Sony, Microsoft Begin Battle of Virtual Worlds

Slatterz writes "Sony and Microsoft are poised to do battle in virtual worlds. The console kids both announced Second Life-style virtual environments at the Tokyo Game Show today. Both games show striking similarities to Linden Lab's creation. Players are represented by avatars which live a virtual life — engaging in relationships, going about day-to-day business."

Comments

"Oh yay"

[KeX3]

So, two clones of something that is little more than a furry playground? My pythonic "yaaay" just isn't lethargic enough to express my feelings.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Negatyfus]

I thought this was pretty cool, that is, until I read your post. Seeing the error of my ways, I will now live a life free of virtual worlds and offer my sincere apologies for having a different opinion. Please accept twenty self-inflicted lashes of the whip to my back to atone for my sin.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Random Walk]

Depens on what you're interested in. SL is not a game, it's more like a technical platform.. where you can implement games, if you like. What I like about it is that there's no fixed goal. You can just hang around, have fun roleplaying with others, explore creative builds.. be as lazy as you like :)

Re:"Oh yay"

[Ash-Fox]

So, two clones of something that is little more than a furry playground? My pythonic "yaaay" just isn't lethargic enough to express my feelings.

There are more non-furs in Second life than there are furs.

Nice troll.

Re:"Oh yay"

[TDyl]

Posted by someone with "Fox" in his/her name???

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

There may be less of 'em, but, my god, what has been seen cannot be unseen.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

There are more non-furs in Second life than there are furs

There is a MUCH higher (furs)/(non furs) ratio in Second Life than in meatspace and, face it, most of the internet.

Nice try.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Ash-Fox]

Posted by someone with "Fox" in his/her name???

Oh yes, I am a furry. But by the original poster's logic, I would certainly know if this was the case, no? :)

Re:"Oh yay"

[electrictroy]

Trivia:

One of the first (perhaps the first) online virtual worlds was hosted by Quantum Link for the Commodore 64. Connections were made by modems with speeds from 0.3 to 2.4 kbit/s. Q-Link eventually renamed itself America Online, aka AOL.

"Q-Link's Habitat is a multi-participant online virtual environment. A cyberspace. Each participant ("player") uses a home computer (Commodore 64) as an intelligent, interactive client, communicating via modem and telephone over a commercial packet-switching network to a centralized, mainframe host system. The client software provides the user interface, generating a real-time animated display of what is going on..." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Link

Note that it says "animated". This wasn't some text-based BBS, but a fully-graphical interface similar to the world wide web, but with much lower resolution (320x200).
.

Re:"Oh yay"

[91degrees]

So you say that as though it's a crime or something. What do you have against Furries? Are you equally intolerant of everyone with a different lifestyle?

Re:"Oh yay"

[TDyl]

Verily I concede (while stroking your back and tickling under your chin).

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

now he is iffyng

Re:"Oh yay"

[Mr2cents]

be as lazy as you like :)

Isn't that a very elaborate way to be lazy?

Re:"Oh yay"

[Sobrique]

Lifestyle is one thing. Public sexual gratification is another.

Re:"Oh yay"

[91degrees]

But the OP seemed to only have a problem with this from furries.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Elektroschock]

Interesting for me is that Microsoft creates an alliance of competitors by virtually going against the rest of the market. Every succesful business model gets less successful Microsoft competition. I wonder why they don't compete with Amazon and eBay.

Microsoft seems to be very desperate. So Second Life is the next member of the anti-Microsoft alliance camp. All these companies are bent to kill Microsoft. They are like super-activitists and not driven by rational business choice, they really do want to kill Microsoft and that is going to happen.

Re:"Oh yay"

[syousef]

So, two clones of something that is little more than a furry playground?

I spent a couple of weeks on Second Life. By a couple of weeks I mean about an hour a day. I loved being able to fly. Everything else sucked. Who the hell wants to hang around with 40+ year old house wives who dress their teenage avatars in the skimpiest virtual gear possible then complain about a bunch of pre-teen boys harassing them??? Even a mother's club has more point, than the Seinfeld of virtual worlds (you know the game about nothing). At least Seinfeld didn't have to pay real money for his virtual penis. (I didn't pay one cent and I still don't understand people paying for virtual appendages and virtual housing - I've got a virtual bridge to sell someone) Not to mention crashes, freezes and service hassles.

Once I got over the novelty of my avatar flying, and learnt to mess with the interface I dropped it. I could have explored the scripting but I'd rather learn a real programming language - one that will last longer than the fad of this particular virtual world.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Probie]

why so people can fail in there virtual life aswell as in here real one? ....mmm twice the productivity! ;)

Re:"Oh yay"

[Mordaximus]

Games Computers Play might have been just slightly older: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n6/GamesComputers.html

Re:"Oh yay"

[PopeRatzo]

Isn't that a very elaborate way to be lazy?

That's the point.

You can be lazy, while having your avatar give you the illusion of being an active, social person, who wears cool clothes and can dance and is not a fat lump sitting on a smelly couch. It's the future, man. Get with it. Second Life is to life as Guitar Hero is to being a musician.

Re:"Oh yay"

[KeX3]

I think you're reading too much into my post. As stated, the pythonic "yaaay" and the rest of the sentence following it pointing out that that alone wasn't lethargic enough, it's not about intolerance, it's about complete and utter disinterest.

I couldn't care less about furries, so i place them into the same slot i place vegetarians and christians: people who i don't care about unless they shove their sexual preference, eating habits or insanity in my face. I merely find it amusing that both Sony and MS decide to clone something that is somehow dedicated to flying penises en masse, furries and misplaced "embassies".

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

I know. Just winding you up:)

Re:"Oh yay"

[electrictroy]

Nice photos! I like how those old magazines used direct camera shots of televisions. There was no such thing as a "screen dump" back then. Here's me in 1989: http://www.qlinklives.org/qlink-old/me1989.jpg * And here's the 1985-Commodore 64 version of "Miis" - http://www.fudco.com/chip/habitat.gif - I don't know what this is but it looks cool - http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/feature/1991/c64_11.jpg

Those were the good old days, when computing was an adventure into unknown territories & unrealized possibilities. Nowadays it's more like a boring appliance (IMHO).

*

* (just joking; I looked more like Weesley Crusher on TNG - just a teenager.)

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

>Note that it says "animated". This wasn't some text-based BBS, but a fully-graphical interface similar to the world wide web, but with much lower resolution (320x200). .

Some of us are still using lynx you insensitive clod!

