Saturday, October 18, 2008

Sun Inc Second Life Browser Viewer (Beta)

Another Japanese company which has comitted itself to virtual worlds is Sun Inc. They have released a first second life viewer for mobilephone since the end of 2007 (which is similar to vollee) and one for PC in June this year. You know, there are some second life viewers on web browser(Ajax Life is a famous one), but with this vieuwer you can log in to second life with streaming images.

Unfortunately, this java-based viewer is written in Japanese, so let me introduce. At first, visit the website and click the yellow button to launch the viewer.

Put your first name, last name, password into fields then click the button next to the fields(buttons are "login", "clear" from left). At this time, the viewer only supports HTTP connection. So I recommend you to use your ALT account for your security.

After logging in, you can find text field to chat and "say" button next to the field. 4 buttons below are "Close","Map","Search" and "Logout". Use the cursor key to move around, page up key to fly. You can't control your camera position.

OK? So let me teleport to rezzable. Click "search" button and put "rezzable" into field. Then double clicking on "Greenies Home Rezzable" from the result will let you go to the SIM.

Right/left click is enabled. This means that you can touch objects, show the pie menu and show edit dialog. Touching key "i" will let you show your inventory.

It's amazing that you can use second life with real time rendering within a webbrowser if you only have low spec PC.

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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Brussels Airlines: Subtle and Smart

Hundreds of companies are trying to understand the Metaverse and find a use for 3D environments that has meaning to their business. Most of them have failed... for now.

Last year I stumbled upon the website and blog B-Places, which basically is a guide to the toprated places in Second Life. Second Life residents rate the places they've visited and the website shows the sims to visit. An excellent move, even more so if you know that B-Places is powered by Brussels Airlines, a Belgian airliner.

The B-Places formula fits neatly into the corporate communications which uses the B-.... terminology a lot (see inset of b-flex economy) and what do you do when you're an airliner and get down to the Metaverse?

Exactly, an airline's core business is to bring people from place to place. In the virtual world however, you don't need transportation. You can just teleport. Airliners have become obsolete. Yet Brussels Airlines knows that bringing people from place to place is just a means to a goal. It is actually about people going to destinations. So if you can't do the transportation part, focus on the destinations. That's exactly what the B-Places directory does.

Here's a short promovid on YouTube:




Here's a snapshot of the website:


Toprated places in Second Life are the Botanical Gardens, but also Rezzable's Greenies and the Caribbean are among the citizens favorites. To me this is a very succesful and creative way to experiment with virtual worlds. It isn't outright branding, but subtle and smart.

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Nokia: Connecting Communities

Many telecom companies have ventured into Second Life in the past year. Usually they've played with the environment without much success. Once I noticed the Nokia sim and went over for a quick visit, my first impression was that it wasn't much different then what the other Telco's have done. The longer I stayed, the more positive I got though.

There are several Nokia Islands to be found, usually the Nokia-Siemens combination, but these aren't accessible. yet. This blog will focus on the Nokia island, in a later stadium I may blog Nokia Italia, which focusses on the Nokia Trendlabs.

"Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation, focused on wired and wireless telecommunications, with 112,262 employees in 120 countries, sales in more than 150 countries and global annual revenue of 51.058 billion euros as of 2007. It is the world's largest manufacturer of mobile telephones: its global device market share was about 40% in Q4 of 2007. Nokia produces mobile phones for every major market segment and protocol, including GSM, CDMA, and W-CDMA (UMTS).

Nokia's subsidiary Nokia Siemens Networks produces
telecommunications network equipments, solutions and services.

Nokia plays a very large role in the economy of Finland: it is by far the largest Finnish company, accounting for about a third of the market capitalization of the Helsinki Stock Exchange (OMX Helsinki) as of 2007. "
(Wikipedia)


The first thing I received on the island which opened in february was a notecard which read:


Welcome to Nokia Island!


Have fun and relax!


Visit the beach and take a swim, and get a yourself a brand new free Jetski!


HOLODECK FUN!


Enjoy the spectacular experience of being inside a real Holodeck.


VIRTUAL DEVICES


You can view some models is the shop, from where you can 'Zoom in' on the object in the designated productrooms. Use the Shop sign to return to the store.


(Note the immense typo in the virtual devices part - I know my blog isn't typo-free, but this is a corporate build, come on!)


The second thing I saw was the Auditorium Maximus (left), which didn't really impress me. With this mindset I turned towards the Nokia shop (right) and thought it to be just one of those things.




Inside the shop it got a little better. On the ground floor it focussed on the usual promotion stuf, but it offered huds and flying phones as well.



The second floor has a phonestand in which you can give feedback on the various models



When I walked out of the shop, my view was largely blocked by a large peacock, which stood in front of a rental sign. "Oh no... not rentals," was my first thought.


Then suddenly I noticed the virtual representation of the Burj Al Arab, the world's tallest hotel.in Dubai, which had several empty floors, several Nokia branded offices (mainly Scope Cleaver Design) and finally I noticed a MetaLife office. Here I got my first impression that they are really trying to fit their slogan "Connecting People" to this virtual world.




With that in mind I suddenly looked upon the build with new eyes. The whole of the sim is set up as a beach resort with various huts and bars along the inner lake. Although the main landmark is the Burj al Arad from Dubai, the statues from Easter Island dominate the scenery. The beachhuts are filled with benches, fireplaces and jacuzzi's to meet up. The sitting animations are always in couples. It's about connecting people, not sitting alone.


Finally, I took a ride with the Jetski and noticed a Greenie on the sim as well.



It wasn't really busy at the sim, so I can't really tell if it's a big success. To me it looks like they've managed to take their presence a step beyond their competition, but I don't know if it will be enough to really start connecting communities. It will probably depend on the type and frequency of events they will plan at the island.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nokia/128/128/0

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Friday, February 29, 2008

Dino's even go virtually extinct

I've done several posts on various Rezzable projects, which usually look splendid. Now Rezzable is destroying a sim of exquisite beauty.


'Sooner or later, all things come to an end’ is often said. And it’s true. Regardless how pretty something is, how much craftsmanship went into building it and regardless if it ‘wears down’ or not, you just can’t collect everything
beautiful in life. Often we need to take though decisions: love it, but need to make room for something new, that is even better. Or that is a good cause, in the Dino’s case.'



Rezzable will be hosting this year’s Second Life Relay for Life and is freeing up 4 sims to do so. Hence, our prehistoric treasures need to be returned to inventory. But we don’t believe in doing such things silently, and have decided to go out with a huge blast. Literally, that is. At 2PM SLT a disoriented Greenie pilot will crash the Mothership on Rezzable’s Dino sim. You may expect lots of flying rocks, lava overflow, explosions that would make any professional griefer jealous, toxic rain, panicking Greenies and dying dinosaurs.

You can watch this splendid spectacle safely from the comfort of a luxury chair on 2 Extinction! Observation Decks at neighbouring sims. Taking snapshots and filming machinima is highly encouraged. In exchange, we promise you a show like no Second Life resident has seen before!

The Rezzable Team




More pictures on Vint Falken's Flickr stream.

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Sunday, January 13, 2008

Rezzable EBuddy and looking for VC

Rezzable 2007

One of the big surprises in content development for Second Life in 2007 was new kid on the block Rezzable which launched the Greenies sim in July which has been a top 5 attraction in terms of visitors ever since. Quite a lot of residents and bloggers have been impressed by this build, though many were wondering about the business model as the could see any clear sponsors.

There's no doubt Rezzable injected a lot of money in developing this sim, and the dozen of other places, like the Toxic Gardens, the Cannery and the Black Swan and they've not been very forthcoming about their financing.

First of all, the Rezzable sims are a showcase to get on the serious side of business. Not tampered by marketing agencies or corporate restrictions they have build experiences which showcase their ability. This would be an expensive calling card, but a serious one at that which might be worth a few bucks. Revenues are created in multiple ways though such as goodie shops and in context advertising at the Greenies Home.



When talking to Rezzable founder Jon Himhoff he told me Rezzable was looking for Venture Capital and they're putting together a funding round. Off course I raised an eyebrow. Does Rezzable need funding to maintain the dozens of sims?


