(Next Island)

In this content update, Next Island will also make it easier for new players going to Greece to get to where they are going by adding more markings along the way. Hopefully, this will lessen any confusion and will make the experience more enjoyable.{adinserter Adcode04}

Currently, you can visit Ancient Greece in Next Island by travelling through time. Of course, you will have to unlock time travel first by solving puzzles and helping First Wave Islanders. Once you find the Orpheus Cave and gain the time crystals, you will be able to travel back in time to Ancient Greece.

In Ancient Greece, you will be able to explore the land, fight mythical creatures, discuss philosophy with other people and go on quests to gain the favor of the gods. You can choose to stay in Ancient Greece or you can travel back in time and return to Next Island.

(Welcome To Next Island)

Next Island is unlike your ordinary online game world. The experience is very different. You can think of it as a game and play it as such or you can think of it as new world where you can explore, learn and start a new life in.

Anyway, to learn more about Next Island’s Planned Content Release, click here.

Phoenix, AZ, November 08, 2011 –(PR.com)– Onverse, an online social virtual world, surprised the virtual world industry Friday when they released player-owned cars into their free-to-play 3D world. The surprise wasn’t that cars were coming; it was that Onverse was giving them away for free. The free cars add to a long list of freebies the world gives out for playing, including homes, games, clothing, furniture and tools.

Members of Onverse can now travel to a new game area within Onverse called the Tangerine Coast with their cars to play a new style of game called Point Party. The Tangerine Coast is a seaside metropolis that extends out through countryside farms, old growth forests and snowcapped mountains. Cars smash through targets in an endless game of gathering points to go shopping with.{adinserter Adcode03}

“We have the best virtual world community out there and we’re here to make sure they have fun,” said Steve Pierce, Founder and CEO of Onverse, when asked why the cars were free. “Marketing always has to be considered as well. When you’re looking for investments in marketing, you need to be able to show you know how to get new customers.”

The free cars aren’t just for current members; everyone who signs up gets their own free car as well. With close to 300,000 free cars given out in one day, Onverse is now offering something that some of their competitors simply can’t do. “Unless they have an open, 3D world, they can’t offer this kind of experience,” said Pierce. “Many are focused on small chat rooms with limited or no movement. Cars combined with our large, open world give us a stark contrast to that. I think many people are looking for something deeper and more immersive in social virtual worlds.”

About Onverse

Onverse, LLC provides a merging of social networks, virtual worlds, and massively multiplayer online gaming in a 3D world focused on shopping, chatting, home building, exploration, customization, vehicles and games-within-games. Onverse is free to play and can be found at http://www.onverse.com.

Currently, they are inviting both parents and kids to create their very own Space Hero and start training at the Space Hero Academy. Training involves playing fun mini-games like Asteroid Blast, Star Jet Racing, Parachute Jump and Jetpack Training. The virtual universe isn’t ready yet to be explored but early Space Heroes who will undergo the various training will earn virtual coins and will become full pledged Space Heroes when the Beta Version is released later this year.{adinserter Adcode03}

If you sign-up for an account now then, you will not only be able to Train your Space Hero, you will also be invited to the Beta of Little Space Heroes when it launches. As a Beta Tester, you will get to explore the virtual universe before everyone else and you will also help the developer in finding bugs that might cause problems when the virtual universe goes LIVE.

Little Space Heroes promises to provide a safe virtual environment for kids to have fun in. If you are a parent looking for something your kids can enjoy online then you may want to check-out Little Space Heroes. Become a Beta Tester and provide input that will make the virtual universe truly safe for your kids and for other kids.

Frustrated by the lack of high quality 3D avatar generators, the VastPark team has launched OpenAvatar, a flexible open 3D avatar specification and open source generator that uses the industry-standard Collada format. The free OpenAvatar SDK makes it possible for virtual world platforms to enable users to customize their avatars with swappable body parts and it supports a range of deployment options such as in the cloud and behind the firewall.

The Genesis of OpenAvatar

When the VastPark team wanted to offer their users a way of customizing 3D avatars inworld, they found a big problem. There weren’t any avatar generation systems available that provided the scalable, high quality results they were looking for. In particular, there was no open source solution offering quality results or using an industry standards-based toolset.{adinserter Adcode03}

Bruce Joy, founder and Chairman of VastPark said “We know that there are great vendors like DI-guy offering good quality avatars and amazing technologies like Facegen and Shapeshot, but no one was offering an end-to-end avatar generator that incorporated these sorts of technologies in a fully reusable way. So when we decided to go ahead with this, we knew it had to be open source, easy to use for commercial projects and offer really high quality results. Why? Because want other developers and platforms to adopt it!”

Lori Kavle, President of VastPark US, explained the strategy, “Our business is focused on our community of practice, web services and virtual worlds platform that is integrates whatever is needed to give users an effective and rich immersive experience. We believe strongly that by improving interoperability between virtual world platforms, we can all help the industry mature and grow. If the industry grows, then so do we.”

What Makes OpenAvatar Different?

As the manager of the Melbourne R&D team for VastPark, Tim Glew has been responsible for driving this project forward. “Most developers are going to be surprised how simple and flexible the OpenAvatar system is,” believes Glew. “The benefit is that the developers can define the avatars features and still let their users customize them with their own artwork. These avatar ‘archetypes’ as we call them, could be anything from a realistic avatar to a 3 headed dragon! The system doesn’t tie the developer into a specification that we’ve created. It lets them define their own avatar specifications.”

Jeremy Massey is the senior artist who originally conceived OpenAvatar. “I was frustrated by what I found available. 3rd party commercial solutions didn’t allow for inworld customization of avatars which made the whole user experience clunky and I knew it didn’t have to be like that. I also wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the avatars I was receiving from these 3rd party systems.”

Bruce Joy agrees, “It wasn’t just us who were frustrated by the quality of the 3rd party avatar generators but our customers were dissatisfied as well. So it’s really gratifying to see the quality and range we’re able to achieve with OpenAvatar.”

Massey made sure that 3D modelers could use their existing design tools to create the components for avatars by having OpenAvatar automatically rig the avatar so it handles animations. Massey explains; “Artists simply bind their model to their entire rig using standard practices in their application of choice and then export to an OpenCollada file. The OpenAvatar Generator handles the rest. This means end users can mix and match body parts on their animated avatar.”

“What excites me is that if a developer devises a new avatar specification, the system will generate that avatar in the Collada format and then it’s easy for that file to be converted into a range of runtime formats to suit various platforms. We’ve already done tests that created the same avatar in Unity3D and in VastPark.” said Joy. “Conceivably, there’s no reason it can’t work in other mesh-based platforms as well. Avatar interoperability between disparate systems is now really within reach, but it will take good will on the part of various vendors to try using the platform”

Announcing the OpenAvatar SDK and Request for Community Feedback

We’re announcing today that the OpenAvatar SDK is now available to partners for immediate trial. A public version will follow soon with the avatar generator released under an MIT open source license which makes it perfect for both commercial and non-commercial use. High quality example artwork is also included under a Creative Commons license so that developers can test the system and work out how to get an avatar generated with the OpenAvatar Generator into their own platform. The OpenAvatar specification is provided royalty-free under an open specification promise.

Lori Kavle described today’s release as focused on getting feedback, “We’re providing the OpenAvatar SDK to interested partners so we can hear feedback. If people are excited by what they can achieve with the SDK then we know this is a big step forward for virtual world interoperability. I know by the amount of buzz we had at the recent Federal Consortium for Virtual World (FCVW) conference that we are on the right track.”

For more information about OpenAvatar, see www.vastpark.org/projects/vp/wiki/OpenAvatar. To request access to the SDK prior to the public release, contact the VastPark team via email (sales@vastpark.com).

Dating and relationship expert J from the popular website Geek’s Dream Girl (GeeksDreamGirl.com) will be live in Next Island’s Crystal Resort as avatar dating coach, Metis, answering players’ questions on life and love. J has written extensively on dating and romance, and, with Geek’s Dream Girl, she’s helped hundreds of online daters find love.

Next Island is a free-to-play virtual world, allowing player avatars to pursue their dreams from virtual professions to time travel. “By focusing on virtual dating, we’re offering just one more way Next Islanders can live their dreams,” says Next Island’s founder David Post.{adinserter Adcode03}

“We’re excited to be connecting with single geeks in the virtual world of Next Island,” says Geek’s Dream Girl founder, E. Foley. “It’s just another way for us to reach out and affect the lives – virtual or real – of our community.”

