Rikomatic

Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff

Menu
  • Check out my Professional Site RangerRik.com
Menu

Sneak Peek at Aloft Starwood Hotel in Second Life

Posted on August 25, 2006 by

Aloft_007
I dropped in on Aloft Island to check out the upcoming release of this much ballyhooed "Aloft" virtual hotel being sponsored by the Starwood Hotel chain.  It’s set for a September launch, although it looks still pretty raw right now.

A recent Business Week article quotes the Starwood folks on their intent behind the SL build:

"For Starwood, opening aloft in Second Life is a way to test-market the hotel’s design and rapidly prototype the evolving concept. For instance, staffers will observe how people move through the space, what areas and types of furniture they gravitate towards, and what they ignore."

If this is the case, the developers should try and make the SL users experience as close to a real world experience as possible. I.e.

  • make the hotel a "no fly" zone
  • Require people to "check-in" before they can enter hotel rooms
  • a virtual maitre’d should have to seat people before they can enter the restaurant
  • Elevators should be the preferred means of transport from floor to floor, instead of teleporting.

Lastly, if you are going for a hip, stylish atmosphere, you should be prepared for griefers. Nothing ruins a hotel stay like someone shooting your avatar or an obnoxious particle effect that won’t go away.

Here’s some pics I just took:

Aloft_001

The entrance way.

Aloft_002
Here are the plans for the SL build laid on the floor of the hotel for easy reference by the developers.  No mention of the actual hotel rooms, but clearly that must be part of the design.

Aloft_003
This is the stylish and minimalist bar area.

Aloft_005_1

I like the use of pictures of the real world hotel side-by-side with the virtual spaces.  I hope those stay up.

Aloft_006

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Freestyle to “Booty Swing” by Parov Stelar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3pMWtX0DdE

Recent Posts

  • On Dance Instruction as Creating a Safe Space for Dance
  • Best Steel Cut Oatmeal Recipe (according to Me)
  • Rhythm Skating and Lindy Hop: Popularizing Black Art While Minimizing Black Artists
  • Why We Dance in Circles
  • Choking Down a Dessert I Didn’t Want

Categories

  • Books
  • Cats
  • Civil Society
  • Creative Writing
  • Current Affairs
  • Dancing / Music
  • Education
  • Family
  • Film
  • Food and Drink
  • Frankie Manning
  • Games
  • General
  • Health
  • Information Society
  • Machinima
  • Media Reform
  • Music
  • New York
  • Politics
  • Real World Places in SL
  • Religion
  • Science
  • SF Bay Area
  • Television
  • The Spirit
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • United Nations
  • Virtual Worlds
  • Web/Tech
  • Weblogs

Tags

b-boy (74) breakdance (50) breaking (26) brooklyn (36) charleston (12) competition (11) coney island (10) dance (17) dancing (30) documentary (15) education (21) festival (12) frankie95 (16) frankie manning (51) frim fram (10) global kids (70) hip-hop (31) human rights (11) inaug09 (11) jazz (12) lindy hop (139) lindyhop (17) lowcarb (18) lxd (11) macarthur foundation (12) machinima (22) memorial (14) mermaidparade (22) mtv (13) performance (16) pmt (10) popping (11) quaker (27) recipe (36) rockclimbing (16) second life (81) shim sham (15) skating (17) soul music (14) swing (51) swing dance (45) united nations (10) virtual world (19) virtual worlds (29) yehoodi (38)
© 2021 Rikomatic | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme