A fellow who goes by the handle of Lordfly Digeridoo just posted video of a rapid architectural prototype he did in the virtual world of Second Life. As the real-world location of this development was a 16-acre parcel in Ypsilanti, at the intersection of Forest and Norris, I thought that a few of you might find it of interest. Anyway, the video is cool. (The video compresses one week of work into ten minutes.) I can’t quite get my bearings from the video, but either he’s building over the ruins of the Corner Brewery, or the proposed development is across the street, at what had been the old Motor Wheel facility. Unfortunately, it appears as though the project was just done as an academic assignment (I suspect either at UM or EMU), so I don’t expect that it’ll lead to any real life construction mirroring what now exists in cyberspace. Regardless, I think it’s incredibly cool what these tools are capable of in the right hands… If anyone is aware of other sections of Ypsilanti being built-out in Second Life, drop me a line. I’m curious to know what’s going on behind the mirror.
[This post was going to be much different when I first set out to write it. It was going to be called “What the Fuck is Going on at the Ypsilanti School Board,” but then I got distracted by this artificial world, which, to be quite honest, is much more appealing right now.]
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That’s some impressive work– I grant him that. Yet, I must be too old, ’cause I don’t “get” that whole “Second Life” thing…. Always seemed to me that most SLers need a “First Life” or maybe a “real” life instead… Now excuse me, as I send some more exploding sheep against my enemy’s gate, in “World of Warcraft!”
Hey, thanks for your interest in my video :)
The site is a project for the capstone class in Eastern Michigan’s urban planning program. It’s all conceptual, but we’ll be proposing our class’s plans in the next few weeks to the community at large.
Regarding the site… we are indeed tasked with redeveloping the Motorwheels site. The video has a few fleeting glances of the Corner Brewery, which is about the only recognizable building in the entire area after we’re done with it :P
The project inside Second Life was merely temporary; it has been taken down, as I was essentially cyber-squatting on a friend’s island with the work. Keeping it up would cost upwards of $5000/year, and with me being a college student, that’s a bit out of my price range. :)
So much for my plan to promote the old motorwheel as a Jellystone Park.
(It already has the same concrete-to-wildlife ratio as most Jellystone Parks. All we’d need is a swing sets and a couple fire rings.)
Today’s “Ann Arbor News” tried to get at what was going on with the Ypsi School Board. You can check it out here.
And thanks for the background, Lordfly.
I know there’s a Jellystone joke just out of my reach and it’s really pissing me off.
Here are some WoW leveling tips that you really want to live by whenever you are leveling. It has helped me out a lot since I started playing and I know they will greatly benefit everyone as well.
Tip #1: Stick with a mixture of grinding and questing. One or the other by itself will probably slow down your progress but a nice mixture of both you can achieve the levels you want the fastest. There are tons of guides out there that will show you which quests to do, when to grind, and where to grind.
Tip #2: Grab as many quests as possible whenever in a town and don’t return until they are all completed. This cuts down on travel time and it really is a lot of fun turning in 5-9 quests at the same time!
Tip #3: Stay focused and have a game plan before logging in. For some people this really isn’t a problem but, I know for me and some of my friends, it really can be hard to focus on leveling and I know I have lost many hours of valuable leveling time due to not having a game plan setup before playing. With a plan of action it really is harder to get side tracked by the auction house, PvP, etc.
This is spam, right?
Interestingly, Virtual Canton looks LESS phony than the actual Canton. The restaurants are considerably better too. You know you’re in Virtual Canton because the roads and sidewalks are even, level, continuous, adequate for their traffic, and appear well maintained. It’s really a very poor simulation in so many ways.
The randomized “auto-gen” scenery generator on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 does a better job of urban planning along Ford Road, in a split second, every time you might wander into the airspace above Canton, than Canton Township Government ever did. It’s unfortunate that the Canton Township Board of Trustees wasn’t simply comprised of seven avatars from Sim City or Second Life all through the 80s and 90s. Things would have turned out a lot better.