Metis will be available to answer players’ questions on Monday and Wednesdays, from 5pm to 7pm EST, in Next Island’s Crystal Resort.

About Next Island:

Next Island is a free-to-download and free-to-play virtual world developed on the Entropia Universe platform. Founded in New York by David Post, Next Island attracts casual online gamers and passionate MMOG players alike with its unique blend of gameplay, story and real cash economy. For more information please go to NextIsland.com or follow us on Twitter @nextisland.

About Geek’s Dream Girl:

Geek’s Dream Girl (GeeksDreamGirl.com) is a small business focusing on online dating profile writing for geeks, by geeks. Their copywriters know how to make geeks shine and attract the perfect match. Geek’s Dream Girl believes geeks are passionate, intelligent, and fun people and that every geek deserves to have a partner that supports their interests, even if they do not participate in them. They offer a wide variety of dating support services, a monthly newsletter, and a private matchmaking service. For more information please go to GeeksDreamGirl.com or follow us on Twitter @geeksdreamgirl.

(Collecting, Extracting or Gathering Vibrant Sweat in Planet Calypso)

If you want some starting PED for your character in Entropia Universe then you’ll have to deposit some real money to your account. The amount of PED you will get will depend on the amount of money you will deposit to your account. Fortunately, currency conversion is very easy in Entropia Universe because conversion is fixed at 10 PED per 1 USD deposit. If you deposited 10 USD then you’ll have 100 PED in Entropia Universe.{adinserter Adcode03}

Now, if you don’t want to deposit real money to your account in Entropia Universe then you can always get some PED the hard way. There are a few ways of getting PED for FREE in Entropia Universe and one of those ways is by collecting, extracting or gathering Vibrant Sweat. As I’ve said above, it’s very easy to do but it’s also very time consuming. If you don’t have the patience for it then it will probably just ruin your experience playing Entropia Universe.

(Vibrant Sweat Extractor Mk 1)

If you can muster the patience then here is how you collect, extract or gather Vibrant Sweat in Entropia Universe.

• Open your inventory and equip your Vibrant Sweat Extractor Mk 1. The VSE is a FREE item and it does not deteriorate no matter how many times you use it.
• Go out to the wilderness and find some creatures. Creatures near Port Atlantis don’t deal great damage, you will have no problems collecting or extracting vibrant sweat from them.
• To start collecting, simply click on the creature to target it and click on it again to use the VSE.
• If it doesn’t connect the first time then simply keep on trying. Just keep clicking on the creature until the VSE connect with it.
• The VSE will shoot a green colored beam when it connects and a window with the bottled extracted Vibrant Sweat will pop-up on your screen. Simply click the OK button to close the window and to put the bottled vibrant sweat to your inventory.

So, that is how you collect, extract or gather Vibrant Sweat from the different creatures of Planet Calypso in Entropia Universe. When you collected enough Vibrant Sweat, you can sell it to other players. Currently, Vibrant Sweat are sold for 2 to 3 PED per thousand. Unfortunately, the price of Vibrant Sweat keeps dropping and I don’t see it increasing anytime soon. You will be extremely lucky if you can sell your Vibrant Sweat for 3 PED per thousand.

(Collecting, extracting or gathering Vibrant Sweat)

Below is a simple video of my character extracting Vibrant Sweat from the creatures of Planet Calypso in Entropia Universe. The graphics mode was set to low for better performance.

(Entropia Universe in High Graphics Mode, Looks Good)

To get back into Entropia Universe, I had to download more than 6 gigabytes of content and it took me more than 14 hours to download the entire thing but I didn’t download it all at once. I downloaded it while I was not doing anything that is why it took me a few days to finished downloading everything. After that, I re-activated my account by requesting a password change.{adinserter Adcode03}

My account got deactivated many months ago but, when I logged-in today in Planet Calypso, my character was still there. The game also allowed me to edit it but I chose not to because my character was stuck between two platforms. I spent a few minutes trying to get my character unstucked by moving around but that didn’t do anything. Luckily, a friendly character saw my character struggling and told me to press T. Doing so, the game teleported me to the nearest Reviving Point.

