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Novoking .94 - no more flying or just a change of controls?

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:25:06 +0000

Is there really no more flying in Novoking version .94 , or just a change of controls?

If there was a English translation of the help files I suppose I might not be asking this here.

Www.novoking.com is the place to go the check out this virtual world.

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Tags: Novoking, Suezanne, SuezanneCB, virtual worlds

Hipihi and Novoking - why not normal resizable windows?

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Thu, 15 May 2008 05:54:05 +0000

Both Novoking and Hipihi don't have resizable windows that you can maximize and have them fill the screen minus the taskbar area. (Like the browser you are reading this in does.)

In both Hipiihi and Novoking you can make it full screen or not, when not, it doesn't fill the screen, and doesn't fill the screen minus the taskbar.

So with both programs, you can accidentally hit the area outside of the virtual world's window, like some annoying add on the browser, or accidentally hit the close window X on the program behind the virtual world window.

These two programs are the only programs I use that have this flaw.

In my decades of computer use I have never once wanted a program to work like these programs do regarding the size of the program window.

It's annoying.

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Tags: Novoking, Hipihi, virtual worlds, annoyances, Suezanne, SuezanneCB

Novoking version 0.94

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:16:10 +0000

Here's the Google translation of an email I just got from the Novoking virtual world:

Dear Novoking residents, Hello:

Here we are very pleased to tell you that we Novoking new version of the client (0.94 Beta version) 5
8 on the line. This is a quarter since the latest development results, based on the original version of I
To increase the number of new content. From now on you can download the new version of Novoking0.94Beta
Client, a completely new experience Novoking virtual world!

Compared with the past, we have done a great new version of the update, the main changes are:
1, the user interface an entirely new look, more stylish cooler;
2, music is everywhere, in all corners of the world you can hear the latest and most popular music;
3, we have done a re-designed ballroom, a cooler atmosphere High;

And our social system, the honor system, the task system, economic system also have an on-line content, with
You start with colorful virtual life……

There are many wonderful design (see), you need to experience that!
Come on, you are welcome to enter a new Novoking virtual world!

So if you haven't tried Novoking for a while, or at all, this might be a good time to give it a try.

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Tags: SuezanneCB, Novoking, virtual worlds

I have a QQ account now!

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:01:19 +0000

My QQ id is 823498840.

I would be pleased if some Hipihi and Novoking users would add me to their QQ lists.

I have a partially English version of the QQ messenger installed now.

I have a QQzone page but haven't figured out how to edit it yet since the page itself is in Chinese.

A Hipihi user set up my QQ account and thus my password is known to someone else. I will have to figure out how to change the password, which might be a bit of a job since the links for the password changing page and the page you change the password on will all be in Chinese.

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Tags: China, Chinese, Hipihi, Novoking, QQ

La curieuse crise de Second Life

mpc2006 — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:03:28 +0000

J’avoue que ne pas faire l’unanimité est tout à fait normal. Mais comment peut on dire qu’une société est moribonde lorsqu’elle a levé 20 millions de dollars et qu’elle a atteint son break even point ( « seuil de rentabilité ») depuis un an.

Dans la vidéo (ici) on nous annonce 5 Millions de dollars de revenus mensuel. Doit-on croire l’un des principaux investisseurs ? Il est vrai que les observateurs d’un soir noteront ce curieux propos « c’est une des sociétés dans laquelle nous investissons qui a la plus forte progression en terme de revenus ».

Benchmark capital est un petit fonds d’investissement ( son portfolio ) : AOL, Bebo, Ebay, Friendster, Gaia interactive, metacafe,1-800-Flowers, Palm, MySQL, Redhat, Rambus, Jamdat, E-Loan. J’ai juste vérifié si cela est réaliste. Même s’il y a beaucoup de vétérans du web ceux ci semblent oublier l’un des business Internet à savoir l’hébergement.

Second Life fonctionne sur certains points comme un hébergeur et ses tarifs sont élevés (je ne connais pas la politique de pricing de Linden lab mais une baisse des prix amènerait beaucoup de petits projets qui sont d’ailleurs l’essentiel de SL actuellement à l’inverse des sociétés et marques).

En prenant le nombres d’îles existantes en Mars (13348 îles) et sachant que les frais de maintenance mensuels sont de 295 dollars(une île = un serveur), cela donne un résultat de 3 937 660 de dollars sur une source. En ajoutant la base de membre payant de l’ordre de 92096 (9.95 dollars par mois ou 6 dollars à l’année)(prenons l’hypothèse basse à 6 dollars = 552 576, en considérant l’achat d’île à 1675 dollars (ex : 487 achats pour Mars = 815 725). Il y a encore des sources (l’import de textures qui coûte 10 lindens (tout ce que vous voyez dans sl nécessite une texture donc il en faut beaucoup, les terrains achetés sur la zone principale (mainland), je ne compte pas les openspace ou voids qui ajoutent de la capacité serveur (415 dollars à l’achat + 75 dollars de maintenance mensuelle( le lot peut monter à quatre), les changements techniques facturés, se marier coûte 10 lindens, divorcer 20 etc…)mais arrêtons nous là pour voir si bertrand est d’accord.

5 000 000 3 937 660 + 552 576 + 815 725 = 5 305 961 dollars.

Le compte est bon. (voir en excédent sans tout prendre en compte)Tout n’est pas pris en compte donc Linden Lab fait plus de 5 millions de dollars sur mars avec trois sources et une audience minimale. Audience minimale qu’il faut reconnaître mais qui n’est pas comprise car le vrai indicateur fiable pour l’instant c’est le temps passé dans un monde virtuel et il augmente au détriment de la télé d’où l’essor de projets ou d’investissements dans des mondes virtuels pour enfants. (là il y aura des morts)

Rappelons la barrière à l’entrée du client qu’il faut télécharger. Dès lors toute comparaison avec un site web est caduque. L’acquisition d’audience est plus rude et le manque d’outil d’aide et une interface « soviétique » ne profite pas à la fidélisation. Vaut il mieux avoir une faible audience et des revenus et un potentiel de marché ou une audience massive et pas ou peu de revenus ? (Napster avait 70 millions d’utilisateurs).

Second Life et son éditeur sont donc à l’agonie selon les spécialistes à l’inverse des nombreux services divers ayant levé des fonds et qui cherchent encore des moyens de monétisation. J’utilise les chiffres fournis par Linden lab depuis le début et sur la même page. La transparence est d’ailleurs une des erreurs marketing de SL (trop d’honnêteté n’est pas forcément récompensé). A contrario de beaucoup de site qui n’explique pas les ficelles de l’audience dupliquée, Linden lab a fourni trop de données. Un site Internet aurait rarement publié son taux de churn identifiable avec les connections mensuelles et bien gardé à vue l’unique chiffre de création d’avatars (13 millions) qui excitait tant les journalistes.

Les Lindens sont peut être un peu trop idéaliste et d’ailleurs leur moyen de fonctionnement est assez spécifique (tao linden). J’avoue de loin être un peu sceptique au niveau productivité sur ce mode de fonctionnement et finalement la société gagne de l’argent. Rappelons que Philip Rosedale est l’ancien CTO de Realnetworks et non CEO. Mitch Kapor le dit lui-même « Bill gates est une exception ». Un technicien comme Rosedale n’a pas les réflexes d’un manager international qui n’aurait pas oublié la V.AT (tva). Chez Ebay, Pierre Omidyar a laissé les reines à une killeuse qui a boosté sa société, Google a monté un triumvirat… Il est donc temps de passer à un autre phase car le marché est entrain d’émerger (liste non exhaustive).

Pendant que les observateurs d’un soir ricanent de cette belle mort annoncée, la petite Katharine Berry (15 ans) continue ses développements et permet de ranger son inventaire en mode off-game. (attention le site peut se trouver down)http://67.202.23.255/

Des projets comme Opensim ou Realextend sont entrain d’apporter des briques supplémentaires et l’on apprend que des parties de codes sont bientôt accessibles.

Immersive Education Initiative ne semble pas écouter nos nombreux spécialistes et a décidé de retenir pour ses projets : Croquet, SUN, Second Life.

Et puis Second life pour l’instant n’a jamais détruit mon contenus. A chaque connexion je retrouve tout ce que j’ai crée alors que sur ce même blog le fait de mettre une vidéo m’expose à un retrait sans avertissement qui nuit à mon contenus globale. Contenus qui n’est pas encore monétisé par cette plate-forme et qui lui coûte très cher en hébergement / broadband alors que sur SL je paye et même je peux ne pas payer mais la logique fait que je retrouve mes petits.

Created in 3D modeler and uploaded by a user: [原创]用户离线创造展示[NOVOKING社区]

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:21:40 +0000

[原创]用户离线创造展示[NOVOKING社区]

I think this was created by a user and uploaded into the Novoking world. It is hard for me to read the forum, none of the translators work when you are logged in.

I have not had the pleasure of seeing these inworld.

This picture and a number more are in the Novoking forum at http://www.novoking.com/N_BBS/dispbbs.asp?boardID=28&ID=822&page=1

I just wish I would run into someone inworld.

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Tags: Novoking, virtual worlds, user generated content, 3D modelling, SuezanneCB, SuezanneC Baskerville

Paul Otellini (PDG) de Intel : floraison d'univers virtuels comme Second Life

mpc2006 — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:07:52 +0000

"Il a aussi prédit la floraison d'univers virtuels comme Second Life et de réseaux haut débit tapissant la planète, type WiMax --pour lequel Intel prépare justement des puces de nouvelle génération."

Pour Intel, le mariage d'internet et des gadgets changera la vie quotidienne (source AFP / yahoo)

La suite de tim mattson de Intel dans Second Life

Novoking: where is everyone?

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 07:05:00 +0000

The Novoking virtual world in progress is a nice looking place. Unfortunately it seems almost completely empty almost all the times I have visited it.

Where is everyone?

Is the test population severely limited?

Red or Yellow alert : mayday, mayday !

mpc2006 — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:50:53 +0000

Bruce Lee- Enter The Dragon (1973)

Pourquoi un investissement de 10 millions de dollars d’IBM n’a aucune influence sur nos décideurs IT ?

Pourquoi les CTO d’Intel, Amazon, Sun… parlant de second life lors de leurs show public n’ont aucune influence sur nos décideurs IT ?

Pourquoi une alliance Dassault system et Microsoft dans le virtuel n’a pas plus d’effet ?

Pourquoi les structures virtuelles deviennent assez rapidement rentables (pas encore entendu parler d’une faillite chez un acteur positionné à contrario de milliers de start up) et que les « capitals risqueurs » ne lorgnent pas dessus ?

Pourquoi je n’entends pas beaucoup parler de levée de fonds en France (mis à part le Crédit agricole ) sur des expérimentations virtuelles ?

Pourquoi des millions de petits américains passent de plus en plus de temps sur des sites mi web mi-virtuel et des millions d’utilisateurs de MMORPG ne sont pas perçus comme un signal fort de marché en constitution et ne sont pas pressentis par nos marketeurs ?

Pourquoi un consortium d’état Chinois regroupant (source wangxiang tuxing) China Mobile, Citic Pacific, Berkam, Everbright Bank, Phison, IBM, Paynova et MindArk sur un projet ultra agressif fondée sur le virtuel et surtout le commerce n’inquiète pas nos dirigeants IT et nos dirigeants tout court ?

Pourquoi les japonais sont entrain de batailler sur de gros projets incluant des réseaux publicitaires (meet-me (reproduction virtuelle à l’identique de tokyo sur le papier pour l’instant ou “Cyber Megacity: Tokyo’s 0th Ward” ou le fait que le japon soit le 3ieme pays de second life alors que Ebay s’est cassé les dents là bas et que myspace ne suscite pas trop d’intérêt) ne serait pas encore un signe de marché ?

Peut être que ce n’est pas intéressant d’acquérir et de conserver des parts de marché. Peut être qu’il vaut mieux attendre que les chinois, les indiens, les japonais nous distancent gentiment et ils en ont largement les moyens humains et financiers.
Beaucoup de choses de l’Internet sont calées sur des models américains (FAI, business models…) mais en restant amorphe, la latence de prise de décision risque de coûter cher coté européen et les projets viendront peut être du coté oriental.

En 1973 Alain Peyrefitte écrivait« Quand la Chine s'éveillera », le monde tremblera » .Aujourd’hui la chine est bien réveillée, elle fait juste la grasse matinée en buvant son thé du matin et dès qu’elle posera un pied à terre en sortant du lit… d’ailleurs nos bars-tabac où l’on prend son café ne sont plus occupé par des auvergnats mais des chinois J . Je commence donc ce que je voulais faire depuis longtemps : apprendre le chinois.

China: Virtual Red Star Rising

Finn1 Flintlock — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:50:06 +0000

I don’t know if you are aware of the various virtual world activities that have been taking place in China in the last several years… if your not – you should be because there is one gargantuan virtual project that has the potential to “rock” the status quo of western economies and transform product development, sourcing, distribution and retailing on a global scale.

Chinese Second Life Competitors

There is an excellent review and detailed comparison of the two primary Chinese Second Life competitors, Hipihi and Novoking in the Masters of the Media blog post dated 10/24/07 by Pieter-Paul Walraven titled, Virtual Worlds in Modern China.

Novoking allows users to integrate popular 3D graphics software like Maya and 3DMax. Hipihi as lots of features and a fast learning curve compared to Second Life. It’s going to be interesting to see how the Chinese government regulates virtual worlds.

The Paul Walraven post has multiple links to additional sources for both Hipihi and Novoking.

Linden Lab entered into an agreement with RTMAsia recently to have RTMAsia act as direct representatives for Linden Lab in China, responsible for the development of business partnerships, management of business operations and liaison with media and industry bodies.

VIRTUAL RED STAR RISING: CRD

The Beijing Cyber Recreation District is the one gargantuan virtual project that has the potential to “rock” the status quo of western economies. There have been posts about this project since the beginning of 2007. This virtual mega project currently underway in Beijing incorporates partnerships between private industry and the Chinese government. I guess government "partnerships" are the way the Chinese government will solve the virtual regulation issue.

The Beijing Cyber Recreation District is the “online counterpart” to Beijing’s China Recreation District (CRD), a real-world mega-project that will boast entertainment and shopping; the center is set to open in time for the 2008 Olympics, according to the AP, the Beijing Cyber Recreation District with support from the Chinese government is currently undertaking the worlds largest (80 square kilometer complex) virtual world development. As of 11/26/07, over 200 game and multi-media content producers were currently working on site in western Beijing.

According to an article in the Virtual World News 11/26/07 titled, "China's Grand Virtual Worlds Plan - A First Hand Look."

“The CRD's goal is to create a virtual economy providing infrastructure and platforms through which any business - not just those based in China - can come in world and sell their real-world products and services. While a concerted effort will be placed on bringing Chinese businesses and consumers in world, the effort is worldwide and open to businesses and consumers from any country. The entire project is expected to launch in June 2008.”

Here is a link to an article from Gigaom titled, "Chinese Government Gets Into Virtual World Business," by Wagner James Au, 11/27/07 that has more information on the project.

An article in Computer Weekly titled, “China uses virtual worlds to transform business,” by John Riley, posted 11/02/07 states that the CRP project currently underway in Beijing plans:

"- to use virtual worlds to supply customized goods to consumers across the globe. So far 200 manufacturers have located to the physical CRP site, ready to receive orders from virtual world customers when the project formally opens next summer, prior to the Beijing Olympic Games.”

Clothing manufacturers will be the first group to offer the service. On 11/14/07 it was announced that the CRD signed Berkam Group, one of the world’s largest clothing makers and the first entrant into the Virtual Economic Zone. The CRD is committed to developing an open, secure and accessible environment that can easily handle currency conversions. Wow this is really a big deal that can totally transform product design, development, sourcing and supply chain.
The article the goes on to say:

“Swedish companies are leading the way in collaboration. Paynova is providing international online payment services, and MindArk, which produces the Entropia Universe virtual world, is helping provide a virtual world infrastructure. CRP is also working with MasterCard, Visa and the China Everbright Bank to build a financial platform, and with suppliers including IBM.”

Gemma Simpson in her article titled, "China's virtual plans are out of this world," 06/06/07 in silocon.com states:

"An estimated 10,000 jobs will be created in China on the back of this deal, with staff working from home inside the Entropia Universe."

According to an AP article in MSNBC, 10/15/07 titled “China plans virtual world for commerce,” the Beijing CRD will evolve into a "far bigger" version of e-bay.

In fact, the CRD founders state that this virtual world project “will help the manufacturing superpower evolve into an e-commerce juggernaut.” Whew, that is a scary concept because a “juggernaut” is a force that is unstoppable and will crush everything in it’s path. Read that last sentence defining a “juggernaut” over – slowly – several times.

A primary goal of the project is to promote just-in-time manufacturing and to get rid of the middleman by providing “direct links between tens of thousands of Chinese manufacturers and millions of individual customers around the world. “

In the AP article in Linexinsider by Rachel Konrad posted 10/27/07 titled, “China's Virtual World Plans,” Chi Tau Robert Lai, chief scientist of the virtual world states that the ambitious Beijing CRD virtual world project,” in addition to connecting factories with people outside China, the project will allow businesses outside China to tap the nation's burgeoning middle class.”

The Victor Keegan article I posted earlier from the Guardian titled, “Virtual China looks for real benefits,” expresses concerns about what will be left for the western world to do to generate $$$ if this Chinese virtual world directly connects manufacturers to the consumer and eliminates the middle man. Right now the western worlds are benefiting financially from huge wholesale and retail markups on Chinese manufactured goods. I have to be honest - from the individual point of view as a consumer and from the perspective of an entrepreneur this is exciting news but what effect will this have on the overall western economies? I guess we will all have to adjust to the transformational changes this project has the potential to trigger. There are some cynics out there regarding the feasibility of success with attaining the CRD goals but I have absolutely no doubt at all that the Chinese will succeed in all of the goals (including Interoperability, secure virtual ID and open access) they have set out for this virtual mega-world project. One thing I do know is that the US economists and pundits either are in a state of denial or they have absolutely no understanding about the transformational impact this virtual project can have on the current world status quo. They also consistently underestimate China’s strategic long-term focus - they are deluding themselves.

The Chinese Virtual world, “now under construction, will have all the infrastructure (server farms, communication links, electricity, banking links, logistics etc) needed to make this the world's one-stop shop for consumers and producers.”

The Keegan article goes on to state that the current planning is for 150 million avatars and 7 million on at any one time but planning is underway for “billions of avatars” that will eventually be supported. Seven million avatars on at one time totally blows away the current Second Life capacity of about 40,000 at any one time.

According to the CDR.GOV.CN site on a 11/08/07 posting

“The fast growth of the virtual world industry drives lots of governments in the world thinking that to own the key technologies of virtual world will be the quickest way to become the winner of international economy in the future. ‘China Virtual Economy District’ has provided an idea of a brand-new business model of virtual world industry to help traditional enterprises become virtual enterprises easily.”

The implications and impact of this Chinese virtual world currently under development will have on western economies cannot be overstated, The ultimate goal is to repeat in the virtual world what China has already accomplished in manufacturing!

reBang has an excellent post on this subject titled, When Retail Goes Virtual.

The next Virtual Worlds Conference will be April 3-4, 2008 in NYC.

Virtual Worlds Management Industry Forecast 2008

Novoking - How do you get land to build on?

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:43:00 +0000

The Novoking site(novoking.com, and the forums) is no longer translating very well using the Google translation service. The forum are very difficult to read. I'm talking about technical problems with Google reading the page code, not the actual quality of the translation.

