Whatever Happened To Second Life?

Barence writes "It's desolate, dirty, and sex is outcast to a separate island. In this article, PC Pro's Barry Collins returns to Second Life to find out what went wrong, and why it's raking in more cash than ever before. It's a follow-up to a feature written three years ago, in which Collins spent a week living inside Second Life to see what the huge fuss at the time was all about. The difference three years can make is eye-opening."

Comments

That's easy

[ubrgeek]

Its users got a first life. Translation: They moved over to Warcraft.

Re:That's easy

[vadim_t]

Warcraft isn't a SL replacement. I know that quite a few people have WoW accounts, but they still keep logging into SL.

Re:That's easy

[velja27]

Normally those people don't have real lives,the ones that manage to log in to the WoW and SL.

Re:That's easy

[f0rk]

Woossshhh

Re:That's easy

[mdwh2]

Then there are the ones who find time to post on Slashdot.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

-5 for lack of ability to recognize Sarcasm.

Re:That's easy

[Eric Eikrem]

Warcraft = First life? For some, I guess. To me it's the World of Borecraft... All that grinding; it's like having a really boring job. Only difference is that you pay to be bored.

Anyone here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they're all well into their third or fourth life.

Adult Content Island and verification.

[Zombie Ryushu]

Second Life had little point beyond being a sex simulator and roleplaying simulator. You can't really play a real game in there. There isn't any real combat Physics built into Second Life. You walk around, you chat, if you can buy stuff and sell stuff that looks cool. You can own housing that serves no purpose. Turning actual money into Lindens was a waste of money.

At least in WoW you could fight enemies and make money, it could be pointless because the mobs respawn, but you could do it.

When they made it to where no one under 18 who was verified (and their verification process was extremely intrusive and I know many people who just decided to stop using second life entirely over it. It involves basicaly forking over Credit Card information, in some cases a Birth Certificate, and yuor home address.) they killed SL. Second Life was the one MMO, however crude that you could have sex in.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Qlither]

Sex makes the world go around, when they stopped sex, they stopped the game in effect. A virtual world (sand box game) are a penny a thousand, the only difference is the fact you could of had sex with "other living people" in theirs.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Stormwatch]

Second Life was the one MMO, however crude, that you could have sex in.

Unless you are a furry.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yiff in hell, furfags

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[BESTouff]

Second Life was the one MMO, however crude that you could have sex in.

I don't think we have the same definition for having sex. It's a computer game ! Where's the real flesh ?

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[argStyopa]

I'm pleased to believe that I was a participant in the event that first uncovered the hypocrisy in the Lindens' operation of SL, ie the War of the Jesse Wall. Too long a story to tell here (you can google it) but their originally-stated goal was laudable: a lassaiz-faire (sp?) world with basic physics, to see how people would operate, including a truly free-for all zone called Jesse. The first culture to display their nascent fascism were the liberal peacniks, who objected to ardent patriotism of a number of players during the Iraq war. They tried to bottle up and hem in the pro-US players, who reacted violently (within the rules of the Jesse zone, where killing was possible).
This escalated to a full scale war which, when the peacniks (who'd been joined by socialists and other fellow travelers) begged the Lindens to intervene, and they did. Their actions to enforce 'peace' in some Left-Coast sort of utopian view directly contravened their own stated rules of non-intervention, and showed them for the hypocrites they are.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Second Life was the one MMO, however crude that you could have sex in."

Looks like someone's never made a character on the Moon Guard(US) server!

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[PopeRatzo]

Need I remind you who you're talking to? Around here we don't need no stinkin' "real flesh" to "have sex".

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried that a little a fair while back, (I was bored and in the end trying it did not fix that).
I never came across any actual sex, but the yiffy section is certainly a damn sight more crowded than most of it (still most of them just stand around and do nothing, so pretty much like second life, except with even worse graphics and no money aspect).

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Sechr Nibw]

Yeah, just a Fleshlight(TM) and some interesting pixels.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Aklyon]

Sociolotron is a 2nd one, its pretty much built around it.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[baKanale]

I don't know if that's a story about the hypocrisy of Linden Labs, or a sad commentary on the nature of human beings.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[__aasqbs9791]

After reading your post I did some searching and found this: War of the Jesse Wall. Rather long, but an interesting read.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . Second Life was the one MMO, however crude that you could have sex in.

I guess you haven't gone looking. You missed Sociolotron, wherein the sex is the theme of the game and an essential component for advancement.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Etrias]

I looked up the War of Jessie Wall and found that you mis-characterized it to justify your rant against liberals. Jessie was the zone where a bunch of players from WWII Online decided to set up shop, many of the players with a conservative bent. They weren't really interested in finding a spot and fitting in rather than carving out a section for themselves. You portray it more as "poor conservatives with pro-war views being harassed by the evil liberals". In the pieces I read, it seemed there were dicks on both sides of the fence who kept on ratcheting up the rhetoric. Jessie wasn't locked down because of views, it was locked down because LL didn't want player killing to spread beyond that zone.

Here, have a read. Not as one sided as you portrayed it.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[coopersnick]

So the hippie beatnik leftist commies asked them to stop continually shouting "USA XOXOXOXO LOLZ!!11!!!ONE!!11!!!", and because of that the crap was beaten out of their characters? And then they complained? Goddam dirty hippies. They should learn to fire guns, eat red meat and go to church.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[elrous0]

Wow, that brings back memories. The last time I was on there, part of the wall was actually still standing. One of the few instances where SL had any sense of history (with the way they have land set up, often whole areas will simply disappear with no indication of what once stood there).

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gladly. Hot lava makes all four of my nipples hard.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[jbezorg]

you can google it

And so I did
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2003/07/war_of_the_jess.html

The first culture to display their nascent fascism were the liberal peacniks, who objected to ardent patriotism of a number of players during the Iraq war. They tried to bottle up and hem in the pro-US players, who reacted violently (within the rules of the Jesse zone, where killing was possible).

I seriously doubt it was unprovoked and from what I've read, the picture isn't painted quite the same way in the article. Excerpt from: "WAR OF THE JESSIE WALL" ( the link above )

Nothing doing: WWIIOLers swooped down on the Outlands, loaded for bear, and used its longtime residents for live target practice, killing them again and again, and maybe yet again. Because most Residents, unsurprisingly, set their home point on their home property, many folks living in the Outlands were stuck in an infinite cycle of violence, to be shot on their land then resurrected and shot again, in perpetuity, until they logged off the game entirely, or their antagonist finally got bored. All of which was perfectly permissible by Linden Lab since, after all, this is precisely what the Outlands were designed for.

Permitted or not, griefing sucks and corpse camping is the pinnacle of griefing in any MMO.

"Their originally-stated goal was laudable: a lassaiz-faire (sp?) world with basic physics, to see how people would operate"

I think they came to the end of that experiment and concluded that some people are assholes.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Random Walk]

..and their verification process was extremely intrusive and I know many people who just decided to stop using second life entirely over it. It involves basicaly forking over Credit Card information, in some cases a Birth Certificate, and yuor home address..

Totally wrong. Thanks to the relaxed privacy standards in the US of A, there's tons of readily available personal information in online databases that you can use to pass the age verification.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[fermion]

The difference between life and games is that games has rules. This is why people like them. There are trivially predictable outcomes from most situations. One can say that one is creating a laissez faire environment, but such a statement is at best naive. If a game is to function, rules still have to be entered, and as such will contain the assumptions of the people who write the rules. Since rules cannot be ignored, the rules themselves come attack, and changes get made to support the needs of the most powerful population. In this sense, the game does reflect laissez faire situations, but again not on the naive level of people who believe that such pure system are viable or useful.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[g0bshiTe]

"It involves basicaly forking over Credit Card information, in some cases a Birth Certificate, and yuor home address.) "
Let's not forget what stopped me from playing the game. After refusal to give up CC info, the only other way to verify was to give them my address and my SSN. No thanks, I'll push on to Blue Mars to peddle my virtual warez.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Is that a surprise? Truth doesn't matter to conservatives. If they can win by lying, they'll lie. They can see that telling the truth and losing will get you one thing: dead.

They call that horrible philosophy "morality." What a bunch of sad clowns they are.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[shentino]

I think that says more about human nature than anything else.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[ultranova]

Too long a story to tell here (you can google it) but their originally-stated goal was laudable: a lassaiz-faire (sp?) world with basic physics, to see how people would operate, including a truly free-for all zone called Jesse.

So basically, just like every other time laissez-faire system have been set up, people acted true to their dickhead nature, and the system fell down in flames. Now if only the people running the economy would learn from this, and stop pushing the destructive right-wing no-regulation policies...

This escalated to a full scale war which, when the peacniks (who'd been joined by socialists and other fellow travelers) begged the Lindens to intervene, and they did. Their actions to enforce 'peace' in some Left-Coast sort of utopian view directly contravened their own stated rules of non-intervention, and showed them for the hypocrites they are.

I guess the hawks don't like being in the receiving end of shock and awe. BWAAAA!!!

