More on Facebook And Meta And Virtual World Plans, Grumpity Linden's Interview

 
By Bixyl Shuftan

Late last month in late October, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook the company would be changing it's name to "Meta" to reflect it's plans to build a huge virtual world called the "Metaverse." Since then, there's been more than a few comments and developments.

As the term "Metaverse" was developed by Neal Stephenson in his cyberpunk novel "Snow Crash," he was interviewed about Facebook's move. "It’s flattering when readers take the work seriously enough to put their own time and money into bringing similar ideas to fruition," he remarked, "... science fiction writers have occasionally been given credit for inspiring real-life inventions, so this is not new and it’s not unique. I was aware of that fact thirty years ago when I wrote 'Snow Crash,' but I didn’t necessarily expect it to happen." He had never spoken to Zuckerberg, nor expected any kind of compensation, "In order to get compensation from FB or any other company I would need to sign some kind of deal in which I gave the company rights to some IP in exchange for payment."

As it turns out, Facebook may have a problem as another company filed first for rights for the name. Meta PC, which has been in business for a little more than a year, decided to officially apply for the name in August. The founders Joe Darger and Zack Shutt say they're willing to let Facebook have the name, but only if the larger company pays them 20 million. They also poked fun at Facebook by photoshopping a picture of Mark Zuckerberg holding one of their computers. Since neither company officially owns the name, Facebook may still be able to get it. But this oversight is resulting in a few chuckles. In the meantime, the result has been a great amount of free publicity for the smaller company, which saw it's social media followers increase by fifty times.

And what do the people at Linden Lab think of Facebook's move? Grumpity Linden, or Anya Kanevsky in real life, was interviewed by the French magazine Le Journal du Net (JDN). "It's interesting to see this interest in the metaverse from the Epic Games and Facebook announcements," Grumpity commented, " A metaverse is a collection of connected virtual worlds. In a sense, Second Life is a full-fledged metaverse. A living place in which, in the form of an avatar, you can stroll through shopping malls, go to the beach, visit art galleries, etc. Second Life also has its own economy and its own currency, the Linden Dollars."

She would go on to say that Zuckerburg and his people, "realized that the reputation Facebook has forged over time can be a barrier. This lack of confidence in the company exists and there will have to be a number of levers of confidence to allow those who wish to explore these virtual worlds. At Second Life, we ensure the privacy of our residents. For example, some assume their homosexuality in Second Life, but we know that some may live in areas of the world where their sexual orientation could lead them to prison. We are therefore extremely vigilant on this issue of data security. With the immense wealth of data in the hands of the digital giants, it will be necessary to ensure the protection of the privacy of the users of these virtual worlds."

Grumpity would remind that most content in Second Life, "was created by our residents and not by Linden Lab employees. We just play the role of facilitator. This represents our vision of the metaverse. I don't see how creating different games that would be connected to each other could be akin to the metaverse. In my eyes, this is content created by companies for users. For the metaverse to exist, it must be created and managed by the people who live there."

Sansar and it's option to wear VR helmets came up, "Many were not thrilled with the idea of ​​carrying these VR headsets that are quite heavy and require enough space at home to be able to use them. If virtual reality allows for an immersive and incomparable experience, we observed that few of our residents were ready to wear these helmets for more than thirty minutes. So we plan to keep trying new things around virtual reality, but VR isn't the only possible future for Second Life."

Grumpity would remind Linden Lab's virtual world was still making money, "In 2020, the creators of Second Life collected nearly $ 73 million. Many of them use the platform as a completely or have made it their main source of income." Although the Pandemic was ending, the people who signed on or returned were still logging on to Second Life, "even if they spend less time there."

The interview can still be read on the JDN website. As it's in French, English speakers may need to copy-paste in Google translate or have some other way of traslating it. Inara Pey would also write about it.

As time goes on, no doubt there will be more developments about Meta and it's plans to go into virtual worlds. Stay tuned for further details.

Sources: Axios, TMZ, IGN, JDN,

Bixyl Shuftan
 

The Crown of Leaves: An Interview With Lins And Grimm

By Cyfir (Cyfiremmerich Resident)

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I’m not a big fan of visual novels, but something about The Crown of Leaves drew me in. I 
was immediately drawn to the beautiful art style, music, world, lore, and of course the 
characters. The setting and aesthetic were right up my alley. I enjoyed every second of 
the first chapter and you can check out the plot and purchase on Steam here. As it turns 
out, others have enjoyed the game as well. The reviews for the game on Steam have 
been Overwhelmingly Positive and it even was nominated for a 2019 SXSW award. Now 
being a huge fan of the game and the artists behind it, I was extremely excited to interview 
the main duo behind it; Lins and Grimm.

