Well, there's certainly a lot of discussion going on, both inworld and via outworld means. There's a lot of discussion about whether certain activities that can take place within Second Life are legal, or illegal. Out of any group of twenty people you ask, you're likely to get five different answers, and twenty different reasons.
There doesn't seem to be much coming out of those debates other than heated tempers and wasted time. So, here's an entirely different angle to think about, and one I've been pondering on and off for a few months. Does Linden Lab have the obligation to permit a particular legal activity? I'm not thinking about any activity in specific here, just point your finger at one.
There's four corollary questions here. Does Linden Lab have the obligation to permit any and every legal activity, or only some of them? Where do you draw the line? Is it a legal obligation, or a moral/ethical obligation? Do other virtual world businesses, like NCSoft (City of Heroes), or Blizzard (World of Warcraft) have the same obligations (for that matter, does Walmart or Sears)?
As I meet more and more older residents (which, for the purposes of this article, I'll define as those having created their accounts in 2004 or earlier), I find that the majority will tell me that they haven't been spending much time in SL lately. Some still maintain businesses, but either only check in once a week to keep up maintenance, or have hired an assistant to do the daily work. Some only drop in for specific events. Some teach classes, but otherwise have found other pursuits.
I first logged into SL in the latter half of 2005, and even before the year was out, decided to take a sabbatical of a couple of months to recharge my batteries. While it certainly differs for each resident, is it possible that the general SL experience simply peters out after a measurable time? Do people come to SL from more aggressively active spaces like World of Warcraft, or EVE Online, and find that they just miss all the action? Does the core group of one's friends slowly begin to change over time, turning away as individuals to other activities, leaving some to log off for sunnier climes?
Okay, the straight-up news: An Australian company called Yoick is in the process of creating a peer-to-peer (P2P), user-generated world(s) called Outback Online. You can read the initial story here, and here is Yoick's website, where you can sign up for updates.
Okay, now to my unabashed incredulity. P2P shared world? Really? How would ... I can't ... Seriously? I've tried P2P file sharing, and my compy slows to a crawl. That's without any kind of interaction with another user whose computer will likely be experiencing the same kind of problems. This made me giggle: "Second Life has a low-res look to it whereas sometimes I just stand there in the rain and watch the sun go down in World of Warcraft because it is so beautiful," he says. "Our stuff is rich, 3-D and graphically more like something you'd see in World of Warcraft." Uh huh. It looks really nice on your optimized systems, I'm sure, running on your network of computers mere feet away from each other, on your trusted intranet.
If there's something I'm missing here, O Those in the Know, where this is actually something possible, please enlighten me. Until then, I'll scoff away.
This is the thirty-third (and a third?) in a series of mini-interviews with the residents of Second Life. For the most part, I'll try to leave the responses unedited, except where editing will grant greater clarity.
I have been an admirer of Gwyneth Llewelyn for quite some time; ever since I found SL, actually. The level of intellect displayed on her blog is rather mighty indeed, and I read it often, frequently having to mouth the words to myself in a vain attempt to understand. This also marks the first time a Resident Snapshot has gone longer than one page!
SL name: Gwyneth Llewelyn
How did you first come to SL?: In mid-2004, I was looking for some 3D environment on the Mac, just to have a bit of fun, after being bored with The Sims. There are very few ones, and World of Warcraft was not available for a "trial download". I came across SL which at that time had a special feature announcement on Apple's website. So, it was mere luck. Most "games" tend to grab my attention for about 15 minutes; they're simply not compelling enough ... although "building" games like the Sims, or Civilization, Alpha Centauri, etc. always fascinated me, even if I cannot claim to be good at any of those :)
After spending 90 minutes tweaking my avatar (6 times longer than I expected SL to appeal to me!) I thought there was "something" to SL. I spent that first day 20 hours online ... then slept another 4 hours ... and logged in for a further 16 hours :) After that, I realised that SL was something totally unexpected, new, completely different, with an appeal that I haven't felt about any application whatsoever - at par with the first graphical web browser, Mosaic, back in 1993.
Mitch Wagner of InformationWeekly has written an article which poses the question "Are virtual Worlds really the Next Internet?" One chief proponent of the 'yes they are' theory is the article's other focus, Corey Bridges, co-founder of MDC Multiverse Network, perhaps most famous for its announcement to create a Firefly MMOG.
Bridges' main point appears to be that the current generation, growing up as it is playing World of Warcraft and enjoying their Second Lives, will come to think of a 3D Internet as the Next Thing simply because they expect that it will be. Given that a percentage of these users will likely go on to develop applications for such a platform virtually guarantees such a vision.
At the same time, take a look at the money and time that big companies like IBM and Cisco are investing in SL alone, and it seems pretty clear that we're headed toward the next wave of Internet browsing standards. VRML, anyone?
You might wonder why this is being mentioned here on SLI. Well, for one thing, Joi is an inhabitant of both WoW and SLI. This makes him well-qualified to discuss both worlds. For another thing, in this video he makes a basic and early comparison between the two platforms.
This video is over 40 minutes long, but it's really interesting, both for its explication of how WoW works (for those who are unfamiliar with it), and to hear Joi's take on things.
I'll admit, when I first read about this, I thought it was a prank. A strategy guide, in the vein of similar fare for games like World of Warcraft, or Guild Wars, but for making money in SL? I took my eyeballs to their website anyway, and sure enough, there it is!
This publication claims to teach even the rawest newbie how to create a successful business venture in SL. Not only that, there are tutorials for building, animation, and scripting as well! If it's what it claims to be, this sounds like a must-have for anyone interested in SL as anything more than a social arena. If someone decides to pick this up, drop us a comment and let us know what you think of it? Or, alternatively, simply apply its teachings to your second life, and we'll be reporting on you soon!
Plenty of folks express fond wishes that updates in Second Life were more like (for example) those of World of Warcraft. The indefatigable Elizabeth Wachowski, Mike Schramm and David Nelson and their able cohorts over at WoWInsider note that update days are no more fun over at World of Warcraft than they are in Second Life. Of course you're not trying to make a buck out of WoW, unless you're a Gold Farmer or some-such.
What do they complain about over on the other side of the fence? Unduly long times to download the patch, crashes, lag, sudden disconnection, things behaving erratically, or not working at all for days, and 12 hours of downtime to do the update.
It's like a whole different world, isn't it? You know, over there where a company is behaving like a real business with 7.5 million paying customers. They even gave 50 cents worth of credit to compensate for the days of problems.
"The grass is always greener (on the other side of the fence) until you have to mow it."
This blog post is flawed in many ways, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention here. This isn't the first, nor will it be the last such piece to compare the two, but what a fallacy to say that men will prefer WoW over SL simply because there are adventuring and combat elements! Without even breaking a sweat, I can name at least 5 people on both sides of the gender fence who play WoW, and 5 more who play SL. And at least 5 of each who do both!
Speaking of that, I've almost used up my first month of free playtime in WoW, and I don't think I'll be going back. It's fun, but there comes a point at which the need to grind outweighs the fun of exploration/quest completion. I'm sure I'm not the first person to think this; do we have any reformed WoW addicts in our audience, and at what point did you realize it stopped being fun?
And at what point will someone try to combine the two?
As seen in this article, people spending too much time playing online are being taken seriously as victims of what one might call 'MMO Addiction'. The article makes several points, one of the most telling being the fact that World of Warcraft is usually called 'Warcrack' by those who can't stop playing it.
Now, I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it seems silly to me to devote a whole branch of medical science to identifying and treating addiction to games, when there are still so many other, actually life-threatening illnesses in the world. On the other hand, if these people are neglecting their Real Lives in order to play, something should be done. I do have to question, however, whether these aren't merely addictive personalities, with the implication being that if it weren't an online game, they'd find something else to obsess over. In the case of drugs, there is a notable chemical component that brings people back again and again, and that can swifty become psychological. There is clearly room there for treatment.
But in the event that someone is addicted to, let's say, leveling up, what is there to treat? The desire for a well-defined task/reward ratio? It's easier to make friends online, but in the absence of any RL contact, how damaging is it to the psyche to spend most of your time in a virtual world? Or is it all hogwash, and these 'addicts' need to grow up? I remain neutral, but you guys can drop us a comment -- be as forthright as you want to be!
Jim Rossignol writes about how he finds MMOs of all stripes lacking. This was a frustrating piece to read for me, as are most opinion pieces, because it leaves out many details -- details which I consider important to understanding of the genre. Basically, he seems to be condemning games like World of Warcraft and Eve Online, and virtual worlds like SL, for not being what he wants them to be, rather than enjoying them for what they are.