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is more to Second Life than rp simulation. Everything that you see in SL, every object, and every motion, was created by residents. The content creation tools can be learned by almost anyone. Every avatar's shape, skin, clothing, hair, animation, and every building, garden, car, motorcycle, hot air balloon, every pose, every single thing you see in SL was created by another resident. Many artists have galleries in SL, and you can meet and talk with people from all over the world.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Vintermann]

It's been a looong time since I spent time in virtual worlds like these (remember Alphaworld?), but one of the things that I really liked was the scale of it all. Acre upon acre of elaborately constructed buildings and artwork - no people anywhere in sight, but so what? I liked it, in a "walking alone in the mountains" kind of way. Introverts need places to be, too.

For SL, if the kink has moved away to their own island, and left all the glorious monuments behind, I'm more attracted to it than ever! Never could get it to work adequately on Linux, though.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[2short]

That's great kid. But as long as we're relating our tales of momentous events, let me tell you the one the big Usenet flamewar of '89. Now there was a battle of true significance to our culture, which ought never be forgot...

Playing about in a pretend world can be fun. Expending emotional energy on an irrelevant argument with strangers you'll never meet is stupid. Still caring years later, kind of sad.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[mwvdlee]

Still actively making a nice additional income in SL so no bad words about it, but I've seen the selfdestructive changes seen and come.

The writer of the article only partially "got" second life.

Yes, sex is the #1 activity. Followed by #2: the pursuit of sex or "how to look attractive?". #3 probably has something to do with sex as well.

But then there's the things he doesn't get. Walking around observing stuff. Wrong. #4: Interacting with others; just chatting, playing parlour games, walking around and observing with others, non-sexual roleplay. And #5: Creating stuff yourself (personally this is my main interrest, but it isn't for most).

Apparently, there are also some companies and organisations creating their own land but since nobody cares, it doesn't deserve a number. Then again, this seams to be #1 on the "$$$ for the company behind second life" list.

The banning of any remotely sexual content to a separate continent is short term profit but long term suicide. As soon as the IBM's and MicroSoft's start to realize that nobody voluntarily visits city-scale advertisements, they'll leave.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[mwvdlee]

As I read the Jesse Wall story (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2003/07/war_of_the_jess.html), this is just about a lot of cry-babies who want the rules to only apply to other people. What is so hard to understand about "everything allowed"?

And because a lot of those cry-babies got their fragile little feelings hurt, Lindens' folded and said "well, now the rules don't allow anything by anybody".

Second Life should have just kept the region as free-for-all and let people fight it out if they want to; better there than in the real world.

At the very least it would have been a good lesson in excercising free speech and tolerating free speech of others. As it stand, it's a very good lesson on how free speech works in the real world.

One thing people tend to forget about Second Life is that you don't HAVE to see what other people are doing; if you are easily offended by X, don't go searching for X. Sadly enough, Lindens seem to believe that if anybody is offended by X, they should completely ban V, W, X, Y, Z and anything remotely related to alphabetic capitals.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Darinbob]

This is a lot like the old MUDs (text based multi-user environments). The free ones were split between gaming and social varieties. Modern MMORPGs resemble the old gaming MUDs, whereas Second Life resembles a social MUD.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Darinbob]

You detect the non-objective viewpoint just from the word "pro-US". Apparently you can't be peace loving, anti-war, or liberal and like the US.

Though I have to object to the word "conservative" being used here. These aren't conservatives and they aren't really following conservative principles. Even neo-conservative doesn't really apply. "Jingoist" or "populist" would be more accurate.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[mwvdlee]

I read it as the hippie beatnik leftist commies living happily and peacefully on a piece of land where everybody was licensed to kill.

Then some WWIIOL-roleplayers got in SL and in a move unprecedented in American history, decided to take the land and kill everybody living there.

Some other people decided to retaliate and the WWIIOL'ers threw a hissy fit until Lindens decided to wall off the whole area from the rest of the world.

Then the WWIIOL'ers started applying a wallpaper of pro-war-in-Iraq to the walls. Then when one of the goddamn dirty hippies put one anti-war-in-Iraq poster up, the WWIIOL'ers threw another hissy fit until Lindens decided to not allow any posters at all.

Those hippies should just be locked up inside some big walled-off piece of land and go life in peace by themselves so the rest of us can get on with killing eachother as normal people do.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[mwvdlee]

I think they came to the end of that experiment and concluded that some people are assholes.

And that should have been problem solved; make one "free-for-all" without killing for the nascent fascist liberal peacniks (yeah, you dirty peace-lover, yeah, you love peace don't you, you dirty peace-lover!) and make one "free-for-all" where the griefers can go and grieve eachother; that'll be fun.

The problem with griefers (like the WWIIOL'ers in our story) is that they only think griefing is fair when THEY do it. The story shows the WWIIOL'ers were little cry-babies when others started using similar tactics against them. What the WWIIOL'ers would have wanted was a "free-for-us-but-not-for-anybody-else" land.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Are you some kind of moron or illiterate?

Your inability to go look at the publicly available facts and your black and white thinking is a sign of a mental deficiency.

Everyone can see it but you.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Toonol]

Everyone can see it but you.

Think on that.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[nametaken]

Where's the real flesh ?

When you say it, it sounds so sexy.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[jbezorg]

Sadly enough, Lindens seem to believe that if anybody is offended by X, they should completely ban V, W, X, Y, Z and anything remotely related to alphabetic capitals.

Or move it to it's own island and screen those who enter the zone? I think the Author of this submission's article comes to the unsaid conclusion that the only thing left in SL is offensive and, from what I've read from the article, "War of the Jessie Wall" is pretty tame and low key by comparison.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

You're quite right. Everyone can see it but YOU and HIM and similarly illiterate people.

"Apparently you can't be peace loving, anti-war, or liberal and like the US."

Really? REALLY? Are you REALLY that daft that you agree with that shite?

REEEEEAAAAAAALLLLLLLYYYYYYY???????

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[fridgemagnet]

So what you're saying is, you were too lame to even successfully grief people in Second Life? The easiest place ever to do it, with the weakest moderation, where you can even script things yourself? *Dude*.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Darinbob]

Um, I wasn't agreeing with the sentiment about not liking the US, I was pointing out the absurdity of thinking that people with different political ideas are assumed to be America-haters.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[MichaelSmith]

The difference between life and games is that games has rules.

Do you live in an Anarchist society?

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Boronx]

Do you realize that 90% of the world, plus most American patriots view the invasion of Iraq as an illegal unprovoked act of aggression that killed thousands upon thousands of innocent people, that as a crime it's on par with China's invasion of Tibet or Saddam's invasion of Kuwait?

When you characterize the pro-Iraq war side of an online griefer fight as "Pro-US", it makes you look like your viewpoint is so distorted as to be completely unreliable.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I don't care. It was useful to rope in more conservatives (fascists, really) and call them names. Thanks, and sorry you got caught in the crossfire.

Re:Adult Content Island and verification.

[brasscount]

Anyone else notice the irony of playing a video game to have sex "with real people?"

It was a Fad

[BobReturns]

Second life was always just a silly fad. The money situation with it was just silly - it was just a bubble.

Re:It was a Fad

[vadim_t]

What do you mean "was"?

It's still doing pretty nicely. Not growing so much anymore, but doesn't seem to be shrinking. I don't see any decrease in the areas I hang out at.

Re:It was a Fad

[Daengbo]

Linden Labs claims Second Life has turned over more than $1 billion in its six-year history. Nor is it slowing down; quite the opposite in fact. Linden claims the in-world economy grew by a staggering 94% year-on-year from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009.

If that's not growing, I'd be happy to be in a flat economy.

Re:It was a Fad

[iamapizza]

It took the author of TFA 3 years to realize it though. For that, we must applaud him. Next week, he's going to be writing about MySpace.

Fad

[Kohath]

Second Life was based on PR and hype. No one needs to hear old news or the same tired Second Life stories again.

Re:Fad

[Macrat]

And somehow they managed to bilk millions out of big companies for their corporate islands to hold boring press Q&A's. Worked well for Sun Microsystems, right?

Ignorant

[rknop]

This article is pretty ignorant.

To be fair, two things are true. One, Second Life has a woefully steep learning curve. Two, it's hard to find the things you'd really want to find in Second Life. Two is connected to One.... There are lots of people doing lots of creative and interesting things in Second Life, but it takes a fair bit of experience, or somebody leading you around, to know how to find them.

The writer of this sloppy piece did a quick dash and look, almost willfully avoiding putting in the most minimal effort it would take to really find out what's there. It would be like somebody "trying to figure out what this web thing is all about" by starting at http://www.com/ without knowing about sites like Google. Again, yes, the web is more mature and as such it's far easier to find what you're looking for... but that is how distorted the picture this article paints is.

Yes, the sorts of things you're interested in will often not be easily or readily found. But once you start figuring out how to find them, there's all kinds of great stuff going on.

Two things I'm involved with-- which, thus, are the sorts of things I'm interested in-- are science and theater. My theater group is at http://www.avreptheater.com/ , and my science group is at http://www.mica-vw.org./ If you want to see evidence of a whole bunch of people showing up at once at something that at least I consider interesting (although I'm extremely biased), check this out: http://www.pookymediafilms.com/2009/05/dr-knop-talks-astronomy.html

Re:Ignorant

[ubrgeek]

> but it takes a fair bit of experience, or somebody leading you around, to know how to find them

While I haven't played it, that sounds like how most /.'s describe Eve. But as has been pointed out in other postings, Eve seems to combine that with things that sound like they're fun.