[13:45] You: what will be the motivation for the funding round?
[13:45] RightAsRain Rimbaud: ah...That's a good question
[13:46] RightAsRain Rimbaud: In general our existing work doesn't need it

So on the whole it seems the 3 streams of revenues generate enough income to keep up the good work.

Rezzable Ebuddy

Last month I saw the sculptures made by Lightwaves appear on the SLexchange as well, at serious prices (ranging L$ 9K -35K, or US $ 30 - 130) and to support this Rezzable opened a new sim last week, the Ebuddy Sandbox which also shows and sells the sculptures you can find in the Rezzable sims. Here are some snapshots:



Rezzable is going to push this sim (and thus their complete works) hard with real world promotion as well such as an Art Gallery in London and a print magazine.


Rezzeble 2008

To get back to the funding, what is Rezzable upto that needs a serious financial injection? In general you can state that there is a serious difference between gameworlds such as World of Warcraft and social worlds such as Second Life when it comes to user activity. Capturing the resident's attention has been hard for all MDC's in 2007, resulting in a number of corporations to be dissappointed in Second Life as a medium.

The basic premises is that social worlds need more of a storyline which led Millions of Us to redo the Scioncity sim and Electric Sheep Company to experiment with converging media with CSI:NY in the last months of 2007. One of the underlying concepts in Rezzables development has been to create immersive experiences (such as the Greenies Home) all along. A second element has been pushing for a storyline at the Toxic gardens, which has been build as a big decorum and is accompanied by a small story outline.



Rezzable has massive plans for 2008 to expand on this interactivity:

We have a massive idea for content play and we will launch this in SL, but...it is a virtual world play across many platforms in the future and also 3D web in general. Rezzable is still very committed to SL. Our main focus here is more interactivity, so we are workin on lots of simple, fun games with web databases."

"We think it is a major play for establishing 3D web content and user engagement. Virtual worlds are still very new. Once there are a few more credible platforms running--which we think is a 2008 thing--main issue is what will engage users and we feel it is quality content. Quality content can be defined as visually stunning, interactive and immersive. It is not porno, gambling, camping, real estate speculation. We see a lot of opportunity for
real-world cross-overs. Stay tuned, lot of new stuff coming in 2008."

Since they're still putting together the funding round, which is supposed to bring in about 3.5m USD, Jon couldn't disclose much more, but I'll be paying close attention to this as I think one of the keys to generating traffic will be in serious content play.

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Monday, December 10, 2007

Greenies out, purrsnickety in

A few months back we saw the alien arrival of the Greenies in Second Life, which was a very cool experience by Rezzable. One of the strong points about the Greenies is the avatar marketing bit. Avatar Marketing is mobile marketing as the avatars spread around the grid bringing your brand to the community instead of you having to organize event that will bring the community to your sim. Another cool MDC (Metaverse Development Company) which understands the value of this is the V3 group which brought us the hovering Orb and the Transformer avatars.



Avatar marketing is one, lifestyle is another. We've got some pretty weird people walking the face of the grid. Many subcultures like Goths and punks are present in Second Life and then there's the furries. Furries are animalish avatars, often furry skinned with long tails. These might be rather funny and adorable to the general public, but gets a little twist if you know there's quite a bunch of people out there in the Real World that have a furry fetishism too.



The Second Life Herald reports a new race has entered Second Life; the Purrsnickety's. Here's the SLH report:




"Yesterday Second Life witnessed the birth of a new race of virtual critters – Purrsnicketys. Their basic design is due to Phoenixxx Dragonash, who in RL is Ashley Speranzella-Evans, a free-lance fantasy artist.




They are built and scripted by our good friend and uber-elf Wayfinder Wishbringer. Below the fold are some screenshots and the purrsnickety propaganda."






(Pictures also from SLH)



From the purrsnickety note card...









WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF PURRSNICKETYS!



(To give a Purrsnickety as a gift, please read at the bottom of this notecard)



In a world that has forgotten magic and rushes time, they live above the clouds. Dragon-kitties once chosen to be Guardians of the Earth and magic, they failed to protect it from man. They have become jaded and skeptical, and definitely have attitude. But they have not given up! They have returned to the earth to try one last time to bring back what has lost. Are they the scourge of the skies... or destined to become heroes? Purrsnicketys... adorably wicked.



