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Reuters Pulls Out of Second Life, Army Heads In
A little over two years ago, Reuters made headlines by setting up a reporter as a go-between for Second Life and the real world. Now, they've evidently decided that the buzz is no longer there, so they've ended the virtual-reporting experiment. The reporter, Eric Krangel, offered his own take on the situation, and what he thinks Linden Labs could do to make Second Life a better place. Whether or not the advice is taken, the US Army has decided to carve out its own presence in the virtual world by setting up a pair of islands that will function as recruiting tools. An article at Massively suggests that interest in Second Life is still high among a variety of organizations, saying, "at present it appears that more businesses are coming in than going out."
And strangely, I still don't know anyone that uses Second Life.
And for that matter, I'm fairly certain there's a lot of people I know that don't even know what Second Life is.
My university uses Second Life quite often to advertise. I'm currently involved in setting up a few little modules for our virtual campus that will run alternatives to real-world programs, like an RA training area, a fake Greek are for training on running a legal party, and a freshman orientation area that teaches them the code of conduct. The university is very excited about it, and expect lots of people to use these locations in the future. Of course, I think it's all a bunch of crap, but hey, I get to pass the class if I do this.
I signed up over 2 years looking for an enhanced chat room. SL allows me to create the atmosphere I used to describe to people in chats. I now own a Coffee House and a Mall and make about $60 US per month. Not bad for my $72 annual fee, most of which I get back in the weekly stipend.
I think it's probably hard at this point to sell First Life products via SL, it is common that people bring their skills and personalities in. The $$ now is made by people selling virtual land and products.
Second Life's growth is almost EXACTLY like the growth of the internet. CompuServe, AOL, et al were closed systems that were slow and very limited. Companies came in and out trying to find out if there was any point to the experiment. Geeks ruled. Later on, artists and educators, and yes, the PORN industry, made the WWW more interesting and useful.
I could go on and on... the parallels are all there.
Gone are all the casino's, pedophilia sex areas and ad farms. The place seems a lot less populated now as well. I never see anyone in my neighborhood anymore.
Don't be too hasty. The Air Force has launched MyBase, a virtual training program for its cadets. The idea is that you can receive some types of training in the virtual world in lieu of reading a manual or something.
The other application spoken of is creating virtual representations of real bases and areas so that an airman can study the layout of a base and 'know' it before he even steps off the airplane. He/She can know where his/her billet, chow hall, etc. without having to actually have been there in real life.
I think it's a great use of my tax dollars.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
A TERRORIST GROUP RECENTLY ATTACKED THE ARMY'S SECOND LIFE RECRUITING BASE. At 8:00 am Second Life time, a terrorist group calling them selves the 'furry t3rmin4t0r5' detonated replicating 'flying penis bombs', deployed annoying sound loop 'followers', and other things too obscene to be described here. The 'furry t3rmin4t0r5' also released a message saying "we did it for the lulz."
I think you may have missed the point (AKA ridiculous sex fantasy simulator) if you're concerning yourself with the engine.
So the army is headed into the virtual world as Reuters is headed out.
In real world news, the Army is pulling out of Iraq, and Reuters is going in.
that means no more embarrasing CSI: NY chapters? ;)
Sign up for a free account, get in-world, do a search for "combat sims" and teleport to one to see how wrong you are. :-)
-=Maggie Leber=-
Geeks hate Second Life because no one requires them to use it. It's great : ) Reuters didn't leave SL, their island is still in place. They seem to have lost interst, and Eric, a cub reporter just out of j-school, found a real job. But before that, he got a girlfriend, who probably hated him being on Second Life. http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/12/eric-reuters-got-a-girlfriend.html
No, it really is that bad. Objects/buildings often won't load up until 30 seconds after you have walked past them, so you constantly get stuck behind invisible walls that havn't loaded yet.
The engine also has no culling so you get to see everything inside a building loading in (including all the people inside and what they are doing) for a good few minutes, until eventually the exterior walls load up.
In summary, a total joke.
Personally, I never understood the travel mechanics of SL - not allowing people to fly/warp wherever they want would make it much more immersive, IMO. You'd get rid of all the annoying pop-in, and I'm guessing the real estate market would get a boost as well, since proximity to popular venues would become even more important. It seems to me that in SL you have all the benefits of real life and more, but almost none of the rules.
Of course, too many rules make the experience just plain boring, but you'll notice that all successful open-world games (EVE, for example) have set a realistic transportation speed limit. Then again, maybe most places in Second Life aren't worth walking 5 minutes for. If that's the case, then get them to spring a couple thousand lindons for a car, or one of those fancy-but-functionally-useless jets I've seen for sale. I'd be very interested to hear other peoples' opinions on this.
I don't have that problem. You probably have not so great hardware or networking issues.
Unfortunately since the Second life client is currently single threaded, if your system is slow at I/O for disk writing, you will have packet loss, lower fps and same goes for any other combination. Packet loss? low FPS. Low FPS? Packet loss, slow disk writing etc.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Sex is actually bloody difficult to simulate well or even adequately. It usually involves two or more bodies in close contact, which means that you need collision detection and deformations for two soft bodies with complex internal structure. This is, of course, completely ignoring the need for controls which would be both useful and powerful or simulating unconscious reactions. Oh, and the end result would need to have sufficient visual quality to be closer to interactive porn than a puppet show.
In fact it's so bloody difficult I've never seen it done in an interactive manner. Adult games typically use either pre-recorded cutscenes, which may or may not allow you to change the tempo, and then lets you change between them. Now that I think of it, it's really a very interesting problem...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I, for one, welcome our furry new infantry to battle overseas. I wonder what the U.S. military's policy on "yiffing" is...
"Dog tags" will take on a whole new meaning. Still, they should include:
Name
Rank
Religion
Fursona
"This man fought as a horse-- and we will bury him-- as a horse."
I find it quite interesting, the most dogged article of the month, and it's about a program that allows Social interaction... On Slashdot?! Go Figure.
A few Stats for the naysayers:
50,000-75,000 players at any given time (24/7)
Well over a Million US Dollars spent daily in world.
Personally, I run 4 'sims' (16 acre chunks of land) and pull in a profit of well over 200-300 US Dollars a month. My community has well over 250 members, and atleast 50 of them are online daily and interact. To the (seems barren, and your always alone) crap, we usually average about 10 - 20 people in-city at any given time, around 40 at bi-weekly events. Personally I pull down 30 bucks in tips whenever we have a gathering.
No Sex/Furry/Slave/camping bullcrap.
The community is a Thriving place for friends, and hell I even get a chance to blow stuff up. Usually disassemble old buildings by Demolition (fire, boom crash).
Reuters Leaving Second Life, well cya. All they tended to do was report on useless stuff and their 'feeds' in world, lagged the hell out of servers.
As for crappy graphics... Hand any amateur a set of 3d tools, you shouldn't expect Fallout 3. Personally, I see graphics in world that blows away any MMO/RPG.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
I seen "Second Life" at a local club, quite the pole dancer. She had 3 kids though, so I can't blame Reuters for pulling out.