Chicken Drama?

There is Chicken Drama whirling around the interweb and Drama Dolls is here to help. :) If you drop by the store on Taylor Bay right now you'll find the Chicken Breeder:

and to be fair, the Chicken Farmer:

and the Chicken Reseller.

As always, these animated and interactive Dolls are designed to help you get closure on all that drama without having to resort to public scenes, trolling or violence. Enjoy!

Return of the Tower

I've been working away in my skybox workshop which is not a very comfortable place - imagine standing inside a white box and you'll get the idea. :) But it's a workshop not a home and I've explained before that I'm a nester. There isn't room on the island for my castle - unless I do a lot of terraforming and I like having all that water so I didn't want to do that. However, this is an opportunity to once again use my Wizard's Tower by Lux Zhukovsky. I really enjoy her work and if you haven't seen it go visit her store Darklings!

I have perfect spit of land for the tower and managed to get it setup. It took a few tries because I haven't rezzed one in over 18 months but once I recompiled the script in Mono it worked. :) Now I have a great view of the island: Aintree Gardens

Jon's Mustang Trading Post and, of course, Drama Dolls and their cute cousins the Doll Cozies.

I left the really high ground to the Planetarium by Rika Watanabe.

I have a lot of landscaping and furnishing to do but I think it looks pretty good on the island. :)

What do the Rezzables consider serious?

A phrase in the Rezzables' announcement of their SimBot irked me. I mean I'm sure it's all innocent and they're being unfairly maligned for wanting to share this revolutionary new product - one which not only slices and dices, it backs up all of the products of your brilliant and cutting edge mind. The fact that it also takes stuff that doesn't belong to you is just a small annoyance and totally not intended to cause grief for anybody.

But that phrase "serious content creators" is bothersome. This product is intended for the use of "serious content creators". It is intentional and the variation of it that is used in the comments under the original announcement i.e., "serious builders" is not an improvement. So I had to think about what exactly the almighty Rezzables might mean by "serious". I mean it's obvious the product isn't expected to be useful to all content creators - just the "serious" ones. So I decided to analyze the situation and attempt to try and decipher the real meaning behind the phrase. Allow me to share my conclusions:

• I think it's fair to stipulate that, because the product would be intended for "serious content creators" and it was built for them, the Rezzables consider themselves "serious content creators".

• I think it's also fair to assume that they don't consider me a "serious content creator". After all they've never heard of me. True I spent more than a year assembling my first product line. I just spent 3 months doing nothing but developing my recent product. But I don't think it's just focus, effort and/or quality that they are considering in the "serious content creator" category.

• Maybe you have to own a minimum number of sims - but then all the land barons would qualify and that's just not possible.

• So maybe it's a minimum level of revenue. But then the Rezzables wouldn't qualify so that would be silly.

• Maybe you have to value your content highly enough that you would want to back it up. But if you valued your content that much you wouldn't want a tool out there that others could use to steal what you have created. In fact, I think that would be the antithesis of a "serious content creator".

• Maybe if I go back and analyze the original motivation behind the product. They built it to back up their sims for a move to their new open sim. A virtual "moving van" if you will. In fact, the reason the product doesn't care if you own the content you're copying is because they didn't need that control. So perhaps "serious content creators" are the ones planning to depart for as yet undiscovered worlds. This has possibilities.

• Consider as well their pursuit (an admirable one I might add) for revenue. They have this bright (I assume) shiny (I assume) new toy for everybody to play with in the form of their new virtual world. I mean I assume they want other people to go there - otherwise it's just a weird technology based form of masturbation.

So .............. maybe a "serious content creator" refers to people moving to other worlds and, for the purposes of Rezzable revenue, the Rezzable world in particular (I'd put in a link but I don't have one and this is all speculation anyway. ).

If that conclusion is correct then, based on the design of the product, we also need to expand the definition of "content creator" to include somebody who creates content by copying in this world and pasting in another one. Note that the content in this world does not have to be theirs. Once it is in the other world they can claim creation rights and get a gold star. A "serious content creator" would be somebody who copies an entire sim of content in this world and pastes it in another one. Wow think how many gold stars you'd get for that!

Either the Rezzables believe that a "serious content creator" doesn't want to remain on SL .... or they believe that builders will want to prove that they are "serious content creators" by buying something that other people will use to rip them off. Some residents accuse them of being arrogant, self-absorbed and/or spiteful. Whatever the truth may be, in this case I have to agree with the Rezzables. I am not their version of a "serious content creator" however they define it and I will not be in the market for this product.