Purrsnicketys are some of the most complex, heavily-scripted (but very low-lag), fun, tiny avatars ever!



INCLUDED:





  • Purrsnickety Avatar (copy/nomod/notrans... copyable so you can pull a new one out of the box in case of inventory loss!)(To give a Purrsnickety
    as a gift, please read at the bottom of this notecard)


  • A special Purrsnickety toy (an extra item specific to your Purrsnickety)


  • Scripted wings open when flying


  • Swishing tail* 72-function HUD, including...


  • 68 custom sounds (no freebie sounds here!)


  • 14 all-original animations (even the "tiny" animations themselves are new and tweeked), including:* Scripted tongue for cleaning


  • Cat-like "run"* Fun "jump"


  • Improved "sit" and "groundsit"


  • Dance synchronizer (dance in time with your Purrsnickety friends!)* Cute. Real cute. (never underestimate the power of cute. Fells strong dragons and ogres and melts the hearts of warriors).



PURRSNICKETY CHARACTER INFORMATION:



PURRSNICKITY STORIES:





  1. Baby Ree: Calico, curious, and pudgy.
    Don’t be fooled by the cuteness of this little baby she will sneeze fire on you
    if you aren’t careful. Likes buttercups and fireflies and her stuffed toy “Remmy”.


  2. Bitters: Black, skinny and Melancholy. Always seems to have a rain cloud over his head. Loves,well he dosent’t love anything.. except for a rainy
    day and only because it spoils everyone else’s fun, maybe mud puddles. Older
    brother of Chitters.


  3. Chitters: Pink, happy and talks a lot, though only the other purrsnicketys can tell what she is saying. Loves lollypops and unicorns and baking pies for the gang. Kid sister of Bitters and has a crush on Jeepers (but don’t tell him).


  4. Creepers: Large, green and agitated. Loves dark damp places and mushrooms. Oldest and Leader of the Purrsnicketys, big brother to
    Jeepers. Arch nemesis: Mr. Wiggles the very elusive and clever mouse dragon whom Creepers can never catch.


  5. Critters: Brown, sweet and earthy. He loves all kinds of creatures and can often be seen playing with the mice in the castle (in a friendly way) Likes walking in the clouds and strawberries.


  6. Flitters: Yellow, scattered and artistic. He creates beautiful rainbows in the sky and paintings for the castle. Constantly looses everything because he is so focused on his art. He can be seen covered in paint muttering to himself in his room. Likes new paint brushes and dragon flies.

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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Rezzable Detox

From the makers of the Greenies Home comes a second immersive experience, the Toxic Gardens. Today I received a preview of the new sim produced by another team of excellent builders, among which Botany Black.




It won't be long until this new sim will be open for public, though it needs a little detoxing before it happens. I was killed on the spot several times by oozing tendrils, steaming locomotives and heavily mutated killer wasps;



"Toxic waters: The toxic waters, upon touching your skin, begin to cause a numbness that covers your entire body. As it spreads, you find it hard to stay upright, and eventually fall to the ground, and then into sleep..."



SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Toxic%20Garden%20Rezzable/128/241/24

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Saturday, August 04, 2007

Pinguin Gibson Stephenson and Metarati

Somehow I've written and deleted the first line of this article about 10 times in the last hour.


What I had in mind was a short blog on William Gibson, acknowledged metarati and author of (a.o.) Neuromancer.


No Maps for these terrirory


Alas, sometimes even visionairs are ruled by their publishers, and so it seemed on this feat. A few weeks ago there was a screener of a documentary called No Maps for These Territori, which is a 90 minute film about Gibson, and is praised as the Documentary of the Year by the LA Times. This was a good and glitchless performance so a 'reading' wouldn't be too hard.

So August 2nd would have been the day to meet one of the cyberpunk and metaverse metarati on a heavily piblicized official Pinguin public reading, but I missed out due to the spectacular (official) opening of the Greenies.

