UPDATED! Oasis: A Brief Introduction to a New Chinese Social VR Platform

This week, somebody on the RyanSchultz.com Discord server alerted me to a brand new, Chinese-language social VR platform called…Oasis.

First, let’s talk about that name: Oasis. As I have said before, when reviewing a completely different, adult-oriented virtual world also called Oasis (that link is safe for work), that is a truly TERRIBLE choice to name a social VR platform:

Another big problem with Oasis? As I mentioned earlier, it’s almost impossible to find this game on Google, due to so many other unrelated hits you get from searching on “Oasis”. Search on “Oasis VR” or “Oasis game” and you get the Ready Player One-branded experience by VIVEPORT, or the Chinese game company.* Search on “Oasis adult” or “Oasis sex” and you get the Oasis Aqualounge, a “sexual adventure playground for adults”, which appears to be a swingers resort in downtown Toronto. Search on “Oasis adult game” and you finally get the right hits—as well as this blogpost as the third** highest-ranking hit on Google. That’s not a good sign.

*And it’s not even the same Chinese company as this new one!
**Now, my highly critical blogpost is the second highest-ranking hit.

Having yet another platform called Oasis is just plain lazy thinking on the part of the developers, and a cheap attempt to cash in on Ready Player One. It also makes this app almost impossible to find on the Internet. (Try a few Google searches yourself and see what you come up with. You’ll pull up a lot of stuff called Oasis, but not this new app.)

I was able to find a recent Sina.com new article, which I ran through Google Translate, to get some more details:

Oasis VR’s self-developed VR game will be launched on Steam on December 12th. Its online version supports both PC and VR platforms… [OASIS VR] is a virtual world that provides a completely immersive gaming experience, including full body tracking, social networking, creation, etc. Players can upload their own virtual images, meet new friends, and build their own world in the “oasis”. Rather than saying [it] is a game, it is better to say that it is like a virtual world. There is no fixed gameplay, but there are endless ways to play. Going to the bar with friends, playing killing games, spelling spells like Harry Potter, etc., [if] tired, you can run the ranch, go to the cafe and chat with friends…

In the current 1.0 version, there are more than 10 different worlds to play in, such as ballrooms, killing games, ranches, Harry Potter, cat cafes, ferris wheel, candy dance room, outdoor theater, etc.

Here’s the Steam page for Oasis, where the app is in the Early Access Program. You can take a look at a video and some pictures of the product. But everything is in Chinese, and the page notes that you need to have a Chinese mobile phone number in order to use the program, so that excludes most of us. If anybody out there has a Chinese mobile phone number and wants to test this one out and report back to us, I’ll publish a review.

And I’m adding this one to my ever-growing list of social VR/virtual worlds, just for completeness.

UPDATE May 31st, 2020: Somebody posted a ten-minute play-through video of Oasis to YouTube:

If you want to learn more about Oasis, you can visit their website, or you can join the Oasis Discord server. There’s also a YouTube channel.

Rec Room Job Postings: The Social VR Company Is Planning for User Generated Content and a Marketplace

Last month, I wrote the following in an editorial on the current state of social VR:

So, it would appear that those social VR platforms that do have in-world economies can’t attract large numbers of users, and the ones that don’t have in-world economies might be popular, but obviously can’t keep running indefinitely without a means of generating profit.

And back in August, I noted that VRChat is looking to hire staff who can work on building a virtual economy and a marketplace for user-generated content.

Well, today I took a gander at the Jobs page on the Rec Room website, and guess what I found? Job postings for the following positions:

  • Game Designer, User Generated Content, with the responsibility to “utilize a broad range of game design techniques to make complex and intimidating User Content Creation tools approachable & easy to use for everyday gamers”;
  • Games Developer, Marketplace, where the successful applicant will “build the tools that allow creators to sell wares via the in-game economy”; and 
  • Senior Gameplay Engineer, User Generated Content, whose job will be to “design, build, implement and maintain creative tools that players use to collaboratively build within Rec Room”.

So it would appear that Rec Room, like VRChat, is also planning to implement an in-game economy, including a marketplace where user-generated content will be sold. Note also the mention of staff who will be working on easy-to-use, collaborative building tools for user content generation.

