a third life · 2006-09-27 07:33
There are two technological movements I don’t understand and slightly fear – home video cameras and 3rd virtual worlds. As with any irrational emotion, it means there’s something interesting there to pick at, and after seeing all the talk of Second Life at Euro Foo and EuroOSCON, I thought I should investigate even if it does give me the heebiegeebies (at least it’s not World of Warcraft – I have a limbic response to pointy ears that’s even worse than my reaction to hippies).
So I’ve been wandering around a bit, and only really getting squicked when random strangers IM me. As you’re only allowed stupid names in Second Life, mine is Todd Poutine. Feel free to IM me (preferably with your real name!), and if I don’t run away too quickly, maybe show me what I don’t understand about Second Life.
I have been reminded a lot of The Mirror – a public 3d environment created by Sony, the BBC and Illuminations in 1997. I remember getting the CD, installing it, and managing to actually get on the system for about 15 minutes in total before it got too slow or crashed.
pretty much the only picture of The Mirror left on the Internet – from Avatars! Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet – look – video clips inside the world! (from the CD iirc)
I realise that Second Life is an environment many orders of magnitude harder to run than The Mirror (The Mirror had about 2000 users in total over 6 weeks), but it’s suprising that the experience is basically the same – slow. Waiting to render. Buildings that pop up from nowhere. With you inside it.
For all the talk of making things in Second Life (I’m most interested in it as a cheap programmatic 3d modelling language), Second Life is depressingly close to reality – it’s about buying things. Buying land, buying houses, buying things. Many of the ‘most popular’ places are either to do with sex or gambling. I think this is mainly to with the basic structure around Linden dollars, which are exchangable to real money. To be fair, I did buy some virtual American Apparel tshirts, if only because the brand and link back to reality in some way restored my sanity.
Wow, I’ve been on the Internet for 11 years.
comments
It’s true that there is a large component of consumerism in SL, which probably results in people being more involved (invested) in the world, and therefore returning to it and making it there own. There is now something ‘at stake’ that they don’t want to just lose.
But I think there is also a big element of creativity going on. The SL presentation at EuroOSCON showed how many users are experimenting with creating new things – with the low/no cost of most materials, people can easily try out new ideas and learn how fun it is to create without worrying about electrocuting themselves.
— Andrew Turner 27.09.06 #