This in itself is fine, but it's a little disheartening to see someone spend space in a publication I enjoy reading to say "In Second Life, about the most creating something (sic) could do is raise some virtual cash or furnish a polygonal villa. That's not game enough for most of us, and Second Life's potential, as a leisure process, becomes truncated." Well, see, this is why we don't call it a 'game'. The reason I stay in SL is for the social aspect; and I think that many people who create objects and clothing in SL would agree that they don't find the creation process too daunting to continue. It would have been refreshing if Mr. Rossignol had named games he felt were worthy of his time, rather than simply lambasting the ones that weren't. It was his piece to write, however, and I hope that someday something comes along that he'll find compelling enough to fall into, 'cause it's a great feeling.
This year's Machinima Awards (or 'Mackies', as they're affectionately called) Ceremony will be broadcast simultaneously in SL, on November 4th at 9 PM. It will be held in the Virtual Laguna Beach space, where new episodes of MTV's hit show are broadcast even before the TV version airs.
Machinima has definitely come a long way ... Second Life makes a great space for Machinima creation, where its comparative graphical crudity (alongside more polished worlds such as World of Warcraft) is offset by residents' ability to create any conceivable building, vehicle, or prop the story calls for. Having said that, however, there are only 4 movies from SL nominated for awards:
Better Life by Robbie Dingo (Best Virtual Performance: Custom Animation)
Game Over by Pierce Portocarrero (Best Virtual Performance: Custom Animation; Best Visual Design; Best Technical Achievement)
CNet recently debuted a podcast interview featuring employees Charlie Cooper, Daniel Terdiman, Neha Tiwari, and Leslie Katz speaking on the subject of MMOs such as Second Life and World of Warcraft (which, to this day, I can't read the name of without hearing in my head "Wheel! Of! Fortune!"). It's a rather short 'cast, with the end result being a sort of bemused, indifferent-seeming "So, why do you crazy kids like this sort of thing?" approach by the host. Given that Daniel Terdiman has been writing about these things for a while now, the whole interview seems a little disingenuous and late to the party, especially since CNet itself has created a virtual headquarters of its own in SL.
It's tantamount to asking "Okay, convince me: why are we doing this again?"
[UPDATE: Corrected 'Synthtravels' to 'Synthravels']
I like the name; evocative, sibilant ... promising. Synthravels deals in guided tours of the Internet's most popular MMOs, with SL featured prominently at the top of the home page. There's a huge list of destinations available, including famous realms like City of Heroes, Eve Online, World of Warcraft, and some of the perhaps not-as-well-known worlds, such as Neocron 2, and Saga of Ryzom.
Their Mission Statement reads a little like Edgar Rice Burroughs, which is to say it's a little purple, but I enjoyed it. There's no mention of rates, though they offer hour and half-hour tours. One must have an avatar ready in the world into which one travels, and at the appointed time, one logs in to find a Synthravels representative waiting to start the tour.
This sounds promising. I might take advantage of this service at some point, but if any of you beat me to it, take notes and contact me; let's tell the world about your experience!
While Metroblogging Azeroth is usually the domain of our sister site WoW Insider, I was really excited when i saw this on 3PointD today. The WoW guild We Know uses Second Life as a planning tool for raids. They have made Second Life based maps of the World of Warcraft maps and use markers to annotate their plans.
By using a virtual world to plan play in a MMOG We Know is stepping over a bound for distributed working environments that really can not be done with online tools. While WIKIs and Forums allow people to communicate through text, the embodiment a virtual world provides is much closer to the types of interaction we have in the real world. I see Second Life as a natural way to overcome this boundaries and seeing this type of use helps me solidify that view in my head. The one thing I would like to see is the ability to launch WoW from within Second Life with some natural form of transferring between worlds.
Well, there's certainly a lot of discussion going on, both inworld and via outworld means. There's a lot of discussion about whether certain activities that can take place within Second Life are legal, or illegal. Out of any group of twenty people you ask, you're likely to get five different answers, and twenty different reasons.
As I meet more and more older residents (which, for the purposes of this article, I'll define as those having created their accounts in 2004 or earlier), I find that the majority will tell me that they haven't been spending much time in SL lately. Some still maintain businesses, but either only check in once a week to keep up maintenance, or have hired an assistant to do the daily work. Some only drop in for specific events. Some teach classes, but otherwise have found other pursuits.
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Plenty of folks express fond wishes that updates in Second Life were more like (for example) those of World of Warcraft. The indefatigable Elizabeth Wachowski, Mike Schramm and David Nelson and their able cohorts over at 
"The grass is always greener (on the other side of the fence) until you have to mow it."
