Month: October 2018

Coming Out of the Closet, and the Twists and Turns This Blog Has Taken

jamesthethomas5-755129-unsplash.jpg
Photo by Jamesthethomas5 on Unsplash

Life is strange, isn’t it?

By now, all you regular blog readers know my secret: my favourite pastime over the past eleven years has been creating and outfitting Second Life avatars, and endlessly shopping the SL grid and Marketplace for steals, deals, and freebies for my collection of alts!  (Hey, you didn’t think I actually spent a lot of money on this, did you? I did almost all of it for free!)

And it only took a cancer scare for me to come clean about my hobby, in an effort to find good homes for all my avatars after my death, via my will. (That work is ongoing. I have to start getting in touch with all the people who expressed an interest in inheriting one of my avatars.)

Hey, some people collect stamps; I just happen to collect avatars. Yes, I know, it’s a rather strange hobby. But I’m quite certain that I am not the only person who does this in Second Life. (Perhaps not to the same extent…)

I just decided to come out of the closet, just like I had earlier in my life about being gay and about being someone with chronic, clinical depression. Coming out of the closet is liberating. Like the Bible says, the truth will set you free.

All I know is that shopping for deals and freebies makes me happy, and I have also been happy to share my expertise and experience with those of you reading my blog. I hope by now that I have convinced you that you do not need to spend thousands of Linden dollars to look like a million bucks in Second Life!

And I find it so ironic that I am now a Second Life blogger! As I said recently on the VirtualVerse user forums:

You know, I started off on July 31st, 2017 as a blogger exclusively about Sansar. I never planned to blog about other virtual worlds at all, and I certainly never planned to become an SL blogger. There are already thousands of bloggers doing that, and doing it well, like Strawberry Singh and Inara Pey.

Then, after an incident in January 2018 where I was asked by Linden Lab to take down some pictures I had taken (with permission, mind you!) of one of their Ready Player One experiences after Warner Brothers objected to LL about my use of the apparently forbidden word “exclusive”, I got pissed off and I decided to rebrand and expand my blog to cover all the newer social VR platforms including High Fidelity, Sinespace, VRChat, and AltspaceVR.

You can follow the drama as it unfolded here:
Pick of the Day: Aech’s Garage, the Ready Player One Movie Experience in Sansar (The blogpost that started this whole mess, where I was asked to take down the pictures by LL’s legal. I eventually was allowed to repost the pictures, and I got a personal apology from Ebbe Altberg, which meant a lot to me.)
UPDATED: I’m Taking A Break
The Sansar Newsblog Is On Hiatus
The Sansar Newsblog Has Changed Its Name to RyanSchultz.com

In February 2018, I also started covering the ever-expanding and truly hyperbole-filled world of blockchain/cryptocurrency-based virtual worlds like Decentraland:
Blockchain-Based Virtual Worlds – Ryan Schultz

But what I find most amusing by far is that now, by far, the most traffic to my blog is generated by my many posts about the steals, deals, and freebies in Second Life!
Second Life Steals, Deals and Freebies – Ryan Schultz

I’m actually in the first page of search results when you Google “second life freebies”. It just goes to show you that you never can predict what will happen…

In its short life, this blog has already had a couple of twists and turns! I’m sure there will be more to come in the future. But I have discovered my calling. I just love blogging about social VR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse! And I will continue to share news and views about Second Life and the dozens of newer virtual worlds and social VR spaces.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you all for joining me on this journey.

High Fidelity Announces the FUTVRE LANDS Virtual Reality Festival on Nov. 17th

FUTVRE LANDS 24 Oct 2018

High Fidelity has announced a one-day festival happening on Nov. 17th, 2018 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time, both in-world and at High Fidelity’s VR Arcade in San Francisco’s SOMA district:

High Fidelity Presents

FUTVRE LANDS
Virtual Reality Festival

Saturday, November 17 | 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm PST

FUTVRE LANDS is a celebration of the communities developing inside High Fidelity. It’s an all-day binge of groundbreaking social VR experiences.

In honor of VR Day, we’ll be giving away a ton of prizes – including state-of-the-art VR systems.

What to Expect?

  • Live Music
  • Live Performances
  • Art
  • Speakers
  • VR Headset Giveaways
  • Games
  • Contests
  • Ways to earn a stable coin cryptocurrency you can cash out for US$ (High Fidelity Coin)
  • And more!

***Full line-up to be announced shortly***

As part of the Festival, there will be two contests, a favourite domain competition and a second iteration of their best avatar contest (the first one was held at the most recent avatar domain capacity stress test):

We want to see and celebrate High Fidelity’s best avatar creators and the models that wear them. The winners will be selected by a panel of celebrity judges, and this time, also the people in attendance!

One grand prize winner will be awarded the HFC equivalent of $1,000 US and two runner-ups the equivalent of $500 US. HFC can now be converted to US dollars. For more information, read here.

Rules:

  • Entries must not violate other’s intellectual property.

Contestants are encouraged but not required to use our flow script technology which gives clothes, hair and other attachments movement. Avatars can be humanoid or non-humanoid. Avatars can be photo-real or stylized.

To apply, fill out this form.

Information on our Avatar standards can be found here.

Looks like fun! You can register for tickets via EventBrite.

Sansar Pick of the Day: Mr. Darcy’s After Dark

Mr. Darcy’s After Dark is a monochrome, Hallowe’en version of Solas NaGealai’s popular Jane Austen-era experience Picnic at Mr. Darcy’s:

Darcy's After Dark 1 24 Oct 2018

Darcy's After Dark 2 24 Oct 2018

(By the way, if you’re interested in Jane Austen roleplay in virtual worlds, you should definitely check out Ever, Jane.)

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Baiastice Group Gifts

Hallowe’en is fast approaching, and I wanted to alert you all to a wonderful new group gift from Baiastice. The gift includes both the dress and the cape (which includes the hair under the hood). The outfit comes with a HUD with five different colour options (gold, red, purple, blue and black) and a choice of 35 different hair colours!

Fortune Telling 2 23 Oct 2018

Fortune Telling 23 Oct 2018

FOrtune Telling 3 23 Oct 2018

This avatar is wearing:

Mesh Head and Lipstick: Giselle Bento head by Altamura (no longer available for free; this was an Altamura gift from last Christmas at the eBENTO event, and you had to join the Altamura group for L$50 to get it).

Mesh Body: Jenny Bento body by Altamura (this was a free gift last Christmas from the Women Only Hunt, and on this version, you can remove the head and replace it with any other mesh head, as I did here. Note that this free mesh body is now available at the Freebie Megastore at London City (more information here), but you cannot remove the head on the newer free version.

Eyes: brown Dream eyes by YS&YS (free gift from a previous Second Life shopping event; no longer available)

Dress, Hooded Cape and Hair: Absinthe outfit in gold from Baiastice (free group gift; the group join fee is L$50).

Gold Leaf Choker: Another free group gift from Baiastice, it comes in three metals: gold, silver, and copper

Boots: Tessa thigh-high boots, a lucky chair prize from MODA; the HUD gives you 34 colour choices for the boots; enter the main store in front of you at the spawn point, and go around into the back room where the four lucky chairs are located, or just use your map and follow the red arrow from the provided SLURL.

Animated Staff: Staff of Stars by Talevin’s Magic Sky Village (L$100), simply the best place to get your magical staves and wands! They have dozens of models to choose from, and you can even pick up a free staff walking animation to add to your AO! You have a choice of ten different coloured particle effects with this particular staff, or you can turn the particle effect off completely.

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR: L$200 (L$50 for the Altamura group join fee, L$50 for the Baiastice group join fee, and L$100 for the staff)

Note: Beginning with this blogpost, and going forward, I will tag fashion posts with the prefix of the social VR platform or virtual world that it comes from, e.g. “Second Life Fashion”, “Second Life Dresses”, “Second Life Jewelry”, etc. I have not been doing this up until now, and since I now cover avatar fashion from so many different worlds, the tagging I have used until now has become kind of useless if you are only interested in one world (e.g. Sansar). Unfortunately, this is such a big change that I cannot go back and apply the new tags retroactively. I hope you understand, thanks!