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There Inc - Propagating the Bad of Society?
An anonymous reader writes "A former beta tester has written up a negative, but interesting, review of the 'virtual world' MMO title There. While it mainly contains sarcastic remarks directed at the game mechanics (or lack there-of), near the end it also claims that There is 'a mirror of the shallowest possible view of American consumerist society.' It concludes by saying that There is missing anything that would classify it as a game, and that as a chat service it capitalizes on 'our society's tendency to believe that being attractive is a prerequisite for being accepted by others.' Should developers try to be aware of whether their game will reproduce negative trends already present in real life?" We recently ran a story on the official launch of There, a game that has its fans as well as its detractors.
Second Life looks to be a much better "game." Stephenson's Metaverse is often refrenced. Second Life looks to be closer to a Metaverse then There.
Second Life seems to encourage player content and player control. It is interesting how players are rewarded for makeing good content. Players are able to charge other players fees for products, land, and access to land (services). There are monthly stipends with bonuses for high, player generated, ratings. There are tools for radically altering a characters apearence, and building almost anything. The scripting language looks to fairly powerfull. Players can even alter terrain.
I find it equally interesting that I was able to learn about Second Life through there own online documentation. Second Life seems to be quite open about what there "game" is. Whereas most links on the There website require an account to access.
Second Life looks to be a very ambitious project. It will be interesting to see if they can pull it off. I am quite interested if the balance of player control will work, or if Second Life will degenerate into a trollfest like some many other services online.