Other translation services such as AltaVista Babelfish deal with the page code better, but the translation quality is terrible.
This makes it hard to keep up with what is is going on.

Specifically, I was in the Novoking virtual world and came upon land divided into parcels marked with letters and numbers with some builds on them.

Obviously it is possible for some folks to get parcels and build on them.

Finding the instructions is not as easy as one would like.

There aren't instuctions in English on the site that I see. Once you click on the English button at the bottom right of the novoking.com site, the Support link at the bottom no longer works, though it does work when the page is in Chinese mode.

So I am asking for help in getting a parcel of land to build on in Novoking.
Thanks.

Second Life en chine

mpc2006 — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:36:36 +0000

Selon Tateru Nino , une prochaine implantation de bureaux de Linden Lab serait en cours pour l'Empire du milieu. Je suis passé il y a quelques temps sur les îles d’accueil coréennes misent en place pour attaquer ce marché. Lors de mon passage de nombreux newbies de Corée commençaient leurs secondes vies.

La chine est déjà un acteur incontournable avec 6 millions de joueurs de World of Warcraft (ce qui rapporterai plus de 100 millions de dollars pour 2007) et la présence de deux acteurs déjà en place : Novoking et HiPiHi.

Linden Lab a effectivement intérêt de reproduire une stratégie de localisation comme pour La Corée. Voici déjà un site portail version china.

http://www.slchinese.com/web/

Halloween dans novoking

mpc2006 — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:31:53 +0000

http://www.novoking.com/ Premiers pasAutour de la ville

Novoking sandbox pictures - build editor- creative garden - first objects

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:25:08 +0000

I was under the impression there was a place you could build somewhere in the Novoking beta. I just couldn't find it. I saw a picture of it in the Novoking forums. A few hours later I was looking for that picture and had a hard time finding it - hard to navigate a forum you can't read. I finally used the Opera browser's cache viewer to find the picture in my local browser cache. As I looked at it it dawned on me that the mini-map in the top right corner revealed where the Novoking sandbox was on the big map - which would enable me to get to it. I was right. A few minutes later, I had Novoking back up and started looking. Before long I found the build editor, and then was on the way to staying up longer than I should before a work day. Again.

Novoking - first visits, pictures and comments

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:52:43 +0000

Novoking is quite impressive looking.

I, SuezanneC Baskerville, have made it into Novoking after several days of floundering around. The delay was apparently at least almost entirely due to my inability to read Chinese. It's possible the instructions might need to be better written. Also it was real late in the morning when I was doing my initial downloading and installation - I may have read what I needed to do in the instructions, but too early to do it, or when I was not ready, and then forgot what I needed to know by the time I got to the point I needed to know it at.

What I failed to do basically was to complete the registration for the beta completely. I already had a forum account. I got my acceptance email with a registration number, and needed to put that number somewhere in the Novoking site, and add some info like a security question and answer, and I hadn't done that. So the delay was not due to any technical problem on Novoking's part but rather due to the language barrier, if you want to put it nicely, or due to my ignorance, incompetence, and lack of meticulousness when trying to decipher the Chinese registration page.

Caleb Booker, journalist with a blog at http://www.calebbooker.com/blog got to Novoking before I did, and I asked a question or two in his blog comments and he gave me some information that was valuable in getting it through my head that yes indeed, I was going to have to go back to the Novoking registration page and figure out what I done wrong or failed to do.

Another factor help me figure out what I was doing wrong in an somewhat odd way: another Novoking beta tester, from what I gather not a member of the Novoking company, gave me an account, with a nickname and login name and password already set up. Unfortunately the account had male selected as a gender, which I'm not sure you can change, and I wanted to be my usual login name and password, and I would never quite get over the feeling that it wasn't a good idea to use an account someone else created. However, the username and password this unknown benefactor provided did work, and I logged in with this wrong account and verified that my computer, Novoking's network, and the internet in between did all work together properly. And looked around and took some some pictures.

