The Kattoan Avatars

I haven't been inworld much, playing Minecraft and other games and all, but when I heard that Kinzart Kreetures had a new variety of Hyena out (Kinzart being one of the places I avatar shop often at), I came across something... unusual. Something I hadn't seen before, and after being on Second Life for five plus years, anything unique or that stands out is rare for me.

Enter the Kattoans. These are small avatars that look like, well, a mammal, at first look. I wasn't quite sure what they were. They're mesh avatars with a wide variety of colors. I grabbed a lime green one and was referred to as a muppet, so I grabbed an almond-color one as well. I was impressed with the avatar overall, and could actually envision a tiny civilization of these guys elsewhere. They're only a little bit bigger than the largest of the Meeroos, and I could -easily- see them as befriending the 'roos for companionship.

I tracked down the avatar creator, one Athau-xan, also known as 1000 Carlos, and we sat down to a brief interview.

Xymbers Slade, "These are some pretty neat avs, 1K. Where did you come up with the idea? (smile)"

Athau-xan, "Most of my inspiration came from Spiral Knights, mainly. I also threw together a couple different art-styles from around the N64-era."

Xymbers Slade, "Can't say I've heard of that... sounds like an anime. It's still very unusual and it was enough to draw my attention away from the hyenas I was after for the time being. Were they difficult to create? I hear mesh isn't the friendliest thing to work with."

Athau-xan, "They weren't too difficult to make. How long it actually took me to make them is hard to say, as I just worked on them a little bit whenever I had spare time. I purposely kept them really low polycount because, artistically, it looked better, and I wanted them to use as little resources on the sim as possible."

Xymbers Slade, "What exactly are they supposed to be, besides a very unique race? Kind of like... I don't know, a groundhog or something? Or a fuzzy rodent of some kind, perhaps?"

Athau-xan, "I'm not quite sure myself really, something like a mix between a rodent and a mole I guess."

Xymbers Slade, "Is there anything you wanted to do with them but couldn't thanks to Second Life, well... being Second Life?"

Athau-xan, "I would've liked to make the body separate pieces, which I could. but unfortunately SL likes to make really bad seams where parts are split, and I didn't really want the avatar covered in seams."

Xymbers Slade, "I don't know a thing about building, so I'll take your word for it. I see over there the sign for the 'Republic of Kattoa.' Do you have a grand design for them in mind or are you letting the incoming community build on its own?"

Athau-xan, "I do have my own future plans for the Kattoans. Such as perhaps an entire sim dedicated to them in the long run. I'll eventually release a builders kit when I get around to it so the community can create their own ideas for them."

Xymbers Slade, "Do you also do commissions? I know I'd like to see, say, a set of knight's armor, or something."

Athau-xan, "I am currently not accepting commisions, and I don't expect to start in the forseeable future, but I do have a knight set planned, among plenty of other outfits."

Xymbers Slade, "Ok, is Okarthel the only spot you have these available, or have you got a main store somewhere?"

Athau-xan, "Currently Okarthel is the only location to find Kattoans. I do plan on getting my own simulator for them eventually, but I cannot say when that will happen."

Xymbers Slade, "Sims ain't cheap, but I'll get behind this if one does pop up."

I could see these critters clearly in my head in their own little civilization running around. It is very rare that one can see something just "spring to life" in one's head like that. These guys are small enough to even ride the My Little Pony avatars I did a piece on a while ago, and I can see several potential possibilities in my head that this could really take off and give other avatar makers a run for their money. At about 350 $L, plus the cheap cost of outfits, they're far cheaper than most avatars I've come across. They come in a wide variety of colors and currently four mesh outfits are also available as separate purchases. One of them, the civilian outfit, being free.

Four Dragon Hoards out of five --- only because I want to give it room to grow and see where it goes. This is something I can really get behind. They can currently be found in a corner of the Okarthel sim.