However, through several friends I heard I hadn't missed out on much, as the event was far from smooth. Metaverse Territories reports (and also kindly provides the image above on the No Map Screener):

"...but marketing ploys like Penguin’s organized, very publicized reading by William Gibson is another case altogether. Events like this must go smoothly in order for the world to become a credible place for business AND art, fun AND work. First of all, for SL users who came, it is as much an investment of their time and energy, which for me, was a wasted one (started late, the feed didn’t work until 10 minutes into his reading, didn’t know where to go, never actually saw the avatar etc. etc…). "

According to Gibson's blog he himself was left with a peculiar feeling as well. This should be amended!

Pinguin Presence

Being present in the metaverse these days requires a presence with a mission, or a message. It is going from pages to places in a quest for immersive and shared experience. Pinguin's line of thought isn't a bad one, when it comes to public readings. It just needs work and a fullscale programme (and maybe a few other things).

However, their speck of virtual land doesn't hold much that will draw crowds:

Second Life is an excellent platform to experiment. Even for publishers. A few months ago I wrote some thoughts on that in a post on the Amsterdam Public Library;

"In this new metaversality it would be a challenge for libraries (and publishers for that matter) to explore new formats that would draw back readers to good books.

Neil Stephenson, one of the metarati, is most famous for his novel "Snowcrash" in which the concept of the Metaverse is explored, but another excellent work is called "The Diamond Age" in which the future of reading and publishing is explored."

Here's another thought. Perhaps it would work for Pinguin to setup a giant ancient bookprinting press, have their books (f)lying about like old press letters and create an experience about books.

... just a thought, not a guaranteed success.

The Cyberpunk Metarati

Earlier this week I blogged on the Infocalypse project, a decorum for cyberpunk stories, of which Nexus Prime is one. I didn't check my numbers and linked it to the sim Nexus. Wrong! It should have been Gibson of course. Reading the firts part of the blog entry, it sounds pretty obvious why a cyberpunk-sim is named Gibson. When I first got there (sometime 2006) there ironically was placed a Neil Stephensons' Snowcrash promotion by Pinguin books. Now it's gone though, and replaced with a neat Gibson Spook City promo.

However, since the reading left Gibson with a peculiar feeling, there should be another change for the metarati to explore and experience the metaverse in all its richness and creativeness. I'm not sure who will take up the glove, but here's a proposal.

Geek Meet Challenge

What I'd like to see is Gibson and Stephenson to get a guided tour of the Cyberpunk cities, thrown in with some new Kowloon and steampunk Caledon to see the world they've envisaged and then settle down for a good panel discussion on the metaverse at the weekly Metaversed (and Dr. Dobbs and Information week) Geek Meets.

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Thursday, August 02, 2007

Glory to the Builders

My previous blogpost, Day of the Greenies ,was the of the official opening of the Greenies Home in Second Life, but not the apotheosis, the masterpiece of this build. A small crowd gathered since Rezzable's founder Right as Rain Rimbaud had niceley build up expectations in the past weeks. Right as Rain Rimbaud:
"we have a new piece from Light Waves. We all cried like little babies when we saw it first time: It is unique in metaverse."
And truly , this 30 prim sculptie is of exceptional quality. Look at the level of detail and shadow. Inside this oversized build the statue doesn't look all that big, but trust me, it's supersized.

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Day of the Greenies

ay is not the day of the Triffids, but the day of the Greenies. The invasion has begun! Even in their prelaunch state the Greenies have drawn huge crowds:



"Then there's "Greenies", from a small British development company called Rezzable, which plans to use it for retail and events. But where SL sites for large corporations like Dell, Sun, and Reebok attract but a few hundred visitors, Greenies is, with little official promotion, already bringing in several thousand visits per week," according to James Wagner Au at New World Notes earlier this week.



Prelaunch views

To make final preps for the official launch the sim has been closed since July 29. I was lucky enough to get a special invite for the preview and this is the real deal. Rezzable has done a great job creating expectations and now it all has to come together. So let's see what the little green men are up to...

Okay, the keyword again is explore, and TOUCH.



The abduction has begun...

It's time to have a peak at the mothersip, grand place of Greenie Merchandise. You've got to do some work though to find the teleports. Nothing in Greenie-land is an easy grab.


Glory to the Builders...

