The Alphaville Herald

Robin Linden Farewell — After the Party is the After Party

by Alphaville Herald on 17/02/09 at 7:20 am

A splendid time was had by all

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

avatar scrum at the party

In what was almost certainly the in-world SLebrity event of the year, a resident-organized farewell party for Robin Linden was held friday in the packed-to-capacity Dublin2 sim. The party was an absolute classic SL-style “we are going to make this work – no matter what” event, illustrating the charms and limits of the virtual world today – and how attitude and flexibility can triumph over adversity.

While there were certain unavoidable challenges in reporting on an event of this magnitude – I had to skip lunch in RL – there were also important lessons to be learned, and a strong fin de siècle feeling in the air.

For me, the story began as I teleported into Dublin 2 a few minutes late, scanned the minimap for the cluster green dots representing the partygoers and started trudging toward them. With the crush of avatars already present, any movement was difficult, and I felt like I was walking through waist deep snow into gale force winds – but a steady  finger on the forward arrow key eventually brought me within chat range of the party.

the guest of honor – Robin Linden

The first rule of reporting in the metaverse is get some pictures fast, before you crash or are banned, so I gingerly moved my virtual viewpoint and saved screen shots to disk as fast as I could. The second rule of reporting is save the chatlogs, and between saving text chat and screenshots I had my hands full – and failed to acknowledge some shout outs from friends. But I think they understand – this is serious business, and I am a total metaverse reporter career girl.

After getting the bare minimum in text and pictures that would allow for some sort of story, I paid my respects to Robin, and was happy to hear her say she would still be around, but spending more time working on her blog – http://couldtherebewhales.blogspot.com/.

Philip Linden appears with good hair – despite most avatars looking gray

Shortly before Robin was schedule to speak, Philip Linden teleported right into the center of the avatar scrum. After some more frantic camera panning, I found him and took a few more pictures. At this point the framerate was measured in minutes rather than seconds, and the fan in my computer was starting to whine insistently that this would not end well.

Close friends join hands to bid Robin farewell

Robin used voicechat for an official farewell address, but to hear it I had to gingerly move my camera close to Robin. After a few tries I got my camera in range of the chat and heard her saying something to the effect that that resident community had been amazing.

Then the virtual microphone was handed to Philip Linden and my speakers made a rather unpleasant sound – and my SL client crashed. The fan in my computer gently cycled down while shaking its head sadly as I restarted SL.

But – bad luck for me – each time I tried to log in, SL said I was still logging out. After a few rounds of failed logins, I remembered  that the game gods in their wisdom allow us to have alt accounts – probably so we can login in exactly this sort of situation. So one of the junior Herald reporters then swung into action.

Looking at the map to teleport back to the party, interesting emergent behavior was taking place at the sim next to Dublin 2. Avatars were lining the edges of the sim – generally a sign of a sim at capacity. After a couple tries at teleporting directly into Dublin 2 failed, I teleported to the sim next door – and stumbled into the after-party.

Floating in air above the water was a growing group of refugees and alts of refugees from the crashed Dublin 2 sim. We were soon joined by Robin Linden herself, and formed a sort of avatar tag-cloud in the air. I was reminded of the Herald’s 5 year anniversary party which had a similar “griefers crash the party, but the party continues elsewhere” flavor. Perhaps that is one of the real lessons of the entire SL experience – be flexible, laugh, and move on.

avatar cloud begins to form

Tao Takashi suggested that the more important avatars in the avatar cloud would be bigger and fatter something like a web 2.0 tagcloud, and I eyed the appearance sliders for a moment, but then thought better of it. After a bit, Dizzy Banjo started streaming music, and the after-party really got rolling as I left. I understand the eventually Dublin 2 was brought back and the after-after party really took off.

A sample of the floating avatar after-party chat:

 Robin Linden: looks like the region is completely inaccessible
 Frogg Marlowe: lol – hi robin XD
 Grace McDunnough: They locked us out
 Grace McDunnough grins
 Frogg Marlowe: they've obvoiously heard of us, grace….
 Robin Linden: We'll just have to move the party here
 Grace McDunnough: LOL Frogg
 Robin Linden: We've got the entertainment!!
 Grace McDunnough: Heya Quirky!
 Quirky McArdle: hey y'all
 Quirky McArdle: so the party is in mid-air

 Robin Linden: I feel honored that so many people came by. it's hard to even put in words
 Robin Linden: I started at Linden Lab on April Fools Day (2002) and I'm leaving on Friday the 13th

 Fleep Tuque: Will you be blogging somewhere we can all stalk you when we miss you, Robin?
 Robin Linden: I have a blog, and now maybe I'll have time to write in it
 Robin Linden: I have to warn you though — it's not about SL
 Fleep Tuque: That's ok, SL is what brought us together, but it's the people, not the technology.
 Robin Linden: http://couldtherebewhales.blogspot.com/
Robin Linden: Mostly it's me trying to improve my writing
 Robin Linden: so don't laugh
 Nidol Slazar: robin I'm frapsing this, so if you see me looking up your skirt don't be alarmed
 Grace McDunnough blinks
 Tao Takashi: Robin: don't we all try that when writing in our blogs?
 Grace McDunnough: Did you just make FRAPS a verb? O.o
 Nidol Slazar: Yes :O
 Fleep Tuque: rofl
 Frogg Marlowe: it's a truism that SL brings people together as much by it's tech failures as by its successes
 Explorer Dastardly: it is the technology that brougt us a group of like minded individuals together, but what morphed from tech is a lot deeper than many can imagine
 Grace McDunnough: Indeed

 Frankie Antonioni: Where is Philip?
 Nidol Slazar: Hiding
 Boliver Oddfellow: he's fixing the grid
 Grace McDunnough: Pushing reset on the server hosting Dublin2
 Frogg Marlowe: this moment is like when everybody from town has to gather in the high places or in school gyms when a flood comes through- waiting out the storm XD
 Pixie Blessed: maybe the system is still trying to log him out
 Fleep Tuque: laugh
 Vivienne Graves: with the power of his codpiece
 Pixie Blessed: he'll have to come in on an alt
 Keystone Bouchard: yes Frogg! it does feel like that!
 Tao Takashi: maybe he is already here
 Pixie Blessed: in the hall of mirrors that is teh interwebs the world may never know
 Robin Linden: Philip had to go to a meeting

 Frogg Marlowe: what I'm finding most amusin is that all those people are over there, but with robin here, we 'outsiders' are 'where it's at'
 Pixie Blessed: Robin is an outsider too now
 Frogg Marlowe: yay!
 Qie Niangao: Frogg, I'm pretty sure all those people over there are us, all over again.
 Tao Takashi: then welcome to the outside world, Robin
 Fleep Tuque: I heard someone but my voice list is blank
 Quirky McArdle: wll, clearly this is no sort of INNER core of any sort
 Pixie Blessed: this is the floating core
 Frogg Marlowe: that was me, fleep, I'm just REALLY loud when I want to be….
 Tao Takashi: we are outsiders here in fact as the sim we want to get on is down
 Keystone Bouchard: this cloud of FIC is what is suspending us in air
 Boliver Oddfellow: we are the FIC- the flying inner corps
 Fleep Tuque: laugh where's Prok when you say that
 Explorer Dastardly: so lets all blog us hanging in thin air
 Frogg Marlowe: aw- prok's offline

 Tizzy Teardrop: Robin, isn't it a good feeling knowing that Monday morning you don't have to deal with ANY of this?

Tao Takashi: Keystone: it's just like the good old days for this occasion
 Robin Linden: checking to see if ops can do anything

 Ham Rambler: Sorry guys..we're trying to get the sim restarted
 Qie Niangao: theres Ham! Welcome back!
 Malburns Writer: oh lol – this is cool!
 Explorer Dastardly: I hope when I give my next lecture in two weeks I rock the sim, just like this

 Robin Linden: Hi – I talking with ops to see if we can get it rebooted
 Fleep Tuque: No worries, it's what makes SL an adventure.
 Tao Takashi: yeah, and ready for corporate
 Ham Rambler: indeed
 Boliver Oddfellow: back when I was putting on Sl concerts we knew it was a good party if we crashed the sim- well we did s it must be
 Robin Linden: hiya Ham!
 Robert Daguerre: avatars pack so much better in 3D
 Robin Linden: there was a small robot thing that crashed the region
 Robin Linden: when Philip and I tried to boot it we both crashed out
 Explorer Dastardly: lovely
 Pixie Blessed: I KNEW those bots were trouble!
 Hiro Pendragon: LOL
 Fleep Tuque: laugh
 Robin Linden: we'll need to make sure it's not there
 Keystone Bouchard: this really is a pretty hilarious situation we're in here…
 Robin Linden: I don't know if it's an object or an avatar
 Malburns Writer: those dang bots. eh?
 Coughran Mayo: a floating party?

