Spore: Is it time yet? ok…how about now?

EA and Maxis Announce That Spore Has Gone Gold

Long-Anticipated Game from Gaming Luminary, Will Wright, is Complete and in Production; Hits Store Shelves September 7

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 14, 2008–The wait is almost over! Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) and Maxis today announced that Spore(TM), the most anticipated video game of the year from the creator of The Sims(TM), has gone gold and will be available for the Mac and PC at retailers September 5 in Europe and September 7 in North America and Asia Pacific. Spore(TM) Creatures for Nintendo DS(TM) and Spore(TM) Origins for mobile phones will also be available globally September 7.

I better get it to ordering, September 7 is right around the corner.

Here is a video I made while trying out the Spore Creature Creator.

Prototerra: Quick and Dirty Ravi Review

After noticing an email come across the SLHealth mailing list with a link and short description boasting the ability to host 10k concurrent users per server, and building ability I thought I’d go check it out.

In a nut shell this isn’t a viable virtual world at this time for someone like myself. If I ever left Second Life it would be for MORE x,y,z not less and this is definitely less at this stage Aug 2008.

Please watch the video and take a look around. It’s easy enough to install if you are up for that.

Here is their site addy: http://social.prototerra.com/

Millsberry.com Exploration

Last week while reading over at the Virtual Worlds they referenced an article put out by the Wall Street Journal Online about Virtual Worlds. To summarize the article it was comparing what someone considers virtual worlds and stacking them up in a list based by total unique visitors. Second Life was included but near the bottom of the list. WHY? because the list is flawed and categories of websites lumped all together when they are really different things. I went to one of the sites listed to see why they are so much more popular than Second Life even having a negative growth from their last year statistics. I wonder why if all these other “Virtual Worlds” are so much better and higher ranked they chose to use a picture from Second Life in their article. (because Second Life kicks ass that’s why)

Anyone with two brain cells can see immediately that the two worlds are not even remotely the same..Millsberry isn’t even a world it’s a series of 2d websites with some flash games attached. When authors write articles they should check out what they are writing or they really lose credibility. When I think Wall Street Journal I don’t think Schleppers who don’t fact check or think for themselves, I think of solid reputable news reporters, but now they are down a notch in my book.  I now question the validity of any of this list and also assume the rest of those listed worlds are as off target as Millsberry was to compare or lump into the same category as Second Life.

Here are some pictures of my exploration into Millsberry, it’s so wildly different from Second Life It’s like here is an orange and here is a bic lighter….MAYBE the Bic lighter is ORANGE colored but it’s obvious they are no way the same or should even be compared or have any business on a list with one another.

Here is a picture of joining an activity in Millsberry. This picture shows you some drawings of people, this is stagnant and it’s just a drawing, there is no one there, there is no interacting with others, you are alone at this “dojo” . Sad….

Here is a picture of some cool martial arts action in Second Life.

Photo Courtesy of Raul Crimson

Here is what you get when you get to build a house in Millsberry. You get to pick your curtain color, wall color, door color through a series of wizard step though processes and voila.

Here is an example of something I build in SL, during the process and no wizard windows to walk you through. Pleasenote my awesome Starax Magic Wand in my hand.

Here is a picture of decorating your room in Millsberry.  As far as I could tell there is no original creation in Millsberry just placing premade selections offered via a menu system..I didn’t see ANY SHOPPING..zomg. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any, I really just don’t know.

Here is a picture example of a chair I was building for placing in my home, it is about halfway done in this picture and ends up being a lovely Adirondack chair. Building in Second Life is a satisfying process overall.

Here is that same chair when it was completed.

This is an example of an activity in Millsberry. The instructions were to color this picture. It’s not aimed to amuse me really, it’s for children and that is ok but you can’t say this compares to Second Life and then expect to be taken seriously..I mean..c’mon…

Ever the artist I endeavored to some levels of my own creativity in this space.

Going to the arcade in Millsberry is much like going to the Dojo experience..I was present with a still 2d picture and a handful of solitary games.

Here I am in Second Life kicking some ass on a video game in a laundry mat…Hooray.

In the end I went back in and adjust my avatar appearance to reflect how I was feeling about Second Life being lumped in with this kind of website.