Filed under: News and developments by Digado

Recently The Electric Sheep Company embedded their ‘TheLoop’ service into their special OnRez Second Life Client. TheLoop lists the most popular/beautiful places in Second Life based on user recommendations, directly accessible trough the website and a special interface in their own Second Life Client. A welcome substitute to Second Life’s own ‘gamed’ system for ‘Popular places’ which is usually filled with either Free Linden places or, free sex sims. This news also reminded me to make a post about my own 5 favorite places that deserve to be known for their amazing, on the ‘cutting edge’ of design or application.

Straylight - Kriss Lehmann

When it comes to the beauty and rich environments of Second Life one ’sim’ is consistently at the top of my list. This is Kriss Lehmann’s Straylight Sim, home to the Botanical Shop of Sculpted Trees. Amazing detail and creative use of Second Life’s limitations (shadows, sunbeams) make the trees really come to life. It’s one of the most natural feeling places and is a guaranteed jaw-dropping experience.

Location: Straylight

The Crack Den - Collaboration Project

When I tell people my age why SL has more to offer than what you read in the media I often refer to this sim. With the success of the game ‘Grand Theft Auto’ its easy to talk about the attraction of these ‘urban role play gaming sims’. It is a story driven place, meaning it has a fictional background, and people assume the roles of gangsters, police, lawyers, pawnbrokers, strippers and diner managers. There are quite a few of these sims, but the Crack Den has managed to really build a tight community of about 1400 avatars who ‘enact’ some very interesting plot lines.

Location: Hathian

The Abyss - Khai Sinister

One of fastest sims to ever reach the top of the ‘visitor count based’ search results. The content of the shops is not really remarkably by itself, but the presentation is truly amazing (see the part about ‘create epic experiences’ in my ‘marketing strategies in games’ article). The beauty of this sim makes it unable to resist to visit at least once and a great example of using software outside of SL to create buildings inside the virtual world. Part of the textures where rendered in a 3d modeling application, then imported into Second Life.

Location: The Abyss

Sine Wave Island - Easy Babcock

One of the top ‘retailers’ in Second Life. The typical example of making a remarkable product and focus your entire marketing mix on the sheer quality of the product itself. Sine Wave sells motion captured Dance Animations, and makes a 6 figure income, all with barely any advertising. The shopsim is minimalistic, podiums to ‘try out’ the dances, with a clear division in male and female dances. It resembles Apples minimalistic clean approach in many ways.

Location: Sine Wave Island

Devils Moon - Abramelin Wolfe

This semi futuristic city is based on the movie Blade Runner. It serves as the flagship store of Abranimations - Another animation company in the in-world economy. It uses some remarkable techniques to create the reflections in the water, and highlighting the neon advertisements and has a real ‘Snowcrash’ feel to it.

Location: Devils Moon

Posted on: January 22, 2008 | Share on: