Here are the last 5 people to visit our offices in Second Life.
This list is generated dynamically using the Linden Scripting Language to push the data from SL across the web and into a database on our servers, a Perl script to generate an XML feed from the database, and finally some AJAX to get the XML feed and display the list. Give us a call if you'd like something similar to show your web users what is happening at your presence in Second Life.
Note: This review of Club Penguin was written by Ruth Burden, an 11 year-old experienced Club Penguin user. Only the worst grammar and spelling mistakes have been corrected.
Club Penguin can be found at: www.clubpenguin.com
For more information about this and other worlds please contact info@daden.co.uk., visit www.daden.co.uk or IM Corro Moseley in Second Life.
1. What can you do on your own in this world?
Decorate your igloos, playing games, talk to other people, read books or the newspaper, hunt for things when things have been specially hidden, buy clothes and accessories, buy things for your puffles(pets), do secret agent missions.
2. What can you do with your friends in this world?
Play some of the games and everything else you can do on your own.
3. What makes this world different from other worlds?
It's quite small, it has a newspaper, all of it's in the same type of world, you can buy lots of things for your pets.
4. What are you 3 favourite things about this world?
- In the newspaper there are riddles and it tells you what's going on
- There's a wide choice of games
- You can do missions if your a secret agent but it's easy to become an agent.
5. What were the 3 things you least liked about this world?
- Even though there are lots of games there's not much else to do
- The games get boring after a while
- You can only talk to your friends if you can see them.
6. How old were you when you played in this world the most? 10
Written by: Ruth Burden
© 2007 Daden Limited
Club Penguin review in PDF format.
Note: This review of Runescape was written by Ruth Burden, an 11 year-old experienced virtual world user. Only the worst grammar and spelling mistakes have been corrected.
Runescape can be found at www.runescape.com and is run by Jagex, a UK based company.
For more information about this and other worlds please contact info@daden.co.uk., visit www.daden.co.uk or IM Corro Moseley in Second Life.
1. What can you do on your own in this world?
You can fight creatures and people, do quests, cook, create furniture for your house, do agility courses, play mini-games (e.g. castlewars(capture the flag), duels, pop the balloons), make amulets,rings, and other similar items, make mage outfits, make armour. Plant flowers and trees and crops in allotments, go fishing, cast spells, make runes.
2. What can you do with your friends in this world?
You can play most of the mini-games with your friends, set up businesses like restaurants or pubs or jewellery shops etc. but you have to do it on your own accord because it's not got guidence to things like this. You can do most things together that you can do on your own apart from most quests. Also you have a special chat mode to just speak to your friends.
3. What makes this world different from other worlds?
You lose all but three items when you die, you can only attack other players in certain places, you can talk to friends without anyone else knowing what you said [and without them being nearby]
4. What are you 3 favourite things about this world?
- You can do what you want not just one thing.
- At events such as Christmas you can get special items or do special things.
- It's got lots of different places to visit.
5. What were the 3 things you least liked about this world?
- The graphics aren't brilliant.
- The only pets you can have are cats.
6. How old were you when you played in this world the most? 9
Written by: Ruth Burden
© 2007 Daden Limited
Runescape review in PDF format.
Note: This review of Toontown was written by Ruth Burden, an 11 year-old experienced virtual world user. Only the worst grammar and spelling mistakes have been corrected.
Toontown can be found at http://play.toontown.com/ and is run by Disney.
For more information about this and other virtual worlds please contact info@daden.co.uk., visit www.daden.co.uk or IM Corro Moseley in Second Life.
1. What can you do on your own in this world?
Fight these evil people called cogs, do tasks for the Toontown HQ, play games, go fishing, explore, take over cog buildings, buy stuff for you or your friends, play with your doodle(pet).
2. What can you do with your friends in this world?
Most of the same things only i've never had a proper friend [in Toontown] to do things with.
3. What makes this world different from other worlds?
It's cartoony, you can be all sorts of different animals, its quite funny.
