Chic at Ebbe's Place

Now I really don't have any great new news here, but I seem to be developing a following of sorts and what's a gal to do? I hate to go to blogs with nothing different to ponder.

So here's what I am thinking.

I have been exploring different platforms of late. In Virtual Paradise I made a couple of stores (almost free) and moved some items over and indeed created some new things that have and will eventually get to other platforms. I even made some pretty spiffy hair for a girlfriend. And amazingly I am making money on the very tiny grid. And yes, I am surprised.

I have been on a lot of grids. I tend to take on that "supportive" role. I want the newly forming grid to look like there is something worthwhile to purchase -- you know, for the discerning folks. I don't expect to make a lot of dinero, but sometimes it turns out that I do. And that's OK too.

I also returned to Kitely (not as Chic) to check up on things there. The website is greatly improved and while my email address seems to have been lost in the database (I faithfully wrote all info down but it just aint workin') I did manage to get quite a few places. [Later note: I am thinking that my problem there was that I was not a paying citizen and so was blocked out of some worlds.] One thing there that does seem smart is loading of the worlds when needed. Sure you have to wait a bit, but patience is a good thing. The marketplace isn't terribly impressive. Prices are high and quality in general low, but hopefully it is working for some folks. There ARE some nice places to visit and visiting is EASIER there now, so points on the score board.

I tried to get into Metropolis (looks like the largest Open Sim grid from the stats) a place where you can hook your sim(s) up for free using your own computer. It is a non-commerce grid.  I could get around in Metropolis OK but in three days I was never out of orange cloud status. The advice I got was to install yet another viewer and that was really too daunting for me (I am trying to pare down in the viewer category) so I finally gave up. I DO have an account there so maybe in the future.

Meanwhile all this out and about adventuring on both new grids and old had me thinking about what makes grids grow.

Inworldz (over five years) and some of the other older OS style grids seem to be stable but stagnent. People come and people go and life goes on as usual. Actually we could say the same for Second Life these days.

The New World has a bit of an advantage over other birthing platforms. There is a ready-made audience and I am sure The Lab is counting on that. A fair amount of SL citizens already know there is a new grid on the far horizon. Some are looking forward to it, others are happy to stay where they are.

When we look at the bread crumbs dropped we can surmise that in some ways the new world will be quite different. Mobile device accessability is a promise and with that come new rules. Let's look at Cloud Party. Wonderful tech, completely different building standard that were in part necessitated by the need for global viewing.

You needed to make two kinds of garments and attachments in CP. One for SD (standard definition low bandwidth and things seen at a distance) and HD (nicely sharp but still much lighter density mesh -- and CP was an all mesh world) than you find in SL.  There were HUGE areas to work on (four times the size of SL sims) but you had limited resources. Items with long distance viewer (good LODS) "cost" more against your allotment. Textures were an issue so 256 and 512 were the standard. Once you plopped down an item though, it no longer counted against your cost. So one tree or 50 trees were all the same -- and that I liked a lot.

We don't know what the New World rules will be, but we can be sure they will be different than SL. That will work for some folks and not others. I am guessing the younger crowd will be more inclined to make the switch -- especially the non-creators.