 Hiro Pendragon: uh oh, Robin … maybe you've already been locked out !
 Tao Takashi: maybe a new kind of metaverse virus
 Fleep Tuque: Griefed at your going away party?! Golly
 Keystone Bouchard: all of us floating here in the sky!
 Robin Linden: heh not too surprising

 Pixie Blessed: this is much more virtual than the regular party anyway
 Boliver Oddfellow: man that was a hell of a party
 Grace McDunnough: Getting griefed is merely a right of passage
 Ham Rambler: someone streaming loud music on Voice channel when Philip started to speak
 Explorer Dastardly: agree poppa, we have the guest of honor and music
 Fleep Tuque: There's Dizzy!
 Grace McDunnough: Heya Dizz
 Pixie Blessed: griefing only happens if you care
 Hiro Pendragon: Pixie, you're wrong. And if you disagree, you prove my point
 Dizzy Banjo: lol
 Keystone Bouchard: welcome to the av cloud
 Malburns Writer: Hi Dizzy – wb
 Keystone Bouchard: we should all get into some kind of formation
 Poid Mahovlich: eheh rats a missed oppertunity I am too kind to ya Dizzy
 Keystone Bouchard: avatars as architecture…. i can see it now
 Liam Roark: yes because having your sim crashed 16 times in a day is all a matter of your attitude towards it

 Nidol Slazar: I can't even fart here :\
 Fleep Tuque: rofl
 Tao Takashi: The Goodbye Robin formation?
 Ham Rambler: I'm surprised this sim is holding up….we don't have a big prim buffer
 Pixie Blessed: I love this avatar cloud – its like a 3d tag cloud
 Frogg Marlowe: heya liam XD
 Grace McDunnough: Avatar cloud . .love that
 Ham Rambler: Hey Frogg
 Malburns Writer: good job Nidol – might power you into orbit
 Tao Takashi: Pixie: and you mean the fatter the av is the more important?
 Robert Daguerre: yeah please don't Nidol, or at least give me a chance to get outta the way.
 Fleep Tuque: Was it Voltron made of various parts?
 Pixie Blessed: exactly – fat avs rule in the cloud
 Malburns Writer: who needs the sims anyway lol – we are here
 Tao Takashi: at least they have more space
 Robert Daguerre: an avatar cloud
 Tizzy Teardrop blinks.

 Ginger Marseille: HIEveryone!!
 Grace McDunnough: Hi Ginger
 Alyx Zapedzki shouts: Hey Michi, I've been banned from luskwood for like, a year, but I've been too lazy to ask you for an unban
 Ginger Marseille: woo Hoooo! Party in the Air!!
 Nasus Dumart winds up in strange situations – like this
 Ginger Marseille: Hi Robin!!
 Explorer Dastardly: there we go
 Alyx Zapedzki shouts: On my stoklitsky account, that is
 Frogg Marlowe: I'm not banned from nearly enough sims- I must be doing something wrong…
 Nasus Dumart:
 Smitty Boyau: hi ginger
 Fleep Tuque: Yeah good luck explaining this one to non SL folks
 Smitty Boyau: Hi Ham
 Alyx Zapedzki: just say lulz and mudkips a lot
 Ginger Marseille: HI Grace, Tao, Explorer, Liam, Michi, Dizzy,
 Fleep Tuque: "Well, we're saying good bye to a dear friend by floating above Dublin."
 Liam Roark: hey
 Explorer Dastardly: grins with you grace, sounds like John Lenons song 'strange days indeed"
 Grace McDunnough: Dizzy .. remind me that we need to get you a new "hover" pose …
 Grace McDunnough laughs
 Tizzy Teardrop: I see life.
 Poid Mahovlich: lol
 Fleep Tuque: laugh
 Ham Rambler: OK while we wait..Dizzy is going to stream anyway..so turn on your music players

 Robin Linden: oh yay! Irish music

 Frogg Marlowe: this would be the most awesome place I'll've ever played in SL if we have the show here XD
 Pixie Blessed: I have to run – but thanks again for all your work Robin