The Alphaville Herald

Bad Bots! Computer characters mugged in virtual crime spree

There is a really interesting article in New Scientist about a guy in Japan using bots to mug other players on Lineage II and then of course selling the loot for RL currency. The culprit running the bots — a Chinese exchange student — was arrested. By RL Police. Cool.

Text Rulez!

Richard Bartle paid a visit to the SL Future Salon last week, under the sponsorship of Salon Host with the Most, SNOOPYBrown Zamboni, and of course the usual salonistas. I was busy fishing for walleyes at the Herald hunting retreat in northern Minnesota, but there is a transcript on Terra Nova, and a review by [...]

Post Mortem: A Brief History of the Simcast Project

One year ago, tired of the usual diet of naked bingo, scripting classes and fetishware malls, I was flying aimlessly in SL when I happened upon a castle on a large island in Quat, with what looked like a gigantic spoon out front — no it was half spoon and half spatula and was resting [...]

Herald Phunnies #3

Post Six Grrrl Susan Deckard

The Herald is happy to bring you this week’s Post Six Grrrl, Susan Deckard! Susan works hard as the manager of the ManHunt Mall, which is owned by another recent Post Six Grrrl, Elaine Marlowe. My thanks go out to Marilyn Murphy, the publisher of Players Magazine for these wonderful pictures and those of all [...]

Protest Continues as Former Gigas Officer Removed from Ouranos. By Lindens.

by Prokofy Neva Hank Ramos, a former GIGAS Group mall investor battling other GIGAS officers in a dispute that led to Linden Lab’s seizure of their land, continued his protest in the Ahern Welcome Area last night about a new development in his land-grab saga — his summary removal from the officers of Ouranos group, [...]

The Messenger’s Message: There’s A New Newspaper in Second Life

No, the Herald hasn’t gone to a broadsheet format. The picture above is cropped from the positively newspaper-sized new entrant into Second Life’s fourth estate, the Metaverse Messenger, which launched today. A weekly that will start at six pages, the Messenger is the brainchild of Katt Kongo , an SL avatar with RL journalism experience [...]

Permabanned??? Did Xaph get the Moe Linden Special?

Permabanned? Virtual Brutus, Xaphon Mendicant, in Happier Times According to a number of reliable sources, Xaphon Mendicant has been either banned or permabanned for his role in the betrayal of the Space Monkey Corporation and the theft/liberation of its land in Jessie. Since his actions only involved using his privileges as a group officer to [...]

SL Phunnies #2

Sleeze! Sleezywood Contest Brings out Dregs of SL Society

by Trailer Park Prok Sleezywood, a highly-popular building contest for the trailer trash set, opened to wild applause yesterday at high noon game-time for judging. Clutching clipboards, hard-hatted Jamie Otis and mush Caldera, owners of the private island and sponsors of the contest, announced winners (see below) and started shopping car races by 3:00 p.m. [...]