The Alphaville Herald

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Dawning of the Age of Metaverse Enlightenment
by Dr. Ocularis, Herald Book Club

As we survey the broad sweep of the last two and a half millennia of Western culture, several efforts stand out as “Great Books” of this tradition — The Bible, Plato’s Republic, and Aristotle’s Poetics, for example. Is it not time to add to [...]

TSO Failure Analysis (reprinted)

RIP TSO
Many of you have heard the sad but perhaps inevitable news that TSO will close its doors permanently on August 1. Many Second Lifers began their travels in the metaverse on TSO and this newspaper began there as well as The Alphaville Herald. From the very first weeks of our covering TSO [...]

Fox Making Movie from EA’s Sims Game

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Peter Gilstrap reports in Variety that 20th Century Fox is planning to make a a live-action movie of The Sims, after purchasing the feature rights from Electronic Arts. The script is still being written, and the talent is presently unnamed, but there are some clues in a quote from Rod [...]

Is Ginko’s Alleged Ponzi Game About to Implode? Will Linden Lab be Held Liable?

The Journal of the Business Law Society at the University of Illinois College of Law is running a well documented article on Second Life’s Ginko corporation, which claims to have the equivalent of $475,000 US invested in it but which some have called a ponzi scheme, Meanwhile, Philip Linden has comparedGinko to the Grameen [...]

Home for the Holidays

By Dyerbrook, Dept. of Family Holiday FunYes, home is the place, where…when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Tired of lag, grey squares, missing textures, bots, bits, and bobs? There’s always The Sims Online, home for many of us who write, read, and comment on the Herald.
TSO is where [...]

LL’s Metaverse Swoons At 16,000 Logins

Residents enjoy saturated network, sim crashing, intermittent teleports
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs deskLinden Lab today admitted to performance problems that might have rendered the grid nearly un-usable for at least a few users who wanted to do something other than sit in one place and share lagged-out IM and chat over the last several days. [...]

TSO Shocker – Urizenus Sklar Part of Sim Shadow Government

by Pixeleen Mistral, Internal Affairs Unit
Anya Ixchel’s interview of Herald founder Urizenus Sklar in SLatenight ends with a shocking revelation – Uri confesses that while in The Sims Online he was a secret part of the Sims Shadow Government – a vigilante group that appointed itself to police the TSO world – and a frequent [...]

Three Years of the Herald! Come Celebrate, October 26.

You love it, you hate it, you wrap your pixelated fish in it, but there’s just no avoiding the Second Life Herald. Though things looked rocky a while back, the Herald has soldiered on, revivified by the bloodhound instincts of new Herald managing editor Pixeleen Mistral, and recently re-joined by Herald founder Urizenus Sklar. Now [...]

New Crimes, New Punishments

The New Scientist is running an article in its May 20th edition all about crime and punishment in the virtual world — one of the Herald’s favorite subjects. In fact, most of the piece could have been ripped from the Herald headlines — and probably was. Of course, it features yet another interview with mafia [...]

Teh Clones Invade Friendster

Loyal readers of the Herald may recall several episodes of cloning that took place back when the Herald had its HQ in The Sims Online. Most notable was the episode involving a toon named Lead Architect, who was impersonated by a scammer named Lead Archeticht, who used the original’s good name to abscond with unsuspecting [...]