4. What are you 3 favourite things about this world?
- There are lots of different games.
- It's quite big.
- There are lots of different tasks.
5. What were the 3 things you least liked about this world?
- You can't choose what game you want to play.
- You can only see the parts of the world you've actually been in.
6. How old were you when you played in this world the most? 11
Written by: Ruth Burden
© 2007 Daden Limited
Note: This review of Teen SL was written by Tecno Tiger, a 16 year-old experienced Teen SL resident. Only the worst grammar and spelling mistakes have been corrected.
Second Life is divided into two grids – the Main Grid (for 18+), and the Teen Grid (for 13 – 17). Both run exactly the same software.
For more information about this and other worlds please contact info@daden.co.uk., visit www.daden.co.uk or IM Corro Moseley in Second Life.
Teen Second Life is a great environment for any teenager, (teenager being 13 to 17 years old), to have fun, escape from reality, learn or just relax, with the freedom to choose. I have been a Teen Second Life resident for over two years, and I can still remember the days when the teen grid (TG) wasn’t open 24/7.
I really enjoy being a resident of Teen Second Life, and it’s great for meeting new people from all over the world, and working with them within the game. An amazing scripter who I feel is one of the best on the teen grid is Jontte Gremlin, who isn’t English, but can speak fluent English and script some of the most advanced programs on the teen grid.
Like everything in real life, Teen Second Life has some downsides that the main ground hasn’t. There is reasonably strong censorship on the teen grid, as all sims are PG. The main theme of Second Life is that it’s built by it’s residents, but censoring is needed when there are 13 year old children playing. Smoking, drinking and general drug taking is banned on the grid, even animations of it. You can imagine a 13 year old picking up rude words from Teen Second Life, then using them in real life and getting in trouble, and saying they learnt it from Teen Second Life, likely getting the whole grid shut down. Linden labs are very good at keeping teens in line, the same way they use punishment on the main ground. A teenager on the main grid turned them self in and was transferred to the teen grid, but the Lindens missed a sex bed that was in the residents inventory, The resident gave it to a lot of teens, but Linden Labs quickly caught on, and banned the resident. Anyone who still had it had their account temporarily banned, and their inventory wiped. Getting your inventory wiped may not sound that big if you’ve never played Second Life, but it is possibly the most important thing you have in the game, next to land.
Some teens think that the teen grid is a burden on Linden Labs, because Linden Labs are actually losing money from it. This is because there are only a handful of resident owned islands, all the rest are owned and paid for by the company. And this is something that teens often forget, Linden Labs is a company and they are losing money to give us a place to play, so teens should respect that. Although the teen grid is small, it’s growing quicker then the main grid did at the same stage. The most well known resident who owns an island on the teen grid is Tin Bling.
There are also several educators who have set up an island on the TG, and the only over 18’s on the teen grid, apart from Lindens are adults who have had full criminal background checks, and are labelled as approved adults. Global Kids, based in New York has three islands on the Teen Grid. I really like what Global Kids brings to second life. Almost all the topics they work with are chosen by teens, like global warming. They also do machinima [ films made using gaming technology such as Second Life], with a whole island dedicated to it, with different sets and props. Eye4you alliance have also set up an island which they are relying on teens to help with.
There’s so many things that I like to do in Teen Second Life. It’s great building your own product, and realising that people like it when they spend their Lindens [the in-world currency] on it. Seeing how teens don’t have jobs, most rely on stipends [ a weekly/monthly amount given by Lindens] for money. I love going to the battle sims and playing with different weapons, and looking at what people are building in the sand box. Another great thing to do is play games like Teengo by Ming Chen, (a spin off of the well known Tringo [a popular Main Grid game like Tetris]), and Word Spill by Bob Bailey.
With Second Life comes many other things which I enjoy seeing. Websites like the Second Life Herald are great to read, and listening to the podcast SecondCast, is very entertaining, and funny. The Linden blogs are a great read as well, (especially Torley's), and I’m able to write my own blog all about Second Life.