Re:"Oh yay"

[BakaHoushi]

I don't quite agree with your analogy. Guitar Hero is about the rock star experience. It's about getting up and, essentially, pretending to be a rock God, on stage, and getting into it. Second Life is about sitting on your butt and catering to that which you already are. One of them at least requires a smidgen of imagination and activity.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Random Walk]

Second Life is about sitting on your butt and catering to that which you already are. One of them at least requires a smidgen of imagination and activity.

Second Life doesn't have a storyline or a goal.. it's up to you what you do. Those who have no imagination are probably those who are used to consume a game like they consume TV... and they pretty fast discover that Second Life is not for them, and leave it.

Re:"Oh yay"

[morari]

Last time I watched a few friends play Guitar Hero it was very much about sitting on their butts and clicking buttons in sync with little colored discs on screen. It's essentially Dance Dance Revolution for the lazy.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

Go yiff in hell. And get off my lawn while you're at it, too!

Dang kids with their virtual worlds and their anonymous furry sex...

Re:"Oh yay"

[Ash-Fox]

Go yiff in hell.

Who hasn't yiffed in that sim?

Thanks for the advice though.

Re:"Oh yay"

[ozphx]

{citation needed}

I mean seriously last time I installed this there was a "Virtual Badger Dick" lying on the ground at the first random place I went to...

Re:"Oh yay"

[ozphx]

Theres just something inside my rather well-developed brain that screams out "dressing up as animals and fucking each other is not right". Logic suggests the only reason real foxes aren't being fucked is because people would have their cocks bitten off.

Its like a giant cult of bestiality, with a reaction on par with the scientologists when you let them know they are a bunch of loonies.

Re:"Oh yay"

[ReiDragon]

Agreed, which is why I steer away from Second Life most of the time, even with being a furry. Bunch of crazy people on there I swear.

Re:"Oh yay"

[IceFox]

So what does that make FireFox hmmm?

Re:"Oh yay"

[street struttin']

I know, it's like it almost takes work to be lazy in this case. I think I'll just keep being lazy the old fashioned way.

Re:"Oh yay"

[bonch]

Where is your source for this? Every time I've ever logged onto Second Life (I tend to avoid it because it's ridiculously slow and choppy for such simple graphics), the furry population is everywhere. You just can't get away from it. Even in the MST3K theater I visited (/cry).

Re:"Oh yay"

[street struttin']

Depens on what you're interested in. SL is not a game, it's more like a technical platform.. where you can implement games, if you like. What I like about it is that there's no fixed goal.

Dwight: Second life is not a game. There are no winners and no losers.
Jim: Oh there are losers...

Re:"Oh yay"

[Ash-Fox]

Where is your source for this? Every time I've ever logged onto Second Life (I tend to avoid it because it's ridiculously slow and choppy for such simple graphics), the furry population is everywhere. You just can't get away from it.

Most popular areas on Second life, just by searching common phrases like 'the' and sorting by popularity appear to be all or mostly human.

I go to the welcome area, I see about 40 human avatars and one furry avatar. Oh my God, ONE FURRY, THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR ME!!!!!

If you want to avoid furs: Stay away from Lusk, Furnation, valley sims, Lost furs and the forest (these sims don't even make up 1% of Second life's simulators, nor the population).

Or even better, go to the anti-furry sims, like Goreans, what etc.

Even in the MST3K theater I visited (/cry).

Maybe you shouldn't go to things created/built on Second life by furs either then.

Re:"Oh yay"

[CronoCloud]

If you check out Jim's avatar in SL, his rez date actually predates Dwight's avatar's rezdate. And unlike Dwight's avatar, who looks like Dwight, Jim's is your stereotypical SL music scene attending "cool guy". So Jim's more of an "SL loser" than Dwight, he just doesn't want to admit it. Jim's avatar was also partnered with Pam's. The Office character's avatar profiles are a fun read.

Re:"Oh yay"

[eniacfoa]

often people want to "zone out" when they play games...not "zone in". That is my fundamental problem with VW's. Im an old skool gamer. My god I still remember waiting ages for cassette tapes to load on my c64. Virtual worlds are definitely not for everyone. You have to put a lot in to get anything out of it really apart from chatting to some new people.

Re:"Oh yay"

[g-san]

"There was no such thing as a "screen dump" back then."

Screen dump or screen capture? We definitely had screen dumps, it might have been spit out on a dot matrix and print speeds were measured in characters per second, but you could get hardcopies. On a IIe it was PR#1 (with your printer interface card in slot one) or thereabouts. My emulator is useless on this one. As far as screen caps, you could just tell the system to write 8k bytes to disk starting at the memory location of screen memory. Ha, as you loaded it back from disk you could see the image paint on screen. You could also load binaries to screen memory, just to see what they "looked" like.

If we would have had the internet with computers like that we would have a whole different environment today.

Re:"Oh yay"

[BakaHoushi]

Maybe it's just me then. If you're not actually up and bouncing along to the music and making a genuine ass of yourself doing it, I just don't see the point.

Re:"Oh yay"

[PopeRatzo]

Those who have no imagination are probably those who are used to consume a game like they consume TV

Praytell, give us examples of all the wonderful things that people who do have imaginations do on Second Life.

Re:"Oh yay"

[r3v3r3ndb177]

why knock something instead of seeking out its positive aspects? "games" like these "furry playgrounds" are amazing networking tools. a guitar player in brazil can write music with a drummer in sweden as though they were in the same room. how can you not be excited about the nature of these "clones"? international creativity is only a tiny sliver of the networking spectrum. think about the possibility of a virtual real estate industry where people purchase virtual space to occupy, rent, or sell for real money (just like putting items found in mmorpg's on ebay for other players to pay real money for). there are many exciting possibilities for this "technology", so why be lethargic and narrow minded about it?

Re:"Oh yay"

[badkarmadayaccount]

I dont get what everyone's problem with furries is. They're kind of cute, if they font overdo it.

Re:"Oh yay"

[morari]

Sounds like the same argument people use for karaoke.

Re:"Oh yay"

[TDyl]

Now that is one of the major problems - they always argue about the style of the text on their "business" cards and invites. Once-upon-a-time it used to be just 'oh hi, i'm furry, cuddle me' now it's all 'touch me and I'll sue' 'if you ever use that elephant again the repugnants will lose the 'lection'' Oh shit: Saturday night, England, Bristol, Beers. Sorry; oh, what do I say now? My Bad???

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

The new 'mono' compiler is the first step to opening up the Second Life API to outside programming languages. So there is a path forward.

You're spreading FUD, and your analysis is shoddy.

Re:"Oh yay"

[badkarmadayaccount]

Doesnt everybody?

Real Moneyz?

[Icy_Infinity]

Now the real question is will people be able to make real income off these clones as many have and failed in Second Life?

Re:Real Moneyz?

