vickie i bet ur hot

I ignored him and continued to play (casually noting to myself that I seemed to be the only person who knew how to play). After a while, I got vote-kicked. I found out they’re all friends of one another.

The sad thing of all this? I was actually surprised I only experienced this after a hundred hours or so of playing the game online, because I know I’m not alone.

Really, Straight Male Gamers^TM, is that how you want gay men to treat you, too?

So I was recently playing Alien Swarm and couldn’t help but notice something that might be of interest to you. These images were collected from different teams of self-identified male subjects within a very short period, and there’s no shortage of them.

Attached are the files in question.

P.S. Don’t get too excited, hey?

Vickie

Attachments:

Attachment 1

Attachment 2

Attachment 3

Attachment 4

Note: Quite a few resized or cropped screenshots after the cut. And as Second Life is the other virtual world I’ve actually spent enough time in, I’ll be making many comparisons throughout.

Right, so, signup. Twinity is meant to be a true-to-scale virtual replica of the real world, so not surprisingly, you can link your Facebook account to it. I initially signed up with my half-real online name (Vickie Diablos), but once I discovered that we can change our name any time by editing our profile on the website, I switched back to my common virtual world name (Naomi Skosh). So far, so good.

Twinity login screen showing a spacious living room, with the words 'A Free Starter Apartment is awaiting you' on it. There *is* a starter apartment waiting for you once you complete enough steps in the welcome tutorial, but it looks nothing like the image. Nothing.

Character customisation is as expected with sliders, and there is a tool for you to try to create your real-life face from photos. I tried it with one of my Second Life avatar’s snapshots… let’s just say I decided to use the default slider tools in the end. You’ll probably have better luck with a real photo.

Create Face from Photo Tool

But, additional character problem: Other than that sex is binary in this world as with most virtual and game worlds, I noticed that there’s no way to change your sex once you’ve chosen one when you sign up. I guess I’m spoilt by Second Life.

By the way, if you created a female character and her head-tilt and creepy smile keep getting in the way of face customisation, it’s her animation. Changing it from “confident” to anything else will stop it.

Animations panel showing available dance moves, emotions, flirt & tease and so on

Speaking of animations, you are only allowed to choose from one mood at a time. So like, you can’t stand happy, walk confident and afk flirty. I find the confident stand annoying (head tilt, creepy smile), the happy walk cheesy (skipping, seriously?), the flirty walk too unnatural, and I’d rather not be blue or drunken.

Outfit options are also limited: jackets and tops share the same layer, dresses take up both the top and bottom layers, and so on; meaning that you can’t, for example, wear a jacket over a dress.

I also can’t touch any of the clothes marked for male. This is even so for supposedly unisex items in the real world, such as vehicles. Fucking vehicles. I hope I’m not the only person who thinks this is annoying and highly problematic.

Inventory showing items marked with a 'not for female' symbol on it.

Self-expressions, why you no give me more?

On to a more positive note, I do like the Achievements system of Twinity. The Twinity currency is the Global, and you can earn a few by completing the tutorial and other available achievements, such as by exploring the world on foot, attending events, making friends and so on. This is a great idea — if you’ve been on Second Life, you’ll notice that the number one question from newbies is “How do I make money in this game[sic]?”. But this is also not a good idea — Globals will be worth very little real-life money; it’ll never be like the Linden currency in Second Life.

Achievements

And they hand out a small Berlin starter apartment clone to you after you complete the welcome tutorial regardless of your account status! Speaking of which, premium and merchant accounts are still free at the moment.

But, well, the world is still in public beta. Things will change.

Oh wow, how did I completely forget to write about the controls and camera even though that’s probably one of the first things you come across? Well, the Twinity camera? One word: terrible. You can do the normal pan around, zoom-in zoom-out thing with your mouse, and you can hold the alt key and click on a person and certain items to focus on them. But that’s pretty much all there is (that I’ve discovered).

Moving the character is done by using the arrow keys by default, but you can change that to my much more preferred WASD in the settings.

Placing objects in-world is similar to what you do in Second Life, except because the camera is so limited, it’s not as easy and fun.

