One of the Wild West Roleplaying simulations I’ve studied, Tombstone, now has a web presence. It’s interesting to step back and compare their online community to several others I’ve discussed in previous entries. One of the most surprising things to me is how ambivalent members of these roleplaying communities are of other communities. [...]
I’ve recently become aware of Old West muds and moos that predate the historical roleplaying I’ve observed in Second Life by five years. Moos and muds are text-based virtual worlds that became popular in the early 90’s; Second Life is sometimes referred to as a “graphical mud.” So far I’m aware of two different [...]
As previously mentioned, Native American roleplaying in Second Life is a very popular. In order to understand the Sigil Tribe, I’m exploring active Native American RP sims. Last night I visited La Tribu for the first time, a French-speaking Native American roleplaying sim. (Some background: I don’t speak French, so the [...]
The most recent addition to the Sigil Archive introduces Native American roleplaying in Second Life, specifically the Sigil Tribe. There are several Native American roleplaying tribes in Second Life, including one that speaks entirely in French. I’ve uploaded a set of guidelines, as well as tribe rules that were used by the Sigil [...]
In her 2005 presidential address to the American Studies Association, Karen Halttunen delivered a speech that would be published in American Quarterly the following year, entitled “Groundwork: American Studies in Place.” She discussed the “disneyfication” of American place-making; the replacement of reality with an idealized vision that engenders racism and sexism. What occurs [...]
We must take steps to preserve virtual worlds, or their histories may be lost forever. With the increasing popularity of virtual worlds such as Second Life, an incredible amount of user-generated content has been created within these worlds – avatars, houses, clothes, games, and animations among other things. The establishment of subcultural groups [...]
Tombstone is a Wild West RP sim in Second Life that popped up shortly after Sigil became a ghost town. Here is a short video I put together (this was my first cinematographic attempt in SL). Take the music with a grain of salt – I thought it would be funny. Unfortunately [...]
Sigil has been bought by virtual real estate mogul Anshe Chung, whose company Dreamland is selling the sim for 500,000 linden. You can also rent it for 112,000 linden/month. For those who don’t use Second Life, the cost to buy the land translates to roughly $1,880 US currency. Anshe was the first Second [...]
As discussed in a previous entry, I’ve been researching Sigil, a Western simulation in Second Life that no longer exists. Rather than sit on a goldmine (pun intended) of information, I’ve established an online archive that makes this lost world visible. At the time of writing this, I have the first two issues of [...]
Through role-playing, Second Life users created the Arizona town of Sigil set in the period 1860-1890. Sigil was the first, and most-developed Second Life Western role-playing simulation. Make note that it was a simulation of the West, not the Arizona town itself; Sigil was a fictitious town created from the imaginations of users [...]