[Ash-Fox]

Now the real question is will people be able to make real income off these clones as many have and failed in Second Life?

A lot of people are succeeding making money off Second life. Of course, the people who just go into Second life and have no understanding about it just go about setting up random stuff, trying to make a business without even trying to understand the economy in Second life, absolutely fail.

A lot of people assume making a good amount of money off Second life is easy, it is not.

Re:Real Moneyz?

[WinterKnight]

As far as I can see, no.

This isnt about your content: This is about them selling YOU content.

Ofcourse, they may add some ways for you to make a buck, or I suppose other people will come up with ways to make a buck despite Sony's objections (e.g. coming up with gold farming in EverQuest).

Heck, look at SecondLife: Its own in-world currency wasnt worth anything other then being a game token until someone decided it was worth real life dollars. And the rest is obsessed, greedy, overly-advertised history.

Article misleading?

[AndyboyH]

Having RTFA, and also having a background as a games dev.
Home is a virtual world, but isn't Microsoft's avatars pretty much just the same approach as Miis?

I think the article's a little misleading in implying that Microsoft are making some virtual world (like Home or 2nd Life), when instead, it's just giving devs a representation of the player to put into their own games, like how Miis are currently handled on the Wii.

Re:Article misleading?

[somersault]

It's funny how the article also talks about home like it's only started development, yet it will be out in November. We've been waiting for it for something like 2 years now. If the MS thing is just like Miis then there is nothing like a 'battle' going on..

I hope Home is as technically advanced as GTA with the ability to drive around and play minigames. I wonder if there will be any overlap between the two. Getting your Home avatar into GTA would be pretty cool, and I'd prefer a better method for finding multiplayer servers as well..

Re:Article misleading?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually another useless article from The Inquirer, republished on pcauthority.com.au.

Sure, Home bears a glancing resemblance to Second Life, albeit a homogenized one, but the NXE bears absolutely no resemblance other than they both have avatars and feature text and voice chat. Virtual world, NXE ain't.

Where is slashdot's bullshit filter when we need it?

Re:Article misleading?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad we have your experience in game dev. to point this out for us, I'm not sure how we would have worked it out by just simply reading tfa

Re:Article misleading?

[WinterKnight]

Frankly, the term 'Virtual World' has been foggied up so badly by clueless marketing droids that no one really knows what the term means anymore.

Back in the 90's it was more used toward worlds where you can build content and create your own environment - sort of a take from Virtual Reality. But now days it feels like people decided that anything 3D and multiplayer/multiuser is a "virtual world" - so the term doesnt mean much anymore.

So we end up having to use examples.

And I wouldnt use SecondLife as an example for Sony's implementation. There doesnt seem to be anything there about user creativity, only consumerism.

Same goes with Microsoft AFAIK.

Re:Article misleading?

[elrous0]

Yes, the author is clearly talking out of his ass on this one. Home is a lot like Second Life--with the notable exception of not being able to create original content, which a lot of Second Lifers would consider the defining characteristic of Second Life (I don't). But the new Live Experience is NOTHING like it (nor is it in any way a "virtual world"). The closest thing Live Experience has to a "virtual world" is a lousy 8-person chat feature where you and 7 of your friends on live can show off your lame Mii's.

I was excited when I read this headline to think MS had finally unveiled a competitor for Home. But in actuality, it was just a dumbass writer with no clue.

Re:Article misleading?

[sootman]

I found the headline to be misleading, but in a different way. "Sony, Microsoft Begin Battle of Virtual Worlds" to me sounds like they're both going to create virtual worlds and there would be a big LotR-style battle between the two. Now that would be cool! I'd pay to join.... except that I wouldn't want to be on either side. :-) Make an Apple or Linux virtual world and we'll talk.

Re:Article misleading?

[lysergic.acid]

that's an interesting idea. Sony could get together with the major game publishers and establish a standardized player model format. you would be able to customize the model in the PS3's Home interface, and then load the 3D avatar into games as your player model. each game would render the model differently (different lighting system, character sizes, graphical style, etc.) but the basic features would still be recognizable as your Home avatar.

i don't own a PS3, so I've never used Home, but they could also make a 3D environment like a virtual city where different parts of the city are their own minigame--making the Home network a game development platform where the games are directly integrated into the virtual city. this might not appeal to the big gaming studios, but it could allow independent developers to create their own online games that would be free for download or playable for a small fee. this would really change the current console game publishing/distribution paradigm. heck, i'd get a PS3 just so that i could develop my own online game that could be shared with millions of other users.

Re:Article misleading?

[iter8]

In the MS virtual world, you will have two choices of avatar. One will look like Clippy and the other will be Bob.

Re:Article misleading?

[The Gaytriot]

That would still be a cool thing to integrate into the Home thing. On the Xbox 360 you have the menus you can go through to go on the marketplace, get game demos, change settings, etc. You can also select to play the game you have in your DVD drive, you could incorporate that kind of menu navigation in a 3D world pretty easily.

Re:Article misleading?

[MikeBabcock]

Sony's Home, yes I know from experience, has the ability to play mini-games and run around (as well as warp places directly). You can play a fairly decent game of 3D pool or of chess with others who join you. You can play bowling or with various stand-up classic-style arcade games.

The environment in general is very much a designed world, not a player-made one, and Sony is very much trying to woo more corporate partners into Home at this time (and already has quite a few).

Re:Article misleading?

[MikeBabcock]

The 3D world of Home already has video screens playing fairly good quality videos 24/7 (mostly just game advertising at the moment). Launching games from within the XMB launcher is very easy already, and the PS3 already has a Store interface although I could see it being integrated into Home as-is someday soon.

Re:Article misleading?

[Lodragandraoidh]

The SL client runs on Linux - so there is a virtual world for Linux.

2nd Life?

[goose-incarnated]

Using second life as a target displays a considerable lack of ambition.

Re:2nd Life?

[WinterKnight]

Using second life as a target displays a considerable lack of ambition.

Obviously that means that you can easily create your own Second Life platform with minimum effort? ;D

Re:2nd Life?

[goose-incarnated]

Sure, give me a few tens of millions of $$$ and 11 months, and I'll give you a receipt ;-)

(Actually, I did not meant that it is easy, just that it has already been done)

Stupid....

[gweihir]

If you look at the press, the Second life seems to be doing well. That is because they think they understand it and because fancy pictures are to be had. However if you look at the number of participants in MMO games, you find that second life is one of the worst performers still in business. As it is doubtful that these new attempts will draw more people (they will basically have to to draw people away from Second Life, everybody that is interested in thsi kind of thing is already there) these efforts are doomed to fail. Incidentially this has been clear for quite some time. It is just more abysmal management decisions without getting facts by Microsoft and Sony. The level of stupidity involved is staggering.