Xymbers Slade

The JessicaBelle Aeronautic Projects Airbase

JessicaBelle Dayafter, whom made the news some months ago with the release of her FW190 fighter-bomber, has an airbase. Located on a platform high over the Potomac Center sim, it is open to all, and is fun for either hanging out, target practice, or both.

The platform is made of of four regions: the airport, the ground target field, the sea target field, and a green space which for the moment had just grass and trees. The airport's largest building is the hangar, which houses one of each of her aircraft: the German Focke-Wulf-190 fighter bomber, the American Grumman Wildcat fighter-bomber, and the Junkers Ju 87 G2 Stuka. The FW-190 and Wildcat can strike at ground targets through either bombs or rockets. The Stuka is a "Kanonenvogel" model, equipped to fire either bombs or anti-tank cannons. All fire machine guns, with the Stuka also having a rear-mounted gun. The planes are on sale for 1,000 Lindens each. To see what the plans have to offer, there is a rezzer besides the hangar that allows visitors to "try before you buy."

To test out the airplanes before buying, or target practice in general, there are a number of targets up to demolish. The airfield itself has a nubbier of parked planes which can be fired upon. After their hitpoints reach zero, the explode and are reduced to smoldering wrecks. They self-repair after a few minutes. Outside the airfield is a water area with a couple ships. Blasting them with bombs, rockets, rounds, etc. will result in an explosion followed by the stricken ship sinking. In another corner are fuel tanks and tents. Blowing up the tanks can be fun as the explosion sends the top hurtling in the air, spinning.

There's also a robo-plane, marked with the word "Target" that sits on the ground until touched. Once airborne, it flies around at random, until shot down.

The other building at the airport is the lounge. The building has a pool table people can play at, or get a drink at the nearby bar. There's also a map on the wall showing the various airports of the Second Life Mainland (and there are a *lot* of them). Upstairs is JessicaBelle's office. For fun, there's a "Death Star" that people can press, which releases hordes of buzzing particle TIE fighters.

The JessicaBelle Aeronautic Projects Airbase is located at Rainbows of Hope, Potomac Center (203, 170, 1001).

Bixyl Shuftan

A Look at Minecraft

So I haven't been around much on SL. Other things have occupied my time for the moment (Google things like Dungeon Crawl and Dungeon Hack for examples). Things such as Minecraft, the game of mining resources and building things.

It's essentially SL in 8-bit, where things are a lot more "basic." When you first start the game, a landscape is generated, and this stretches infinitely in all directions, generating randomly as you walk. The more you walk, the more is generated. The world is made up of blocks of all kinds, each line of blocks being marked as a "layer" (Layer 63 is sea level, 128 is the highest and 0 is bedrock, unbreakable). You wander the procedurally-generated landscape, digging into the dirt and gravel to build yourself a little domain (which can be little or not so little, depending on what you want) and look for resources such as seeds, wheat, iron and coal to make things like torches, dyes for colored wool, iron for tools, and water and lava for basic decoration. Digging deeper into the ground exposes ravines, mines, caves and strongholds, all with basic things to loot (such as chests) and things to destroy (monster spawners).

Along the way you can lure cows and sheep to a "farm" to raise wool and steak (your character does need to eat), build an enchanting table for enchanting items, and build a Nether Portal out of a material called "Obsidian" to explore a procedurally generated "Hell" version of Minecraft. All the while you need to defend yourself for when the monsters come out at night --- zombies, spiders, skeletons with bows, and the deadliest of them all, a walking bomb known as the Creeper. They get close and go off, and boom, you die. When you die your gear remains in-world for five minutes, so if you were hundreds or thousands of blocks away from your place of death and spawn at "home," and you lose a lot of time spent and resources. It can be frustrating.

