Alphaville Herald

Class To Be Held…Inside a Facebook App???

by Idoru Wellman, Herald Education Desk

On January 28, in what may be the first instance of a university course held inside Facebook, Northwestern University Philosophy Professor Peter Ludlow (known to Herald readers as Urizenus Sklar) recently attempted to hold his class, Conceptual Issues in Virtual Worlds, inside the Island Life application on Facebook.  The results were mixed.

Island Life is a fantasy farming game inside Facebook that is somewhat similar to Farmville.  The twist is that that Island Life (currently in beta) is the creation of game developer legend Raph Koster (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies) and it allows people to visit each other and chat on their “islands”.  The game is a bit of a throwback to 2D graphical social platforms like The Sims Online and Habbo Hotel.

Koster’s most recent project had been Metaplace, an attempt to bring virtual world creation to the masses by providing a platform in which people could develop flash based virtual worlds.  The project recently closed down but the bulk of the development team moved with Koster to his Island Life project.

Reached for comment, Ludlow explained that his course is a freshman seminar designed to encourage writing skills, but as Ludlow explains “I couldn’t just assign papers to them; they need to become literate in new communications technologies. Hence, they will be called on to develop projects in virtual worlds, record those projects with machinima, blog about their experiences, give power point presentations about their projects, and write traditional papers.”

Starving Metaplace Game Gods Marooned In Facebook

Raph Koster's shipwrecked crew selling cabbage, farming supplies in FB avatar deathworld

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Raph Koster: "We're not talking about overall plans yet... first we learn"

Game god survivors of the Metaplace world's apocalyptic loss of traction - Raph Koster and Tami Baribeau (Cuppycake) - did not perish when the Metaplace world ended January 1st. After the shipwreck of the standalone Metaplace user generated virtual world dream, the MP game gods washed up on the beach in Facebook where they hope to feed themselves by selling cabbage and farming supplies to the 35 million FB players, despite the ever-present threat of avataricide. IslandLife is Raph's new Facebook-embedded game in beta test - but will it be redonkulous?

Hoping to locate the pink spaghetti strap top I bought in the final hours of Metaplace, I joined IslandLife and began farming.

Farming consists of picking the appropriate tool or crop seed, clicking on the ground and waiting to harvest the crops. It felt more like a waste of time anything else, but I'm willing to put up with a certain amount of grind to get the right clothes for my avatar. Perhaps Raph will add the old Metaplace New You clothes store soon?

Is Facebook Killing Avatars Again?

Shocking overnight account death toll!

by Senban Babii

Frightened Facebook users believe avatar hit squads are to blame for mysterious mass disappearances of e-friends from the popular MMO data mining operation social networking website's friends lists this week. This reporter can confirm that 45-50 people on her friends list vanished in the night - survivors who contacted the Herald report similar and sometimes far higher account death tolls. The mass account murders were discovered when Facebook players woke Friday morning to discover friends list sadly diminished. Had targetted accounts been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by hit squads, taken out to a local area of wasteland, and quietly executed? 

It has always been Facebook's policy that an account must be for a real person using real life details. While there have been instances of avataricide in the past reported by Reuters, Facebook has largely allowed the Second Life avatar community to represent themselves on the site, perhaps because Facebook's owners felt it would be foolish that to deny themselves advertising revenue from potential clicks. Given the bad feeling that many Facebook users have towards the site's policy changes over the last twelve months including a recent privacy policy change, the unexplained account removals could be considered part of a self-destructive trend for Facebook as it continues to disenchant whole swathes of the community, many of whom are now seeking alternatives.