Re:Stupid....

[Random Walk]

If the rumours are true, a staggering fraction of people abandon SL very fast because the can't get along with the client interface. It may well be that the pool of potential participants is much larger than the current SL population.

Re:Stupid....

[Ash-Fox]

However if you look at the number of participants in MMO games, you find that second life is one of the worst performers still in business.

Second life isn't that bad as MMOs go, I mean, just look at Furcadia, Planeshifts etc.

Maybe you could come up with some actual sources proving it's not as popular as the MMOs I mentioned? Thus proving that it's "one of the worst performers still in business".

Re:Stupid....

[Anonymous Coward]

However if you look at the number of participants in MMO games, you find that second life is one of the worst performers still in business.

[citation needed]

Re:Stupid....

[skribe]

There are a lot of people who are interested in virtual worlds but haven't enjoyed the experience that Second Life has offered them. We're talking millions, if not tens of millions. If these new worlds can learn from SLs mistakes then there is certainly a potential market there to tap into. Unfortunately the hype around SL led to the inevitable unfulfilled expectations and so people are likely wary. But that's really just a marketing problem.

Re:Stupid....

[kirbysuperstar]

Furcadia

Please! I just ate!

Re:Stupid....

[WinterKnight]

SecondLife is failing because while the idea was good, the implementation missed the mark:

- People dont want a single, unified global environment. They want their own private, locked out bubbles of reality where they can control every single aspect, and possibly allow visitors in.

- The user interface was designed by an engineer. And it shows.

- The company itself was initially ran by engineers who had no idea how to provide a user experience, and is now being ran by a marketing team that cares more about corporate big bucks then the users themselves. Result: Nobody really worked on a proper user experience for newbies, causing them to feel lost and disoriented with a sense of having nothing to do.

The tutorials - when available - tend to focus more on how to use the client rather then how to use the world to get a positive experience. This is lacking since as a user created world rather then a planned and company controlled one (such as MMORPGs), you cant really provide people with an easy path for positive experiences right off the bat.

So yea. All these points are what caused SL to end up sucking for most people who arent into the virtual world field, and more.

But it had nothing to do with "haha virtual worlds suck moving on" or "OH SHIT, FURRIES".

Re:Stupid....

[elrous0]

As a long-time Second Lifer (i.e., I'm a sad human being), I would say that Second Life does do one thing very well that very few MMO's do. It attracts women. Chicks really dig Second Life.

Re:Stupid....

[smellsofbikes]

I don't think it's precisely inability to get along with the client interface. As a (not exactly veteran) SL player who hangs out where the new players first show up, I can tell you why so many people quit:

1. The client interface just doesn't even work. It's not that they can't get along with it, it's that they sign up for a character and the SL client program tells them that it doesn't work on their hardware. They consider buying a new computer just to play a stupid game, and think "that's really lame" and shrug and go do something else. I know a half-dozen people who have gone down that route.

2. They get online, jazz up their avatar, look around, and say "uh, now what?" They're coming from a television or WoW background and expect that someone has written a plot and lined up a bunch of things for them to do, and when they realize that there isn't a goal, that there isn't a dedicated newscaster to stand there and entertain them, they say "what's the point?" and leave. (I see that literally every time I get on SL: a new person gets on, says "so what's the goal of the game?" and when people say "there isn't one" the person says "that's dumb." and logs off, most likely forever.)

My guess is that the active population of SL is less than 1/100 of what Linden claims, possibly much less.

But, for what it's worth, I fairly rarely hear of/see people who are having consistent problems with the (stupid) interface. I think people get used to it.

Re:Stupid....

[Ash-Fox]

As a long-time Second Lifer (i.e., I'm a sad human being), I would say that Second Life does do one thing very well that very few MMO's do. It attracts women. Chicks really dig Second Life.

Second life might get slashdotted now.

Re:Stupid....

[LandDolphin]

That, or it attracts a larger percentage of men who pretend to be women. Maybe sexually confused men really dig second life?

Re:Stupid....

[Random Walk]

I see that literally every time I get on SL: a new person gets on, says "so what's the goal of the game?" and when people say "there isn't one" the person says "that's dumb." and logs off, most likely forever.

The correct answer isn't "there is no goal", but rather "you have to define your own goal". And if someone can't do that, they're probably no loss if they leave.

Re:Stupid....

[Ash-Fox]

- People dont want a single, unified global environment. They want their own private, locked out bubbles of reality where they can control every single aspect, and possibly allow visitors in.

Second life already offers this capability in land parcel tools and estate tools.

- The user interface was designed by an engineer. And it shows.

Considering how bad Linden lab is at engineering things like the the LSL2 bytecode engine - I don't agree on the engineer statement.

- The company itself was initially ran by engineers who had no idea how to provide a user experience, and is now being ran by a marketing team that cares more about corporate big bucks then the users themselves. Result: Nobody really worked on a proper user experience for newbies, causing them to feel lost and disoriented with a sense of having nothing to do.

Well, the result is that there seems to be a lot of women using Second life, loads of socialization etc.

Am I the only one who found Second life easier to understand than Eve Online and World of Warcraft by the way?

The tutorials - when available - tend to focus more on how to use the client rather then how to use the world to get a positive experience.

Knowing how to use the client would get a positive experience. Since anything is possible and Linden lab does not promote anything specific in Second life (since you can interact, play, run a business). It is really up to you. There are plenty of events in the search that teach you how to do things from business to uh.. one moment (searching...) BDSM roleplay....

So yea. All these points are what caused SL to end up sucking for most people who arent into the virtual world field, and more.

Actually, I find it is mostly the hardcore gamers that aren't really interested in Second life. I meet a lot of average joe users on Second life than in any other graphical online environment.

But it had nothing to do with "haha virtual worlds suck moving on" or "OH SHIT, FURRIES".

I'm a furry. Resistance is futile.

Re:Stupid....

[Anonymous Coward]

No more xkcd for you.

Re:Stupid....

[CronoCloud]

You mean "transgendered" and not "sexually challenged". Sexual identity and gender identity are not the same thing. And while SL does have a following among some MTF (male to female) transgendered folks (it's a lot like IRC in that way), the majority of female avatars are played by women. You can figure that out just by using the built in voice chat.

Re:Stupid....

[Anonymous Coward]

As a long-time Second Lifer (i.e., I'm a sad human being), I would say that Second Life does do one thing very well that very few MMO's do. It attracts women. Chicks really dig Second Life.

Second life might get slashdotted now.

Nah... that's really just a bunch of dudes walking around in chick avatars. Nothing to see here, move along :)

Re:Stupid....