(Planet Calypso in Low Graphics Mode)

My graphics setting was set to Very High and the whole game looked amazing but I changed it to safe then low then finally decided on medium. Safe Graphics Mode looked terrible but it gave me the best performance while Low and Medium Graphics Mode felt the same to me. Of course, graphics settings can be finely tuned in the Advanced Tab. Low Graphics Mode still looks good though and it’s good when you are looking for fruits, etc. because there are no grass on the ground.

My character’s name in Planet Calypso is Olemor Kabalyero Gnoti and, as you can see from the screenshots, he is almost naked. That’s because all of his clothes need repairing to be worn. If I remove the Hat and the Shoes then I won’t be able to wear them again until I repair them. You see, almost everything in Entropia Universe decays or deteriorate when used. To restore items back to full condition, you must repair them and repairing items cost money in Entropia Universe.

A lot of things have changed in Entropia Universe and, for now, I’m simply trying to familiarize myself with the game once again. If I remember it correctly, the last time I logged-in to Entropia Universe was in 2007 and that was almost 4 years ago.

Below is a YouTube video of my character in Entropia Universe, 4 years ago. In the video, my character was collecting Vibrant Sweat from the creatures around Planet Calypso.

Below are some new screenshots from the game. The graphics mode used is either Low and Medium.

(FriendsHangout)

After creating my Free FriendsHangout account, I immediately went and explored one of the default 3D Virtual Worlds. The 3D Virtual World that I selected to explore first was Island Paradise. By the way, the default 3D Virtual Worlds are shown on the selection screen as Floating Islands. You choose a world by clicking on one of the Floating Islands and clicking on the Play icon over the selected world will transport you in it.{adinserter Adcode03}

Below is the available information about the Island Paradise.

Island Paradise

Visit our beautiful island paradise. Explore this amazing scene by following nature trails through the mountains.

Ride a jet ski, jump ramps, race with other users. See if you can keep up with the dolphins as they swim by.

Have a drink at the tiki bar. Listen to island music and dance the night away. You’ll never want to leave!

In-world, I got introduced to my silly looking avatar. He was wearing a yellow shirt and denim pants. His body looked deformed and his arms were freakishly thin. He spawned or appeared on the beach, and from there, I took him for a walk in-land.

(Default Male Avatar, Skinny and Looked Deformed)

Island Paradise looks nice but there isn’t really anything on the island except grass and palm trees. If you are the type that enjoys walking over grassy hills then you might enjoy walking around Island Paradise. I did walk around the island and got as far as the Hanging Bridge where I stopped to edit my avatar. The default avatar is just painful to look at.

After creating a new avatar for myself, I went back to Island Paradise to continue with my exploration. My new avatar is beefier and looks more pleasing than the default skinny looking one.

(My Avatar)

The water that surrounds Island Paradise is mysterious because, once your avatar walks over it, you will suddenly find your avatar riding a Jetski. With it, you will be able to explore the islands of Island Paradise faster by going around it with your magical Jetski. You can also have fun riding your magical Jetski by driving over some ramps and collecting the coins found floating above them. To get off your Jetski, simply drive it over land and it will magically disappear leaving you walking on land again.

(Sexy Female Mari)

My next stop was the Tiki Bar. There I found a female NPC named Mari and she was in a bikini. Unfotunately, she was kinda stiff and didn’t say anything. The chairs around the Tiki Bar were interactive. What it means is, you can make your avatar sit on them. Also, while your avatar is sitting on one of these chairs, he/she will get something to drink too.

My brief exploration of Island Paradise in FriendsHangout was enjoyable. It may not be very exciting but it wasn’t bad either. It could have been more enjoyable if there were other people around but, sadly, the place is a virtual ghost town. Hopefully, more people will take notice of FriendsHangout and start using it to create their own 3D Virtual Worlds.

More Screenshots of Island Paradise

Today, virtual world gambling and online casinos are back, not in Second Life, but in Avination, a virtual world that uses OpenSim to create a virtual experience that feels and looks like Second Life. I went back to Avination to check out this brand new online virtual world casino that has invited me to join their group in Avination. The name of the casino that invited me to join their group in Avination is AviZino The Best Casino.{adinserter Adcode03}

Using the Avination Viewer, I logged back in to my account in Avination. I was able to get a Landmark to AviZino from the notices sent by the AviZino group. I’m not really into gambling and online casinos but I still joined the group and visited the place.

