Some time ago I ventured into InWorldz, curious as to just what it was like. (Consensus from more experienced adventurers is that it’s much like Second Life circa 2007 but with better freebies.)

I found it frustrating at first, with appalling lag and a lack of ideas where to go. But there was something else, something I did innocently to sabotage my InWorldz experience.

The account was in the name of Martien Pontecorvo.

This might not seem like a big deal, but Martien has a great deal of baggage. Once he wore a newbie skin and a free tuxedo, witlessly exploring the vaguely erotic offerings this virtual world had to offer. Then he purchased a cheap ‘lizard kit’, and his identity began to emerge. It wasn’t until experiencing Caledon that the gentleman steampunk Martian bloomed.

But there is also the “physical” baggage, as it were. Martien’s skin, attachments, animation override, alternate avatars, houses, texture sets… there’s an awful lot of stuff there. Martien Pontecorvo, to me, needs the skin, the tail, the antennae, the purple eyes and poses of gentlemanly decorum.

So, I’m thinking I need to do one of two things. One is to copy or remake those; the other, if I do decide to try InWorldz a bit more, is to start afresh with a new identity.

Then again, I have three already, so what could I invent for yet another? What gender? What appearance, what tastes, what produce could such a one bring?

The Second Life board game has taken a slightly retrograde step - but one that to my delight, actually worked right out of the box.

Previously, when I started, I had the sensible idea of having each seat maintain itself, sending link messages to the main script (hiding in the board prim) whenever someone mounted or dismounted. Unfortunately I didn’t understand that whenever someone did so, a changed() event was sent to all the scripts in the object, which caused Interesting Things to happen. So for a while, wanting to get shot of Interesting Things happening, I was contented by having seating and perms control handled by the one main script and one incredibly hairy-looking chunk of code.

Yes, that hairy chunk worked, but I was moving to a state-based system

Today I looked at it again and it occurred to me that, instead of four bulky and unpleasantly similar conditionals, I could have the seats asking: “Hey? That change? Was that me?” and send link messages appropriately.

And my code worked! I think there’s a little adjustment I could make which would be even more elegant, but that can wait for now. After all, for my next trick, I must not only roll the dice, but make it do something very important and cool.

You’ll find out soon.

I just deleted the frankly inactive and redundant tumblr ‘coinpursehunts’. It was only a seasonal thing, set up before I knew how hard it was to run a Second Life treasure hunt. Especially one with a nonstandard mechanic like I had.

Most of the posts were about the chickenfeathers regarding the running of it; the next four posts in my queue are pictorial memories.

All aboard the snekbus