First up is Rebecca, the aggressive lesbian ex-stripper who works at the lingerie store.  You already know her from the first game of course.  My initial plan for her was to make her a major date character.  You would meet her at a gym in the morning, help her out with a big problem (in the form of a puzzle to solve), and she would reward  you by taking you out to dinner, and if dinner went well, she would take you to the strip club.  This was the original plan.  As usual plans change.

Rebecca suffers from the same ailment as the original Ariane: an old model in a new modeling environment that requires a lot of post work to look good.  Instead of creating a new version like I did with Ariane, I just switched her part with another minor character.  Her role got reduced.  As you can see, she still shows up at the gym.  She also makes an appearance in one of the possible Ariane dates, where an enlightening conversation takes place.  But I gave the “big problem” puzzle to another character, who is also skinny and blonde, but not a lesbian ex-stripper, which means a return trip to the strip club is out.  Luckily I came up with something better than a strip club, but that is a whole other story.

Second is Dave.  He is sort of the best friend/wing man who you may end up hanging out with.  I think of his personality as similar to Barney on How I Met Your Mother : Obsessed with sex, style, and picking up women.  Following him around means bar hopping.  The basic setting of the story is that you are new to town, and other than a date with Ariane, you have not had much of a social life.  Dave is the old friend from your old city who moved here before you did, so he is one of the few in your new town that you know.

Lastly, there is Stacy, aka the owner of the strip club you are no longer visiting with Rebecca.  The change in Rebecca’s story changed Stacy’s story too.  In the Date Simulator, she appears twice.  Once as the hostess of amateur night, and once on the cover of a porn magazine that you may attempt to purchase in the convenience store.  Since Stacy’s role got reduced, I figure it is only fair in the sequel to not only make the porn magazine purchasable, but also readable.  The first two pages of a 9 page spread are shown above.  The last three you have already seen in the first game:

Anyways, I need to get back to playing video games so I can get bored with them and feel motivated to work on the sequel project some more.

I have a Facebook account that is private that only my friends and friends of friends can see.  I use it mostly to keep in touch with RL people.  At one time I had an Ariane Barnes account there but dropped it in protest over a purging of fictional accounts.  For the most part, I don’t pay much attention to Facebook.

But Facebook has become the #1 destination on the web, and felt the need to use it somehow.  One feature of Facebook is the ability to set up fan pages.  Doing some creative searching I found 5 accounts, groups, and fan pages dedicated to the Date Simulator.  Here is what I found:

ArianeB – I mentioned this one a few posts ago, it is the first one I found, and I temporarily pointed to it on my web page.  Currently it has 89 likes.

Date Ariane – Topping that one is this one, which has absolutely no content except a link, and has gathered 110 likes.

Virtually Date Ariane – In distant third is another empty page. Only 10 likes so far.

Ariane Mary Barnes – A fake profile, with 15 friends, all from the University of Nottingham, I can pretty much guess the origin of this one.  Good job using quotes from the game and the “Ask Ariane” bot to fill out the Facebook profile.

I am addicted to dating that peice of %$#@ named Ariane – A group that has not been active since 2007, but I love the name (including the misspelled “piece”) that I had to include it.

Anyways, after going through this exercise, I decided to create an official fan page: http://www.facebook.com/dateariane  I first just posted a link on my home page for it, and after a month I only got 3 likes.  So as an experiment, I posted a “Like” button on the main game launch site that still gets 10,000 visits a day, and in a week the “like” count quadrupled to 12.

I’m not asking for likes, I understand that many people do not want to announce to their family and friends that they like a soft-core web game.  But I decided to try this as an experiment in web traffic and behavior.  My hypothesis is this: The whole “like” phenomenon is pretty much over.

I’m not saying it is dead, it wont be as long every web page template used today continues to have a dozen or so “like”, “share”, “digg”, etc. buttons on the bottom of each page.  I am saying, there is a lot less interest in it today. The fad has played out.

The growing trend today is the “re-blog” or “re-tweet” or getting lots of people to use your hashtag.  In Facebook, it is all about the “talk about”s.  I have been online to know the web tends to reinvent itself every few years or so, and it is doing so again now.

It has been a while since I have done an SL Explorer post, in fact, this is the first I have done all year.  First stop is one that caught my eye over at SLU, a new store in the shape of the famous “Crystal Palace” built in 1851 for the London Great Exhibition.  This has not been the first time I have pointed out a build of this historic and no longer existing building, but the old one no longer exist, as has according to the builder two others she has seen in the past.  So while this is not the first Crystal Palace in SL, it is the only one in existence today as far as I can tell, and actually, it is better than the last one I saw, especially with the historically accurate fountains and pools.

