Update on this idea

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:35 am

Just curious if anyone would be interested in the following:

I play Second Life online. If you don't know what it is, do a Google and check it out. It's free (or as free as you want it to be) and it's got a worldwide community.

Basically, you have an avatar that you can make look however you like, you can build starships, cars, buildings, weapons, whatever you like, and spawn them inworld to interact with.

Personally, I have countless spaceships and space stations that I play with regularly there. The problem is, Second Life sucks as a flight simulator/space simulator. However, Evochron does not.

If there was enough interest, I could build a space station there, accesible only to members of the Evochron community. You could click the "SLURL" of the starbase from a browser to start Second Life and teleport directly there. (What I'd really like is to be able to dock with a certain space station in Evochron and have it do that for you... just planting seeds, Vice)

Anyway, the point of this would be for Evochron players to (albeit with a second application) have actual avatars that can interact outside of their spaceships. Second Life has built in voice chat, as well as numerous combat and RP systems (FPS type) I could potentially design the station in such a way that each person would have his own docking bay, and your ACTUAL SHIP from Evochron would be right there for you, with a door to walk inside and pour yourself a drink, or whatever. Or, if somebody just shot you down in game, walk into the cantina and blow his head off with your hand phaser.

All of this is possible, it would just require a lot of work, and possibly a small amount of money on my part. But I'd be willing to do it if there was enough interest.

Comments, suggestions?

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 6:38 am

It's an interesting idea. I don't know if I'd go in for having the applications linked in any way, but I am not opposed to a group of EL players doing avatars and getting together in an SL rendition of an Evochron station. That would be nutty.

You can do role-play in SL: it's one of the main pasttimes there. Let us know where to go, I think there might be more than two of us who would be interested.

Of course, the fun part is figuring out who is whom.

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 9:42 pm

Since I didn't get much response, I went a different route. I have built a large space station in Second Life now, but it's not an Evochron model, per se. If more people are interested, I would still be willing to do so, but it would require money, as I'm already paying for my land as it is.

But more importantly, there's a new technology in Second Life that will make the above concept a whole lot cooler. It's still in development by a 3rd party, but should be out in a matter of weeks. What it will do is allow you to place a "computer screen" inside Second Life, of whatever size you like, and it will be a fully functional virtual remote desktop.

You can do anything on this desktop that you can do on your real one. Which means, you can put a "viewscreen" on the command deck of whatever kind of starship you'd like to make, and you can play Evochron inside Second Life, sitting in the captain's chair, while others can sit in the cockpit beside you and watch the action, etc.

Essentially, if your computer can handle it, Second Life will in fact provide the "walking avatar" function that several folks have requested.

I'm not sure how much of a footprint this thing is going to have, but the demos thus far have shown a person running Second Life inside Second Life, with a pretty decent framerate. I guess that would actually be a Third Life.

But anyway, I'm following the development, and will post when the plugin is released. The plugin will be free, to my knowledge, but you will need to provide your own virtual desktop software to access it.

cheops · Post by **cheops** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:37 pm

I like the idea very much, I am into role playing and this might be great fun. I must have missed your first post during my forced down time.

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:35 pm

I'm actually giddy at the prospect of what this will be able to do.

If players built their ships in Second Life, full size, they could park them beside each other in "space" (I have a space sim suitable for this) and dogfight in Evochron multiplayer. At which point, a player could announce that he's sending a boarding party.

His buddies could then spacewalk over to the enemy ship in Second Life, blow the door, and shoot it out on the interior of the ship.

Although Second Life sucks as a flight sim, the first person shooter combat is not bad at all. They also have lightsaber and martial arts fighting systems, as well. With Evochron handling the space flight, the combination could potentially be the holy grail of space sims.

BTW - for those that are on SL already, here's a SLURL to my existing space sim. This will take you to the dance club in the bottom of the space station. The hangar is currently empty, as I used up all my prims on the living quarters, but you can temp rez a ship if you have one. There are asteroids to shoot at outside. I suggest setting your environment to midnight.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hyralios/232/192/22

[Edited on 9-20-2009 by Zaphod]