Placing Objects in Twinity

Despite not being overly impressed at this stage, I dragged my Second Life meal ticket SL-equivalent It’s Complicated friend with benefits significant other on to Twinity when he came online. And once he’s relatively happy with his look (there weren’t many choices for men, according to him), we went out to explore.

London in Twinity

London, more specifically, since I might recognise some of the places. Other current cities available include: Berlin, Miami, Singapore, New York.

Picnic in London, Twinity

What I found interesting is that real estate in Twinity is based on real-life streets. If you click on a building you see on the street, you can check whether they’re renting apartments out (for real-life money).

All apartments and shops I’ve come across so far are in instances. It’s super for privacy, but not so super for shops, at least in my opinion.

But yes, unlike Second Life, mirrors in this world actually reflect! As they should!

An Actual Working Mirror!

Miscellaneous bits and pieces: I found the Event system slightly confusing at first because I thought it’s based on Twinity time, but turns out there may not be a global time, only your local time. I think. I’m still not completely sure.

“Twings”, I believe, are like Facebook’s poking and MSN/Windows Live’s nudge. I twinged my friend. He twinged me back. And I twinged him again. Yeah.

This sounds totally dirty.

TL; DR Twinity itself:

• The Achievements system makes this virtual world feel like a game, which is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. (In fact, the message says “connecting to game server” when you connect to Twinity.)
• Twinity is a true-to-scale replica (or so they claimed) of the real world, so there are real-life streets and buildings, day/night cycle is 24 hours and avatars are human (adult).
• You get a small starter apartment after you complete the welcome tutorial.
• You can easily change your name by editing your profile.
• Sex is binary. Male or female. No switching.
• Non-unisex items, including some vehicles and animations, can only be used by one sex and that one sex only. No exceptions.
• Camera needs improvement.
• Avatars in semi-populated places take forever to load for me, and I’m on a decent connection and gaming computer. But yeah, I’m connecting all the way from Australia.
• I found at least one official casino. Gambling is apparently allowed here.

Visiting the/an official casino in my latest look

TL; DR Twinity vs Second Life:

• Twinity is not Second Life.
• Twinity will not replace Second Life.
• I don’t think Twinity is trying to replace Second Life, but what do I know?

I won’t be logging in to this world a lot, but when I do, I will most likely be playing the official Quiz Game (English) and earning Globals.

Quiz Game (English)

Well, I have to show off somewhere.

On my right (your left) is my adorable brown-haired alt, PS. On my left (your right), my friend, VS… with his new barbecue.

Dude! Stop playing with the new barbecue set and pay attention!

First of all: believe it or not, and note that this is true for most people, your foot size is the same length as your forearm. Go on, try to measure your foot against the inside of your forearm. I’ll give you 30 seconds.

On SL, this is what size 0 feet wearing a pair of shoes intended for that size look like — that is on me, who’s about 1.69m (5′ 6.5″) tall on SL. In case you’re not familiar with average human anatomy, they’re too tiny. And no, this is not a camera trick.

Size 0 feet... why?

Now, if you’ve ever been on SL, you’ll notice that the average human avatar is around 3m (9′ 10″) tall. You already know you’re too tall, but you don’t realise your feet are also too tiny.

Sadly, because most people have size 0 feet, most shoes are size 0. Or the other way round. But thankfully, with shoes that are modify, we don’t have to submit. Here’s how:

(If your shoes are copy, you’ll probably want to make a copy as a backup here.)

Right click on your prim shoe and select Edit, select Stretch (or hold Ctrl+Shift or their Mac counterpart) and drag one of those white boxes until it’s the right size. Select Position (on older or third-party viewers based on older viewers) or Move (on Viewer 2) and move your shoe back into its right place.

Viewer 2 has a similar interface

Tada, perfect fit! (Hint: make sure your foot isn’t poking through your shoe from below; it’s easy to forget to check that side.)

But what if your shoe fits your foot width-wise but not length-wise and vice versa?

You and your man foot

Simple…ish! Stretch the shoe to roughly the right size as in the above step (optional), then check Edit linked parts (on older and TPVs) or Edit linked (on Viewer 2) and resize the prims individually. If you select individual prims, you can stretch them in one dimension with those coloured boxes.