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Cyfir: What inspired the art, story, and lore of the game?

Lins: The game’s lore had existed long before the game itself and has passed through 
numerous and painful changes. Latori, a country within the Shang-La universe in which 
the action of “The Crown of Leaves” takes place, was originally based on the mixture of 
gypsy and voodoo culture. (We were very inspired by their aesthetics.)

It’s always hard to talk about how the story was born. We put our feelings and emotions into the story and a little bit of ourselves into Roui, so we get a good laugh out of it.

As for the visual-novel-like-a-game genre, we were inspired by two games — Phoenix 
Wright: Ace Attorney and Great Troubles created by our compatriots from the Hazukashi 
Team. We can’t fail to mention Tales from the Borderlands by TTG because it radically 
changed our vision of how character portrayal and storytelling should be done.

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Cyfir: Who provided the music?

Grimm: "Blacksmith" is an awesome musician! We met by chance. I had just been surfing 
through resources for paid music, listening to everything I saw until I suddenly stumbled 
upon one of his tracks. That tempted me at once, and we decided "Why not DM him? 
What if he takes orders for original soundtracks? "

"Blacksmith" has a clearly recognizable style. He can’t be confused with anybody else, he 
is not afraid of experiments, and he is a real professional with a capital “P.” And he also 
enjoys rock, jazz, and Halloween-style gothic music.

When he created "The Storyteller" (Roui’s music theme), and we listened to it for the first 
time, we were sitting after it for a few minutes in a pleasant shock with the only thought in 
our heads "It's fabulous."

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Cyfir: Is there anyone else on the team that contributed to the project?

Lins: Sure! First of all, we should mention our coder, mold.FF. He is sincerely dedicated to 
what he does and “The Crown” project. So he had been not only solving the tasks we gave 
him, but also felt free to share his own ideas about technical issues. All complicated 
modules were done by his hands.

As for our musician, _Blacksmith_, Grimm has already told you about him before. There 
are two tracks in the OST made by other musicians, Unikorn and Flaviocortizo — one 
track was bought as the very first, the second one is the most recent. We also separately 
ordered OST track from Craig C. Barnes for the location where all the main action takes 
place. The main character’s voice in the intro video was acted by Beau Stephenson – this 
is a voice which has clung to Roui and which all of us will undoubtedly hear again in the future.

A translation from Russian into English was made by Natalie De Corsair and edited by 
Limelawn, Alexis, and Caervec. It is worth noting that Caervec also worked carefully on 
Flynn’s manner of speech in the English localization.

I hope I’ve mentioned everyone. At the moment the team has changed again, but it is too 
early to talk about it in detail.

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Cyfir: Without spoiling anything of course, what can everyone look forward to in the next 
chapters?

Lins: Intrigue, jiggery-pokery, a show-boat trip on a clear morning (possibly).

Grimm: Lots of adventures, mysticism, and monochrome gloom! And a little bit for Serbian 
fans: in the second chapter, his story will be continued.

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Cyfir: What have been the challenges of getting this project off the ground and what 
helped you guys to overcome those challenges?

Lins: As old friends and co-authors, Grimm and I are used to relying only on our own or 
each other's strengths. We felt we had the firepower to make the game on our own, without 
attracting any other people: writing stories together or generating universes and characters 
is not something new to us, plus both of us are also artists. The game engine seemed quite 
simple to me. And as for music, we planned to buy it from audio resources. Then we 
realized pretty fast that we couldn’t cope with that by ourselves, and that is how the team 
began to assemble.

We had worked for several months with the first coder, but his work did not suit us. We 
also had our friend Natalie De Corsair with us. She had to create psychological profiles 
(I honestly still don’t understand what all of us had expected from that). We also planned 
to pick another musician, but something went wrong.

The vision on the final result was absolutely different between us, which slowed the 
working process and caused some disagreements. We violated the deadlines that we 
had set for ourselves. It all came to a decision that I took over the entire visual and plot 
part of the project. But later, it became obvious that the leader is not the person who 
does everything by himself, but the one who finds the strength to entrust the difficult 
work to team members and to distribute responsibilities between them correctly. 
Grimm worked with backgrounds, Natalie with translations, and I focused on plot and 
drawing character sprites. That helped us to finish chapter one.