Re:Ignorant

[ChienAndalu]

I have tried to check out your dark matter video but I got distracted by a huge tarantula sitting in the "audience"

Re:Ignorant

[Lumpy]

One of the things I though that second life SHOULD have become but never did.... The fricking internet interface in a Avatar interface. There is no Google island where I can search Second life for something and zip there. 99% of Second life is just a timewaster you cant do anything in there. Even when Ira Flato did his Science Friday shows in Second life it was a joke. Oh boy, I can either listen on my pc and easily twitter my questions, or I can sit there in a difficult to use UI and act like I am listening... no thanks.

It had potential, but it never really went anywhere useful.

Re:Ignorant

[drinkypoo]

One of the cool things about the web is that it's easy to find things you're interested in. Second Life is just an incompetent, anthropomorphic version of the web, where it's hard to find stuff. It's hard to find things I'm interested in when I'm in meatspace, without the benefit of the internet. If Linden Labs were competent they would have found a way to make a second life that's easier and more convenient than the first one. Instead, they made a world where you have to make buildings oversized because otherwise avatars have inordinate trouble passing through doorways... and where, I suspect, it would be harder for me to build a house that looks like a house than it would to do it in the real world. (I've tried to use the building tools, which are either just fucking stupid or different for the sake of being different, in which case, it's just fucking stupid.)

Re:Ignorant

[remmelt]

> The writer of this sloppy piece did a quick dash and look, almost willfully avoiding putting in the most minimal effort it would take to really find out what's there

He "lived inside SL" for a week, albeit three years ago. You can hardly call that a quick dash and look.

Re:Ignorant

[Jedi Alec]

Actually, if you have the right kind of exploratory mindset, finding things out can be fun in itself. Unfortunately for a lot of players the experience of flying into an area where there's no Concord(ingame police force) and getting blown up by bloodthirsty pirates is not something they truly appreciate. Which is a shame, since quite often those very same pirates are more than willing to then lead that very same player around a bit and show him where he went wrong (or right).

Re:Ignorant

[myowntrueself]

One, Second Life has a woefully steep learning curve.

The UI in Second Life is truly second to none when it comes to complete crap.

Seriously. Learning curve?

Sure, it *has* a learning curve but the UI is so incredibly ugly and useless and slow and clunky that... how can anyone be bothered with the learning curve at all?

Re:Ignorant

[jbezorg]

He "lived inside SL" for a week, albeit three years ago. You can hardly call that a quick dash and look.

Ask any fan of any outdated MMO about the game they've put so much time and effort into and they will tell you it's the best thing in the world. Point out to them the MMO's faults and they will will quickly dismiss it. Tell them that the world is empty and they will say they are surrounded by friends and players. What they often fail to see is that, for them, all of that is true. For a noob, it isn't.

Re:Ignorant

[crenshawsgc]

So what you're saying is this great and amazing game has all the great and amazing bits hidden away, and I have to go find them to enjoy the game?

The point of SL is...

[V!NCENT]

... being a refuge for people that do not dare to be themselves in RL.

Want to be a slut? Don't dare to step up to girls? Afraid to date someone or something? Maybe you are a transgender person not willing to act it out in RL? Etc...

In the end it's just for people that fail at RL because they are afraid to be happy and comfortable with themselves. It's also a breeding place for no-life-luser....

Re:The point of SL is...

[L4t3r4lu5]

Consider that what you may want to be in fantasy is not what you think your parents would be all too comfortable with you actually being when you turn up for Christmas dinner.

If you see 2L as an escape for the fearful, you're too narrow minded. I consider (the adult portion at least) to be an extension of the fantasy world, not a replacement of the real one.

I don't "play" 2L, I just disagree with your point.

Re:The point of SL is...

[mdwh2]

Ah yes, let's list transgender people alongside failing at life. Perhaps the point of Slashdot is for people like you who want to throw insults, when you'd be too scared to do so in the real world, right?

I don't know what the point of Second Life is either, but the obvious comparison is to things like IRC. People make the same tired cliched criticisms of IRC as you did of SL, but I'd hope that generally any geek on Slashdot didn't fall for that.

Re:The point of SL is...

[umghhh]

extension or replacement - if t here are people for which 2L is their 1L that is fine too - I still prefer documentaries in my cellar but I can understand there are people that enjoy virtual sex in 2Las well as enjoying rubbing their real selves against other equally real bodies and even exchanging body fluids or do whatever they prefer to do. The point is looking from aside any of these three alternatives may be perceived as disturbing and I am sure there are places where majority of such activities are illegal, bottom line is however: there are people ready to invest money into such activities and they do not hurt anybody in a process so the service is maybe not up to everybody's liking but it certainly satisfies certain needs and generates profits in a process. I do not mind and I see not why should anybody be disturbed by this. Then again there are people putting other people in the prison only for smoking a joint - how sick is that compared to 2L? I think GP should take it easy and get some perspective - getting out of cellar and getting aforementioned date with real people may help but is not really necessary.

Re:The point of SL is...

[wurble]

It can also be an escape from RL for the disabled. I know several disabled individuals that play SL on a regular basis. For them it makes real life a little easier to cope with knowing they have someplace they can go to where they aren't limited by their disabilities.

Re:The point of SL is...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with wanting to be something else than what you are for a while?

When I go to Second Life, I can be whatever I want to be, unlimited by physical restrictions (although SL imposes its own restrictions, of course). But that's not because I'm unhappy with what I actually am; it's simply because sometimes, it's fun to enter a fantasy.

Seriously, how is it different from playing other computer games, or watching movies, or reading books, especially science-fiction and fantasy?

The answer, of course, is that it isn't, and that doing the things you like, because you like them, without being constantly afraid of how others will view you and your actions is a good thing. People who do that and who always think about how others might perceive them with everything they do... well, I pity people like that.

Of course SL can be overdone, just like anything else, and those people who spend 14 hours per day there (if they actually exist) are overdoing it. But then, so are those surfing the Internet (perhaps reading Slashdot?) 14 hours a day, for instance; the problem isn't with the hobby but rather with overdoing it.

One MIGHT argue that Linden Labs actually has a vested interest in sucking people in and making them spend as much as possible of their life on SL, but I'm not sure if that's the case, and in any case, it's up to the user anyway.

Caveat gamer. YOU are in charge of your own life, as an adult, noone else, so if you overdo it, you have noone but yourself to blame. However, this also means that if you don't overdo things, there's nothing wrong with them. It's two sides of the same coin really.

Re:The point of SL is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Calm down a little bit. I'm transgender (still mostly closeted, which is why I'm posting AC) and I did use Second Life for a brief period of time to try to explore that. Then I found Morrowind, which was way more fun (and didn't connect me to the idiots in SL) and played that instead.

Re:The point of SL is...

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point entirely. If it's something you want to do occasionally -- a kink or fetish for example -- there's no need to put it in front of your parents at Christmas anyway. You already have the option of doing it part time IRL. And if it's not something you do occasionally, if it's something which defines you -- your gender or sexual orientation for example -- then hiding it from your parents is cowardly and deceptive.

Either way, you have the option of being, or doing, according to your nature. Grow a pair and give it a try.

Re:The point of SL is...

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! Totally know! And the best part is that when one of them annoys you you can kill them and loot their corpse. Sadly much like other games you can still only loot, and not pillage their corpse :D

Re:The point of SL is...

[spun]

Ah, geez. Give us a break from your superior, "look at what a life I have, not like those SL losers!' crap. You know who says things like that? People with no life. Seriously, have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, different people like different things? Or, maybe people DO try out new social strategies in SL, build up their confidence, and then go back to the real world with the courage to be a slut.

I'm sorry that I have to give you such a hard time about this, but you, sir, are discouraging sluts, and this, I will not tolerate.

Re:The point of SL is...

[V!NCENT]

Consider that what you may want to be in fantasy is not what you think your parents would be all too comfortable with you actually being when you turn up for Christmas dinner.

If everybody would just stop trying to live up to bullshit, we would no longer have the problem of living up to anything and people would respect each other a lot more. The biggest bullies where bullied themselves. The world would be such a better place and you would feel so much better. If your parents do not respect you for who you are, for you are their child, then they are simply not your parents. Face it...

If you see 2L as an escape for the fearful, you're too narrow minded. I consider (the adult portion at least) to be an extension of the fantasy world, not a replacement of the real one.

No, that's just you trying to justify your doing.

Get out of your house and start living your lives. Everyone that doesn't respect you for what you are, without even knowing your character, doesn't deserve to be respected in even the slightest kind of way.

Re:The point of SL is...

[V!NCENT]

You have obviously entirely missed the point...

"In the end it's just for people that fail at RL because they are afraid to be happy and comfortable with themselves."

In other words... they do not fail as a part of societies expected standards, per se, they just fail for themselves.

I think you should re-read what I posted...

