As he constantly reminded us, Second Life is not a game, it's a tool set to build a virtual world, populated by "residents" who can all build whatever they like...(and can even keep it if they pay for land to store it on)...
It's attracting quite some interest by the popular press, see recent articles here and here...wikipedia entry here...not least the BBC who have been holding events and giving away free gifts to "residents", it is even rumoured that Hilary Clinton is going to set up an office in the game in order to canvas in the upcoming elections!
Great promise...a really great speaker...a really great experience? I installed it last night to see...
One thing that came across really strongly during the talk is the massive benefit for those people with Aspingers or that were Schizophrenic, and (implied, admittedly) those disabled people who really couldn't leave the house for physical reasons...this game literally gives them wings (your Avatar can fly from the very start)...
Also, from an architechures of participation point of view, this environment encourages creativity unlike anything else in Web 2.0 (some stupid figure like 70% of participants actually create things! This is incedible - did you know that of all the active users of eBay only FOUR PERCENT actually sell anything? Consider also out of all the huge number of users of the internet what a tiny fraction actually keep a blog up to date? It's effectively ZERO PERCENT, same with Wikipedia effectively zero percent of users actually bother to update it)..!
Anyway, hype aside, my brief look around tonight lead me to a 10 point observation -
1-There is a lot of empty space
2-The first area I teleported to I was walking around for about 4 minutes before (and there was no-one else there) I got a message asking me to leave
3-It feels like walking through a vast flea market, people have to pay to make unique things, and they want money to share (i.e. it's extremely commercial and obviously money driven to the core)
4 - My graphics card isn't quite up to the job...bah... :(
5 - A lot of the object code is dodgy (training areas aside) - the number of sofas that threw me into the air when I tried to stand up was a little silly, and also notable was the wonderful airship I found that threw me into the sea after not taking off, not moving and then complaining it hit something (which wasn't there)...
6 - A lot of the non-dodgy code is clunky (su doku in the help zone is extremely unfriendly)
7 - Educational or public service presentations work WELL (and are free, but I'm not sure they should be charging schools...)
8 - This environment is wonderful for crossing the boundary between IVL and IRL (especially the wonderful crossover between life and avatar at conferences/book signings/etc)...anything you can stream on the web (video, music etc.) you can stream into Second Life
9 - A few extra textures at launch would be nice...I wasn't very happy to arrive in the world looking like a classic US uni jock by default either, especially after being offered the choice at sign up (and choosing an interesting CyberGoth look - which was totally ignored), also the more interesting textures just look terrible on clothing, I thought chainmail jeans would be cool...but no...it looked more like blurry grey wool...
10 - I enjoyed being able to fly by default... ;)
I'm not out the door, and I admint I should try it out on a better machine...(the spec that Cory told me in person was a lot more acurate than the spec on the website)...
I also think newbies need a bit more of a guide to, say -
- Welcoming groups
- Cool things to see
- Cool things to do
It wouldn't hurt to have an obvious - Teleport yourself here (to action/cool/popular thing, rather than just a location on the blurry map) object to engage people from the help island...
Also, in the style of MUDs or MMORPGs? Why not guild recruitment from the off? Instant feeling that you *belong*...
Anyway, there really isn't much excuse not to at least try it and tell me how wrong I am...it's only about a 20Mb download and it's free...(in the begining at least)... ;)
2 comments:
OK, I'll give it a try. I'm registered as Cardinal Feng because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. The d/l for the MAC is 50Mb and coming through at 14.7Kbs. Whats your avatar?
FinkAngel Ramsay...thought it was appropriate... ;)
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