There's also a feature where you can connect to play multiplayer, and servers exist for creation, combat, and almost all in between. So you can build sprawling pixel art several dozens of layers high, or go hunting for other players' homes/bases dug into the mountainside and try and loot them, fighting in PvP. If you're good, you manage to loot a month or two's worth of real-time efforts in gathering resources like iron, coal and gold (and the more valuable things, such as Lapis Lazuli, Redstone, Obsidian and Diamonds). If you're bad, you don't have the reflexes to take on a bunch of players at once when you're a lone wolf out in the wilderness and you lose up to two real time months or more of gathered resources as your base gets heavily griefed (as mine was recently) in a nine-on-one gang stomp.

Minecraft gave me a new appreciation for the builders of SL (blocks and prims, very similar); I might even get into more building of things in SL now --- and not get my stuff destroyed by players less than half my age!

I'm going to give Minecraft a firm Three Dragon Hoards out of five --- it inspires creativity yet limits you to an 8-bit feel and resources, so you have to get creative on how to use what you do have to the best of its ability. It would have been five but I took one away for the brattiness of some of the players (turns out the server I chose is full of 12 year olds, literally, and I don't want to deal with those kinds of temper tantrums if things go bad for -them-); and I took another one away because of its cost... while a basic version of Minecraft can be played on their website if you sign up, the full version is pretty pricey (at about $30).

Xymbers Slade

The Sea of Aley

What an amazing build I have been visiting in LEA. That is The Linden Endowment of the Arts and is an official Linden Community Partnership program whose purpose is to help new artists, cultivate art in SL, and foster creativity, innovation, and collaboration within the art community. I took that from the wiki.

This is not the first LEA exhibits I have visited but it is certainly one of the most enjoyable. Aley has put all her wonderful underwater foliage, ancient ruin buildings, sunken ships and boats, a volcano, and more down there for you to explore. She has also placed ancient treasure chests that you can plunder for many of her wonderful creations. You will also find Nemo-themed vehicles through out the display.

I am not big on hunts because I get discouraged too quickly, but this one is such fun. You walk among the ruins, the lovely sea plants, and search for the treasure chests. Every time I go there I find something new. There are mermaids, divers, amazing fish and other sea life. I was lucky enough to run into a flying fish, and that fish turned out to be the artist creator of this amazing exhibit.

Aley told me about herself. This is not her first life in Second Life. She has had about five avatars and has left SL several times, but is always drawn back. You may recall Arcadia Asylum, well, that is Aley. Arcadia was her first account and at that time she worked in hobo and grunge. I first saw that work near in the Hobo Railway Infohub, a railway stop in Caletta. I had been there before I realized it was her work. You can still find her early and present works all free at the Library and Museum at http://slurl.com/secondlife/cheonma/191/152/74 .

That is one more thing I learned. Everything Aley makes is free and transferable and she considers it open source. She loves to see others use her creations and even improve on them if that is possible. ”I love the most when people make better stuff from all the junk,” she said. Aley was great fun to talk to. She took me to see the new mer house that she has put in the sea recently. It is cute an delightful.

Regarding her works, she says, “everything in SL is very transitory, but the web saves it all. This account I started a sort of clockwork punk theme then totally sidetracked into aquatics.” She would love to see her aquatic work all over the Second Life seas. It is too bad it cannot be placed in the Blake seas to be admired by all, she told me, “Well I have been trapped in SL for some 7 years now so my only goal is just to litter the grid with my prims. I tried to escape SL 3 times.“

I love it! You really need to visit the spectacular Sea of Aley. When you arrive you will be on land. just jump in and have a great time. She is sharing the sim with her friend Mcarp. I will tell you about that part next (before you jump, in there is one treasure chest on land in the lighthouse). http://slurl.com/secondlife/LEA11/112/106/21

Gemma Cleanslate

Battlebeasts' Release Party

Last week, the Battlebeasts held their launch party, with live music by a variety of residents, hunts to find things, and of course, the Battlebeasts themselves. While I didn't buy any myself (I burnt out on the Meeroos, having about 112 of the things at one point), the event kicked off strongly and everyone had fun all around.