Then I reread the registration letter from gm@novoking.com and reread the Google translated version of the novoking fourms and did a Google cross lanaguage search for phrases like "Novoking registration" and read the translated search of this result. Once I had as much info as I could stand to get, I went to the Novoking web site and logged in with this not-really-me username and password. I clicked on some links and buttons I didn't remember for sure I'd clicked on before and translated the resulting pages. At that point I knew for sure that I hadn't completed the registration process - my memory is flakey but I'm sure I'd remember being asked to make up a blood group and make up a constellation and such other superstitious stuff in order to register for a virtual world. The Ideashape forum, a forum for English speakers of Hipihi, among other things, also asked the same type of stuff.

So I logged out from the not really me account and logged back in as SuezanneCB. Shortly thereafter I was inworld in Novoking showing my nickname Suezanne - Novoking has both a login name and nickname. It was once again the middle of the night, or else at the last possible minute before needing to get to work. So I appeared in Novoking, in a black bra and thong panties, took a picture of my mostly bare backside, and had to quit.

This evening after work I fired up Novoking and used the printscreen button and SnagIt to capture some shots, then used Photobucket's bulk upload command - which didn't work from my Opera web browser; I had to switch to Firefox to get it to work - and uploaded the files.

It's important when putting pictures on Photobucket to describe them. Search engines get to read the descriptions, I believe, and not the filenames. Photobucket mangles the filenames anyway. So all the work one does in typing out long filenames goes to naught for the purpose of making the files you store on Photobucket findable by the public. After typing in some descriptions and alt tabbing back and forth between an explorer window and the upload Java applet I got tired of that and opened a command window and did a DIR /b > filenames.txt and produced a text file with my nice descriptive filenames. I opened that file in SCiTE text editor, deleted the .jpg on the ends of the filenames and copied the result, then pasted that into notepad on the other computer. Then I pasted the lengthy filenames into the description fields on the Photobucket Java Bulk Upload applet one by one and doublechecked and triplechecked to try to avoid having any nice long but inaccurate descriptions for the pics. Then I clicked upload and a few mintues later I was done.

The Novoking environment designers have produced some very nice builds.

Novoking has some nice special effects: the atmospheric haze, the "fog" effect that makes distant objects in the earth's atmosphere look blurred and less bright, is done quite well and make the scene look good. The water ripples and reflects, but it's not just the water that reflects; the glass on the phone booths and the windows on the buildings reflect. The trees look good. Your hair moves, and on the the lucky girl that had a dress, her dress moved.

The avatars look nice. The interface looks nice and seems fairly simple to operate, so far as I got with it. The animations are good, although the transitions from one animation to another could be improved.

Flying works, but the flying animation is pretty bad really, and so far as I could figure, you fly at one height or not at all. Hopefully I'm wrong on that. Remember, I can't read the interface, so there could be a message on the screen that tells me how to fly at different heights and I wouldn't know.

Enough description, I'm tired. If any other English speaking Novoking tester that has received their registration code from gm@novoking.com can't get inworld and can't figure out what to do with the registration code give me a buzz and I'll see if I can help.

Novoking beta - I'm starting the Novoking beta

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:00:12 +0000

I got the Novoking beta invitation last night. I have it installed now, I think, and have clicked on what might be the shortcut for running the program. I have some screenshots of the installation process. I haven't made it into the 3D world yet.

And I don't have any more time now, I have to go to work. More later.

====== later.

Error! I suspect it's that I have an unrelated physics processing system installed. Maybe. So the installation went fine. Running Novoking produced an "always on top" screen that made taking screenshots difficult. I clicked the first button, labeled in Chinese, of course,and it appeared to open the Novoking web site. I clicked the second button, I think it was, and got an error message with the english word Physics embedded in it.

More later.

New virtual world Novoking said to go beta in September.

Sue Baskerville (SuezanneCB) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:14:42 +0000

There's a new virtual world called Novoking said to be going beta in September.

http://www.novoking.com

is the site, which is in Chinese.

It's too late to look at it tonight.