Slashdot Mirror
Domain: secondlifeherald.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to secondlifeherald.com.
Stories · 3
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NASA Wants its MMO Created for Free
fyc writes "It seems that the educational MMORPG NASA's proposing will no longer have a budget of $3 million. Instead, any prospective development partner is being asked to create and maintain the MMORPG for free under a 'non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement'. It won't be a one-sided agreement, though. From NASA's RFP: 'In exchange for a collaborator's investment to create and manage a NASA-based MMO game for fun and to enhance STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics], NASA will consider negotiating brand placement, limited exclusivity and other opportunities.'" -
Is Second Life the Paris Hilton of Virtual Worlds?
An anonymous reader writes "Second Life appears to be suffering a bit of a backlash from its PR efforts. Matt Mihaly over at The Forge, newly-returned muckracker Peter Ludlow at the Second Life Herald and Tony Walsh at Clickable Culture have all recently taken Linden Labs to task for their non-stop, arguably deceitful, PR machine and frequent downtime. Further, over on Terranova a veritable cornucopia of long-time, experienced virtual world developers, including Raph Koster, Mike Sellers, Randy Farmer, the aforementioned Matt Mihaly, and Daniel James, have piled on, calling into question the fundamental utility of Second Life. Does Second Life have real utility, or is it simply an endless exercise in unsubstantiated public relations? What do Slashdot readers think?" -
One Journalist's Second Life
Jerry23 writes "The Second Life Community Convention site is carrying pre-release excerpts from O'Reilly Publishing's 'Only A Game: Online Worlds and the Virtual Journalist Who Knew Too Much' due out in 2006 (direct link to 10-page PDF). From the introduction: 'When virtual journalist Peter Ludlow was banned from the digital world of The Sims Online for being a bit too good at his job, it wasn't the end of the story but the beginning of the headlines that would capture readers around the world. Only A Game follows Ludlow's career as a virtual journalist as he and colleague Mark Wallace take us behind the scenes into not just The Sims Online but a fascinating universe of worlds that are far more colorful-and, at times, more disturbing-than their creators would have you believe.' As online *worlds* grow to earn their name, the last line of the PDF asks the million dollar question: 'How big is your game?'"