Re:The point of SL is...

[V!NCENT]

Yes... there are almost always rare exceptions to nearly everything... But I do not believe that the majority of people who are incapable to move their bodies are playing SL..

Re:The point of SL is...

[V!NCENT]

Ah, geez. Give us a break from your superior, "look at what a life I have, not like those SL losers!' crap.

I said it was also a breeding place for no-life-lusers, not only a breeding place for no-life-lusers, but face it; SL does give people the opportunity and there are, in fact, people that preffer computers > people.

And slutty behaviour is, well, an act of insecurity. Being a slut is not being a nympho. Being a slut is wanting to achieve attention, love and self-respect for being able to get anything that they want. It's not an overcome to become one. Hell it's apthetic... simpley pathetic. But whatever...

Re:The point of SL is...

[spun]

No, a slut is someone who likes sex, and wants a lot of it. I know some very secure women who like a lot of sex. I know a lot of women with no self respect who hate sex.

You might want to read 'The Ethical Slut.' It's a good book about how to be a slut without hurting anyone.

Re:The point of SL is...

[Teriblows]

its not simply about disparaging sl folk as losers. it was the simply unreality aka bubble mentality of those pushing it as the next coming, pushing all kinds of patently ridiculous nonsense trying to justify its existence. not a bit of rational skepticism over the years for the vast majority of the stores. it took quite a while before a decently mainstream publication like wired did a story on the marketing sham that was second life. before that it was mostly a few blogs knocking holes in its false population figures. the fundamental issue is that it was pushed as a virtual reality. when in fact it was a very poorly implemented video game universe comprised of degenerates and lonely people puppeteering stone faced dolls. the most artificial and limiting controls kept you from any real interaction. the fundamental false face of avatars meant social interaction was simply creepy and impossible and so it was limited to the most base activities like virtual sex where such limitations were tolerated. there could be no virtual social interaction worth having, it fundamentally lacked the technology to allow for this. it was nothing more than a bad chat room with a polygon figure for "walking around". and all the claimed uses were false on their face. as if people would want to hang around mcdonalds headquarters in second life. why? the bubble years and the stupid lack of any skepticism allowed for this, whether bernie madoff or second life. no one called bullsh*t when they should have. any claimed use was inferior in second life. its like asking why people wouldn't want to go into second life to use a search engine when google.com was so bare. sometimes the simple is best already. shopping in second life? why? amazon works so much better. teaching? video conferencing and other techs like that work so much better than trying play around with polygon puppets to "teach". chat is better done in chat and forums. beyond its technical limitations it was simply a poor solution to most anything you could think of.

Article summary

[naz404]

Article Summary:

Linden labs shut down gambling, segregated all porn to its own island, and now 2nd life's "wholesome areas" are now ghost towns because everyone's hanging out in porn island and spending their money there for virtual kinkiness. Also, writer speculates that most of 2nd life's revenue is now from porn island.

Re:Article summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably worth noting that if you're UK based and you visit 'the island' some of the content sounds as if it is illegal under the recent UK 'extreme sex depictions' law.

Re:Article summary

[Anonymous Coward]

mods... why is this funny? I R'dTFA and that's exactly the summary...

Re:Article summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone is out for sex.
All money is spend for kinkiness.
Major revenue by porn.

Sounds like real life.

Re:Article summary

[AlgorithMan]

this kinda reminds me of human nature

Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[TrentTheThief]

Second Life was immensely popular with people from all walks of life. They could visit and become who and what they wanted. It was a jointly held fantasy. Want to be a bipedal tiger or cat? No problem. Want to have sex with anyone and anything? No problem. Want to go to a club with strippers and play the slots? No problem.

People went to Second Life to have a second life, to be free of all the rules and social restrictions that made their first life so mundane.

In forcing their laws onto the onto the Lindens, real-life governments effectively sent everyone back home to Kansas. After all, if you must follow the same rules as in real life, why bother with a second version of the same dull thing?

Re:Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[vadim_t]

Er, it's not dead by any means yet. In fact load seems to be climbing still, just slower than it used to.

And you can still be a bipedal cat, have sex with anything, or go to a club with strippers. There a few more rules in place than there were some years ago, but none of what you mentioned except gambling went anywhere.

Now the thing about playing the slots is unfortunate US stupidity, but that's not SL's fault.

Re:Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[Zombie Ryushu]

The Adult Content Island is barriered off and most users cannot access it.

Re:Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[TrentTheThief]

It's long past its heyday. It will linger and wither.

Yes, it does have a tremendous number of player accounts register, but how many are active?

No, SL was fun while it ignored real life. Now? Not so much.

Re:Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[Webcommando]

Second Life was immensely popular with people from all walks of life. They could visit and become who and what they wanted. It was a jointly held fantasy.

There was unique quality of SL that attracted people who wanted to create a new reality. For those who wanted a cool 3D chat program, it probably has lost some of the appeal.

I noticed my oldest daughter likes to chat with people on IMVU. This environment seems to have as much rich avatar capability--clothes, body styles, create your own rooms, etc.-- but is definitely at the core a chat room. She can jump between different rooms quickly and play RP scenarios without any "MMO" trappings.

Just an opinion but I believe different niches of users have found other sites to cater to their needs and this has taken some of SL players.

Re:Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[vadim_t]

Yes, it does have a tremendous number of player accounts register, but how many are active?

Well, Eve Online just broke the news that they reached a new record with 45000 online users at once.

Right now, SL is at 60000, during the low times (night in the US) it's about 30K, and I've seen it reach 70K. But somehow nobody is saying Eve is dying, heh.

Re:Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[TrentTheThief]

I'll have to take a peek at EO

Re:Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[CronoCloud]

And for historical perspective:

When I joined SL in July of 2006 the # of folks logged in averaged between 5000 to 7000, so there's 10x as many people logged in to SL now.

Re:Second Life died when it mimicked real life

[brkello]

I don't think it was immensely popular. I work with a lot of computer people. Most of my friends are gamers. And absolutely not a single person I know have ever touched that "game". WoW is immensely popular. Second life is just immensely marketed. Particularly on Slashdot.

For me?

[Aladrin]

For me, I can tell you what happened to Second Life. They screwed up my account and their customer service is useless.

Long version: I had an OLD account that received the 500 L$ weekly allowance that used to be given to every account. Then they changed it so that new accounts don't get that allowance. I went on, made a few custom objects and was happen with my character... Until they got hacked. When they get hacked, they force everyone to change their passwords using the password retrieval system. No problem, it's an email that gives you a link. Everything was fine... And then they got hacked again. This time, my password link doesn't work... It just says there was 'an error'. After trying like 5 times over a couple days, I call them. Their machine hangs up on me without ANY voice prompt. Over the next 6 months to a year, I called over and over, but each time it hung up on me, or answered then hung up, or answered and told me to leave a message then told me the mailbox was full... One time it DID let me leave a message and their message promised me they'd contact me... Nothing. So I eventually just gave up. It's not worth the hassle, and I'm NOT going to make a new account and lose my allowance and the customizations to my character.

I've been told that the customer service is better now, but I no longer care.

Re:For me?

[Aladrin]

Edit: Actually, after thinking about it for a while, I think it was a $L50 allowance. But the actual amount wasn't the point.

Re:For me?

[Anonymous Coward]

you seriously need to get a RL, man

Re:For me?

[diggum]

Their hostile customer service is why I left years ago. They had overbilled me one month for real estate I did not own. I had my little plot of land and was happily paying the $5 a month or whatever that ran, but one month I got a bill for over $25. I tried calling but never got a real person. Tried e-mailing, but never got a response. Finally, I contested the charge with PayPal. That got their attention. Within hours, my account was canceled, wiping out the US$100 worth of Lindens I had at the time, and I received one NASTY response from them. I was chastised for contesting the charge via PayPal and it was surprisingly petty and spiteful. I'll wait for the Snow Crash monorail system to come to life. That's a far more interesting paradigm for this sort of VR anyways.

Bubble burst ?!?

[ctrl-alt-canc]

It would be interesting to study the distribution of active second-life users with time. I guess that some kind of well-known pattern will appear. Be ready to see the same fate to apply for twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc.

Re:Bubble burst ?!?

[tixxit]

^ The article you give uses one-off items (ie. sales of books and records). You can only buy a book once, but you can tweet hundreds of times a day if you want. I do not think you can relate "patterns" between the sales of books and number of users using social media sites.

Re:Bubble burst ?!?

[ctrl-alt-canc]

From my post:

> It would be interesting to study the distribution of active second-life users with time.

I am not considering the amount of tweets one makes in a day, but the number of users who actually login at least once. This is the quantity that I expect to be significant to analyze, to see if a bubble-like signature appears with time. Unfortunately I do not know if it is freely available...

property

[Device666]

Second Life resembles the real world too much, there's a commercial real estate bubble to.

Re:property

[ubersoldat2k7]

I remember sometime ago I saw a documentary which had a part about Second Life and some guy that paid a lot of money (from a mortgage on his house) to build some sort of mall or club. Is this guy homeless yet?

So the web is for porn?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Basically, the 5 page story ends up concluding that Second Life is for porn. Gosh, who could have guessed?