After some hovering I had time to have a good chat with Pavig Lok, one of the builders and Right as Rain Rimbaud, the Rezzable initiator to go to the bottom of the Light Waves story that runs on the Second Life Herald. Turns out to be the Herald can see the prim, but not the build once more and will need to re-research their story.


On Rezzable

The Greenies Home is the first project by Rezzable, which was founded in 2007 in order to create exciting new entertainment areas in Second Life. The company believes that as the number of residents in the virtual world continues spectacular growth, there will be massive demand for high-quality content and engaging activities.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Greenies%20Home%20Rezzable/141/16/22

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The Greenies go Public

Today I had an exciting talk with Jonathan Himoff, the founder of Rezzable, also known as RightasRain Rimbaud inside Second Life. The company's website itself is empty for now, but he was kind enough to send me the new corporate logo.

Since I posted on the Greenies - the softlaunch, it hit the blogosphere quite massively. Here are some posts:

The Greenies are getting a buzz. Aside from some criticism and crooky post in the Herald, I've heard nothing but cheers for the Greenies.

Me taken by Verde, one of the candid camera greenies.

Official opening party

Vint Falken wrote on her blog that she met up with a few people on the opening party, but here's the news: The official opening party still has to come!

Rezzable's official Opening Party: July 31st.

There will be a press preview around 12 am SLT and Jon really got me going for this one. There will be reveiled a sculpture of spectaculair nature, one like you've never seen before.

I jumped and said: "lemme see, lemme see", but his answer was: "Sorry mate, you'd be dying knowing and not be able to blog it."

Shortly afterwards there will be the official public launch.

Rezzables Proof of Concept

So, who's behind all of this? Caleb Booker a.k.a Onder Skall asked in his report. Is Rezzable doing this for a company? Who's putting up the cash? I asked Jon if this was a signed contract or just an expensive business card.

The Greenies is a Rezzable sim allright, no contractor, just purely a statement by Rezzable, but not to be viewed as an expensive business card, but their Proof of Concept. Rezzable wants to make sure the (virtual) world knows Rezzable is able to write a new chapter in User Experience.

The chapter will continue, there are more sims coming up!

Rezzable is hiring

Finally, if you're out there thinking "I can do this too!" give RightasRain Rimbaud a call inside Second Life as Rezzible is hiring. Rezzable is a new, small, London based firm with great ideas and projects coming up.

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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Rezzable Debut: The Greenies

A long long time ago it was a case of syncronicity as Aleister Kronos wondered wtf Rezzable was when he spotted them on the Second Life map, just as I was befriending the founder through Linked-In without knowing he was of Rezzable.

Today I got a preview of their first big sim release, and it ROCKS!



Here's the story:

"The Greenies are on the Grid! They are somewhat lost in SL, but forgot to try to find their way home. Just some kooky little aliens, enjoying whatever they discover in the metaverse.


The Greenies Home was based on the work of one of SL's most talented and prolific artist, Lightwaves. Rezzable Productions has taken the initial ideas of the Greenies and developed this exciting, top-quality entertainment area.


The Greenies home is good fun, built to maximize the SL user experience. We have focused on exploration, fun activities and giving SL residents plenty of room to goof around! We hope you enjoy!"



The tour starts underground, be sure to get the fantastic freebee jetpack, jetboots and helmet.





Enter the supersized world of the Greenies






And Enjoy!
The sim has a great look and feel, with a taste eye for detail and texture. The scene made me feel like I was inside one of the sims from Tad William's Otherland. If this is Rezzable's first release, I sure want to see their next.

CREDITS

  • Original Greenies Scene pieces by Lightwaves
  • Concepts, support and general Greenness: Edgware Marker
  • Sim Build Lead Creator and Kookiest Av in the known Metaverse: Pavig Lok
  • Sim Build Super Creator and Artist of highest order (and part time otter): LittleToe Bartlett
  • Project Management and typical unreasonableness: RightAsRain Rimbaud
  • Merchandise Designers: Crash Prefect, Ameshin Yossarian, Rebel Hope
  • Greenies Logo Design: Ayona Boa
  • Merchandise Manager: Lokum Shilova

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