Tinies Jousting In Raglan Shire

The month-long medieval festival in Raglan wrapped up this past weekend with one of Raglan Shire's most popular annual events--the jousting tournament! I, Lady Fluffytail of Acorn, joined milord Fluffytail Phin to witness these courageous tinies for ourselves...

The spectators lined up in the stands as tiny by tiny jouster fell from the blows of their challenger's lances...Snakes...on a horse! It came down to two brave tinies. ReignShadow waits for his turn in the deciding joust!Reign's horse thundered down at his opponent, the bobcat Iwanta Salamander, who unseated him for the tourney win! Iwanta wins it all!Zayn awarded the tropies to Iwanta and Reign...And after the excitement, I visited the main fair square and donated to the wishing well, whose proceeds are going towards RL animal charities. Until next year!!

Tinies Video: "Highwaybunny: The Trailer" & Machinima Festival Announcement

Oh my God, how did I miss this one Chaffro...how do you come up with these?

Chaffro also announced the first ever Raglan Shire Studio Films Festival. He is inviting Raglan folks to create or submit their already created machinima featuring tinies by Jan 31, 2010. It should be a blast! For more information, please check it our HERE.

Elle in Blue Mars: Community & Beta Testing

So Phin and I both decided to explore Blue Mars together yesterday. Oh dear God, look...at...us. We look like Blue M Noob Examples 1 and 2...
Our moment of laziness as we sat at a table in Beach City turned into a good discussion about how important community and social interaction is in a virtual world. As this is not a MMO where leveling up would be important and content is already created, to us it seems that having things to do (not just alone) and socializing will end up being very important. We will explore the world with our friends, talk, shop...whatever we want to do to feel connected inworld. So it is important to be able to find each other and like-minded individuals as well. I am interested in seeing how Blue M tackles this...There are some basic animations that you can do such as shaking hands. I'll admit I was like "Ugh" when I was offered a caress once. A caress...really? Well, at least you get asked first. Phin gave me a "lovehug". Hey, at least I know him! I "raced" Phin to the bridge. OK...it wasn't much of a race at all as Phin's computer's much faster. Due to the LOD, he'd disappear almost right away to me. Thought it was a fluke on my end, but Phin would get the disappearing too. We ran into Dale Innis and he mentioned the same thing. We ended up having a really good conversation with him about Blue M. One of the things we talked about was being a beta tester. To us, this is the time to be critical. Let them know about this or that feature that seems off or could be improved. That's what you are in there for. I joked about how I'm being like that little old lady who calls the police about everything. You wanted to know our feedback, you're going to get it!We all also talked about coming into it and trying to leave our preconceived notions based upon other VWs behind. It can be hard, as the bar has been set high and there are big expectations. It's just not there quite yet, so we'll just have to see once there is more content and more folks. Oh, and look...I've got on jeans. Whew. Who wears short shorts? Not me. Phin made a short video about his experience so far in Blue M, if you want to get a feel for it as it is right now...loads and all.

Steelhead Steampunk Animals Build Contest Entrants

After I managed to fall into the apple barrel last night, I headed over to the Steelhead Harvest Festival Steampunk Animal Building contest to see the entries...There were some really fantastic (and hilarious) ones...
If you've like to see these really fun builds yourself, head over to the barn in Steelhead City!

Apple Bobbing

Let's just say that bobbing for apples didn't go quite as I expected...

OK, yeah, I fell in. Somewhere I can hear Lunar laughing about this right now.

Why Tinies Shouldn't Have Magic Wands

I was sitting at home twiddling my paws for a moment, deciding what I wished to do next...What to do...what to do...
I rummaged through my things and found a magic wand. I pointed it at the ground, said a few arcane words and POOF!!! Waffles. Lots and lots and lots of waffles. YESH.

Elle in YoVille: Virtual Worlds and Ease of Use

Yes, that is me. And yes, I am in Facebook's YoVille. "What the hell Elle?" some of you might be wondering, but I'll tell you it was simply curiosity. See, in RL I have a favorite cousin who is one year older than I am. She never plays console or PC games or participates in MMOs. I couldn't possibly imagine her being in SL or Blue Mars and definitely not somewhere like WoW. So when I saw that she seemed to be really enjoying YoVille and had been for a while, I took note. I asked myself "Why?" and figured the only way was to see for myself.

I realized that it's because it was simply easy to use. Simple controls. Basic and straightforward and because it's based in FB, you already have your friends who play built-in (although you can interact with strangers as well). And for any of us who have gotten all caught up in playing simple games like solitaire, you can understand the appeal of a quick game of tic tac toe or fishing. There's no graphics card straining and trying not to implode. There's no complicated orientation needed or difficult user interface to master. You just jump right in and go off. For someone like my cousin, this was perfect. All she needed.

I mentioned in my last post how important usability and community is for a virtual world to not be static/stagnant. Folks need to be able to easily get in and stay in and see what everyone else is seeing as well--for their experience while inworld to be no less different. For instance, I have no idea what glowing things look like inworld. I don't even use glow because I can't see it and would probably blind everyone or something. Sorry, my card won't render it and it's as upgraded as this card gets. No one wants to feel like they need to seriously upgrade their computer just to participate--especially if they don't wish to be a power user.

Knowing me, I'll get bored of this very quickly given what I've been used to and YoVille isn't exactly my cup of tea mainly because of its simplicity, but I'll admit that I'm looking forward to hanging out with my cousin in it. Perhaps that is the appeal.