The simple fact is that SL was a hype based on the ancient idea of virtual/3d environments being useful. They ain't.

The reason? It is to bloody hard to do anything. When I am in the real world, moving about, turning my head, manipulating objects and chewing gum is so easy I don't actually know how to do it, I just do it. In second life, even just walking about is a pain in the ass. FPS solve this by simplifying the world and giving you limited interaction. You can just jump up any wall rather then having to climb it or put a chair in place to use as a ladder etc etc. In Dragon Age Origins I just click on a cocoon a few meters above me, without having to climb the tree it is hanging from. But in a virtual world ala Second Life they remove this simplified game element because they want something more.

And in the end, they end up with something less. Maybe it is the uncanny valley, the more real a virtual meeting room becomes, the more obvious it becomes that it isn't real. This doesn't matter in a game, because a game isn't real. But a meeting with real people I work with in a virtual world will just feel off. Because nobody but the most dedicated attendee will bother to fully animate his avatar. Smiling, body posture, they will all be pre-scripted (and what kind of person who needs to attend a virtual meeting hasthe time to sculpt his own avatar?) and not like the real person. And for what? So you can talk more easily? You are still staring at a screen, why not use video conferincing? You can interact with a 3D object? Only if that 3D object is fully realized in SL. And I can also see that 3D object in any other display where I can spin the camera and not have to manipulate a camera around a character with collision detection. There are far better purpose build tools for showing a 3D object. And where you new 3D design is NOT on someone elses server.

Oh, there are some useful scenario's, but they are so limited that SL doesn't deserve the hype. It would be like creating a hype for the Excell sheet viewer that MS has for people without Excell.

And so, as the story shows, porn is the only activity that is worthwhile. Same as the net. Just how much information do you need in a day? But you can always use more porn.

I find it intresting to see that the author says the hype has shifted to facebook and twitter. Indeed. Any predictions for how these will fair in 3 years time? MySpace has dropped a lot of its hype. Countless commercial blogs show current post as being several years old...

Part of it all I think is the problem CNN has. They don't have enough news to fill 24 hours and I think the web as a whole might not actually have enough content to fill it all. Twitter is the most obvious example of this, so I will use facebook. Intresting to keep track of old friends... BUT how much can you track? Say that you follow all your friends holiday pictures. Unless you got hundreds of friends, that will hardly keep you that busy will it? There simply ain't enough things people can put online to keep social sites full. Except of course porn. How much of MySpace/Facebook is naughty pics?

The problem is nothing new, it takes pixar 2 years to create a movie that takes us 2 hours to watch. Bioware spends a month on each hour of gameplay. A free news rag like metro is a day job for a whole office of workers and a global news network, and I am done with it in 20 minutes.

I can spend ages setting up a beautifull display in Second Life, as some have done, and then a user goes, he sees it and that is it... done. That is why porn rules, because it is so very very cheap to make and people will pay for a very similar girl in a very similar pose over and over again. Porn is an amazing business. Only the food industry matches it in being able to get people to pay for exactly the same stuff again and again.

Re:So the web is for porn?

[Mattskimo]

I mostly use facebook for winding up people I used to go to school with. The more I use facebook the less there is to do the next day as people remove me as a friend. Oh well, I don'thave my home address listed and it's not like I was friends with the majority of them anyway. It's funny that I've actually reconnected with a few people due to their appreciation of my antics on facebook. Also if you name your 3rd child at age 21 "Mayson", expect some flak.

Re:So the web is for porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um...you can fly in SL. Right click and sit on objects as far away as 512M...and generally do just about anything you just said you can't do.

Re:So the web is for porn?

[cuby]

Only the food industry matches it in being able to get people to pay for exactly the same stuff again and again

You forget drugs. They need to create addicts in order to make money.

Re:So the web is for porn?

[brkello]

Porn is a big industry and is certainly a big part of the net. But the web also has a million other things that are useful and/or entertaining. I really think it has enough stuff out there to keep you entertained until the end of time. SL, on the other hand, really doesn't provide anything all that useful. So it is just a more interactive way of using porn. Not really what it was billed to be but I am not surprised that it goes that way.

And just a note. Plenty of people can spend their whole life on Facebook looking at pictures, commenting on stuff, looking at links, and playing games. So I don't really agree or understand your whole not very much content to keep people entertained thing.

Re:So the web is for porn?

[Teriblows]

basically yes, control is fundamentally too limited for this idea to work. it requires full virtual control which is lacking. the only way i see any possible value is if they match the users actual face movements to the avatars face. aka emotional capture project natal style i guess. still avatars are a creepy false face for the most part and their actual purpose and result is to distance/protect. its just no good if that hot poly babe you are talking to might be some fat slob, it just ruins everything. anything where real interaction is required is better done in teleconference solutions really.

Recently announced SL expansion for felines:

[hallux.sinister]

Tenth Life.

practical applications

[sw33tjimmy]

Probably the most practical (non-sex) application of 2nd Life is its capacity for distance learning/education. Holding online courses in a virtual world... beats the hell out of the buggy web applet i was using back in the glory days of nortel.

Re:practical applications

[Lumpy]

There is ZERO worth for 2nd life distance learning. Having content available on the site for the students, videoconferenceing and teleconferencing is 90000% more effective than doing a animated barbie doll classroom on the screen.

This is so much more effective it's why ALL schools use it instead of second life and it's horribly clunky interface with a steep learning curve. Even a non educated computer user can easily learn from a webcam enabled laptop with a videoconference flash link.

Re:practical applications

[Mattskimo]

Well I'm starting a part time degree with the OU and there is an induction in second life tomorrow. I'm going to go along and try to give it the benefit of the doubt. I made an avatar purely for the purpose of my OU studies (distance learning, but SL is not integral to the course, all SL activities are optional) and the interface feels very clunky. Their island is interesting and I will do some mroe exploring but I doubt I'll be spending any substantial amount of time in there.

Re:practical applications

[sw33tjimmy]

not sure where you get your info, but not ALL schools exclude second life from DE. You'd probably be surprised how many actually have campuses in second life and pay big bucks for researching/developing SL as a platform. I'm not going to argue the effectiveness of it (and I'm certainly not going to defend it, either), but I will say this much: Bell's first phone looked nothing like an iPhone. Just like 2nd life looks nothing like the Matrix.

Re:practical applications

[DrXym]

There must be hundreds of apps for distance learning, some of them with dedicated interfaces, video / audio chat, file exchange, presentation, white boarding. About the only SL brings to the table is chat. I doubt is any use at all for the other things.

Re:practical applications

[Random Walk]

The problem with videoconferencing is that you see half of the audience only through the tiny "keyhole" of the video screen. In a public seminar talk, it's distracting and confusing for the speaker and the part of the audience that is physically present. I've been at seminar talks involving videoconferencing, and I've been in SL seminar talks, and I found the latter a much better, more consistent experience.

Re:practical applications

[Anonymous Coward]

In a public seminar talk, it's distracting and confusing for the speaker and the part of the audience that is physically present.

anf having the audience fileld with cats, giant spiders, and two headed cheeses slices is not distracting?

Re:practical applications

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been at seminar talks involving videoconferencing, and I've been in SL seminar talks, and I found the latter a much better, more consistent experience.

Except you don't have to worry about getting killed on your way to the video conference, or have it broke up when a crowd of half woman, half cat avatars erupt in a full-fledged orgy on the floor.

The word for using SL for distance learning is overkill. You would have an easier time licensing the WoW game engine from Blizzard and running a custom server with one large meeting hall.

The idea of SL is not new at all, it's been talked about in scifi circles for years before SL was even conceived. In all cases the authors predicted that such an environment would not be useful or popular until we started reaching Full-Immersion Virtual Reality capabilities... not just staring at something on a screen. And whaddya know, once again the authors were correct in their assessment. There is really no point to SL because it's too hard to emote through our current interfaces, and you either have to buy all your crap or engineer it yourself.

Re:practical applications

[Teriblows]

thats what people like to say though, but if you think about it, it really doesn't add up either. there is no advantage to meeting in a fake room to watch a fake stone faced "teacher" polygon doll try to teach you. it would be so much better done in some kind of interactive real time private teleconferencing web page where the teacher was on a webcam and the students could chat back as needed. fundamentally most interaction is done teacher to student, not student to teacher esp during lectures. any personal feed back can be easily done on interactive white boards and such. second life is just an additional layer of fluff that would add nothing to such interactions.

Re:practical applications

[Teriblows]

bingo, the falseness of the avatar puts a wall in all interactions. even facial motion capture wouldn't be enough really, they would need to webcam capture your face and map it to the avatar for it to not be completely lame. and even then there are limits to what that achieves...probably mostly a remote creepiness. simple webcam stream gets around all this. adding interactive white boards and a system for controlled chat etc is frankly all you need. sometimes all this fuss over vr is simply an incredibly horribly complicated way of doing something simple. like how in films where computer interfaces are horribly complicated and 3d, most memorable example was the 3d gui in jurassic park where the little girl had to slowly move from building to building in a 3d world when frankly a couple clicks on a well made gui page would have been so much more efficient. google doesn't dominate because it spends its efforts on 3d interactive webpages. most things are better done simply getting to the point. seeing furry avatars around you is simply not anything of value in a teaching environment. sure some educational institutions jumped on the band wagon, but thats how it is with bandwagons eh? popularity has nothing to do with validity.

