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Second Life Hype vs. Anti-Hype

Posted by Zonk on from the in-a-duel-to-the-death dept.

The new GigaGamez site, part of the OM network, has a look today at the hype fight over Second Life. It's the new darling of media companies, but is increasingly attracting negative feedback by people who know a thing or two about the industry. James Wagner Au tries to sort out who is saying what, and provide a little context for the discussion. From the article: "Can they really build a fully streamed world comprised of tens of thousands of servers? That's way above my paygrade, but I'll guess that task fits under the rubric of Fricking Hard. Can they fix a profoundly unfriendly user interface and thoroughly disorienting first hour user experience, which are aggressively, almost intentionally unwelcoming to the vast majority of interested users? Both shortcomings are at the heart of Second Life's poor retention rates, but neither have significantly changed in the three years since its commercial release. You have to wonder, whatever their stated intentions, if Linden's tech-centric corporate culture simply puts their improvement at a low priority."

6 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Entrance Restrictions by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't we wail about Newbies everywhere else? There could be a side benefit that only certain people "get it" and stay. Anyone who doesn't ... "doesn't deserve to be there".

    External world communities are rampant with unspoken restrictions. Some call you a Greenhorn for five years after you move there.

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    1. Re:Entrance Restrictions by HappySqurriel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't we wail about Newbies everywhere else? There could be a side benefit that only certain people "get it" and stay. Anyone who doesn't ... "doesn't deserve to be there".

      And the benefit is that you have a Massively Multiplayer Game that lacks the Massively Multiplayer part ...

      I could be wrong, but from my understanding Second Life was a game that was largely based around user generated content; the game gets better as you attract more people to develop interesting content within your game. If you actively discourage people from playing a game like this you will probably scare away a lot of people who could bring a lot of value to it; consider that a lot of "artistic" people have a great deal of difficulty just "getting" a user interface that makes sense to technical people.

    2. Re:Entrance Restrictions by misleb · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I could be wrong, but from my understanding Second Life was a game that was largely based around user generated content; the game gets better as you attract more people to develop interesting content within your game. If you actively discourage people from playing a game like this you will probably scare away a lot of people who could bring a lot of value to it; consider that a lot of "artistic" people have a great deal of difficulty just "getting" a user interface that makes sense to technical people.


      I haven't played SL much. Just a few days as a n00b. But from what I gather, building objects (the confusing part) is a technical AND artistic. Designing objects is one thing, but then you have to script them to make them do interesting things. Scripting is technical. There is really no way to get around that. One might liken it to designing a website with Javascript and server side scripting. Doing it well is not easy. And it isn't for everyone.

      -matthew

      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  2. Oh no! It's hard! I'm scared! by ivan256 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Can they really build a fully streamed world comprised of tens of thousands of servers? That's way above my paygrade, but I'll guess that task fits under the rubric of Fricking Hard.

    I don't want this to sound like a blanket indictment, because some studios get this right, but a lot of the unreliability, and failure to execute on difficult tasks in the gaming industry is due to the moronic staffing decisions of many game development companies. I haven't played Second Life, so for all I know (and from the sounds of it) maybe they got it right. A fully streamed world comprised of thens of thousands of servers? Sounds like some work, but it sounds completely feasible. When you're only willing to hire people who want to work in games so badly that they're drooling all over themselves at the opportunity and thus are willing to work at well below industry average pay level, what do you think you are going to get?

    There are people out there who have built massive clusters and have decades of experience solving these problems... But they usually don't work in games, because they can make five times as much in other industries. When a company comes along and runs a game studio like a real software company, people who are stuck in the more traditional 'you should thank your lucky stars you are working in games' mindset shouldn't be too surprised when that company actually succeeds at problems that were considered too hard in the past.

  3. Re:As a longtime user... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Insightful
    For someone who just wants to experience things, unless you're incredibly social, you won't last in SL. For the creative types there's more of a stick.
    The real question isn't whether or not a Second Life user "gets it", it's a question of whether those who "get it" are numerous and interesting enough for real-world companies to consider a Second Life presence... or for Linden Labs will be able to remain financially solvent. I have more doubts about these issues.
    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  4. Re:I tried second life by foolish · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As someone who has tried three or four times now to "get it" I have to concur with your assessment. Either you have to know and incredibly active social network of people already in, so that you can be guided and have shit explained to you, or you're stuck with the non-intuitive nature of the UI, world and environments.

    Not to mention the furries, the sex clubs and the walking dildos. Or the assholes who setup content bombs that pop you.

    Second Life is user created, but it has all the unattractive qualities of a fan-fic slush pile and MUSH combined, graphics that are from the mid-90s, and performance of a P90 trying to play DOOM3.

    The first thing they really need to nail is the UI for just plain interacting. Then they need to nail the "base" avatar creation. As is, you can spend hours creating your first avatar and it will still look like shit, whereas in most other virtual worlds, you fiddle with a few sliders and have a respectable-looking avatar.

    I'd love to find a reason to stay, but Second Life doesn't seem to want to "get it" to the idea of bringing new people in who want a world on par with the other virtual worlds they are already interacting in. If aesthetics/content/performance don't matter, then I could use IM and "myspace" much more effectively in networking than Second life will ever be. If they do matter, then they need base content and performance that is of peer-quality to the current state of the industry.