After a careful, mature, scholarly, 3-minute discussion interrupted by a YouTube video of an electric rabbit, the founders of Terra Nova would like to announce nothing.
You see, an issue came up. It was said that virtual worlds are dead, and TN, as the blog of virtual worlds, has lost its way. It must therefore focus on something more current. Games, social media, Lady Gaga - something.
However, casual examination - it's the only kind we know - reveals quite clearly that virtual worlds have not died but rather have undergone a powerful and gushy sporogenesis. When the world stepped on MUD, it went Poof! And now its children are everywhere.
Birth is messy and Terra Nova has best served its purposes by getting its hands dirty. It's most fun for us, and least work, when we can write about things we don't understand at all. Sure, it's a big category, but we aim high. Like, who understands Farmville. Really. And Twitter - who knew chat would turn into that? Our puzzlers are sore just thinking about it. Sore in a good way.
Therefore why should we avoid such subjects just because we are "supposed" to talk only about things that look, today, like World of Warcraft looked in 2004? If folks think that's what Terra Nova is about, we need to correct that misunderstanding. TN has always tried to live on the frontal messy edge of online social media gaming stuff. That has not changed.
Reflecting on our lack of innovation, therefore, we offer the following Policy Statement (tm):
"It has come to our attention that some in the Terra Nova community have been laboring under the misapprehension that there is a meaningful ontological distinction between, say, Second Life and FarmVille. We regret the confusion and would like to clarify that discussion here is and always has been open to any topic related to digitally mediated spaces dedicated primarily to forms of social play, generously defined."
There, we said it.
Now, at some point, when we decide to do some work on the blog, we will clean out the sidebars. A lot of old information there. We'll also rewrite the About page to reflect our failure to become a blog dedicated to the virtual worlds of 2004. And we will be getting to that bit of administrative work soon. Right around noon the day after tomorrow; or next week. Actually, we'll get back to you on it. But soon! Very soon!