This one hopefully will be around for a while, it exists as a store, and stores tend to pay for themselves.  This build by the way is brand new, just opened today.  You can go there: Crystal Palace SLURL.  You can also learn more about the project from the builder here.

From bright and beautiful to dark and dangerous.  Next stop on the new build tour is Hell House, based on the Richard Matheson novel of the same name.  This is an ADULT haunted house, lots of naked ghosts, and gory images, so keep the kids away.  You can get there with this link: Hell House SLURL.  More info and screenshots are available here.

From the introductory notecard: Hell House is an immersive, fully interactive, 3D experience, so be sure to take your time as you explore its many rooms and myriad terrors. There are many small clues in drawers, on table-tops, and in cabinets, so be sure to “zoom in” on small objects and Click on anything you can if you want to find out more about Belasco and his horrific legacy. And allow plenty of time. Keep in mind — to see ALL that Hell House has to offer will take between 2 to 3 HOURS, so you may need to make more than one visit to experience each of the myriad apparitions and numerous paranormal events.

Finally, from the gory to the whimsical, “Through the Lens of Dreams” is an imaginative build made mostly of sculpties and meshes.  It has a “hand drawn” cartoon feel to the world. Through the Lens of Dreams SLURL.  I should point out that this world took a while to load (as did the first two mentioned in this post) but it is worth it. There is plenty to see here.

From the introductory note card: “Through the Lens of Dreams” is an exploration of the transformative nature of dreams, where each new setting may emerge from the last and seems continuous while we’re experiencing them.  The only truly consistent part of a dream is the viewer, that’s you.  Thus as you walk through the installation you help complete the piece, good work.  The piece is more a series of doodles that flow from each other than a single large composition so it seems somewhat sprawling and busy.  Just relax and enjoy your own little piece of the whole.

I don’t explore SL as much as I used to.  This is partly due to other distractions.  Many of my favorite builds are sadly gone, but I’ll keep my eye out for new ones and post about them when I find them.

I make it a point to explore the strange and new on the internet.  It is fun to be one of the first on very popular virtual destinations.  For example, I have a 3 digit user number on IMVU.  Today new members are given eight digit numbers.  On the other hand, I have had many accounts to various websites and virtual worlds that have closed due to disuse.

The reason I mention this is that I have joined Diaspora.  If you never heard of it, I am not surprised.  It came up a few times while researching my earlier Google Plus post, and thought it might be worth checking into.

Diaspora is a fully open source, and open social network, with a dumb name.  Not only can anyone join, and call themselves whatever they want, and say and post whatever they want, but if you own a web server and a domain name you can even host part of the network.  Diaspora is to Facebook what OpenSim is to Second Life.  But just like OpenSim, it is a sparsely populated desert where you only run into other people only by chance.  Welcome to another location on the far outskirts of the internet.

Currently, Diaspora is in “alpha” meaning it is useable, but buggy.  So far I have not run into any ugly bugs myself, but the other thing with alpha ware is that there are not a lot of features.   You can post twitter like messages, and post flickr like pictures.  You can use #tags to find related content, and people with the same interests.  There is also grouping of contacts into four default groups, or you can add your own custom contact groups.  Messages and pictures can also be liked or commented on, they can also be simultaneously shared on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

And, unfortunately that is about it.  No chat tool, no posting of links or video previews, no reposting, no groups, and there is one horribly buggy app you should stay away from.  It is a pretty bare bones system that is also slow in its development.  I’d love to see simple things like OpenID profiles and Gravatar avatars implemented so you don’t have yet another account to keep track of.

Despite the lack of features, there is enough here to work with, for us pioneering souls looking for the next big (or more accurately “odd”) thing.  But the real proof that things are still a bit barren in Diaspora is when you search by #tags and come up with very little.  Tags that are known to result in pages and pages of posts in either Twitter or Tumblr  often result in one or two, or very commonly none.  The lack of content makes me wonder if there is any any future here, but as I have pointed out, I have seen smaller sites grow huge, but I have also seen bigger sites shrivel up and die.

There are already dozens of places you can go to sign up for a Diaspora account, and it does not matter which one you use as the program is designed to work like one big network. The main site is joindiaspora.com which uses an invite system, but there is no invite needed if you go to poddery.com, which is the one I used.  I’m ariane@poddery.com or search for Ariane Barnes to find me.  I’d love to try and get a network of acquaintances together and see what happens.