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you tell?

A quick glance around WOW might lead you to the same conclusion there. And it might even be true.

Re:Stupid....

[smellsofbikes]

You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to...
Literally, there isn't *one* -- goal, that is. The goal is to do whatever it is you enjoy doing online: building, talking, deriving whatever sexual gratification people can get from a computer game, whatever.
I haven't found a goal worth pursuing in SL, which is why I've mostly stopped playing. That's nothing against SL, though: it just doesn't work in the ways I want.
But it *certainly* doesn't work in the ways that non-self-directed people want. People who want a defined set of rules to follow so they can win? just *hate* SL because it makes no sense. It makes lots of sense to me, thankfully.

Re:Stupid....

[Timex]

You say that like we'd NOTICE on SL...

Lag:SL :: Air:RL ... :D

(FWIW, I play in SL and actually enjoy it. Yeah, it's laggy at times, but at least I don't get frequent "Server disconnect" messages, like I got with WoW...)

Re:Stupid....

[CronoCloud]

No, SL really does have a lot of women, it is not like WoW. See you've got your stay at home mom's, you've got your internet savvy women (who perhaps build websites as their main job) doing SL and using their photoshop skills in there, you've got the art school/graphic design gals who design clothes/jewelry, you've got the women in the music scene who either perform or use their massive CD collection to DJ at clubs/events, you've got RL makeup artists using their makeup knowledge to do the same in SL. you've got what seems to be hordes of librarians doing whatever it is they do at their cool librarian places.

Re:Stupid....

[CronoCloud]

SL has built in voice chat....and people actually use it. Also people are relatively more open about their RL in SL than gamers are in traditional MMORPG's, in part because you do more communication than "incoming mob add, somebody root/slow/stop it." There's a bit of an SL truism: SL is a "women's world". One of the things guys in SL always complain about is the lack of avatar customization options for men. There's a bajillion sellers of great female "skin", but far far fewer of male skin.

Oh I have an idea! visit the SL oriented blogs and listen to the voices on those "leave a voice message widgets" like mychingo. Here's one:
http://roslinpetion.blogspot.com/ That's the blog of my favorite skin maker. Or listen to SL podcasts. You'll see.

Re:Stupid....

[Carbon016]

cool i really needed to know about your sexual fetishes in a discussion on slashdot about software thanks for sharing

Re:Stupid....

[Ash-Fox]

cool i really needed to know about your sexual fetishes in a discussion on slashdot about software thanks for sharing

I didn't mention any sexual fetishes.

escaping to another world.

[HungryHobo]

"engaging in relationships, going about day-to-day business."

Strange how people will sit in a bedroom controlling an avatar which is decorating it's bedroom....

Although I can understand to an extent. there have been times when I was unhappy and being able to spend a few hours in a virtual world completely disconnected from my real life somehow helped and overall made me a happier person. Don't play now that real life is good.

I avoid WOW at all cost though. I want to play it but I've seen what it does to people and I know I'd get hooked.

Re:escaping to another world.

[IrquiM]

Yeah! I hate what Age of Conan did to Penny too!

Re:escaping to another world.

[dnoyeb]

May I recommend Eve-online. A solid single universe game without the cushy penalties of WOW.(not that I have played WOW)

Playing games can be very relaxing. I remember when I was sick many years ago, playing starcraft took the pain away as well as any pain killer. But it worked faster. So I always played while waiting on the medicine to kick in.

Re:escaping to another world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange how people will sit in a bedroom controlling an avatar which is decorating it's bedroom....

Doesn't it work very well for myspace?
It's not my cup of tea, but I can see a lot of gamers(probably not the hardcore ones) would be into this.

Re:escaping to another world.

[elrous0]

I've seen crackheads less addicted than some of my friends who play WoW.

Re:escaping to another world.

[Anonymous Coward]

I find the ability to create things in SL is the main reason I like it, though I also socialize with those who share my interests. Some people think it's fun to make things. Think of it as sketching a bowl of fruit when you have a bowl of fruit right there.

Oh, and some great builders and scripters like a "furry" avatar. I think some dragon and werewolf avatars are pretty cool. Bite me haters.

Re:escaping to another world.

[vux984]

May I recommend Eve-online. A solid single universe game without the cushy penalties of WOW.(not that I have played WOW)

Oh yes... Eve online --- a game of studying spreadsheets for hours in painful light text on dark background style; with no ability adjust the small barely legible font.

When you've finished that, there are hours of joyous sitting around watching the game play itself after you plot a course. Of course you can't actually leave, because there is a small chance you'll get ganked, a chance which moves to 99% if you leave. Or maybe sitting in an asteroid belt clicking on rocks for a couple hours is your idea of fun? Eve has plenty of that too!

Then you get to participate in these giant space battles with hundreds of ships... of course you have to turn all the eyecandy off so it looks like shit, and it still lags around so badly that instead of 'frames per second' its 'seconds per frame'.

Oh, and its highly competitive, which is cool... but the game developers play (insider information)... and have even been caught blatantly cheating, which is much less cool. Coincidence that they were associated with the dominant 'alliance/corporation/guild' at the time? I think not.

Eve Online is a terrible game with a great meta-game played on top of it.

Re:escaping to another world.

[HiVizDiver]

I quit WoW after 2 months because of exactly that reason. That's all it took - 2 months (actually way less than that if you figure I *quit* after 2 months). It was all I thought about. I do feel extremely lucky that I was strong enough to quit before any real damage happened; I didn't lose my job/family/etc. as I've heard some have. Do I want to play it still? You bet I do. Do I play other games still? Yep. I've been playing PC games for almost 20 years now, and I have NEVER seen anything like WoW. I chose one of the most mundane existences - I made stuff and sold it at the AH - hell, I wasn't even really raiding! This was just me doing my own thing mostly by myself (though I was in a guild, I didn't participate a whole lot), and all I would do all day was want to check and see how my auctions were doing. If I had put half that effort into other things in my life...

I'm happy to play Oblivion/GTA IV/Civilization Revolution for a few hours at a time and leave them. That wasn't the case with WoW. Like a rat pressing a bar...

Re:escaping to another world.

[MikeBabcock]

Don't start playing Wurm then. :-)

Animal Crossing: It prints money!

[tepples]

Now the real question is will people be able to make real income off these clones as many have and failed in Second Life?

Nintendo appears to be printing money with its Animal Crossing series.

Virtual world, virtual boringness...

[Monkey-some]

Nice avatars to gather along -yeeah-...well I suppose that IRC wasn't enough graphical (or maybe too metaphorical in his representation for most people) and that you couldn't conclude serious business within all those Multi players games /sarcasm.