Sex built the internet

[w3irdizum]

So what that there is sex in SL. No matter what you think, one thing is true “Sex built the internet”.... it was the first thing that started to make money and make the internet viable. With out porn in the early days the web would still be a sterile place full of academics and I call liar on anyone that says they never did a search for porn.

Re:Sex built the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Sex REALLY DID build the internet, ..., you, me, civilisation, ..., my neighbour's cat.

Re:Sex built the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

If I learned anything from Evangelion it's that sex is the beginning of everything and is the force that created everything... Evangelion takes many of the secret teachings of the ancient middle-eastern faiths and lays them wide open with a thin veneer of sci-fi. You are really watching the book of revelation more literally than any Christian depiction. Shinji is the beast, the anti-Christ, the darkness and pain of humanity ... the perfect opposite of all masculine ideals and it is this which dies on the cross a second time ... the final death ... before the second coming and life is restarted with a new Adam and a new Eve.

Sex and Violence are in the garden of Eden and in the all the world's scriptures (usually the sex is depicted in metaphor) so why are we surprised to find them on the internet? If you don't believe in divinity then scripture gives us a window into the psyche of the people that wrote the scripture. This is invaluable in understanding what people will do with new technologies like Second Life. Sexual gratification, religious gratification, and intellectual gratification are very similar. They can only be truly combined in a fully enlightened mind.

Sexual gratification is easier to find and easier to sully since it is so simple and easily attainable. Most people stop there. Some destroy their ability to enjoy sex by over indulgence. This is tragic and hard for some to understand. It seems SL needs to pass through this as well.

Second Life won't really become more than a virtual sex-site until they allow gambling and violence since with out those you can't fully express Economics and Religion. They may find a way to allow gambling without labeling it "gambling" the term "stock market" is very popular. They are missing violence though.

Without violence and "evil" there is no one to oppose and no means to "kill the infidel" so Religion can't be modeled. Without scarcity there is no need to force conflict to find expressions of these. Indeed... the loss of scarcity means the only reason left for people to congregate is sex. If you eliminate death... you eliminate the motivation for sex (the one below pleasure). So I wonder if Second Life isn't a preview into the Singularity.

Yes that's it... Second Life is a nerfed vision of the Singularity.

Ghost town effect

[Max Romantschuk]

SL has some impressive tech, running a user-scriptable 3D world with user generated content. The idea was great, tried it for a while...

But the problem was that the server grid doesn't have enough power to allow a realistic amount of people anywhere. Whenever I was somewhere with over ten people things started lagging bad. So what you end up with are (often beautiful and extravagant) ghost towns. The concept of an open world seems like a great idea, but in practice a lot of areas are off limits due to security measures. And with little communal planning every server is more or less it's own little island.

I still love the concept, but like communism, a working implementation seems to elude us still.

Re:Ghost town effect

[jgtg32a]

This, my computer ran Crysis better than SL

Re:Ghost town effect

[CronoCloud]

The usability limit seems about 20 these days. It's higher in some regions than others. Some regions are usable at 40, some get laggy at 10.

SL does have some legit uses...

[weave]

I'm still convinced virtual worlds have a fascinating future in our lives -- Second Life may be a bit ahead of its time and needs more technology however.

There are also useful things going on there. For example, Cape Town Housing Project.

Here some students from Delaware, USA designed and built virtual homes for the townships around Cape Town. The designs were critiqued by an organization that handles this stuff in Cape Town in real-life. The students got some valuable experience. For example, designing a house with multiple bathrooms. Ah, no. Or using materials not readily available in South Africa.

I can see with time and technological advances that students won't have to truck into their local university, they'll be able to learn within virtual classrooms.

Re:SL does have some legit uses...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still convinced virtual worlds have a fascinating future in our lives -- Second Life may be a bit ahead of its time and needs more technology however.

There are also useful things going on there. For example, Cape Town Housing Project.

Here some students from Delaware, USA designed and built virtual homes for the townships around Cape Town. The designs were critiqued by an organization that handles this stuff in Cape Town in real-life. The students got some valuable experience. For example, designing a house with multiple bathrooms. Ah, no. Or using materials not readily available in South Africa.

I can see with time and technological advances that students won't have to truck into their local university, they'll be able to learn within virtual classrooms.

Thank you for taking the time to refer to our social housing project integrated with Second Life. It was an exploratory project and we will hopefully expand on it in the future to see how we can apply virtual worlds in a meaningful way in Africa. This is only the beginning ;) Alanagh Recreant inSL, Virtual Africa (http://uthango.org)

Greed

[Skal Tura]

Linden Lab got greedy. That's what happened. They do all kinds of things to drive their revenue higher and higher, on th expense of the users, and i don't mean just their wallets, but enjoyability.

And yes, it's become quite desolent place, empty and eerie due to that. Nevermind, technically it's not very good work either ...

Re:Greed

[Anonymous Coward]

Skal Tura is probably confusing Second Life with First Life. If mom is yelling at you to pick up your shoes, it is probably the latter.

Re:Greed

[Slashcrap]

Linden Lab got greedy. That's what happened. They do all kinds of things to drive their revenue higher and higher, on th expense of the users, and i don't mean just their wallets, but enjoyability.

Linden Labs have their offices downstairs from me, and if you think they are rolling in money then my reply is "Ha, fucking ha".

If they were that greedy I doubt they would have chosen office space directly above an NCP car park. You can literally smell the stale piss wafting in from the stairwells.

Re:Greed

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's true, then given the revenue that they're making, they're abysmally mind-numbingly incompetent and will most likely be a grease-spot on the information superhighway by the time that 2012 rolls around....

Re:Greed

[Skal Tura]

Yet they have money to start building their own fiber backbone network, ie. laying tons of fiber all around US...

By simple mathematics they have very vast profit margin, and decision of where their offices is does not mean anything. Is a business supposed to spent it's precious profit into non-productive, completely aesthetic things? No. What happens to businesses spending lots on non-productive stuff? Bankruptcy quite often.

Re:Greed

[Skal Tura]

Well, they are abysmally incompetent... One could say RTFA here ;)

What's in the article is just the tip of the iceberg, you wouldn't believe how stupid moves they've done, such as saturate the real estate market intentionally to drive prices to a level where land is worth barely more than the MONTHLY "tax" (=tier)

Who wants to invest into something which has no stable value whatsoever? .... My point exactly ;)

BBC asked the same question

[lyinhart]

BBC asked the same question a few months ago. Their investigation was a bit more comprehensive: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8367957.stm

Re:BBC asked the same question

[wjamesau]

The BBC article was even more inaccurate than the current one being discussed: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/11/five-bbc-fact-fails.html

There are two kinds of people...

[ozbird]

... those that "get" Second Life, and those that begrudge them for it.

Re:There are two kinds of people...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say this but...mod parent up! Seriously, every time an article about second life comes up I can't tell whether I'm reading slashdot, or encyclopediadramatica. The line's blurred even more with the 4chanesque 'yiff in hell' comment earlier.

I'm not sure what the basis for the irrational hatred is. And it mostly is irrational, the only valid critiques I've seen fault the fact that doing regular things is more tedious in SL than the same task in RL, and the fact that the hype around SL was essentially a bubble. Those don't explain the irrational "get a first life" (get a life? from a slashdotter? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?) and other vitriol.

I'm not sure if you're right or not, but it's the most reasonable explanation for the venom that I can see....

Re:There are two kinds of people...

[mdwh2]

I think it's the get-off-my-lawn luddism applied to old school Internet users. Anything to do with blogs or social networking gets the same treatment.

Only three stories earlier to this one, do we have an Eve Online story, with none of these criticisms. Of course, it's fair to say that a game is more fun than something that isn't a game, but the SL criticisms aren't about that. The "get a first life" style comments would apply to any online environment, be it IRC, Eve Online, or indeed amusingly, posting on Slashdot, as you point out.

Re:There are two kinds of people...

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't begrudge you, we look down on you and mock you; there is a difference.

Nothing happened to it

[Cloud K]

I had a gander in there a month or so back, seems pretty much the same to me (but much bigger).

The article asks "why it’s raking in more cash than ever before" - erm, this must be some new meaning of the phrase "went wrong" that I wasn't previously aware of!

The issue perhaps is that it's highly commercial now and there's a LOT of competition, and also there has been insane expansion during the land boom. So whilst you're probably the only one browsing a shop, there are loads and loads and loads of them. But whilst you have to look on the map for the green dots to see where the actual people are, there are still tens of thousands of them! They're not exactly difficult to find!

The biggest problem it has, is that it's become *too* full and 99.9% of it is crap. So you try to find an interesting event and all you see are pages and pages of yard sales and "money chair" non-events, and so it's a lot more effort trying to find someone or something that isn't about selling you stuff. But 'quiet' or 'empty' are certainly not words I'd used to describe that place. It's just not a media fad any more, but the population itself is right where it's always been.