There were some technical glitches (mostly waiting a couple hours after launch before the Battlebeasts were able to be purchased, and an upgrade to the food that was recently released because LL broke something -else- that didn't need fixing) but for the most part it looked like a smooth run. There was also a hunt going on for tiny buyable crystals with extra toys and shinies hidden in them, but my attention was elsewhere and I didn't stay long in any one place to really go looking for them.

Already there seems to be more things in the works. I saw scattered "Dragon Crystals" around and I was told their use would be revealed in a week or so. I haven't playtested the battlebeasts myself, but I may in the future once more varieties come about. Single dragons cost just shy of 700 $L, with bigger packs costing more (1825, 3600, and 5000). The dragons currently come in six scaled patterns (Orange, Green, Azure, Blue, White and Black, with Blue being more of a purplish hue than the Azure) and six "glass eye colors" (Green, Blue, Red, White, Orange and Purple). I'll be doing a follow up in a few months to see what other things are released or come down the Battlebeast line, and will write about them here.

Battlebeasts currently can be found at Divine Dragons At Omega [Serena Becuma (227, 194, 23)], GeneSys Breedables Rental Office [TK Genesys (45, 210, 21)], The Knights of Battlebeast [Amon Ambar (175, 185, 22)], Blue Fusion Lost City of Breedables [Blue Fusion Breedables (204, 127, 21)],St Georges [Britannia (181, 116, 21)], Rainbow's End Breedables [Whispering Angels (97,111,25)], Wheels Family Breeding and Auction [Seadramon (108, 72, 1001)], and Xxtreme Oasis Breedables 2, [Xxtreme Oasis Breedables2 (224, 45, 21)] --- although I am sure more stores will be cropping up soon.

Xymbers Slade

A Mountain , An Agave and a Gorilla

Sunday I was pleased to be invited to an opening of Sledge Roffo’s showing of new art pieces at Studio33 Gallery located at Rockcliffe Conservatory. Monroe Snook is the owner of the Gallery of which The Art Yard is one of several buildings that feature the rich and wonderful creations of many of the finest artists in Second Life.

Sledge 's exhibit is called “A Mountain, an Agave and a Gorilla.” His exhibit will be at the Art Yard until March 16. It is very diverse in the pieces you will see. Sledge told me, “This is some primagery and my exploration of pixel art...still evolving.” The Mountain is a collection of marvelous depictions of his mountain in delicate textures and hues. Each piece is called Suspicious Mountain. You see a sculpture of the Mountain that may perhaps show why it is called suspicious I would say. I believe Sledge zoomed in on his sculpture to find the art that is hanging on the wall.

The Agave is distinctly different art work. It is his pixel art, as is the Gorilla. I found it very interesting to watch some of the pixel art as it changed on the wall. It took a while for me to find the Gorilla but I did.The piece is called “Feed the Gorilla” and there is a large banana ready. Around the corner from the gorilla were my favorite pixel art, four faces or masks of different shades and tones of color that I enjoyed studying.

Be sure to drop by to see the exhibit before it closes. It is well worth a visit to see the variety of talent of Sledge Roffo.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rockcliffe%20Conservatory/182/35/526

Gemma Cleanslate

Battlebeast Breedables

Sniffing around the Grid, recently I was whispered about something called the BattleBeasts --- dragons who are essentially breedables, but which also have combat statistics added. As I have not yet seen that concept in Second Life work to a satisfactory extent, I tracked down BattleBeast Resident, the maker of the Beasts, and together with Wynter Sommer, and Andi Canare (two others on the Battlebeast team; Wynter is the project dev manager and Andi is the director of marketing), we sat down to discuss what was coming forth as the BattleBeasts haven't officially been released yet.