The problem is that they are wholly boring. the best of the world would be to include a "second world" into an already existing -and even moderately successful multi player game-. Imagine a "low paying" WoW/Eve/Warhammer account where your user would be forced to stay within cities (you could travel using existing methods or players) - some basic skills learning and basically their paying accounts gives'em some gold every month so they can shop for clothes and various other stuff".

That would ensure a lot of people "who would buy" stuff from the players creating a more vivid economy "hey looks there are the peons in the cities". They could get some funny things like plague, rest in buildings "with their names into them" and so on.

you could upgrade on those accounts to go kill things out there or well downgrade a full time killer to being a city dude with maybe some gears being put in a repository so you don't encounter a neighbor who wears a flaming armor with killer ghosts trapped into it".

It looks like a good idea

Hurrah.

[cordsie]

Bet nobody will buy Vista in their virtual world either.

Re:Hurrah.

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought Vista in RL you insensitive clod! Do you still need to keep rubbing salt into my wounds? :(

Re:Hurrah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:Hurrah.

[elrous0]

Windows needs your permission to use this program

Salt

If you do not trust the source do not use this program. This program can potentially harm your computer

Allow Cancel

Because bells are easier to earn than dollars

[tepples]

Strange how people will sit in a bedroom controlling an avatar which is decorating it's bedroom

And strange how people will buy stuff to decorate a virtual bedroom from a talking raccoon. Dedicated gamers can earn bells, gil, plat, or whatever virtual currency a lot more easily than dollars.

Re:Because bells are easier to earn than dollars

[bonch]

Strange how people keep referencing Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing is only similar to Second Life on a very superficial level. It's designed so you're in it for maybe half an hour a day.

Like Second Life?

[Luminescence]

Second Life certainly has its failings. However its big plus is that you can create anything you like from basic shapes like cubes. This seems highly unlikely to be possible from online console games.

Totally unbiased, of course

[draxredd]

Microsoft new experience is a bling improvement to the XBox360 GUI.
Sony's Home is a new GUI for the PS3.

And now for something completely different...

(a man, probably a banker, fall of a window)

Furry playground (disambiguation)

[tepples]

So, two clones of something that is little more than a furry playground?

"Furry playground"? Are you talking about Second Life or the Animal Crossing series?

Re:Furry playground (disambiguation)

[Anonymous Coward]

Animal Crossing indeed, just in a somewhat different way

Re:Furry playground (disambiguation)

[bonch]

In Animal Crossing, I don't run across furry malls with gigantic fox penises on the walls and laser-lit dance clubs. So I'm pretty sure he meant Second Life.

Re:Furry playground (disambiguation)

[pyrote]

| In Animal Crossing, I don't run across furry malls with gigantic fox penises on the walls and laser-lit dance clubs.

yea, I liked SL better too...

In all seriousnes, I'm in SL Daily... haven't seen a "furry" in over 2 months, and about the same for a laser. It's not all furry heaven, just so happens, thats all anyone looks for. Most new Internet users jump online and look for all the nasty to 'prove' to their friends that it's as bad as they think. Thats like getting on the web and 'proving' that it's nothing but porn sites, by going to google and searching 'nipple'. Sex.com isn't going to give you a 3 page theses on time travel, so don't look there. in SL, don't look for meaningful conversation in the 'FoxXx's Den' on Fur Island.

Start with Blockout and MySims

[tepples]

However its big plus is that you can create anything you like from basic shapes like cubes. This seems highly unlikely to be possible from online console games.

I had a PS1 game where I could build stuff out of cubes, and it came out in December 1995. It was called Geom Cube, a port of Blockout. Nintendo even cloned it on the Virtual Boy. As for texturing those cubes, Doubutsu no Mori (ported to USA as Animal Crossing) explored it in 2001, and MySims refined it.

Little Too Later

[Anonymous Coward]

Second Life may suck but they have hard earnt experience on what people who do attend virtual worlds want and also the technical things.
Plus with OGP http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OGP_Base now being developed, why do Devs want to jump on board a possibly forever locked in virtual platform?

I'm not a young hippster

[Holammer]

My main beef with Home is the fact that the average real-life looking avatar seems to be a hip 20 something with a slim athletic build and angsty haircuts (what Sony probably believes is their main demographic). I'm not some fat dork but I'm close to 35 so I really having problems connecting with the avatar. Meeting up with pals in Home would be ridiculous when everyone looks like someone fresh from college. Miis and the new Live avatars while a lot more simple offer a better way to create a good caricature of yourself. Sony should watch and learn.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[thermian]

My main beef with Home is the fact that the average real-life looking avatar seems to be a hip 20 something with a slim athletic build and angsty haircuts (what Sony probably believes is their main demographic).
I'm not some fat dork but I'm close to 35 so I really having problems connecting with the avatar.

You're missing the point. Lots of people don't want something that really shows what they look like. Were this not the case, plastic surgery wouldn't be so popular. Its not just about fat people. Lots of people don't like the way they look.

Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them? Stupid, but there we are.
We are conditioned to not be satisfied with how we look, because that doesn't suit manufacturers. A customer base that isn't happy with how they look is a profitable one. Its no surprise to see this extending into the virtual world.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[Ash-Fox]

You're missing the point. Lots of people don't want something that really shows what they look like. Were this not the case, plastic surgery wouldn't be so popular. Its not just about fat people. Lots of people don't like the way they look.

You're missing the point, this guy does not want to look like a young hipster. He may not want a representation of himself, but he obviously does not want to be a young hipster.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[dbIII]

Dunno about you but I'd rather have the avatar be a blue girl with horns and hooves than something that looks a lot more like me. Cartoonish representaions make sense. Make things too realistic and we'll see an entire generation of online idiots that not only use their real name as a username (and lose jobs as a result!) but use their real appearance (and will lose jobs as a result). Even if you don't do it yourself the odds of mistaken identity from somebody that looks similar to you could be fairly high.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[Holammer]

You miss the point. I'm a man.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[speroni]

I'm a fat dork. :-) And proud of it!

Wave your freak flag!

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[ilsie]

Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them?

Did you know 86% of all quoted statistical figures are made up?

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[elrous0]

Amen! A lot of us would much rather look like an imperfect-but-real John Hodgeman than a smug Justin Long douchebag.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[pizzach]

It sounds like Sony is creating the kind of community they want. With all of the hipsters around, all of the screenshots of the game in magazines look really rad.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know 86% of all quoted statistical figures are made up?

In fact it is 86.4%, to be more precise!

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[Anonymous Coward]

Already sort of happened with Miis (guy caught his wife having an affair with a Mii who looked just like his neighbour).