Re:Nothing happened to it

[JoeCommodore]

I concur, been on for most of a year, and while most of it is empty, there are areas of constant activity. I think a lot of the marketing tie ins are empty because they are like a commercial, they are all fancy and such but after a few minutes its all just the same from then on. Like a good web portal you have to maintain it to keep interest.

If the author had looked for an interest topic and searched around for related sims he'd probably end up on one that is active.

A lot of people interested in design are in SL as it does provide a easy 3d editing/preview environment.

I've noticed, many people with disabilities of one form or another enjoy SL as they can blend in with the crowd. Also as an educational tool it has lots of merits, for doing 3-D simulations, virtual re-creations and virtual personal experiences.

And for me, SL is excellent as a mini vacation, I go there I leave RL and I also leave my human form behind, there are a lot of non-human Avatars in SL.

Re:Nothing happened to it

[Anonymous Coward]

The author said it himself: Second Life is larger than Hong Kong. Bigger than Hong Kong, but there are only about 70,000 people spread across it at any given time.

Re:Nothing happened to it

[Vintermann]

A gander? As in a male goose?

Hey, you never know with that thing.

Hope its a fad

[DrXym]

Second Life is not a new concept. TinyMUD did more or less the same thing in text form 20 years ago. Users could create content and visitors could look at that content.

Whether graphical or text what these player created realms have in common is that for the most part you are wallowing in a sea of shit looking for the odd gem. The majority of the place is a boring, inconsistent wasteland of geometric shapes and broken scripts. And since there is no fundamental purpose to the place the places that are populated are used like glorified chat rooms.

Where Linden have introduced a novel twist is by allowing players to exchange real money for imaginary money and vice versa. I'm sure it's very profitable for Linden. They get to rake currency exchanges, to sell land, to set the exchange rate and of course manage / benefit from all the real money while people play with the L$ counterpart. However it means Second Life has been home to all kinds of scams - gambling, ponzi, MLM, dubious "banks" etc. and the place has a mercenary streak throughout. It's really quite seedy even before exploring some of the more adult themed aspects.

So I wouldn't be concerned if the thing crashed and burned. It's probably overdue if it is a fad.

Re:Hope its a fad

[Locke2005]

what these player created realms have in common is that for the most part you are wallowing in a sea of shit looking for the odd gem. That's pretty much a description of the entire internet, isn't it?

Re:Hope its a fad

[DrXym]

Not really. I don't even have to load / cache or even look at the dross on the internet because there are countless search engines and directories that make targetted searching easy. URLs are largely easy to remember and most browsers have powerful bookmarks. Even if I do load a crap page by accident, it takes seconds and I can hit the back button to instantly return to where I was. I can even be in multiple places at the same time thanks to tabs. Furthermore, the web has information I actually want to look at, unlike Second Life. Even organisations with a SL presence rarely bother to make it more than a pale imitation of their web content.

Assuming all this wasn't an issue and I did find a decent location in SL, it's 3D nature makes it much more inconvenient to navigate around the "site". On the web I can navigate a site with up / down scrolling and clicking. In SL, I might have to walk up a set of stairs, turn a corner, click on something and then deal with whatever interface it chooses to implement, and then if I want to do something else, I might have to exit from there, walk down the hall, look up, and click again. 3D environments simply aren't a practical way to convey lots of information.

IRC... Mmm...

[stakovahflow]

I dunno about you guys, but, generally (unless I'm at work), I'm a console geek... There are only naim & irc clients here... No "Second Life" for you! Bad Monkey! --Stak

...heh

[Anonymous Coward]

The meta-verse, in this case Second Life is a development platform. It is not a chatroom, or a rock stage, or a strip club or any of those things. It is a 3D multi-user dynamically programmable environment and anyone who doesn't see it for that probably also had a hard time understanding what the web was when in it's infancy. Now, granted, I want to right away start throwing shit at Linden for just how craptastic product they ended up but when I think about it for more than two seconds the immense complexity of such a project and the countless technical challenges that I've heard of (and haven't I'm sure) really amount to one of the hardest pieces of software to write - so I ultimately give credit to anyone tackling those problems.

A lot of people turned the web into a porn filled chatroom too. Just wait until they figure out how to get first-class languages working. And the clients to go faster than 10 fps. When it becomes trivial to drop into SecondLife (or competing Metaverse) and write some public procedural art. Or throw some game development ideas between friends by actually trying them out in realtime. With LindenScript or whatever bastardized language SecondLife is stuck with, it'll never take to the potential of the idea. (Metaverses).

Second Life is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Relax, SL is just an IRC chat on steroids. It got hyped and Linden are shooting themself in the foot because of greed, but people have always loved to chat on the internet so it will still be around for a while.

I went there for a bit

[pugugly]

It's interesting, but

A) I run a fairly decent machine, not sota, but fairly spiffy, and it was neither pretty, nor fast. I could handle either or, but ugly *and* slow?
B) there was no depth to it (when I was there at least). There were some museums online that were neat, some other stuff, but it was most faux-sex(y) and rpg games that weren't quite on par with the more consistent feel of even a reasonably well run mudlike (But with bad graphics!).
C) The rules were entirely by fiat either by Linden or by the local landowner. Soooo - if you don't own a space you are a serf at the whim of the local lord. To be fair, some of those people at least got their nigh-absolute power in their domain by being talented people that came in early on, but as near as I can tell most of them simply had money to lease land and setup shop. Being a traveler with no real goals, home ground, or inherent worth is more like the setup for a Kafka novel, not a game I want to play. I'm not without any talent, time, or money, but not so much so that I want to invest either in a system like Second Life, just to be moderately less obviously under someone else's rules.

Just some thoughts. For me at least, it just didn't work - Pug

Re:I went there for a bit

[Rockoon]

I tried second life as well, and discovered the same thing. However I think the slowness was because it was still downloading all of its crap. I'm pretty sure that second life actually brings new meaning to the word 'bloat'

Re:I went there for a bit

[CronoCloud]

Content in SL is dynamic, can change at anytime, so they have to stream it. In less than a minute I could have a cape cod type house rezzed and seconds later replace it with a victorian cottage. Same goes for avatar customization.

Superceded

[GrubLord]

Perhaps Second Life has simply been killed off by the far superior offering that is Sony's "Home".
 
...
 
...
 
...
 
... hahahahaha! :D

Had you going there, didn't I? Yeah, it's still awful.

Incidentally, though, it would seem that Sony's Home is also plagued by sex fiends. Maybe it is shaping up to become a worthy successor?

Re:Superceded

[CronoCloud]

Ha ha ha ha. I WISH Home was more like SL, then I might use it more often. That said, that new Salt Shooter game in SodiumOne is fun. And So is saucer pop.

Second Hype

[Kylere]

I have never in my entire life (and I am a serious online geek, married to a Tucows geek) actually met ANYONE who was part of this MUSH. I still think it was press hype and PR rather than actual data.

MOD PARENT UP

[argent]

The article asks "why it's raking in more cash than ever before" - erm, this must be some new meaning of the phrase "went wrong" that I wasn't previously aware of!

+1 Funny.

Two Reasons

[Hasai]

First, this twit of a journalist logs in at 1200 GMT, which equates to 0400 SLT(PST). The first country that I can find that falls into 'prime time' for that period is Nepal.

Second, SL has installed your typical Ivy League bean-counter as their new CEO. That is invariably the beginning of the end.

Second Life had Promise

[ideonexus]

Second Life had magnificient promise in academia. I used to love exploring the International Space Museum, NASA's virtual home there, and the garden of Physics demonstrations, and the NOAA's island of activities.

Then I tried to bring my class of high school aged kids into Second Life to go on a virtual field trip to these places... only to be thwarted by Linden Labs policy of not allowing more than five people to log into the world from the same location. I looked online, and people told me to call Linden Labs and request an exception be made, but by that time it was too late to attempt the field trip.

Why ban multiple users from the same location? Greed. That has always been Second Life's main detraction. Unlike the World Wide Web, where anyone with a server can plug in and host content, Linden Labs has total control over their world. A virtual world will not work unless it is completely open so that anyone can plug into it and host content themselves. Second Life is just a fantastic ghost town now, filled with amazing creations by people who ultimately do not own what they have built... it's like the Roman ruins.

Re:Second Life had Promise

[babblefrog]

The other issue you are going to run into is that teens are not allowed in the adult second life, and adults are not allowed into the teens second life. I understand why, but it is a pretty big barrier to doing educational stuff.

Re:Second Life had Promise

[argent]

Then I tried to bring my class of high school aged kids into Second Life to go on a virtual field trip to these places... only to be thwarted by Linden Labs policy of not allowing more than five people to log into the world from the same location.

1. High school aged kids shouldn't be in Second Life. It's an 18+ world.

2. There is no such limit. There are people who have hundreds of bots logged in from the same location.

3. Seriously. High school kids should be in Teen SL.

Re:Second Life had Promise

[Homburg]

So where exactly are the high-school kids spending their real life? Some kind of non-18+ world?

Re:Second Life had Promise

[argent]

The reason kids aren't allowed in SL is to protect the adults.

