Linden Lab put on a party at a trendy hot spot in down town San Francisco during the Game Developers Conference. I wasn't invited, but I knew some people who were, so I tagged along. After slipping security a couple L$s they let me behind the felt ropes and I was able to partake of the open bar and top shelf appetizers. The picture above is of the in world DJ being projected on the wall over the bar tenders.

I must say I had a great time, but I was sad that I didn't run into any of my old Second Life friends who used to hang out with at these conferences. I was forced to socialize and make new friends. I guess everyone switch over to the SXSW conference moo has been covering, or possibly Virtual Worlds 2007 coming up next week.

At the Game Developers Conference I got a card from a guy that was made out of 3 pieces of Lego. The card didn't have a name, it only said http://www.lego.com/GDC on it. As a Lego nut, I had this card out on my desk and had put the 3 pieces into every imaginable configuration before I thought, "Maybe I should check the link." To my surprise the link was to a press release from Lego saying they have contracted NetDevil to create a Lego based MMOG.

NetDevil is probably best known for their Mad Max like MMOG, Auto Assault. While the game may not have been the best selling MMOG ever, it did provide a compelling and different driving based MMOG experience in the ever growing field of WoW clones. So, a company that thinks outside the box about MMOGs is teaming up with the ultimate in player created content experiences. Could anything be more exciting?

Since GDC (the annual Game Developer's conference) the newswires have been abuzz with talk about the new Playstation Home service. Judging by reactions from -- for example -- Microsoft, and the game press, this is going to be a very, very good thing for Sony.

What isn't so immediately obvious is that it's also very good for Second Life.

Following GDC, I'd heard of this Flash-based virtual world being developed by Three RIngs, the makers of the popular Puzzle Pirates game. However, their own website has little information on the product, so I'm linking to Alice over at Wonderland instead.

Three Rings is calling this thing Whirled (get it?), and it's what the kids nowadays are calling 2.5D. They plan on making the source for their in-world minigames available to encourage hackery, which is brave enough. Even better, they want people to upload their Flash-based content as well. Quick note: have you seen Newgrounds? This could either be really great or really horrible ... actually, I take that back: it'll likely be both at the same time. And it hits SL right where it's weak: no Flash. Considering the number of people out there who already create Flash-based content on their own, this could be big. More as it develops!