Changing Lindens to cash and vice-versa has stronger restrictions then on the main grid.
Even though teens can easily find things to moan about on the Teen Grid, they need to remember that people on the Main Grid will never get to go there, so we should enjoy the strong community we have before we go to the Main Grid for the rest of our Second Life days.
Written by: Tecno Tiger
Tecno's blog is at: http://www.tecnotiger.blogspot.com/
© 2007 Daden Limited
These resources are to support the Apply Group Virtual Worlds and Second Life Masterclass held on 27th June 2007.
The main slideshow (in PDF format - 4.8 MB)
Go to our directory of Virtual Worlds for links to each world.
If you want to visit some of the other fun places then please visits http://www.corsaguide.co.uk.
Daden maintains a number of locations in Second Life. Our main site is on Daden Prime - our own island - but we also have several other locations.
Note: SLURLs are ways to hyperlink direct from a web page to a place in Second Life. You need Second Life installed to be able to use them fully - otherwise they will just take you to a world map.
View our locations, and those of our clients, on our interactive Second Life map.
| The Wood Between The Worlds |  | The Wood Between The Worlds was inspired by the place of the same name in The Magicians Nephew - the first of the Chronicles of Narnia. Each pool in the wood takes travellers to a different world - one of which is Narnia, and one our own Earth. Wikipedia says "It could be considered a multiverse of sorts, existing outside the normal physical realities". |
| BioHazard Zone |  | One of the things that we are keen on doing in Second Life is exploring the possibilities of Artificial Life. We tried importing a basic a-life plant into our sim, but within hours it had colonised the whole sim! We've now built an enclosed biosphere for our a-life experiments! |
| Daden Prime Map |  | This is our plan for Daden Prime. We'll post images of each section as we build it - but client work comes first so it may take some time! |
| Construction Underway |  | Our team hard at work on Daden Prime. |
| Terraforming |  | Once you buy an island the next step is usually to terraform it to match your requirements. What started out as a single island we have now broken down into 6 smaller islands. |
| Daden Prime - A virgin island |  | This was the Daden Prime island, as delivered to us by Linden Labs. |
| The Shop |  | Located right on the northern edge of the Nari sim our shop looks out over the southern Welcome area. This means that for many new Second Life players we are one of the first things they see in world. We get used to answering newbie questions, and have quite a few freebies and information sheets on offer. |
| Snowzone |  | We bought this area in the Mainland Alps as a prototyping area for clients. We still use it for clients who want winter parties and for some prototyping work, and have plans for a Superman style castle of solitude - or a cool Alpine ski-lodge. |
| First Land |  | This was the first land we bought in Second Life, under the old First Land programme. It is located in Nari in the Southern Continent. It is now a quiet spot for thought and contemplation. |
It can be a strange experience. Go into most shops in most virtual worlds and there is no one ether - at least apart from other shoppers. The same goes for most of the big corporate presences as well. If a visitor has a question who do they ask?
Many shops will have a simple "greeter" script, which justs says a sentence as they arrive (and the smarter ones will not repeat the same sentence when you pop back 5 minutes later). Many will have "contact me" devices which let you page the shop owner - if they are on-line, or even awake! A few have basic "guides" which will take you on a tour of the shop. However very few, if any, have started to implement true virtual assistants using artificial intelligence and chatbot technology.
We've been developing chatbots for over 10 years. We wrote our first one in Javascript, and hav etaken part in global competitions such as Chatterbox Challenge. We believe that there is real potential to use virtual characters to provide staff for your virtual presence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Whilst our most simple chatbots can be completely managed in world, our main chatbots use web server based software to manage the conversation, and only exhange the simple question and answer data with the in-world character. This has the added advantages that we can access the multitude of web services ot help build replies, and use the same chatbot engine to drive chatbots in multiple worlds, on the web, and even on mobile phones. This can give your customers a consistent experience across mutiple platforms.
Our Discourse conversational engine allows you to:
In the world the chatbot can be as simple as a static or animated image on a virtual screen, or an autonomous bot that can move aroudn the world, following the visotr as they move about the store - or patrolling your area looking for the next visitor. In a world like Second Life we can even adjust what the chatbot says based on how long the users has been in-world!
Read more about our chatbots in Second Life.
You can talk to Halo, our most accomplished chatbot, either at our offices in Second Life, or on our chatbot website.
If you want to know more about how virtual characters can help your visitors interact with you within a virtual world just contact us.
Again this "interact" tag also applies to your in-world presence as well. Once you've built it you need to work at getting the rest of the virtual world to interact with your presence, your brand and you.
To us virtual worlds only become seriously interesting (and seriously useful) once you could link them to the real world - and vice versa. This can be as simple as having an object in the virtual world which when touched can launch a web page in the users browser (in order to take an order, get feedback, or provide additional information for example), or it can be as complex as having virtual sensors detect movement and use it to control a a real-world art installation, or pick up real world web log data and display it in 3D within the world.
This linkage is nowadays mostly about "mash-ups" - using RSS, web services, AJAX and other Web 2.0 technologies and approaches to rapidly link the two worlds. This integration is one of our two specialist areas of virtual world development. It's also one of the reasons we really like Second Life - because it makes this type of integration relatively simpe to do (apart from memory limits, bandwidth limits, display limitations - but hey that's the sort of problem we're paid to deal with so you don't have to!)
Some of the systems that we have already developed include:
You can find details of these and others on our SL Consumer Products page, and in the Experience and Knowledge parts of our web site.
If you want to know if we can integrate your data into virtual worlds just contact us to talk it through.
Oh, this "integrate" tag also applies to your in-world presence as well. Once you've built it you need to work at integrating your presence, and your brand, with the rest of the virtual world community.
Once you've made the descision to get involved in a virtual world, you've then got to work out how best to do it. For the more closed worlds (eg Habbo Hotel) you'll have to work closely with the world owner to develop the branding opportunities. For open worlds like Second Life though you can deal directly with virtual engineers and marketeers such as ourselves - you never have to deal with Linden Labs or get their permissions.
Whilst a typical "presence" involves some form of building in the virtual world, it could also just be seeding the world with a gadget, a piece or viral media, some sponsorship, a competition or anything else that acheives your objectives. Remember though that you are entering a community - you are the outsider and you need to carefully judge your activities just as you would if you were entering a new real world country or culture. Of course we can help you develop ideas that work, and warn you about what won't work.
If you are establishing a "physical" presence then you need to think about:
Pricing - people always want to know about pricing! Of course we don't want to go into detail here, and prices will be highly dependent on which world and how complex the project. But to give you an idea our typical project prices range from just a few thousand pounds, to around fifty thousand pounds or more for a very big project. Most projects, though, are in the £5k - £10k bracket, and we can usually approach things on a phased basis, so we can prove the concept as you go along. In other worlds your virtual world presence will be costing about the same as a new web site, doing a new glossy brochure or having a stand for a few days at a real world exhibition.
Read more about our Design and Build service, and our marketing and presence management services.
If you want to talk through ideas with us then just contact us to arrange a meeting.
Before you do anything with virtual worlds you need to understand what they are, and what they mean. We have had over 10 years experience of using and building virtual worlds. This has given us a good understand of what such worlds are about, what works and what doesn't, and where they are going.
For us the bottom line is:
You can read more about our analysis of virtual worlds, look at our Virtual World gallery, read about how organisations can use Virtual Worlds, or download several white papers that we have written.
If you are interested in virtual worlds then we are more than happy to come along and give you an informal or formal breifing on them, including a demonstration of at least one world. We can also organise fuller "virtual safari" sessions to explore multiple worlds, and help you consider both what virtual worlds might mean for your business,a and what you need to do to integrate virtual worlds into your strategy. Just contact us to arrange a meeting.
This is a quick list of some of the main virtual worlds. It is boom time for such places at the moment so new worlds are being announced all the time - and going live slightly less often! One estimate placed the total virtual world population at around 40-45m users (Mar 07).
| Second Life |  | Probably the pre-eminent virtual world at the moment by dint of its size (> 11m users at 1 Jan 08), features, openness and convertible currency. The one to beat. There is also Teen Second Life for 13 - 17 year olds. |
| Active Worlds |  | Predates Second Life and now looking a bit tired. That said it's multiple-worlds model is being picked up by several new virtual world companies. Daden MD David Burden still has a house somewhere there, out by Retsmah Crossing. |
| There |  | A very strong, teen orientated world. If you just want to hang out, drive a dune buggy or ride a hoverboard this is the place to do it. The physics are far more accomodating than in Second Life and there are no sim boundary problems to deal with. MTV has used the There platform to create their own Virtual Laguna Beach - expect to be propositioned by a US teen within 5 minutes of going on-line. |
| Multiverse |  | Currently in beta, this takes a similar approach to Active Worlds, producing a white label virtual world engine where each developer can create their own world. Probably a good choice for strong brands such as films and TV shows that want to create a consistent universe (no hobbits strolling across Tattoonie or CSI:Miami). |
| Croquet |  | Croquet is technically one of the most advanced projects out there, and is open source. Features include windows and doorways from one part of the virtual world to the next, and even putting Word and Excel documents onto objects in -world - and benig able to edit them. Only just at version 1.0, but has been picked up by QWAQ as part of their virtual forums offering. |
| Habbo Hotel |  | Fitting into our Teen World category, Habbo Hotel uses an isometric viewpoint, diddy little avatars, moderated chat and strictly controlled advertising. Drawing a mainly teen audience (although we have had some impressive philosophy discussions in there) Habbo is one of the biggest Western virtual worlds with over 74 million registrations since 2000, and 7m unique users a month spending 35 minutes a session. Average age is 13 - 15 though! |
| CyWorld |  | The big South Korean virtual world aimed mainly at teens, but also now with a US operation. Over 15 million members. |
| Kaneva |  | A social networking biased world designed to acts as a 3D room environment into which you can bring videos (from YouTube) and friends. Also shared spaces like a shopping mall and movie theatre. Currently in Beta. Probably very similar to Sony Home. |
| Sony Home |  | Due to launch in Spring 2008. Accessed from a PS3 it gives users their own apartment and communal gaming and entertainment spaces. Expect similar for the XBOX. Does it block a PS port of SL? |
| Open Source Metaverse Project |  | An open source project to produce a metaverse engine. |
| World of Warcraft |  | More an on-line game than a true Virtual World, World of Warcraft nevertheless boasts 8 - 10m users and many use it for socialising as much as for bashing dwarves. The users base is also a lot older than you'd expect. |
| GalaxyLife |  | A UK based world promising multi-platform operation and based around using your social network to progress to Galaxy President where you can start telling the game developers what to do! Not yet launched - and now even the web site seems dead! |
| Pre-teen Worlds |   | We'll just name-check them for now, but before they even reach their teens today's kids are playing in virtual worlds - and often preferring them to the TV, video games or even MSN. Look at places like Club Penguin, Runescape, and Disney's ToonTown. Read an 11 year old's view of Club Penguin, Runescape and Toontown. |
Blogger Robin Good has quite a good feature summary of some of the key virtual worlds, and there is a Virtual Worlds Matrix over at the Virtual Worlds News site.
| 13 Jun 08 | Google Maps in SL |
| 19 May 08 | Gartner Adds to 2007 Forecast |
| 13 May 08 | PREVIEW videos on YouTube |
| 02 May 08 | McKinsey: ignore Second Life at your peril |
| 25 Apr 08 | Site Update 26 - 27 April |