Grimm: I can also add depression and lack of spare time to that list. 2018 and 2019 
stood out richly for tragic real-life situations and health issues for both of us. The coder 
and translator also had enough of their own problems. There were months when we 
barely had time to sleep at night, trying to combine our main jobs, real-life stuff, and 
“The Crown” with all that gloomy background, eventually going into a deep pit.

But now all those things are already behind us, thanks to the closest people for their 
support.

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Cyfir: Is there a rough release window for chapter two?

Lins/Grimm: We expect to finish chapter two by the end of 2020. We want to work 
through everything we’ve done calmly and accurately, so as not to disappoint our fans!

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Cyfir: Game projects often go through changes as they are developed. Have there been 
any changes in the direction of the game over the course of conception and development 
and if so, what might those have been?

Lins/Grimm: We wanted to come up with a mystical story about a society committed to 
ancient traditions and beliefs … aaaand it was supposed to be a dating simulator. That 
was sort of “Let’s try something simple for the first time.” Over time, the concept of this 
story had changed, and we began to bump into a sort of gloomy tale, completely devoid 
of any humor.

The changes began imperceptibly, and to mark the point when they started, I will share 
a little sort of a secret. We often turn on some nonsense content on the background 
during the working process to make it less routine - the worse it is, the better – and we 
also funnily comment about it in parallel. We have one TV channel where some sort of 
nonsense about fortune-tellers, conspiracies, ceremonies, and etc. is broadcasted 24 
hours a day. And there was the moment when we realized that the protagonist of “The 
Crown” gradually became a skeptic instead of a guardian of ancient traditions and 
superstitions, who had also started seeing through charlatans and languidly rolling his 
eyes every time he had to hear another omen from one of his relatives. We’ve just 
understood that such a story simply can’t be narrated with a serious face. So that is 
how we got to what we have now, even though such a path forced us to postpone the 
release of the game for a few years.

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Cyfir: I loved playing through chapter one and my only real disappointment was that it 
ended before I was ready to leave the world. Will chapter two be longer?

Lins: One review has deeply stained my mind (but, sadly, not literally). In that review, 
a player shared his opinion, that, possibly, the first chapter is just a prologue for 
something huge. What I said in my head was like “Nah, of course not”, but, actually, 
it was more like “*scoff*… of course, yes!” Chapter two will be much longer.

Originally we planned to create a simple short game in 3-4 chapters just to pass the 
time. No one had even thought about history in a few chapters. However, when we had 
been finishing the first chapter, we clearly understood that the game left many issues 
not only for the players but also even for us. We know how everything will go on; all of 
us just have to solve “The Crown” correctly.

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Cyfir: Were you surprised at how well the game was received?

Grimm: Extremely! We had no guarantees that players would enjoy “The Crown”, 
because it is 2D and anthro-styled. But we were suddenly supported both by Russian 
and foreign fans. Some wrote and still write very warm kind words, others draw fan-arts, 
really, lots of love! It’s nice to feel that you are striving for a good reason.

Critical remarks about game mechanics and conveniences/inconveniences are also 
useful. With their help, we understand what should be changed in-game, or vice versa, 
what should be left untouched.

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Cyfir: After The Crown of Leaves, what’s next for you and your team? Are there other 
game projects on the horizon for you and your team?

Lins/Grimm: We have plans to expand plot branches, which didn’t have enough 
attention paid to them in “The Crown”. Roui’s story will end sooner or later, but this 
universe is still full of unsolved mysteries.

It seems to me that a clearer understanding of what the next project should look like 
will come during the development of the last chapter.

================================================

Cyfir: On your online profiles you mention that you are not furries. What lead you to 
an anthropomorphic-like art-style and catering to the fandom?

Grimm: The thing is that it is not the only fandom we are interested in. We enjoy 
drawing both humans and anthros, which we tried to reflect in the Shang-La universe. 
Sahash live side by side with humans and don’t conflict with each other. In “The Crown”, 
we will continue to develop this idea. One human character is a protagonist of the DLC 
called “Immortal Horses.” Another one will meet you in the second chapter.

We began to draw animals in childhood. This is not surprising, considering the old Disney 
cartoons we all grew up on and our love of fairy tales like “Narnia”. In my youth, it seemed 
to me that it was easier to draw animals; my dog turned out better in my drawings than 
my Mother, who resented that she had "round cheeks" or that her "nose does not look 
like this". On the other hand, my dog did not have that much opportunity to comment on 
my childhood creativity…

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Cyfir: Are there any other projects that you would like to plug?

Lins:We had been working on a comic book called “Asomatous” before “The Crown of 
Leaves”, but we never finished it. Perhaps, we can come back to it after “The Crown” and 
rework it according to the game, who knows. But it’s unlikely that there would be any side 
stories to it.

Also, we’ve got a small comic series “The Endless Circle of Wolves” about the adventures 
of Tsourai Queen Saria, which is also indirectly related to Roui’s story. We had drawn it as 
a present for our patrons after we achieved a certain number of them on our Patreon.

----

Even if you are not a visual novel fan, I highly recommend this game for it’s intriguing story, 
music, and visuals. You will be transported to another world that you won’t want to leave. 
I can’t wait until the next chapter! 

Cyfir

Interview with Elenia Llewellyn, InWorldz Founder

By Bixyl Shuftan

Somewhat like Second Life, the InWorldz Grid has a development and support team bend it. This includes three Founders, Elenia Llewellyn, Legion Hienrichs, and Tranquility Dexler. Unlike Linden Lab however, the InWorldz team is willing to talk to residents outside special events. I got in touch with Founder Elenia Llewellyn, and we met up at her home on the InWorldz grid.

"Welcome to my hidey hole," she greeted me.

I thanked her, and after a little talk, I asked her, "So what do you do here in InWorldz?"

"I am one of the partners,"  Elenia answered, "Where Tranq handles the day to day development of the grid and the developers, I handle the day to day administration and support."

I then asked her, "How did you get your start in virtual worlds?"

"Through Second Life actually," Elenia told me, "I remember watching it on the news one night, and I had long thought it would be cool to see a world where people could create their stuff and use it. Then a couple years later, I heard about SL (again) and had to go check it out. I didn't particularly care about the social aspects of it, as I'm a tinkerer and someone who likes to know the mechanics of something. So I dove into learning how to build. My big goal was to do furniture, but I have this obsession over making things look real, and this was just as sculpties were coming out. With the prim market of SL, my builds were too 'prim heavy.' It was kind of sad."

"So, I was talking to my friend, Bob Bunderfeld one day about this, and he pointed me to the metaverse at large. Tried another grid, and that didn't pan out, so I said to my friend Legion Hienrichs (who is also a partner) that I thought we should test out OpenSim and getting it up and running on our own."

"That was Feb. 12, 2009, our first successful test!"

"That's the date you set up your Grid?" I asked, "How did things go in the first days?"

Elenia laughed, "Not bad actually! Considering we were on GoDaddy barebone servers, and had to find a real host. Which meant a couple of re-installs of the system. After a while, we talked to friends who logged in and next thing we knew, what we had started as our own little building spot was quickly being asked for regions as well. (It) blossomed into a business before we knew it, albeit a non profiting business. But a business nonetheless."

"As time went on though, we quickly realized the limitations of the systems and the code and that we'd need a professional developer to handle it."

"How did you go about getting one?" I asked.

"Well, had a couple who tried," Elenia answered, "but I had put the word out that we were looking. One of our residents, Scotsgraymouser Janus knew some of the IBM folks over on SL, who knew Tranquility and referred him to us. Him and I talked via emails and then he worked on a particular module for us. Next thing you know, he was on board full-time and then a partner in the business."

"Btw, he'll forever deny the fact that I told him it would be hard work... he swears to this day I told him it would be easy-peasy as a joke." She grinned.

"About when did a number of people start coming here?" I asked, "Is it true that "the first thousand took almost a year, the second thousand just bait over a month"?

Elenia pondered her answer, "Hmmm, our first year we were pretty obscure. Sure we had a lot of people take a look, but it really started up after we got the economy going and groups working properly. But yes, that story is true as far as the second 1k took just a month. I don't tend to look much at registered users though to be honest unless I'm looking at the retention numbers. I look at people online, region sales and I'z buying/selling for real numbers on our growth."

"And when would you say that started growing?" I asked.

"We go through growth spurts," Elenia told me, "usually during the spring and fall, then that churns down during summer and fall. But our first real growth, unfortunately was from SL's handling of the homesteads. Then our next big growth spurt was recently as the TOS started to really get discussed which also coincided with our full PhysX rollout for vehicles."

"Now that we've been around for almost 5 years though, and have some really long term customers and residents, I think people are feeling comfortable with the idea that we are working hard to make a better virtual experience for users, and not going to disappear tomorrow."

"What have been some of the challenges in operating the Grid," I asked, "other than what you mentioned?"