Edit linked (parts)

But my shoes are no-modify!
If they come with resize scripts, scaling them up 10-20% usually look better.

But my shoes have 254 prims each!
Please stay away from me.

Before (size 0) and after (stretched prim by prim -- not very carefully, mind you)

Now bump your feet back up to a good size and join me in living with non-size 0 feet!

I don't know, VS, I don't know

The end.

Alternative entry title: How to make your Second Life unnecessarily complicated by not following the norm.

P.S. You should totally come visit our SL home.

I so l33t even my total play time for the week agrees

So, like, I guess this is the post where I lose my last 2 subscribers.

Oh. Wait. One is myself.

What was I greeted with on the first day I re-logged in? Well, what else?

TP goes to a sex animation section

May I suggest dictionary.com? ??????????

And of course the bajillion people who have little clue about tasteful body proportions.

I was also this close to upgrading and buying a Linden Home because this time I actually have a semi-plan to use the house, unlike last time when I randomly jumped on a cheap non-Linden land deal and was greeted by a chatty neighbour who made a lot of small talk and spent a lot of time having a lot of virtual sex with a lot of sound effects with her male companion in her/their home, so I ended up leaving the ground barren and mostly hid in my skybox building random things and testing animations… And it just totally dawned on me that having a semi-plan to use the land kind of has nothing to do with the neighbours you get.

But anyway, say hi if you have a Second Life too, yeah? *crickets*

智源[月影] Legendary Survivor (3) & 遊俠娜奧美[月影] Indomitable Survivor (2)

RIP, 智源2.0, your death will never be in vain. Or something

And that’s right, 智源3.0, I chose this screenie out of the 65 others I took. You’re welcome. (◎ ▽ ◎)

[Brighter and glowy screenshots are ones with filtering turned on (max); darker and more jagged ones without.]

Game installed fine, ran fine, music and sound effects all zero by default but I immediately had the option to change everything on the character selection screen. So far so good! Until… character creation.

From left to right: Titan, Knight, Healer, Mage, Rogue, Sorcerer

What you see in the screenshot is almost all of what you get — your class is dependent on your sex. Muscly / melee = men; magical / agile = women; oh no too many females, let’s make the Sorcerer male. *rolls eyes* But Vickie, potential castle sieges! You must play on!

Mysterious fourth customisable characteristic?

There seems to be a reserved fourth customisable characteristic, though. Different sex for different class eventually, possibly?

And so I put class aside and picked whoever looked the most appealing to me. Much like Lineage II, customisation of appearance is very limited.

I created a Mage (who reminds me of Dark Elves from Lineage II)

Heh, I’m a little predictable.

After a short personal dungeon (instanced), I made it to the main town Randol and was soon killing foxes and wolves. I think the monster animation needs a bit of rework since the distance they travel doesn’t match their strides (Is there a technical term for this?). But I keep reminding myself that this is a free game.

And there are castle sieges.

The maps (W or alt+W) are quite helpful and you can ask pretty much any NPC for direction to another NPC. NPCs with quests (Q) and quest rewards (A) are clearly marked, both on the maps and on the NPCs themselves. Teleporting to most main towns are free as well.

The game has something else I’ve really loved from Lineage II that’s also missing in Guild Wars — running all over the place and climbing hills. My character may need glasses / binoculars, though (visual distance was set to the highest).

Overlooking Randol... half of it

I met up with the online friend in the game soon. She informed me that the highest level was 145 (at the time of writing). That’s right, one hundred and frigging forty five levels. She also told me about the Guardian system (Status [T or alt+T] > Action, Social > Action > Guardian system), in which the apprentice gains a shiny weapon while the guardian gains reputation points on the condition that the former reaches level 20 in 10 days.

Revisiting the same place, now with filtering effect and new armour and weapon

We decided that it’s win for both of us if she power-levelled me, so I chose her as my guardian and soon dinged 20, got a shiny weapon, leeched enough money from the level 100+ mobs she fought to get some level-appropriate but equally revealing armour… and we’re off on our own merry ways.

Monsters (and players?) leave blood on the floor when they die in a personal dungeon, by the way. I can’t tell whether it’s awesome or unnecessary.