Refugee Duck?

The ducks have settled in just fine on Taylor Bay, however, a third duck seems to have migrated here. She claims to be from Edloe and wants refugee status because the previous owner kept reading duck recipes! I've offered her protection of course. Just nobody tell the Robot eh?

Vacation Interruptus

It's been a 3 month project to get Drama Dolls going and the work is not done yet. However, my inventory is a complete mess and I needed to take a break just to slowly organize it. So I thought I'd go to a little grass shack on the beach I know - one with palm trees and the soothing sounds of gentle waves. An inworld vacation if you will. However, when I got there ............

Honestly, Wrath you could warn a person you know!

Moving Day - again!

I decided that it doesn't make any sense for me to rent 1/4 of Woodbridge when I spend all my time fussing with Taylor Bay. So I am leaving the 5 Islands (which are really 9 islands, it has something to do with new math). I've loved having my castle here - it's a stress free/hassle free place with a reasonable level of insanity within a decent proximity mixed with some really cool creative builds. However, it's time to leave.

If you're looking for a great piece of land to rent then I strongly recommend that you visit Woodbridge and contact Dedric Mauriac, a true gentleman and a scholar. :)

I did leave one reminder on a neighbour's parcel. Now to figure out how to fit a Steampunk Castle into a skybox. :)

Streaming inworld - finally!

I won't bore you with the lengthy and complicated process I went through to create the long and short video demos of the Kajira doll. I will say that, after 4 days, the combination of AutoScreen , WindowsMovieMaker and the ImToo Mpeg Encoder worked for me.

Once I had the shorter video on Youtube I then had to make it work inworld. Gack! I followed every instruction a gazillion times. Cris tried a few twenty dozen times. Although the unnatural and uncomfortable positions I put myself in were, no doubt, entertaining to any passing voyeurs - we were not successful.

Finally I decided to seek out one of those tv's that stream youtube videos inworld. I don't know what magic they have that isn't included in the instructions for the rest of us but they work. I bought one and set it up in the store, carved out a small parcel around it and restricted sound to that area. Now this shorter video plays for anybody who comes in. I'm seriously exhausted - although I haven't done much but sit at this desk all week. :)

This is the shorter video demo which (I hope) is available at Drama Dolls.

A Drama Dolls "How To" Video

It's too long I think. But, considering the handstands, backflips and summersaults I had to perform to produce this video ..... well I'll live with it until I can produce a better one. :)

This is to be available in the Drama Dolls store to answer the most frequent question asked - "how do the dolls work?".

Got Drama?

Have you been dissed in SecondLife? Had a lover cheat on you? Or maybe a perfect stranger held you up to public ridicule by posting your photo on a blog and making fun of your hair/skin/shape or clothes?

Well now you have an alternative to stalking behaviour or public scenes. You can have your pain acknowledged by the perpetrator and, most importantly, get a heartfelt apology.

Drama Dolls are animated and interactive! Give the doll the name of the person you wish to confront, tell them how you feel and sneer at their responses. Then when you have fully expressed the pain you have experienced, get an apology which clearly explains how they were in the wrong. Once the apology is complete the evil one receives their just reward.

There are many types of dolls available. For example, the above photo includes a Slebrity, Vampires and the dreaded Fuginistas (the Fuginisto is coming, he's still getting dressed). There are also Bloggers, Elves, Neko's, regular SL Men and Women and more. The range of dolls is extensive, although not yet exhaustive, but more will be added on an ongoing basis.

We have attempted to capture the essence of the various genres within SecondLife and Cris Lefavre has animated them in ways appropriate to their character.

There are two basic He and She Dolls. The next level up in terms of animations and dialogue are the wooden dolls, followed by the porcelain dolls.

The elite dolls are, of course, the Royals. The Drama Queens, Drama Kings and the Homosexual Theater Performance Monarchs (HTPM for short - and thank you to Raul Crimson for their title). Because Drama knows no boundaries, all of the dolls will converse in ten languages: English, French, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese.

There is also a positive side to drama - to assist you in that area we have the Doll Cozies.

Both of the Cozies deliver your message to your friend/lover/partner/spouse with a heartfelt hug. The doll with a posie in its hand also gives you a little extra in the way of animation and a pot of matching flowers.

Come and see how Drama Dolls can help you get through all of the various emotional ups and downs of SecondLife.