GoSpeed Christmas card 2011, originally uploaded by ** GoSpeed Racer **.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

KONA Stream poster -3 , originally uploaded by ** GoSpeed Racer **.

In an effort to consolidate and minimize bandwidth KONA Stream is dropping it’s Shoutcast stream and switching to an Icecast format. The bitrate will be 25% less but the overall fidelity will increase by at least 50%.

The new URL is http://gold.slserver.com:10500/live.ogg . The Shoutcast stream will be shut down in a matter of days. You are still also able to tune in by going to http://www.konastream.com and on Smartphones you can use the Tunein app and search for KONA Stream there.

On the streets of Farallon City, originally uploaded by ** GoSpeed Racer **.

I’ve been spending some quality time in the game CitiesXL building towns and cities in a gorgeous 3D rendered environment. This particular shot reminded me a lot of San Francisco.

Here’s my standing in the middle of the Road in a Google Street View image. When you walk down the street it loads up the next image down the road. Wherever there is an image you can go. Static pictures won’t work though. Chat is handled via chat bubbles and also a chat log window on the left. You can also open windows to view the profiles of other avatars and to change clothing on your own avatar.

I decided to create a room near where I live and chose a bridge crossing the Shenandoah River:

Here I met Kaz and a few other people where we discussed some of the things we discovered about the client.

This approach is interesting and has some potential. It has been tried before ala “Weblin” but instead of tiny little figures you have a full blown 3D avatar. Also the Weblin lived on web pages, these live on Street View (lol, streetwalkers).

I’d like to see a few more features here like gesture buttons and streaming media. You can buy clothes, hair and other accessories for your avatar. You can’t tweak your avatar’s face but you can select from dozens of individual face that are available. One point that still bothers me is avatar lighting. As with the iPhone app my avatar is way too dark and it’s hard to see her face in this client. Finally unlike the regualr client this viewer will work on Mac OS-X. So stop whining, seriously.

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Irene was no big deal for us in the Shenandoah Valley. We had an inch of rain and some breezy conditions overnight. Just what the garden needed . When I think of hurricanes and tornadoes this song always comes to mind. Something in the music reminds me of a whirlwind:

Spock is not impressed with Blue Mars!

At Bay City – 2, originally uploaded by ** GoSpeed Racer **.

Friday night my Google accounts were suspended and I had to reactivate them via the phone. Everything was restored except my G+ account. My profile was suspended due to a TOS violation. The message did not specify what I violated. Having heard about the problems others were having with SL names I changed my name to a real one. I sent an appeal and the next day it was denied so I went back in my profile and deleted most of my SL pics, uploaded a RL pic and added some more RL info. I resubmitted an appeal and justified the use of GoSpeed by pointing out my blog, Flickr stream, Twitter and Vimeo accounts I had used for about 4 years. Since Saturday it has still been in 2nd review and nobody has contacted me back.

It’s a little aggravating to see other SL avatar accounts get reinstated and they have made no changes to their profile.

Hey Google, how about a little customer service for a long time user, supporter and advocate for your services???

4 July 2011 – 2, originally uploaded by ** GoSpeed Racer **.

Keeping cool for the hot 4th

One of the main issues dealt with the price of vanity items in the new marketplace for avatar customization. The avatars for EVE are actually quite well done and textured. They are in my opinion some of the best in the MMORPG realm.

A nice avatar needs nice clothes and accessories too! Here in lies a big problem. In the marketplace the choices are rather limited and very expensive. Typical outfit costs $17.50 USD. Yes, you read right. A monthly subscription to EVE costs $14.95 a month. That of course is outrageous! In SL I’d typically buy outfits for $300-$900L which is less than $4 USD. Probably the worst example is the infamous monocle:

Would you believe it sells for $70 USD? No way Jose! This of course didn’t fly with the users. Getting people used to avatars  was going to be a tough sell in the first place. For the amount of money they wanted to charge it makes more sense to collect Barbie dolls as they retain their value and over time gain value as collectors items.

Probably the most damaging event was the leaking of two CCP internal emails. You can read more about those emails here Khalia Nestune’s EVE blog. Apart from the percieved arrogance in and greed expressed in the CCP staff emails was the implied threat to enable a “Pay to Win” scheme to manifest itself in the marketplace. What is Pay to Win? It’s the ability to pay real money to buy materials that give you the advantage. In the EVE universe virtually everything is created by other players. Refined Ore, weapons, ships, ammunition, ship modules, etc.. on and on. Prices and availability are subject to market variables. The proposed “gold” items would have been created out of thin air and sold directly from CCP, bypassing the other users. CCP would pocket it without expending any effort or time. Easy Money. This would seriously screw up the economy and make it easy for players with deep pockets to make easy gains without doing the work everyone else has.

CCP then went on to make a few other mistakes. They ignored the protests for several days. One staffer who did mention it responded angrily. As a result several prominent players either withdrew or outright quit from EVE. Things were looking pretty bleak as New Eden began to falter and slow down. But, something positive has happened…..

CCP is rather unique in the game world in that they do actually listen closely to their customers. In EVE there is the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). They are composed of active players who are elected to represent their fellow players/customers. In an emergency session CCP actually flew several of the members to their headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland for a summit. You can read the results here: EVE Insider Blog

In a nutshell it boiled down to a series of miscommunications. The emails were not official policy, the silence was a bad move by CCP and they acknowledged the prices in the NEX were out of hand. Now keep in mind how Linden Labs has treated the customers of Second Life.  Yes, pretty damn shabbily. Some of the changes in SL were necessary but they failed to communicate how that was so. They also introduced changes that were downright stupid and poorly thought out. Had LL bothered to communicate with the user base so much heartache could have been averted over the years.

P.S. Yes, I’ll return to EVE one day soon. When there is more to the avatar environment then just the Captain Quarters I’ll be sure to log back in.

http://vimeo.com/25058149

You’ll notice it posts everything that’s public to include shots of my garden, SL, Blue Mars, BSG Online and EVE Online.

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