Blood on floor

Later, I met a princess in a personal dungeon, who, of course, needs to be saved because princesses’ sole existence is to be saved.

(My eyes might fall out if I keep rolling them like this.)

I'll save you. I'll save you NAO.

But…

Nao Princess is not looking at my face

What the quest didn’t tell you is that not only does Nao Princess not have any fighting power, she also doesn’t have any HP regeneration, ability to self-heal, dodge enemies or respond to YOU’RE STANDING IN MY FUCKING WAY either.

Without any planning and still noobish at the game thanks to being power-levelled, the rescue mission resulted in much fail.

You have failed quest [Rescue the Princess]

Anyway.

Similar to Lineage II (again), you learn skills by spending the SP you gained from killing stuff. And still similar to Lineage II, there’s never enough SP to use if you fight the natural way. In this game, though, you lose both XP and SP when you die. Therefore, in order to get enough SP, we might just have to do this:

1. Kill stuff with high SP-to-XP ratio to gain XP and SP.
2. Use SP to learn skills, preferably down to 0.
3. Suicide; lose normal amount of XP but 0 SP because you have none.
4. Repeat from step 1.

Tada! SP farming.

Coloured dragons

More things to note:

1. The screen holds for 2 seconds when you take a screenshot. Not cool.
2. There are mounts: horses (quite realistic if they’re not funky-coloured) and dragons.
3. Magic skills take a while to start casting and sometimes I can’t tell whether I hit or missed.
4. There also seems to be some sort of safe zones (near entrances of towns and outside dungeon rooms?) where your attacks fail and monsters stop chasing / won’t attack you. The zone isn’t clearly marked so it can be quite annoying for ranged players, especially spell casters.
5. Aside from the personal dungeons, everything else reminds me of Lineage II.
6. This game really reminds me of Lineage II.

And this game seriously very much reminds me of Lineage II. The UI, the music, the skills, the social actions, monster level difference equals different monster name colour (exactly the same as Lineage II’s), the grind… But I haven’t played enough of these games to tell whether this system is Lineage II-inspired or just a typical (Korean) grind game thing.

I guess I’d recommend this game to hardcore gamers who wanted to try something like Lineage II but can’t find a good private server, don’t want to pay to play, or don’t quite have the hardware for it. This game is absolutely not for casual gamers.

Me? I don’t see myself getting addicted to it, but I might play on since I have a thing for grinding.

And that, my friend, is Last Chaos and the last mid-semester break of my degree.

If you’re like the rest of us, particularly those of us who run around with a Chinese character name but are absolutely and obviously not a bot or gold farmer, it’s not uncommon to encounter personal attacks from racists, even in the supposed safety of our own PVE district (Asia – Traditional Chinese).

3 months ago, I had these two Warriors in the Traditional Chinese district of Leviathan Pits, that came doing the taunt, point, shoo and laugh emotes as soon as I mapped in. Bear in mind that players have the complete freedom and choice to travel between any districts of the same area — their intentions were clear.

The exchange they probably expected:

Racist #1 taunts you.
元氣娜奧美 (my Warrior’s name): excuse me
Racist #1 taunts you.
Racist #1 taunts you.
Racist #2: sorry i dont speak freaky deeky
Racist #1: HAHAHA
Racist #1: pwnd
元氣娜奧美: 阿 怎麼辦 我不太會說英文耶…

What happened in reality:

What can I say? I’m a fast typist. You’d think that my “excuse me” would tip them off, too. Way to unintentionally pwn your own friend-in-crime.

As if failing like that wasn’t embarrassing enough, though, one of them then said:

Which is horrible Spanish, according to a friend’s friend who speaks Spanish. Why am I not surprised that it translates so well into English in an online translator?

But that’s not all! When I asked them if they’re aware that they’re in the Traditional Chinese district, they added a bold declaration that would make Freud proud!

(Adrian Victoria is my friend who’s actually also American.)

And then I reported them. Sadly, a few days off Guild Wars during the weekdays likely had little effect on them.

Oh look, it’s not just English-speaking players who would “accidentally” land in the Traditional Chinese district and “accidentally” type out loud, either.

And they’re only the milder racists in PVE.

You have no idea what it’s like to PVP if you have a Chinese name.