Antimatter Arcade from Pangea Software

I will introduce you a strange but addictive space (particle) arcade iPhone game from the Pangea, also known as with their Enigmo game (3D puzzle) which has won the Best iPhone Game award in 2008 by Apple.

It is a strange game but I will try to explain how it works. There is an orb and you try to convert blue cosmic strings (which also move around) to red by moving your finger in a certain period of time. It looks easy but not actually.

The graphics are really powerful and the gameplay is high quality. Pangea software games are really cheap nowadays for introduction purposes of antimatter game. Only $0.99 at appstore including the famous Enigmo.

Warhammer News

Welcome! The Heavy Metal event has begun and we are able to play little bit sooner as the Knight of The Blazing Sun and The Blackguard. Yupi! Also some info for NOOBS! Well if you want to go AFK while doing Public Quest areas or during keep battles - you will no longer receive contribution credit towards those encounters! Yeah that true and this is part of Patch 1.0.5! Another cool thing is that players will no longer appear mounted when they are not. Yeah they are fast..i know this bug around 3 months or something...

Anyway latest patch is little bit small, there is also improvement: several issues have been addressed that previously allowed players to get to locations they were not supposed to be able to reach. Also this one is good for anyone





And in this movie, our friend, Paul Barnett is telling us details about Knight of the Blazing Sun. Knight is looking quite cool in his gold armor and gold everywhere fancy look :D just listen Paul he's knows!

Anyway I'm still leveling my dear Bloodthirster, powerful Marauder of Chaos. I'm not interested in Black Guard or Knight of the Blazing Sun, because playing as a tank is far less interesting then playing as dps. Of course you can use doublehanded weapons and be spec like dps, but I already picked my favorite character :-)

S U

Why did Google shut down Lively?

Official Google Blog: Lively no more Funny how things turn out...

Just a month ago I was in the Virtual Worlds London event listening to Niniane Wang, Google engineering manager talk about their fledgling new 3D chat service, Lively.

She spoke impressively, and sounded like they had a great handle on the teething issues and plan for the future.

Today we hear the news that Google has abandoned Lively. What a difference a few short months make.


True, expectations were sky high for Lively (it is Google after all) and they had a rocky start, but they had some unique elements such as being browser based and able to be embed anywhere.

And as IMVU and Meez have shown, it is possible to build an active and thriving 3D chat community with a bit of time and focus, and other focussed avatar sites (Stardoll etc) continue to grow rapidly and new players emerge and innovate.

So why did they kill it?

My guess is that it was considered just too removed from their core business of search and online apps.

And as we all know, the first things that tend to get cut during a recession are non-core businesses.

It was always a bit of a stretch for Google to get into the virtual worlds business, especially with no clear business model: there was no virtual economy, nor advertising in Lively. The closest consumer entertainment product they have is arguably YouTube.

Even at the London event Niniane admitted there was a lot of internal debate about business model and some things were still in the air, months after launch - for example whether there should be a Google virtual currency.

Put lack of business model together with a lack of track record or core competency in operating online games or virtual worlds it is unsurprising Google will exit the space...and the space will go on and grow without it.

Got a site topic you'd like VR Fashion to explore? Feel free to leave a note.

Why did Google shut down Lively?

Official Google Blog: Lively no more Funny how things turn out...

Just a month ago I was in the Virtual Worlds London event listening to Niniane Wang, Google engineering manager talk about their fledgling new 3D chat service, Lively.

She spoke impressively, and sounded like they had a great handle on the teething issues and plan for the future.

Today we hear the news that Google has abandoned Lively. What a difference a few short months make.


True, expectations were sky high for Lively (it is Google after all) and they had a rocky start, but they had some unique elements such as being browser based and able to be embed anywhere.

And as IMVU and Meez have shown, it is possible to build an active and thriving 3D chat community with a bit of time and focus, and other focussed avatar sites (Stardoll etc) continue to grow rapidly and new players emerge and innovate.

So why did they kill it?

My guess is that it was considered just too removed from their core business of search and online apps.

And as we all know, the first things that tend to get cut during a recession are non-core businesses.

It was always a bit of a stretch for Google to get into the virtual worlds business, especially with no clear business model: there was no virtual economy, nor advertising in Lively. The closest consumer entertainment product they have is arguably YouTube.

Even at the London event Niniane admitted there was a lot of internal debate about business model and some things were still in the air, months after launch - for example whether there should be a Google virtual currency.

Put lack of business model together with a lack of track record or core competency in operating online games or virtual worlds it is unsurprising Google will exit the space...and the space will go on and grow without it.