Of course, having an in-world economy would be an important step on the road to Rec Room becoming a profit-generating company. It will be interesting to watch as the company attempts to grow its userbase!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: The 12 Days of Christmas Calendar at Baby Monkey

The 12 Days of Christmas calendar starts today at Baby Monkey! Here’s the SLURL to take you directly to the calendar in the store (it’s quite a large store, so you might have to select the saved SLURL from your inventory and use Show on Map, and follow the red arrow).

Every year, Baby Monkey gives away twelve pieces of clothing and footwear to make up a complete colour-coordinated capsule wardrobe. For 2019, each piece of this capsule wardrobe comes in six different colours: pink, light green, light blue, beige, red and black.

Join the Baby Monkey Junkies group for only L$20 and buy each day’s gift for L$1 (your dollar is automatically refunded). If you decide not to join the group, each gift costs L$1, which is not refunded. Pixieplumb Flanagan writes in a notecard sent out to her group members:

The 12 days of Christmas gifts begin on 12th December. I will activate each day as soon as I’m awake – bear in mind I’m in the UK!! Every gift will stay up, and free (pay L$1 and immediate refund with group tag active) until at least the end of the year. Non group members pay L$1 without refund. I’ll be away from 19th to 30th and will NOT be able to get in-world.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A Tale of Two Frank’s

A rather amusing situation has developed in the wake of Frank’s Entertainment Group closing down most of their Second Life venues: two dueling Frank’s Jazz Clubs have arisen!

Frank’s Jazz Club (The Upstart)

The new club, which is variously called Frank’s Jazz Club, the New Frank’s Place, the Sinatra Jazz Club, and the Frank S Jazz Club, depending on which sign you’re looking at and which landmark you pick up, is the new kid on the block, obviously hoping to lure Frank’s previous clientele. (I’m quite sure that Frank’s original owner, Nanceee Sinatra, is rather ticked off about this development, but there’s not much that she can do about it. I rather doubt she trademarked the name Frank’s.)

The music mix is much the same as Nancee’s original Frank’s, but I note that you can make song requests for the DJ to play using various signs placed around the venue, which is a suitably large and impressive space, tastefully decorated for Christmas.

And I do see many familiar faces from Frank’s here already! Which just goes to show that the concept was a good one. It was very smart of someone to step immediately into the void left when Frank’s closed.

Even better, there are gifts of free formalwear for both men and women at the entrance! What more could a freebie fashionista ask for?

Here my avatar is wearing the free black ballgown, which is quite lovely and has sizes to fit most classic system and mesh bodies (this is the version for Maitreya Lara, which fits this Altamura Juliet mesh body perfectly):

She is also wearing:

TOTAL COST FOR THIS ENTIRE FORMAL OUTFIT: FREE!

Frank’s Elite Jazz Club (The Original)

On the other hand, there is Frank’s Elite Jazz Club, which is under new ownership after the previous sim owner stepped in to save it when Frank’s Entertainment Group was going to shut it down. It is a members-only club with a rather steep membership fee of L$1,000 (I had joined when the group fee was only L$500), but they sometimes have events which are open to everybody.

I must confess that I do have a soft spot for this venue, which is beautifully decorated for the holiday season:

One of things I do like about Frank’s Elite Jazz Club is the variety of talented live performers. I also appreciate the fact that the exclusivity of the club tends to attract a higher class of clientele (I did get rather sick and tired of being hit on all the time at Frank’s original club; being a drop-dead gorgeous female avatar does have its disadvantages 😉 ).

Vanity Fair is wearing her standard go-to ballgown, the Au Revoir red silk gown by Snowpaws—simple, beautiful, effortlessly elegant.

To go with the ballgown, I am also wearing:

  • Antigone gold and ruby earrings (a long-ago free gift from Kouse’s Sanctum, a store which has now closed)
  • Gigi crimson pumps by Garbaggio (not shown; my favourite shoe store!)
  • And a gold wedding band by Su Xue (as a warning signal to keep the male pestering to a minimum 😉 ).

Vanity is also wearing: