Making Sake in Second Life with G&S

   Hey everyone, its the Metajunkie!  I'm standing in front of my sake still. Yes, I'm making sake in Second Life. The G&S Roleplay Crafting System offers a rather extensive economy for low-tech worlds such as those taking place on the planet of Gor. ( Gor is also known as the counter-earth, and is a planet written about by John Norman in a series of over thirty novels. - But that is a topic for another day. )

   This sake still requires water and arroz (rice) to make sake. Once the water and rice are provided, it is just a matter of time before a barrel of sake is produced.

   One barrel of sake yields five glasses of sake which can each be consumed by your avatar, or shared with friends.  Most food and some drinks that you can make within the G&S system provide your avatar with energy that is tracked in an RP HUD (role-play heads up display). 

   G&S Sake is one of those that is just for the RP aspects, currently providing no energy points for your avatar. Perhaps the creator will update it one day, and allow for it to give RP HUD energy point benefits just like we get in the real world when we yell "Kampai" and slam back a shot of tasty rice alcohol.

   Until next time, keep your fields cared for!

Minecraft: another dimension of cyberspace

I was recently introduced to Minecraft by a friend, colleague, and contemporary.  My first notion was, "No sir, too blocky for my taste."  But, always willing to give things a fair evaluation, I did just that.

The Syracuse Innovator's Guild (SIG) has launched a Minecraft server, which we hope to open to the public soon.  Right now, we are crunching blocks, and building interesting things for people to experience when they do visit us.  We hope to have the SIG Minecraft Server open to the public for Spring.

So, what won me over?  I mean... this clearly isn't SecondLife or OpenSIM.  What it lacks in graphics quality, it makes up for in world size and game play.  It is, for the most part, a sandbox style game.  But there are many plugins available to even change the style of game-play.

If you have ever become addicted to an MMOs crafting system, Minecraft will definitely appeal to you.  You can break down everything in the environment (e.g. rocks, trees, sheep), and make more complex things by combining (usually) several different items in a particular pattern.  Folks who have crafted in The Secret World will be familiar with this notion.

You start out with nothing but your hands, and can craft your way up to diamond armor, sword, and tools.  You can make pick-axes to mine with, you can make axes to chop down trees.  You can even make sheers to trim the wool off of sheep.  You can breed the sheep, but be careful that wolves don't eat them.  You can befriend wolves with meat, and breed them as well.

A quick tip for noobs (of which I am one):  Don't try to click-click-click as you mine, or dig, or cut. The game is pretty easy on your mouse.  Click and hold. ;)

The depth of relationships between items is the core of this game's charm.  Unlike other sandbox virtual realities, it is a true game as well.  Out of the box you will have to fight to survive spider, zombie, and skeleton attacks.

While the initial look may seem "cheesy" - you quickly realize that that the low-polly graphics are actually quite charming.

In the end - I hope developers create portals, so one can jump from an OpenSIM to a Minecraft server.  This is, after all, another dimension of cyberspace.

Lord of Ultima Free To Play

I stumbled upon a new free to play game the other day:  Lord of Ultima.

If you are interested in checking it out, please use this link:

http://www.lordofultima.com/en/ref/2549221774

It is an online strategy game that requires no download to play.  The game runs entirely in your web browser.  It plays in a similar fashion to other RTS (Real Time Strategy) Games you might be familiar with, like Age of Empires; however, the pace is slower.  This makes the game perfect as an on-going game that you can play casually.

There are "daily rewards" that give you incentives to come back at least once a day, to collect them.  The rewards are good, and get better with each day you play.

While the music is extremely good, especially for a free to play web browser game, you can turn it off in the options panel that can be accessed from the lower right of your screen.  This should better enable you to play the game for a few minutes at work - while you are waiting for that big print job to finish. ;)



The graphics are outstanding for a free to play game.  They are on par with a pay for RTS, imho.

There is a chat window that any player of MMORPGs will be familiar with, including "Alliance Chat".

For those whose cyber-junkie urges don't allow them to lose a moment of city development time - there are pay-for options that you can buy.  You can play the game for free - and if you want to spend some money - you can have the game help you play while you are away.  This and other premium options for increasing training and building rates are the means by which EA will make money on this game.

I have only just started playing, so it is still unclear if this will prove to be a "pay to win" game.  People who pay for the things that are for sale, would seem to have a definite advantage.  Only time will tell if the game proves to be castrated of fun by this business model.

If you join the game - look for me.  My current character's name is Kabbalist, and I'm in the SIG315 guild.

I hope to see you online!

Still searching for the right fit

This is a test for using OpenOffice.org Writer, with a plugin for posting to blogs.

I should be able to use all of the features of this word processing program, to publish to my blogs.

Let's see how it works.

• Metajunkie

PS -

That was pretty fast and painless.

Here is an attempt to edit this posted blog.

Skill Acquisition, Improvement, and Deterioration

At the beginning of the game, the player needs to select some things that will determine how many points they get to allocate, and in how many skills.

  
 

Packages should be available to make this as easy as possible - but for the person who wants to tweak - they should have low level access to make the character they want to play.

  
 

In game - skills should advance as they are used successfully. When a skill is mastered there should be options to combine mastered skills to form new skills - or a trainer or master could be sought out to gain further training.

In game - new skills must be acquired through study and/or a teacher.

  
 

In game - if skills are not practiced, they will deteriorate. Each skill needs a deterioration rate, and a re-train rate. For example - they say you never forget how to ride a bike. But - if you haven't been on one in a while, it will take a few moments before you are pedaling efficiently and with great balance. It may take even longer for you to "ride a wheelie", which could be thought of as an advanced skill of bike riding.

  
 

To that end, such a skill would require a certain percentage of upper body strength, in addition to the prerequisite balance. An old man, who has become fat and out of shape, may never again, in his life, be able to ride a wheelie, even though he once did it as a common activity in youth.

The Blogosphere is a Silicon World

I am testing various tools on linux that allow posting to blogs from the Ubuntu Gnome Desktop.

This is sort of a test post, which was created with "Blog Entry Poster".

Don't Monkey Around; Check Out Chi.mp

You can get your own place to manage your online identity from in a .mp top level domain. Go to http://chi.mp

I recently set one up for myself at http://metajunkie.mp

Why is this cool? Well - the rumor is that I can now use metajunkie.mp to sign into sites that support OpenID. This is an alternative way to manage your login credentials. Rather than create accounts all over the Internet, you can utilize your personal .mp domain to log in.

In a nutshell, when a site which supports OpenID asks you to log in, you provide your OpenID domain name (in my case: metajunkie.mp). You are then redirected to that chi.mp hosted page, and asked to login there. Once you do, your authentication information is forwarded back to the orignial site you went to login to. They get the go ahead from chi.mp that you are who you say you are, and you are granted access to their site.

There are other OpenID sites (such as MyOpenID), but the chi.mp solution is pretty neat, in that you can have your own domain name with them, for free. Also it helps you track and publish things about your online life. It gives you separate profiles for "public", "friends", and "work". So, you can make different levels of information available to different groups of people.

There is a place for an avatar pic of you, and your blogs and websites, as well as helping you manage your twitter, facebook, and other similar sites.

Enjoy!

Metajunkie