Vandals “Grief” ABC’s Virtual Island
By Shawn on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 5:39 AM PST In Computer, Gamer Life
News.com.au reports ABC’s prize virtual island for Second Life was vandalized yesterday, leaving it a “bombed, cratered mess”. The vandals executed the ‘griefing’ (or virtual act of vandalism) of ABC island leaving logos for sports brands Nike and Puma on their handy work. Head of technology for ABC innovation Craig Preston said almost every object on the island was destroyed leaving only the digital transmission tower.
Mr Preston said ABC has no leads as to the identity of the vandals, but speculate a commercial rival may be behind the attack. ABC island, the third most visited commercial site in Second Life, cost tens of thousands of dollars to create, and took several hours to repair.
Right, well you got that about third-hand and I’d like to clarify.
I am ABC Admin, and was once of the first to see the devastation, at first we belived that the island had been griefed, and Craig did speak to the press… but the reporters go most of the story wrong, and made up other stuff.
Here’s the facts:
- Nobody saw any griefing.
- The basic island structure was unchanged, the reported crater was actually the triple j unearthed club, since objects were missing (no top cover) it looked worse than normal.
- There were no signs or boxes or bags from Puma, Nike et al, the island was clean except for a few freebie boxes and items [cars] left by newbies.
- The cost of the island was way over exaggerated.
[perhaps they meant linden dollars].
So, what really happened?
It appears the lindens called it a “corrupt save”.
Every island is saved at a particular time of day, and sometimes there’s a crash while this is going on, and that resulted in a barren island.
An island rollback after the incident fixed the problem.
In some photos used by the press, you’ll see a fellow who looks like a Wolf, that is me, I took the photos for the ABC and various news outlets.
Wolfie!
Wolfie Rankin in SL – ABC Friends Admin.
We’d also like to deny any alien involvement, and to let everyone know that we don’t have any aliens in jars either.
Admittedly it was third source.. thanks for clearing that up for us Wolfie.