Bob Sutor’s first impressions of Twinity

Here’s some of what Bob Sutor had to say about some first impressions of Twinity:

Here’s what I liked about it:

  • They are planning to reproduce huge swaths of London, Berlin, and Singapore, thereby proving alternative “real life” locations for you to visit and spend time in. I believe that the building is only done by the Twinity core team.
  • They have a number of ways of customizing your avatar, but the coolest in my opinion is what they call “PhotoFit.” The idea is that you upload a photo of a real person, e.g., yourself, and by moving around a few points that give the geometry of the face, your avatar will then look like that.
  • …
  • I was wandering around a shop (I bought some cool red Converse sneakers) and discovered that they’ve implemented mirrors. That is, you can have a surface that reflects your image back at you.

…

On the negative side, but with the caveat again that this is a beta:

Every time you change location, it can take up to several minutes to pull down the objects that populate it.

…

  • A few more initial choices of avatar clothing and hair would be good.
  • Like many virtual worlds, the basic walking movement is too slow.
  • …
  • Twinity is only available for Windows.

Thanks so much for taking the time to write that, Bob!

New release is out – lots of new stuff.

Dear Twinizens,
You can find lots of exciting new stuff in our newest release! Not all is perfect yet and more needs to be done but we are excited.
As always we value your feedback (support@twinity.com, comments here or on fb, twitter, etc.). Please do let us know what you think.
Here’s a list of new features:
– New interactive Tutorial
– New interactive Welcome Tour that will help all new VISITORS become RESIDENTS.
– Group message board – now you can leave messages for other group members
– You can signup for events with our new „Attend“-Button
– Search for places has been improved
– You can now pay for your apartment rent or buy globals with Paypal
– We have improved the Collada upload functionality. However, it is still an early beta – bear with us for more improvement to come.
You will also find sopme new UI elements
– New Groups UI – check out who’s a member, leave messages, etc.
– New Events UI – a calendar and much more now included.
– New User profile UI – You can now check if you and any other Twinizens have friends in common, friends lists, etc.
– New exit sign – we have changed our exit signs – WDYT?

Please also check out our new Welcome Area!
Have fun,
Mirko

Twinity downtime: Today from 10:30 (CET) for at least 3 hours

Hi Twinizens,

We’ll have a major update of Twinity today and expect a downtime of at least 3 hours starting at 10:30 CET. Expect some cool new features to come. We’ll post the release notes here in the blog. Stay tuned.

Your Twinity Team

sered on the London Eye

Here’s the link, with some good comments:

Twinity has come a long way, in 2009. A much more stable client, three cities online, activities to do and an emerging community.

and some great suggestions for improvement:

The first one, is draw distance. In Second Life I can choose to set the draw distance to a large value. Of course it will take a lot of time to load the environment if you do so, but snapshots like this one would certainly improve:

…

The other thing is the day and night cycle. I understand why Twinity – a mirror world after all – would have a natural day and night cycle. But, given that I usually work during the day, it means I’m mostly confined to seeing dark cities.

…

And I miss the fog. Especially with London not yet being finished, it might be a good idea to introduce some atmospheric haze.

Thanks for those ideas – we’ll look into them!

Avatar of the Day: The Beastles

The Beastles next to the Big Ben! This is what happens when Daniel, Björn and Andreas get wild! If you want to get their costumes, enter Twinity and come to the Costume Jungle Opening today at 15h CET!

The Beastles

Koinup on Virtual London’s expansion

Here’s what Koinup had to say about the expansion of Virtual London

Rocking the Metaverse partner and mirror virtual world Twinity is celebrating the growth of Virtual London this week by showcasing creative expression from art exhibits to live music gigs.   New sites include the Big Ben, the London Eye and many other historical builds, extending what was the city central to the east and south.

Yesterday Londoner Acoustic Jim performed live to kick off the festivities but Twinity has several events planned throughout the week.   If you would like to explore beyond London, hop over to Berlin on February 5th and have a chat with Twinity Sexpert Dra Sommer.

Yes, Twinity has both live music and a sexpert.  Now that just may be a killer app.

Avatar of the Day: Helen

Helen at Oranienburgerstraße, in front of the Berlin Synagogue.

If you like Helen’s skirt and fishnet leggins, get them in The Punk Rock Store in Twinity!

Helen in Oraniengburgerstraße