[adrotate banner="7"]

The casino or the gambling area is HUGE. The area is so huge that the wall don’t render on my Avination Viewer because they are so far apart. My draw distance is only set to 96 meters for faster rezzing or loading of things. If the walls don’t render in 96 meters then it could only mean they are more than 96 meters apart but that is just my guess.

The gambling area has all kinds of machines like WILD!, Pay Money Balls, XPLODERs, FIREBALLs and others. There is also a Roulette table that didn’t fully rez on my Avination Viewer. Actually, a lot of items and objects don’t rez perfectly on the Avination Viewer but that’s another story.

Unfortunately for us freeloaders, we will not be able to play the games in AviZino because NONE of them were set to FREE PLAY. As I’ve said in my previous post about Avination, if you don’t have any money then you won’t get any booty. I’ll try to look for camping areas next time but I don’t think there are any yet in Avination. I used to camp everyday for Linden Dollars in Second Life.

Surprisingly, AviZino was empty when I checked it out. I was kinda expecting to see a few souls burning their money on some of the machines but I didn’t. It’s either, people don’t know about it yet or people just don’t like to gamble anymore.

My guess is, people don’t know about it yet. I’m expecting that once the word gets out that gambling is back and its in Avination, people will start coming but if people don’t come then it was still a good try though. People are often attracted to two things, SEX and MONEY. If they can get both they that’s a big bonus.

I’m sure Avination has SEX and, with the introduction of gambling and online casinos, they now have MONEY. Let’s see if this age old formula could get people to come, play and spend in this new 3D Virtual World known as Avination.

Remember, that AviZino is not in Second Life. Yes, the link uses SLURL.COM but you must open it using the Avination Viewer and not the regular Second Life Viewer. You can use other Third Party Viewers if they have Avination listed in their Grid List.

Regarding CCS, I’m really not familiar with it. I know it by name but I have never really used it. The combat system I am most familiar with in Second Life is DCS2 because it is the combat system used by the Sims I used to visit. I guess, those who are familiar with CCS won’t have any problems using it in Avination City.{adinserter Adcode03}

The CCS HUD and Meter are FREE. You can grab a copy by simply touching the big CCS sign near the landing area (see screenshot above). Unfortunately, it is only one of the few FREE things in Avination City. In fact, There is a serious lack of FREE stuff in Avination City and if you are planning on doing some Roleplaying and Fighting in Avination City then don’t forget to bring lots and lots of money for weapons, outfits, costumes and others.

I think they should have a NEWBIE Starter Pack with Free Weapons and Costumes at the landing area. I think it should be the first thing a guest or visitor should see when they get there. Giving them some free stuff like weapons and costumes might encourage them to play around the seemingly empty city of Avination. If you get people to play and have fun then they might return later and bring their friends with them.

Even though Avination City has very few free items, it does has a handful of items for sale from well-known brands or creators in Second Life. Some of these are Redgrave Skins, Akeyo Animations, M-Systems, Urban District, Bitter Thorns and others. As you can see from the names alone, these are not CHEAP brands. I guess, if you want to have fun in Avination City then you must be willing pull out your wallet and spend some money.

By the way, you don’t get FREE uploads in Avination. I wanted to upload some of my own shirt textures for my avatar but the image upload is grayed out which means, “no money, no upload”. Well, it’s the same with Second Life. If you don’t have any linden dollars then you can’t upload anything.

Avination City is a fairly nice Urban City with lots of room for combat and roleplay. There was an Avination Staff at the landing area when I was there but I think she was busy with something. She remained quiet the whole time she was there.

Anyway, below are some snapshots of the immediate area. I took them while I was looking around the place. Simply click on the thumbnails to view a larger version of the picture.

So, if you are looking for a place outside of Second Life where you can roleplay then why not check out Avination. Of course, roleplaying alone is not fun, so, I suggest you bring some of your friends with you. Besides, signing-up is very easy and you can even link your Second Life account with your Avination account. Doing so will allow you to use your Second Life name in Avination and, with a linked account, you will be able to exchange your Linden Dollars to Avination’s Currency.