Elenia thought over her answer, "Mmm, we had the technical issues of course of getting more and more avatars onto a region. The prim limits were a challenge. Physics was a challenge. Our scripting engine was a great challenge, and of course inventory fetching for users. On my side, biggest single challenge was fraud which we dealt with. Then keeping up with the grid code changes to keep support rolling as it should."

"Finding enough time in the day, is still a challenge while we balance real life and get more help. Those I think now, are our single biggest challenges."

"InWorldz used to be close to the size of one or two other Grids," I reminded, "Today no other virtual world is as large, except Second Life. What do you see as the reasons people choose InWorldz over other grids?"

Elenia answered the reasons for their success as, "Well, as I mentioned we do have longevity now almost 5 years later. People know our name, they've heard it a few times over the years. We've worked hard to provide a really great stable environment for our users, give them support, and outside of that, I think our biggest single positive is that we do listen to our residents and change things if we find a good way to do it. They feel that they are part of the world with a voice, that this IS their world and that's exactly what it is. Without their voices or opinions we can make changes all day long, but it has to be for the right reasons. They are the users and they know what they want to make their world into, we can only guess. They are our greatest source of inspiration."

"And, our biggest source of advertising! I can't count how many times I've heard from a new resident 'my friend told me to come check it out.' "

I then asked, "What would you say have been some of the best examples of resident creativity here?"

"Oh wow, where to start without showing favoritism?" Elenia needed a moment to answer, "I love our art shows, I love seeing our residents fantasies coming to life on the grid. It's almost a little insight into how they work and think. I love our events we sponsor. There's just so much talent out there, it's hard to define as best examples. I think the best example though, if I have to give it thought, is not individual creations, but individuals able to create now. Where before they felt constrained. To see them tackle things they've always wanted to try, and were afraid to do so."

"I have stuff in my inventory from the very early days of the grid still, of residents who wanted to show us that they were building and creating and thanking us for making it available to them. Those pieces, while old and beginner stuff, is really precious to me." She then began rooting through her inventory, putting objects on the ground, "And then I get this stuff from residents (grin) … Hey now I don't need a Christmas tree! .. Awwww a tiny snowglobe!"

She turned back to me, "And this is why I can't really give a best example.... I look at some of these gifts, people I've known for a long time and where they first started at. And they've come such a long way. Which is what we wanted, we wanted to free people to be creative, to test themselves, to learn and most of all, to love doing it."

I was briefly interrupted in real life, but Elenia stuck around until I returned. I then asked, "Will there be any special event for InWorldz on it's anniversary?"

"We are working that out as we speak as a matter of fact," Elenia answered, "laying out the plans for the 5th B-day bash in April."

I then asked, "Will there be any kind of event for when InWorldz reaches 100,000 residents?"

"Hmmm, they like to get together to have on the fly parties on IDI and welcome in the Xth user to log in." Elenia told me, "We encourage it and let them have fun on IDI. If I know our users and mentors, they will be watching that login screen like hawks. And next thing you know, there will be a dj, a disco ball, and all sorts of crazy going on." She giggled.

After a chuckle, I then asked, "So besides this, what are the future plans for InWorldz?"

Elenia responded, "Well, now that we've gotten our big portions handled and taken care of and feel we're on a more equal footing we want to expand this technology. Tranq has been working on InShape and getting that completely tested and working right. We've got some feedback there and then I'll start pushing that forward. We always want to look at ways this technology can benefit our lives, and we see a lot of great opportunity there for expanding it out for more users."

"We want to move more into delving into what PhysX can do in relation to the avatars and clothing and hair. We have a lot of good stuff we want to get going, but it all works hand in hand with growth so we can achieve those goals."

"Was there anything else you wanted to add for the readers?" I requested.

"A huge thank you to our users." Elenia smiled, "It's because of them that we do so much and keep going and for being our inspiration."

"Thank you for your time Elenia."

"Thank you Bixyl (smile)."

I then bade the InWorldz founder goodbye, and we both went our separate ways.

*  *  *  *  *   *  *  *  *  *   *  *  *  *  *  

On a personal note, although I requested members of Linden Lab to talk in the past, none would so much as answer me. I never saw my predecessors James and Dana interview a Linden either. This marks the first time Second Life Newser has sat down with one of the founders of a Grid for a talk.

Perhaps this willingness to chat with residents on their terms is one of the reasons some from Second Life have been checking out InWorldz.

Bixyl Shuftan