Development of the BattleBeasts, which are a series of dragons, started last September. Battlebeast remarked he was facinated by how successful breedables are as a whole (when there's no one to sell to but others interested in breedables) and what he's done here is "cross-fertilized groups of interests". They bring something to the gamers (dragons and combat) and something to the breeders (the ability for the dragons to breed). It's a "synergystic" sort of thing --- better breeding means better battles, and better battles may make for better breeding afterward.

Now, obviously, SL isn't the greatest for programming. We all know that if you ride most physical objects, the control is garbage and you end up banking or barrel rolling, then faceplanting yourself into the nearest cliff. I asked Battlebeast the one thing he was unable to do in SL due to limits in SL, and what surprised me is that he has been LSL coding for several years. If he has that kind of experience, then limits don't exist, only workarounds. Indeed, the real challenge is getting it to work across multiple viewers (Firestorm, Phoenix, the default, etc). The only real problem is "there can be only so many ideas. Which ones are best for the breeders... for the gamers? Which ones do we use, what's the priority, what do we do afterward for the beta tests, etc."

Naturally, being breedables, they require food and water to eat to keep up their strength. Based on and named for ancient herbal remedies, they influence the dragon's Vigour (akin to health), Euphoria (happiness; an unhappy dragon probably won't mate) and Desire. There are also boosters to boost up the statistic in question, with each booster being allowed only once every 24 hours. Battle is done by HUD, in a turn-based manner, and the person who drops the other one to 0 HP first is the winner.

BattleBeast Resident further said "Our goal is to be innovative but also recognizable for breedables fans. For many breedables, things can be passed down in a sort of 'it either gets this trait or it doesn't get it'; here we get the possibility to strengthen it the more it breeds in." I mentioned that I heard they could "patrol" a person's land. Naturally I thought this was a security feature built into the dragons (which I think would be nice, but according to BattleBeast, "The idea was floated, but we're not trying to be in the security business. It's just random wandering."

Sure, all of this is well and good, but can they compete with the Meeroos and the other more famous brands out there in Second Life? "Yes. We don't have dreams of being rich, but we do have dreams of being successful. We're inspired by what has come before us and have improved on that. We've developed a 'touch-coupling system' for breedables. You can pick which dragons you want to breed rather than waiting for random connections. ... or if you want a free for all, you can do that too."

What about variety and cost? The 'roos have dozens of patterns, and they're also expensive to upkeep. BattleBeast had this to say: "That's one of our trade secrets. We have the colors, patterns and textures for a lot of dragon types, but we're keeping a tight lid on that, for now. There are five in beta, but we have a lot of surprises coming. There were 50 people in the closed beta test, and we expect many more for the open beta. Cost is another secret for now, because right now the hype is high. We would rather keep the energy focused on the energy on the dragon. The moment we shift that focus away, it takes away from the entire experience. Not one person visiting has asked the cost, nor what they have to buy in order to get the dragons going. Nothing talked about price at all. It's not where we're focused. It was never about money, it's always about experience to others."

One thing that surprised me is that Battlebeast said there is already a LOT of interest on these dragons coming up. "In the beta, people are excited. And I mean excited. They're making sims, castles, stories, everything. There is a lot of interest with resellers and we have affiliates worked out along with our premere store. I am eager to release as soon as we can, but everyone else has the veto power so we can polish it to a perfect shine."

The Battle Beasts can be found at the Le Terassa Sim, (236/128/21) and will be available ... when they're ready. They plan on kicking things off with a two day launch celebration (which yours truly will probably attend). Everything else about them can be found on their website, at www.BattleBeastBreedables.com.

If the hype matches the product, they will give the Meeroos a *run for their money.* I'm going to play conservative here and give room for the hype to hit as hard as they're expecting it to. So I am going to say Four Dragon Hoards out of Five; I was going to give it three because this has real room to take off but the professionalism of the group that started this thing up was just through the roof and it would be wrong not to make note of it.

Xymbers Slade

*Editor's Note* Check this review from Inara Pey.