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[thermian]

Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them?

Did you know 86% of all quoted statistical figures are made up?

ah, but 26% of internet users don't believe this :)

Second Life!

[Chrisq]

I have enough trouble keeping up with the first one.

Re:Second Life!

[Schmiggy_JK]

Dwight K. Schrute, is that you? Jim's stop watch got you down again? :-(

Apples and Oranges...

[Otis_INF]

Sony's 'Home' is really not comparable with Microsoft's new avatars/Xbox UI. Home is a virtual world, MS' UI is just that, a UI.

When the Black Sun is ready

[Anonymous Coward]

I am still waiting for Hiro to finish building the Black sun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
Then I can goggle in (google in ?)

Re:When the Black Sun is ready

[MRe_nl]

I'm still waiting for Hiro to write his sword fighting routine's so I can behead anonymous cowards!

Da5id.

OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not doing it till someone open-sources it, so I guess I'd stick to Linden.... I don't want to be bogged down in proprietary lockdowns, thank you very much.

Re:OSS?

[AlXtreme]

I'm not doing it till someone open-sources it, so I guess I'd stick to Linden.... I don't want to be bogged down in proprietary lockdowns, thank you very much.

So I can set up my own second life server, using the open sourced SL server code? Oh wait, there isn't any!

With the same reasoning: I can view microsoft.com with Firefox, thus microsoft.com is open source!

Go back to your furries, AC.

Re:OSS?

[Ash-Fox]

So I can set up my own second life server, using the open sourced SL server code? Oh wait, there isn't any!

There is one actually. And the Second life viewer is opensource too.

Re:OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Open mouth, insert foot.

This is not targeting Second Life

[argent]

What has been described in the press so far doesn't sound anything like Second Life, except at the most superficial level. These systems are targeting things like IMVU and Puzzle Pirates. There are more similarities between Slashdot and Livejournal than there are between Second Life and Sony Home.

Re:This is not targeting Second Life

[WinterKnight]

What has been described in the press so far doesn't sound anything like Second Life, except at the most superficial level. These systems are targeting things like IMVU and Puzzle Pirates. There are more similarities between Slashdot and Livejournal than there are between Second Life and Sony Home.

Parent has it right.

This is targeting the "We (corporate) create stuff - you buy it" market, that is populated by the mainstream typical user who doesnt want to learn how to create their own content or shape their own environment.

This is about you coming in and buying like a good little consumerist, then going to a fancy club populated by other cool people and run a dance animation for 2 hours trying to get compliments for your self assembled looks and get people to go play a game with you.

Ofcourse, this stuff is happening in SecondLife - but that is because SecondLife enables people to create an environment where this is possible, as well as other places where other types of behavior are encouraged.

Doing anything except for this particular behavior is not going to be possible nor encouraged in Sony's Home service.

oh good grief.

[apodyopsis]

What a load of crap. Sorry, but that my view point.

Its like reality TV, why would my daily business be sitting in an armchair watching other people go about their daily business?

I really do not understand why they think people are interested, surely the failure of second life should be an indicator here. The other poster with his comment about sitting in a basement spending your time vitually plastering the virtual walls in your virtual house in your virtual world nailed it perfectly.

This satirical take on virtual worlds was spot on if you ask me...

http://www.getafirstlife.com/

Re:oh good grief.

[Xugumad]

> the failure of second life should be an indicator here

Wait, Second Life failed? When did that happen? I was having meetings about it only yesterday!

Re:oh good grief.

[Ash-Fox]

surely the failure of second life should be an indicator here.

What failure? I've spent half of my free time today building a space station on Second life, I was not aware of any failure?

Re:oh good grief.

[Erik from Breda]

Its like reality TV, why would my daily business be sitting in an armchair watching other people go about their daily business?

Now I get it: it is a manager's tool!

Re:oh good grief.

[ozphx]

...spent half of my free time today building a space station on Second life...

That would be the failure. The gentlemen over at NASA would agree with me.

Re:oh good grief.

[Ash-Fox]

That would be the failure. The gentlemen over at NASA would agree with me.

And how would that be failure?

They will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Linden has pr0n. MS and Sony never will, so.. Secondlife will survive, any alternative without adult content will fail.

Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Because as we know SecondLife really took off! What was it $50M VC investment and yet to turn any sort of profit or attract the sort of numbers that were promised?

I think the VW fad is starting to die off a bit now and we are seeing people asking "All well and good, but we've seen virtual worlds and the novelty has worn off. What's your VW got that this one last year, didn't have? What's my subscription gonna get me this time?"

Personally I have enough trouble mainting genuine reality sometimes, let alone making my life more complicated!

Re:Hmmmm

[Ash-Fox]

I think the VW fad is starting to die off a bit now and we are seeing people asking "All well and good, but we've seen virtual worlds and the novelty has worn off.

If that's the case, Second life would still be only ten simulators, not increasing every month still.

What's my subscription gonna get me this time?

There is no subscription fee for Second life.

Re:Hmmmm

[tepples]

There is no subscription fee for Second life.

There is if you want any land to put your stuff in. A parcel of Second Life land called a "sim" costs $1,000 plus $295 per month. This gives you 16 acres, the same area as an Animal Crossing: Wild World town.

Re:Hmmmm

[Ash-Fox]

There is if you want any land to put your stuff in. A parcel of Second Life land called a "sim" costs $1,000 plus $295 per month. This gives you 16 acres, the same area as an Animal Crossing: Wild World town.

Of course, you don't have to buy a sim, you can just buy a parcel of land. Private sim owners and Linden lab both sell smaller parcels of land for a lot less. No setup fees either.

Additionally, one does not need land on Second life to interact, build, show off things, sell things (places like slexchange will provide server box parcel locations to host your prim server thing).

But sure, if you want a permanent place to stick your sky castle, sky mall/shop etc. It suddenly becomes a problem.

But do they have....

[Cloud K]

Porn and virtual sex?

That was seemingly everyone's first priority the moment Second Life came out. It wouldn't surprise me if the first ever public construction on there consisted of 2 spheres and a cylinder...

Can't see them getting as much trade if they don't :)

Re:But do they have....

[jimmypw]

nohing and I mean nothing screams "GET A LIFE" more than virtual worlds with no aim.

Re:But do they have....

[DigitalSorceress]

Hear Hear!. I may be addicted to World of Warcrack, but at least theres kind-of a point to it. (one which DOESN'T involve cyber sex)

Re:But do they have....

[Ash-Fox]

Hear Hear!. I may be addicted to World of Warcrack, but at least theres kind-of a point to it. (one which DOESN'T involve cyber sex)

Although that doesn't seem to stop people from having "cyber sex" on it. I dare say, it might be more popular on World of Warcraft too.

what an awful article

[YesIAmAScript]

Sony announced Home a long time ago. And yeah, it does look a bit like Second Life. But given that Second Life is meant to be like real life, it is odd that other things look like it too?

MS didn't announce any kind of virtual world at all. They have avatars now, but no world to roam in. It's not anything like Second Life or such.

Honestly, this whole article reads like more Second Life PR. I can't believe how much PR these guys get. A guy on the plane next to me two days ago was reading an article that said explained how Second Life is hot again, that companies are "moving in" again. Which of course is absurd, Second Life was never hot before and it isn't hot now, and companies "move in" at times, rarely having any positive effect on their sales or Second Life for that matter.

Linden Labs has some of the most amazing PR I've seen.

Re:what an awful article

[dr_leviathan]

I don't think the Linden Lab PR success is all that strange. Second Life is an inherently more interesting concept that something like WOW. When writing about WOW you can sum it up in sentence: "Kill monsters online with your friends and do the same thing next year." That doesn't quite cover it... but it covers 90% of what WOW is all about.

Try summing up Second Life in one sentence while simultaneously covering 90% of the truth -- you'll fail. There have been some terse summaries above but they miss lots of interesting information that could pack a magazine article. This demonstrates why it is such a more interesting topic for journalists.

Re:what an awful article

[YesIAmAScript]

Try summing up Second Life in one sentence while simultaneously covering 90% of the truth -- you'll fail.

Perverts.

That only took one word.

Re:what an awful article

[dr_leviathan]

Perverts.

That only took one word.

See? With that enlightened response you just achieved about 10% accuracy. Fail.

Re:what an awful article

[YesIAmAScript]

Does Linden Labs pay you well?

He's back...

[LordLucless]

BOB II

I vote...

[thrill12]

...to move all stock exchanges to these virtual worlds. We're practically using virtual money anyways, and this way we can easily 'patch' any bad stocks by adding an arbitrary number to badly going stocks ;=)

Misread the summary

[Spy der Mann]

Companies are represented by avatars which live a virtual life

Hello, I'm a Mac.

Re:Misread the summary

[BotnetZombie]

Greetings, I am Ubuntu, and this is my aunt, Solaris. Uncle Cray couldn't make it, he's busy saving the world from the financial crisis.

RTFA: Not even close to SecondLife

[WinterKnight]

"Ryoji Akagawa of Sony said that around 24 game design companies would provide the content needed for Home - but didn't give much else away. "

This is nothing like SecondLife, then - barely even an imitation.

SecondLife is about user content and creativity while Sony's - and quite possibly Microsoft's - solution is about you paying them for the right to purchase items created by other companies. You have zero capacity to create your own content and items.

In other words, this isn't a virtual world: This is a 3D chat room, straight from the jolly 90's.

I was thinking the same thing. Misleading.

[Viewsonic]

From everything I've seen, Microsoft is allowing people to create 3D avatars just like Nintendos Mii. They will have games and applications where many of these players can mingle together online. This isn't exactly a traditional "Virtual World" like the PSN Home or Second Life.

Second Life is NOT A GAME!

[UncleMantis]

Why does the media keep refering to SL as a game?

Can we PLEASE

[crhylove]

be first to market with an open source, open infrastructure one that is free for the whole public, and operates p2p?

While we're at it, can it be fully encrypted, completely private, and onion routed so that freedom of speech is complete and absolute?

Why do we have to wait for one of these crap companies to come out with a half ass one first and become a hegemony?

JUST ONE THING.

[Anonymous Coward]

NO YIFFING.

chiseled spam

[howlingfrog]

Both games show striking similarities to Linden Lab's creation.

You mean: "Both games, like Linden Labs' creation, show striking similarities to the Metaverse of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash."

Hijack a Word

[skeeto]

When I saw one of them was called "Home" I assumed this was the Microsoft one, as they have a history of hijacking common words for their products (Word, Works, Windows, etc.), which has even caused trouble for them in the past (paying Linspire millions in a settlement). However, I see that it is actually Sony's that is called "Home". Hmm...

you mean, you actually recognized what it was?

[lysergic.acid]

i'm curious; how could you tell that it was a _badger_ dick rather than, say, a weasel or ferret dick?

Re:you mean, you actually recognized what it was?

[ozphx]

It was well labelled. It even came with a note. Apparantly with some effort for keybinding I would be able to make it urinate *and* ejaculate. Also it was "compatible" with someones sex animation system, or whatever the hell.

I did put it on, scale it to around 12 foot long, and go walk around IBM SOA island for a while, while their foreign outsourced builders told me to "Please wear off that penis".

So I guess the moral of the story is that there is an objective to SL, trolling. I think I won, because I got booted by IBM :P

Missed the point

[monk]

The whole point of SL is user created (and owned) content. Sony and MS both missed the point, or the article missed it by drawing a comparison between animated chat avatars SL. What Linden did was alot harder. They have to deal with a continuous world (no fragments) entirely made up of user generated content with no chance to pre-calc or optimize before rendering. It's a bit like comparing Pidgin to Python.

New Reality

[ckblackm]

I wonder if the Stock Market will actually go up in these fantasy worlds.

LOL!

[GameboyRMH]

After reading that, for the first time, I want to try Second Life XD

Sounds like a Wii avatar to me

[WillAffleckUW]

But hey, I'm just playing Animal Crossing Adventure with all my friends and My Sims Adventure - and we're all Wii avatars.

Ignore the Wii, won't you - just because we don't carry awesome high-tech weaponry and like fey sprites to represent ourselves, some with fancy foils and epees and wearing androgynous uniform-like outfits ....

We still exist.

When you prick us, do we not moan and cry?

SecondLife is like a trap for programmers

[mbessey]

Imagine WoW, except every object in the world can be scripted. It's easy to spend a *lot* of time endlessly tweaking your autonomous bird flock, or tuning the parameters on your vehicles...

An MS virtual world might have an upside

[OldManAndTheC]

Will I be able to kill Clippy? Can I equip my avatar with a massive pair of bolt cutters? Will he always respawn at the same location, so I can camp out and catch him just as he appears, and with one swift SNIP bisect him end his miserable existence, if only for a few moments?? Will he scream in a tinny little voice, "Hello! It looks like you're trying to OH GOD NO NOT THE BOLT CUT...."

If so, sign me up!

Boring without pics

[joocemann]

This subject is very boring without pics. I opened the link.. no pics....

booooorrriiiing..

So, sony and MS are making new video games? cool!!! Oh... no pics????? whatever....

I don't care who wins this war...

[SupremoMan]

as long as one does not survive it!