Siden, a horror, survival and combat sim in Second Life

This might sound strange but I am actually not spending much time in Second Life playing all those games that I write about. I only have a very limited spare time each day and I need to make a choice if I want to blog or just enjoy playing for myself. The last days I have been immersed in two Second Life shooting games leaving me less time to write texts for this blog.

Is it a picture or an apparition?

One great roleplay and shooting game that I can't stop playing is the so called Siden combat system on the Siden Survival/Horror sim. It has been around for some time, but I only recently discovered it. The Siden combat system has the most detailed combat system that I have seen so far in Second Life and I am still discovering new things. That's why I hopefully will write a full review at a later stage. Here are what some other bloggers wrote about Siden:

After the Fall - Dark Urban Roleplay with the Riot Combat System

The Riot Combat System - a new game system which allows players to level up by in-game credits - has its first roleplay sim for interactive "Dark Urban Roleplay" called "After The Fall" (AFT).

The first location that the exploratoin quest HUD wanted me to find: the hospital

After The Fall (AFT) has been launched in May 2013. The settings have been created by the newest graphical and SL performance standards. New players can immerse into the roleplay world easily since the background story is presented in a comic book way - it's a great idea to get into a new roleplay setting without a steep learning curve. You just need to wear the comic book HUD from the welcome pack in-world. There is even a Youtube video version of the comic (below).

Another nice idea to introduce newcomers to ATF quickly and to give them some tasks that they can do on their own is an exploration quest HUD that gives the player little exercises such as "visit the following locations on the sim". After playing the quests, you'll be familiar with the sim, the community rules and the roleplay aims. This is really the best introduction to a roleplay community that I have ever seen!

The Quests of the exploration HUD

Last but not least the roleplayers on the AFT sim can use the exciting new Riot Combat System for their fights. If I had more time for roleplay, this would be a place I'd definately explore it further.

After The Fall

On the verge of economic collapse, with the world in a very vulnerable place, astronomers predicted frequent and disastrous meteor showers. But they couldn't predict what came next... Dark and gibbering creatures emerged from the impact craters, decimating everything in their sight. As a human, how will you survive? As an alien, what's your next move? After the Fall has an elaborate interactive grungy urban city, aliens, and adult-themed role play. See the graphic novels at http://youtu.be/NUnlCeH2n6k.

Visit in Second Life

The Grim Combat System - A game construction kit for Second Life region owners

Back in February I reviewed a zombie fighting sim called "Axis of Evil". I was amazed by the game mechanics and the density of NPC monsters on the sim. I also mentioned in the post that the shooter is based upon a system called Grim Combat System (GCS).

The GCS creators claim that their combat system is the fastest growing combat system in Second Life and their region list shows that about 80 regions are offering shooter game experiences based on their system. The GCS approach is different to other Second Life combat systems. GCS does not only provide weapons and a meter that measures the players health. They provide a whole game construction kit for region owners. The GCS system includes - amongst many other items - all kind of monster spawners; exploding cars, barrels and dumpsters; low lag city building kits; scoreboards; recovery systems; fog machines; breakable glas; quest items and even quest NPCs (non playing characters).

The fashionista - A Second Life Role-Play Archetype (RGP in SL part IV)

This article is the fourth part of a blog post series on role-playing in Second Life.

• An Introduction to Role-playing in Second Life
• Location Scouting in Second Life
• Determining a role-play event in Second Life
• The fashionista - A Second Life Role-Play Archetype 

The Barbie doll has been an important icon of the toy market for fifty years and with one billion copies she is probably the most sold toy ever. I believe that her success is based upon her function as a object of fashion projection. Although Barbie was initially sold to adults, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were sold separately. Barbie products include numerous clothes and accessories. 

In Second Life a lot of players - including me - enjoy styling their avatars in the same way that we have dressed our Barbies when we were young: we bought all kind of costumes, outfits and roles. It's funny that Mattel released a Teen Talk Barbie, which spoke - among a number of other phrases - "Will we ever have enough clothes?". Every fashion addict in Second Life won't hesitate to cry out: "Of course not - Never!"

Draxtor Despres presents in his series "World Makers" the work of SL fashion designer Eshi Otawara

Determining a role-play event in Second Life (RPG in SL part III)

This article is the third part of a blog post series on role-playing in Second Life.