Got a site topic you'd like VR Fashion to explore? Feel free to leave a note.

Warhammer Online patch 1.0.5

On official website for Warhammer Online, i found some information about upcoming very big update. In Patch 1.0.5 we will be able to test all in-game improvement on Beta reaml with copied characters beforehand. I must say that this update is one biggest update ever released for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
The patch has many improvement, most of them are related to specific class. I found some interesting updates for my Marauder :-) :

Skill Tainted Claw, from patch this ability will now be increased in duration by Ailments, not Cripples.

Wave of Mutilation: The amount that stats contribute to the damage of this ability has been slightly increased to make it consistent with other damage over time abilities.

Deadly Clutch: The Value of this debuff has been reduced to 50%. In addition, 25% of the value the target is healed for (after debuff) also affects the Marauder.

Rend: The amount that stats contribute to the damage of this ability has been slightly increased to make it consistent with other damage over time abilities.

You can read about other improvements right here. I found also two interesting general in-game improvements:

- More penalties and offsetting for players that try to garner renown and XP by going afk in Scenarios and Public Quests.

- Morale abilities should work more reliably.

Stardoll opens up to user generated content - A review of Stardesign

Stardesign taps into the creativity of the community
A first guest post by Cecilia Poon - welcome!

Apart from styling 2D avatars, Stardoll has opened up the door for their users to create their own items. This represents the first move of the rapidly growing community into user generated content. The new creation section is named StarDesign. It allows creation of unique looks for both clothing and interior design items.


You can easily design a nice looking pattern by the StarDesign tools. As shown in the images, pick the shape, colors, size of the pattern you want, rearrange them and create your own image.

If you are one of those who has talent in this area, you can actually design a Hello Kitty with these simple tools, not withstanding the copyright issues that would apply of course.

After that, choose the kinds of furniture you would like your pattern to put on. Stardoll only offers 7 templates at the moment, so you can just choose from sofa, cushion, curtains and so on.

You can then decide whether you would like to purchase the items or not after you design process. Superstars (paid subscription members) can decorate their rooms and MeDoll with the customized items.

However, StarDesign for interior is only available for paid members and those items cannot be sold in their own shop as well. Not surprisingly, there are not competitions for interior designs as well, as their main focus is still in fashion.

Conclusion
The main new trend in avatar communities or virtual worlds is to let users create their own items. Take a look at GirlSense, i-Dressup, IMVU, etc. This helps in deepening users experience and also generating millions of new pieces of content for the site. For Stardoll it makes a lot of sense, and it doesn't stop here. We're going to see more players open up more creation tools to their users, both paying and also free. This possibilities of a YouTube model in Avatar Fashion ... it's coming!

Thanks Ceci!

Got a site topic you'd like VR Fashion to explore? Feel free to leave a note.

Stardoll opens up to user generated content - A review of Stardesign

Stardesign taps into the creativity of the community
A first guest post by Cecilia Poon - welcome!

Apart from styling 2D avatars, Stardoll has opened up the door for their users to create their own items. This represents the first move of the rapidly growing community into user generated content. The new creation section is named StarDesign. It allows creation of unique looks for both clothing and interior design items.


You can easily design a nice looking pattern by the StarDesign tools. As shown in the images, pick the shape, colors, size of the pattern you want, rearrange them and create your own image.

If you are one of those who has talent in this area, you can actually design a Hello Kitty with these simple tools, not withstanding the copyright issues that would apply of course.

After that, choose the kinds of furniture you would like your pattern to put on. Stardoll only offers 7 templates at the moment, so you can just choose from sofa, cushion, curtains and so on.

You can then decide whether you would like to purchase the items or not after you design process. Superstars (paid subscription members) can decorate their rooms and MeDoll with the customized items.

However, StarDesign for interior is only available for paid members and those items cannot be sold in their own shop as well. Not surprisingly, there are not competitions for interior designs as well, as their main focus is still in fashion.

Conclusion
The main new trend in avatar communities or virtual worlds is to let users create their own items. Take a look at GirlSense, i-Dressup, IMVU, etc. This helps in deepening users experience and also generating millions of new pieces of content for the site. For Stardoll it makes a lot of sense, and it doesn't stop here. We're going to see more players open up more creation tools to their users, both paying and also free. This possibilities of a YouTube model in Avatar Fashion ... it's coming!

Thanks Ceci!

Got a site topic you'd like VR Fashion to explore? Feel free to leave a note.