Talking with Tormented Twilight

Not that long ago, I decided to drop in that the Welcome Center at Ahern as I like to do from time to time.  The environment is often an amusing blend of newbies wanting to know how to “play” sl, and those who have been around longer enjoying socializing or showing off their novel avies. The night I am referring to had all the usual chaos, but with one delightful added feature.  Above the crowd and the craziness was a great steampunk style avatar.

I watched for a while and then saw the avatar, Tormented Twilight, through the front opening of the large picturesque item. (So then I was not sure whether to regard the object as an avatar or avatar vehicle.)  I started taking screenshots, which if you know me at all you know is my automatic response. If I breath and my eyes are open, I take pics.  After a few photos, I wanted to get much closer, perhaps even inside, and so I started to look for an entrance.  While I am not sure that you can’t just enter the item at any point, I choose to enter through an opening in the bottom where the steam emerges.  I suppose that was cheeky of me to come uninvited like that, but hey rl and sl do not operate exactly the same.  

My first impression, which still seems true to me, is that Tormented Twilight is funny, helpful and very easy to like. Because I found both he and his vehicle/avatar so interesting, I checked out everything in his profile and googled (there is that verb again) him.  I visited one of the businesses that is listed on his profile and ended up asking him if I could interview him for my blog.  (Check out TT or Tormy’s new blog, The Grid Steamer.) What follows is the result of that conversation.

The first thing that I wanted to know about was about the machinima named Tormented Twight. I could not see at first if it had any relation at all to T. T. other than that it had his name.  I watched the video carefully and could see that the steampunk avatar navigating back and forth in the background throughout the video.  But I could see not other connection to the music performance video of Voicedude Renoir. So that was the subject of my first question. (The transcript has been modified somewhat for ease of reading.)

Kara: So one thing I wondered about TT;  the music video that is online with your name, how is it connected to you? 

Tormented Twilight: Ah hehe, I was at a concert at Inspire Park. And the guy who was playing Voice Renoir, was picking people’s names and making songs out of em. And I guess I was standing there in front of him during the last song. I was also the guy hovering with the blue flames flying around me.

Kara: Obviously you have seen incredible changes in sl. (His rez date is 1-30-2004.)

Tormented Twilight: Yeah mostly upgrades that downgrade : P

Kara: So tell me something you like about how things have changed and something you regret about how things have changed.

Tormented Twilight: Some nifty stuff though, we actually used to have to pay to rez new prims. lol, yeah that didn’t last too long though.  Well I guess the flexis were the really major change, then sculpties, and now Windlight has been integrated into the standard viewer, the glows add a nice effect when used subtley. I’m not sure if I really regret or miss anything persay but I will say I think LL needs to take a serious look at it’s transaction system and make it a priority to fix that.

Kara: Mmmm, when you say transaction you mean selling and inventory? or something else?

Tormented Twilight: I mean during peak times, when lag is high, I try to buy something and get a message that ‘transaction is stale’ or ‘transaction failed’, then my money still gets taken, and I get no product. These last two weekends have been complete terrors for buyers and sellers. If the system knows and tells you the transaction failed why does it still take your money and give you nothing? It should go into some kind of lockdown mode if there’s a bad transaction in the system.

Tormented Twilight: It especially bad for clothing designers who often make their stuff nocopy/transfer then have customers saying they never got a product, they have no way to verify it, LL won’t do anything about it, and they have to rely on their customer’s word, and the customers have to hope the seller will actually resend the item they didn’t get.

Kara: Can you recall a moment that you would say has been the highlight of all your sl experiences; one that you will share? I am interested in any memory of a special moment or best experience in sl.

Tormented Twilight: Well, I guess my real highlight was my first visit to Lumiere Noir’s Ivory Tower of Prims, which is an inworld interactive building tutorial, after I walked through the tutorial, I really got serious about building and spent a lot of my day’s at the Ivory Tower’s Sandbox.  I recommend it to pretty much every new person I meet that’s interested in learning to build.

Kara: So you had tried building before that, but that experience really jump started it?

Tormented Twilight: I had fiddled around of course but yeah, the Ivory Tower is one of SL’s true treasures, Its inworld, you can work through the tutorials as you walk through the place, and you really learn a lot. Of course, there’s a lot of video tutorials available now but it’s not the same thing as standing there, seeing it, and trying it while inworld.

Kara: Do you use other virtual worlds?

Tormented Twilight: I’ve tried a number of other virtual worlds including There and Entropia Universe. Both of them I’ve found to be way too static, and the process of actually making something original is an incredible pain and incredibly costly.

Kara: And do you think that open source vws are going to impact sl significantly”?

Tormented Twilight: Well, there is stuff like OpenSim now but, it still costs money, and its still way behind Second Life. There are other virtual worlds in development using P2P architecture but they simply cannot support the hundreds of thousands of users that SL can. SL is truly the only truly dynamic and interactive virtual world I know, where I can say I wanna make a Brass Duck that shoots steam out it’s nose, and I can ride it, and then I can actually do that.

Kara: When am I going to see this brass duck? lol.

Kara: What is your opinion about the upcoming reduction in the cost of new sims?

Tormented Twilight: Well, I know the sim pricing reductions has made a lot of previous sim owners mad in that they think they’re investments have depreciated but I think its a good thing. There are still pretty hefty costs involved but it does make them slightly more accessible to people who may have not been able to foot the bill previously.

Kara: What is something that you would like people to know about you?

Tormented Twilight: I’ll be anyone’s friend, and I’ll answer any question no matter how silly or dumb someone might think it is. I welcome new friends just as long as someone at least says hello first ^_^ And since I’ve been around quite a long time, I love to share the stuff I’ve collected over time to help new people out, textures, scripts, clothes, and all kinds of stuff.

Kara: That is really nice. Your prices reflect that spirit imo.

Tormented Twilight: Well, like I always say I’d rather make a friend than a sale. ^_^

Kara: I have only been here about 14 mos and in that time I have gone from feeling that I am separate from my avie and being confused when I started to feel the two merging to now when I feel pretty much unified, me and my av. I can not image after being here some years how that might feel. You can see i am fascinated by the human side of all these experiences and I wondered about anything you might want to share in that area.

Tormented Twilight: Well, I guess I feel that way too. Even though you really never know what I might show up as from one day to the next, like when you saw me sporting a Gigantic Robot as an avatar, but I do feel like I’m really projecting myself and personality through SL and my avatar.

Tormented Twilight: I like talking to people who are real characters, not just someone who pops in and asks where the orgy room is and runs around naked. I get a much deeper experience out of SL, which is why I try to encourage new residents to really explore and learn about SL.

 

 

I regret not asking Tormented Twilight how he picked out his name. I might just have to stop by again, pull him away from his workshop in the sky, and find out the story.  While I am at it I will ask to see that steaming brass duck.  It would be a pleasure again anyway to meet this individual who would rather make friends than customers.  : )

–Kara

~ by karazasu on April 25, 2008.