Utherverse and the Red Light Center: A Brief Introduction

UPDATE July 25th, 2019: This blogpost has been flagged for violations of Google AdSense Program policies, which has led to it being extensively censored. You can Google “Utherverse” to find this virtual world, as I am apparently not allowed to provide a link to it in this blogpost.

In covering as many of the products and platforms as I can for my comprehensive listing of social VR spaces and virtual words, I realized on Saturday that there was still one I had not yet visited, called either Red Light Center or Utherverse. (Yes, I know, it’s very confusing! I had thought they were two separate products, and I didn’t realize they were the same platform until someone told me in-world.)

The emphasis in Utherverse/RLC is pretty much squarely on relationships and sexual roleplay.

Utherverse 1 26 May 2018

(Note that afterwards, I discovered there was a PG version of Utherverse/RLC called WebWorlds, which I did not investigate.)

Billing itself as “the first adult massive[ly] multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG)”, Utherverse/RLC feels like a low-rent version of Second Life, with rather dated-looking avatars giving me flashbacks to the Second Life of 2007.

Here are a few (safe for work) screenshots I took of my travels:

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As you can see, there is no shortage of avatars online in some places like the Pulse nightclub in the topmost picture. (Or were most of them bots? When I came back the next day, the nightclub was empty, which leads me to believe they were all real users, not bots.) The first time I tried to enter the Pulse nightclub experience in the top photo above, my computer crashed. I was luckier the second time around.

One aspect of Utherverse/RLC which I found rather disconcerting was that the avatars would load in greyscale first, then in colour. (It reminded me a bit of the science fiction novel Snow Crash, where the poorer avatars could only afford to be seen in low-resolution in the metaverse, compared to the richer ones.)

And also, sometimes other avatars, and even your own avatar, would appear see-through, like a ghost. You can see that a little bit in the bottommost picture, where I wandered around a medieval market. You can barely see the cobblestones through my torso!

So, I can now check RLC/Utherverse off my list of virtual worlds to visit. Unless you are really into adult content, I would advise you to steer clear. And if you really were that much into adult content, why you would choose Utherverse/RLC’s unappealing, 2007-era avatars over the much more modern and aesthetic mesh avatars that Second Life offers, is a mystery to me.

But obviously, there’s enough people using Red Light Center/Utherverse to keep it going. They do seem to have regular, well-attended events, like this Sunday morning dance I attended:

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Second Life Fashion: Dina Dresses by Virtue

Today Vanity Fair is wearing dresses from the new Dina collection by Abiela of Virtue (SL Marketplace, in-world store). These stylish and elegant dresses are ones I expect to pull from my inventory again and again!

The Dina dresses come in four colours: red, pink, blue and noir (black). Each colour is L$190.

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Dina Dress in Blue
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Dina Dress in Pink
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Dina Dress in Noir

Vanity Fair is wearing:

Dress: Dina dress by Virtue

Hair: French Twist hair by Rezology

Earrings: pearl knot earrings from a long-ago hunt (the store is no longer in SL)

Shoes: black Gigi pumps by Garbaggio

Vanity Fair is also wearing:

These pictures were taken at the Whimberly sim.

 

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700 Blogposts!

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I have made 700 blogposts in 300 days, since I first started this blog back on July 31st, 2017. That works out to 2.3 blogposts per day!

You might be interested to know what my Top Ten most popular blogposts so far have been. They are essentially unchanged from my last Top Ten list at the 600-blogpost milestone:

  1. Pick of the Day: Aech’s Garage, the Ready Player One Movie Experience in Sansar (January 8th, 2018)
  2. UPDATED: More Details on the Upcoming Ability to Change Your User Name in Second Life (March 22nd, 2018)
  3. VRChat Pick of the Day: Club Transcendia (March 11th, 2018)
  4. Virtual Reality Vs. Real Reality (January 2nd, 2018)
  5. Why Women Don’t Like Social VR: Interview with Jessica Outlaw (February 17th, 2018)
  6. A Few (Second) Thoughts About the Sudden Popularity of VRChat (January 4th, 2018)
  7. Second Life Versus Sansar: Why Linden Lab Can’t Win, No Matter What They Do (March 9th, 2018)
  8. Which Virtual World Boasts the Highest Avatar Capacity? (March 13th, 2018)
  9. Linden Lab Announces a Mainland Price Decrease in Second Life (March 14th, 2018)
  10. The Idea of the Universal Avatar (November 28th, 2017)

Of my Top Ten blogposts, three are about Second Life (including a rather surprisingly popular one about the upcoming ability to change your SL username), two are about Sansar, two are about VRChat, and four are about social VR and virtual worlds in general.

The Top Ten countries in terms of blog visitors are:

  1. United States
  2. United Kingdom
  3. Germany
  4. Canada
  5. Australia
  6. Netherlands
  7. Switzerland
  8. Italy
  9. France
  10. Sweden

And the Top Ten referrers to RyanSchultz.com (i.e. where visitors to the blog are coming from) are as follows:

  1. Facebook
  2. Search engines
  3. Reddit
  4. Google+
  5. Twitter
  6. SLUniverse.com
  7. The official Second Life community forums
  8. New World Notes
  9. The High Fidelity user forums
  10. The WordPress.com Reader (I almost have 100 followers now!)

I am also very happy to report that, since I turned on WordAds for RyanSchultz.com, the amount of income I have earned thus far is actually greater than what I pay WordPress monthly to host the blog. In other words, my blog is actually a money-maker instead of a money-loser! I’m very surprised that that has happened so soon! Thank you to all of you who visit this blog regularly, I could not have done it without your support!

Sinespace Pick of the Day: The 381 Club

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The 381 Club is just what you need after an exhausting week at work: a place to let loose on the dancefloor to some awesome Eighties music!

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Tonight, our DJ Kathryn Yer is spinning tunes and giving away in-game silver currency to a few lucky avatars! If you’re up for some fun, come into Sinespace and join us!

And where else could you dance like this, even using your leg as an air guitar?!??