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| World Of Warcraft Gold Exchange Statistics |
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posted by Editor
on Monday May 07, @07:56PM
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The World of Warcraft (WoW) Gold Seeker maintains a database that is updated every day with thousands of prices for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) gold currency. A cottage industry has sprung around popular MMORPGs such as WoW, in which farmers acquire the gold using simple, repetitive actions in the game and then sell it in exchange for real-world currency, roughly earning $3/hour (apparently, many gold farmers reside in China, where this level of income is worthwhile). For various reasons, there is a major difference between the US and Europe in the price that buyers will pay: gold on US servers can be almost 5 times more expensive.
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| Open Source Code For Accessing Second Life |
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posted by Editor
on Thursday November 30, @06:07PM
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libsecondlife is an open source library that enables the creation of third-party applications for accessing the Second Life virtual world. The library provides a networking abstraction layer for communicating with Second Life, supporting operations such as low-level network packet construction, as well as high level abstractions of avatars. A few applications have already become available, including a primitive alternative to the Second Life client called Slight. Some controversy arose after a program was built using the library that enabled Second Life property to be duplicated arbitrarily, which was seen as a potential risk to the thriving commerce that has developed in the virtual world. However, Linden Lab, Second World's developer and operator, still appears to encourage the project.
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| Real Brands Crossing Over To Virtual Worlds |
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posted by Editor
on Monday August 21, @05:45PM
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This article on GigaOM reviews the second annual Second Life Community Convention for users of Second Life, the open-ended virtual world that allows users to explore, build, socialize, and participate in their own economy (GigaOM also has this preview and background on the conference). The article reports that Toyota will offer an official, virtual edition of its Scion xB car to Second Life residents, and Adidas will offer dozens of shoe models for avatars to wear. From the beginning, Second Life has encouraged users to pursue business opportunities in its environment, and the migration of these global brands could be a key step forward in linking a virtual world with real-world commerce.
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| Standard Protocols To Bridge Virtual Worlds? |
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posted by Editor
on Monday May 22, @05:46PM
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This article in Wired predicts that within a decade, the boundaries between current online virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, and Second Life will disappear, similar to the way incompatible PC standards converged in the early 1980's. The article points out that the protocols underlying virtual worlds, such as communication protocols for letting users talk to each other, software platforms that let them build things, and currencies enabling trade, tend to gravitate towards common standards. The key question is whether virtual world protocols will converge around a proprietary standard, similar to the way the PC industry became dominated by Windows and Intel, or will support an open alternative like the Open Source Metaverse Project.
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| First Metaverse Roadmap Summit Yields Little Consensus |
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posted by Editor
on Monday May 08, @05:56PM
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CNET has this article about the first Metaverse Roadmap Summit, in which the most influential figures in video game design, geospatial engineering, high-tech research, software development, social networking, and telecommunications discussed the industry's progress towards delivering the vision for a virtual world described in Neil Stephenson's novel Snow Crash. Although participants agreed that people will be spending much more time in virtual environments in 10 years than they do today, few had a clear vision of what state the metaverse will reach by then. Demos of OpenCroquet seemed to get a lot of attention, though.
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| New Breed Of Developers Building Out Virtual Worlds |
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posted by Editor
on Tuesday April 04, @05:29PM
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This article on CNet describes The Electric Sheep Company, a new company that specializes in offering professional content creation and application development services for Second Life, the open-ended virtual world that allows users to explore, build, socialize, and participate in their own economy. In Second Life, users help to develop the world by building out "sims", the 16-acre pieces of virtual land that they can buy and do with what they like. The Electric Sheep Company charges around $15,000 for a complete customization of a sim that includes terraforming the land, constructing buildings and scripting interactivity into objects throughout the space.
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| Virtual Currency Exchange Chart |
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posted by Editor
on Wednesday February 15, @12:47AM
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| 3D Avatars For Mobile Phones |
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posted by Editor
on Friday January 20, @01:16AM
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This article in BusinessWeek talks about new 3D avatars for cell phones serve as alter-egos during a conversation. The avatars communicate user movements or speech through complex animation. Here is a gallery of designs that Motorola has come up with.
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