• An Introduction to Role-playing in Second Life
• Location Scouting in Second Life
• Determining a role-play event in Second Life
• The fashionista - A Second Life Role-Play Archetype 

In the first part of my blog post series on role-playing in second life I have pointed out why Second Life is a promising platform for virtual role-playing games (RPGs): the SL regions can be modeled to immersive settings and worlds. We are visually experiencing the fantasy world that we are playing in while our avatars are visually embodying our role-playing identity.

I am dressed up for a visit at the fantasy RPG-sim "Realm of Estara"

Second Life RPG players do however also face some obstacles when it comes to determining decisions how the story continues. Traditional pen-and-paper role-play setting are characterized by a team playing together against enemy forces. These forces were represented by a game master. He or she was telling the story and sending in the enemies. The aim of the game master was to provide as much challenges as possible while leading the players to a happy-end of the story.

The SL Profile Feed - Linden Lab's unexplored "Shared Creative Space"

Overcoming the gap between in-world and logged-out

Linden Lab is now marketing itself as "Makers of Shared Creative Spaces". And they even might have created a "shared creative" space by accident. It could become the intersection between the in-world SL experience and the web. It could also become a multiplayer interactive online narrative. I am talking about the SL profile feed with its snapshot function. Most people haven't realized its potential and they are not even using it. But let's start from the beginning.

Can I seriously be talking about the SL profile feed - this feature that never got adopted by the SL users? The SL feed is what you get to see first when you click on someone's profile in the viewer. It's basically an overview of past status updates made by a resident. When Linden Lab acquired  Avatars United in 2010, they integrated pieces of that social network for avatars into the Second Life platform. As a result the profiles of the residents switched to a web-based layout and SL profile feeds were added. However up to now the majority of SL residents doesn't write any status updates and their feed remains empty. Most of the time you'll find automatically generated entries like "Xyx resident changed their display name to Xyx+".

Nothing shared at this moment...

So where is the potential? Well at some point Linden Lab added a little but decisive new feature: the ability to directly upload snapshots from Second Life to the feed. SL residents can now publish their in-world experiences to the web directly from the viewer itself. So far the SL experience is mostly limited to what is happening in-world. Either you are there or you miss. At best you can hope that someone is going to tell you about it.

Location Scouting in Second Life (RPG in SL part 2)

This article is the second part of a blog post series on role-playing in Second Life.

• An Introduction to Role-playing in Second Life
• Location Scouting in Second Life
• Determining a role-play event in Second Life
• The fashionista - A Second Life Role-Play Archetype 

In my introduction to Role-play games in Second Life I have written that there is a huge variety of role-play settings. One very successful niche is the Scouts RPG in Second Life. There are several Scout groups and regions on the grid and I am going to present you two of them today. 

I like SL exploration roleplay as there are usually many people and due to its more casual nature.

Camp Kawabata

The first group that I want to present you is Camp Kawabata. While not connected to any real life scouting organization they promote the values of of scouting’s founder Sir Robert Baden Powell, including building character, citizenship, personal and group skills in Second Life.

Kwabata Scouts at the comic book merit badge meeting - picture by Christian Welles

Camp Kawabata is a beautiful full SL region and a great place for casual role-play including horseback riding, swimming, hiking, boating and campfire activities. 

But the main reason why the Scouts stand out from other RPG environments are their biweekly field trips with the opportunity to get a merit badge. The badges are earned by participating in a specific activity and by filling out a Merit Badge notecard at the end of the meeting which tests your acquired knowledge.

An Introduction to Role-playing in Second Life (RPG in SL part 1)

This article is the first part of a blog post series on role-playing in Second Life.

• An Introduction to Role-playing in Second Life
• Location Scouting in Second Life
• Determining a role-play event in Second Life
• The fashionista - A Second Life Role-Play Archetype 

The history of role-playing games (RPG) goes back much further than the history of Second Life. It begins with an earlier tradition of pen-and-paper role-playing games. The first commercially available RPG, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), was inspired by fantasy literature and was published in 1974.

A role-playing game is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization. In pen-and-paper role-play games each action succeeds or fails according to a system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, the players may improvise freely. The exciting feature about role-play games is that the direction and outcome of the game is shaped by the players in a collaborative effort in a small social gathering. In the beginning of the eighties RPGs where also released in electronic format, first as single later as multi-player games.

"The Doomed Ship" is an RGP set in a dark Sci-Fi environment.