Their so-called claim of raking money in...

[TheHawke]

That can easily be pointed at the increase in sim and server fees they tacked on shortly after their realization of the major loss of income when they axed the gambling industry.

This can easily be seen in their money market if you roll the scale back several years. They have yet to recover back to those levels. Trust me, when I say that this was not imposed by the Lindens on their own, the US and several countries were on SL's neck regarding RL cash being made out of the gambling parlors, and there was! SL blocked gambling outright, then tapered back the restrictions once they realized there were some forms that were not regulated, or flat out ignored. But the damage was already done to their financial structure.

These days, they tiered their sim fees, added on a couple more levels of land ownership (which costs more in the long run for less land, go figure) and started to get mean with the porn industry.

The creature biting its own hand in spite of it being full of food. SL won't last much longer with that kind of behavior, especially in this recession.

Stereotypes come true

[Ogive17]

My sister is a home care nurse and last week she had to visit a patient who just had some surgery. The patient's 40-50 year old son lived in the same house to take care of his mom. While my sister was trying to take care of the patient, the guy kept asking if she used computers much.. then he kept talking about how he is always playing Second Life. Then he told my sister that she should try it out and look him up in game...

I figure the guy was probably just an extreme introvert, though it really creeped out my sister (who is in her 20s). Now that I've read this article I think he was trying to lure her to the sex island. I'll have to forward this article on and tell her she got cyber hit on in real second life....

Content

[rwa2]

There are some real gems in SL, such as the NASA museum.

I would love to use it to prototype architectural stuff. However, the engine is pretty old and not really compatible with models you could build in Blender or other 3D editor software. You need to do a lot of stuff in the SL editor itself, which is pretty nice, but I don't really want my creations locked away in their proprietary format. I've been looking at using the UnReal engine or the Valve Source engine instead (though I'll probably just end up cheesing out and using Blender's built-in game engine), which should produce better visual results and ultimately give me more control of my creations.

I think people like me who want to create things are waiting for something a bit more open, and, well, modern :/ SL was a pretty good first attempt at creating a 3D web with interaction features, though, considering how many real companies made an effort to establish storefronts and virtual conference rooms, though. Hopefully that effort will be preserved and brought into future metaverses.

Why are you surprised?

[copponex]

In any society, a few people are sociopaths. They want to inflict harm on others for their own personal gain, and it makes no difference whether they are violent criminals or violent criminals who claim to kill people for "security" or "freedom."

In a proper civil society, sociopaths are separated from the rest of the population. Otherwise the people who are able to resolve their differences under the law are hamstrung by the juvenile minds who can't let go of their primitive impulses.

Re:Why are you surprised?

[dosilegecko]

As you can see here, there is an unmistakable cone of ignorance. How do you intend to explain these "sociopaths" that intend to protect for freedom and security when they don't do their job and (insert your nationality) lives are lost? Do you just say: "Ok, well that happened, nothing to see here, move along". I like your signature as well, it completely allows me to omit anything you say as valuable or valid.

Re:Why are you surprised?

[copponex]

How do you intend to explain these "sociopaths" that intend to protect for freedom and security when they don't do their job and (insert your nationality) lives are lost?

If you're being drowned out by popular opinion and you start killing people, "freedom" and "security" are just nice words you're trying to use to justify your primitive nature. It's also a sign that your views don't have much intrinsic value if they can't convince people on merit alone.

I like your signature as well, it completely allows me to omit anything you say as valuable or valid.

You're mistaking my quote for your own biases and shortcomings as a critical thinker. Bravo!

Re:Why are you surprised?

[mwvdlee]

The problem is that sociopaths exist in every society and nationality.

The reason every country needs an army is to protect that country from powerful sociopaths in other countries. I think you'll be pretty hard-pressed to name any single war that was started by a truely social (not socialist, just socially average) person.

If every person was as of "average" social behaviour, we wouldn't need armies or borders because "average" people don't start wars. I'm not talking about hippies or anything, just ask any average person in any country; they would not start a war. Most people are perfectly able to solve conflict without violence, and even if conflicts are unsurmountable, most people are able to accept those conflicts as unresolved.

Re:Why are you surprised?

[IndustrialComplex]

It's also a sign that your views don't have much intrinsic value if they can't convince people on merit alone.

Ever have a conversation about the nature of censorship with a young person who grew up in China? The beauty is when you get to a discussion about the 'great leap forward' and the term "You have to break a few eggs" comes up.

Just because you can't convince someone with words alone, doesn't mean your words have no merit. A lot of people couldn't even be convinced that Slavery was wrong.

Dead or not. . .

[DancesWithRobots]

You know. . .People will do what they please for fun. For some it's wandering around a virtual world chatting with friends, and making homes, gadgets, vehicles and clothing for fun and/or profit. For others it's reading articles on a news blog and arguing about it. *shrug* Takes all kind's I guess.

OpenSim

[not-my-real-name]

If you're interested in something like Second Life, but where you have complete control, check out OpenSim. It's an open source (BSD license) virtual world engine.

Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[spun]

Your facts have been checked, and found wanting. The real story is now there for all to see: conservative assholes moved into an area that didn't want them and started griefing the locals. The locals complained, and Linden did the right thing. Once again, when asshole conservatives aren't allowed to be bullies, they will whine about their 'freedom' being taken away.

Your sad attempt at propaganda fails.

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[AlamedaStone]

Your facts have been checked, and found wanting. The real story is now there for all to see: [...] assholes moved into an area that didn't want them and started griefing the locals. The locals complained, and Linden did the right thing. Once again, when asshole[...]s aren't allowed to be bullies, they will whine about their 'freedom' being taken away.

Your sad attempt at propaganda fails.

Although I wholeheartedly agree with most of your remark, I have edited it to reflect a more objective view of reality.

HTH

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[spun]

No. You have edited it to be less objective. Removing a fact because you disagree with it or think things are more 'balanced' with its removal, is not objective. The griefers were conservatives. That is a fact. Why delete it?

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[Darinbob]

Did these people present conservative ideologies and theories? I doubt it. I doubt they would have recognized political theories without shooting at it first. "Conservative" does not mean pro-war, pro-violence, anti-hippie, etc.

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[spun]

Did these people present conservative ideologies and theories? I doubt it. I doubt they would have recognized political theories without shooting at it first. "Conservative" does not mean pro-war, pro-violence, anti-hippie, etc.

Of course they presented conservative ideologies and theories. I wouldn't have said so unless it were true. RTFA.

Are you American? I understand that in the rest of the world, 'conservative' does not mean 'pro war, pro-violence, anti-hippy.' But here in the Land of the Free, it does. Oh sure, there are conservatives who do not espouse such things, even here. But they never speak up against those who do, so I lump them all together, the deathers, the birthers, the teabaggers: all the wacky conspiracy theorists; the libertarians, the Austrian Schoolers, and all the other lassaiz-faire deregulationists: these are the true conservatives of America. If you find these stereotypes offensive, then perhaps you ought to do something to prove that there are other, alternative forms of conservatism that are not based on fear, anger, hatred, violence, and domination.

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[jbezorg]

No. You have edited it to be less objective. Removing a fact because you disagree with it or think things are more 'balanced' with its removal, is not objective. The griefers were conservatives. That is a fact. Why delete it?

Because the other side isn't quite innocent and even the edited version isn't quite correct.

Jessie was home to most WWIIOLers in Second Life, and many of them felt boxed in from all sides by hostile communities. Some outsiders would make frequent guerilla raids into Jessie, targeting members at random; but when the WWIIOLers got their guns and went after them, to retaliate, the insurgents would flee into an adjoining simulator, where violence was strictly forbidden. Killing them off-territory meant risking the wrath of the international authority -- i.e., Linden Lab. (And a lot of them did, and were duly punished with suspensions.) The Jessie residents would get terrorized by sniper attacks, firing with long-range rifles from the safety neighboring sims. To be sure, the WWIIOLers who’d caused so much mayhem had provoked much of this prankster hostility. But they were still isolated in a single geographic area, where they could be easily targeted, and antagonized.

It would be more correct to say:

"Your facts have been checked, and found wanting. The real story is now there for all to see: conservative ( by the WWIIOLers leaders own observation ) assholes moved into an area that didn't want them and started griefing the locals. The locals retaliated."

To use a forum analogy; Yes, one side trolled but the other kept feeding them.

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[spun]

To use a forum analogy; Yes, one side trolled but the other kept feeding them.

Okay, see, that I can accept.

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[bkpark]

But they never speak up against those who do, so I lump them all together, the deathers, the birthers, the teabaggers: all the wacky conspiracy theorists; the libertarians, the Austrian Schoolers, and all the other lassaiz-faire deregulationists: these are the true conservatives of America. If you find these stereotypes offensive, then perhaps you ought to do something to prove that there are other, alternative forms of conservatism that are not based on fear, anger, hatred, violence, and domination.

Interesting that you would characterize a group of libertarians (I'm not sure about birthers, and if by "deathers" you mean people who are suspicious of broad government programs, I think there's a good overlap) as being based on a variety of emotions such as fear, anger, hatred, violence, and domination. Where do you get your facts from, MSNBC?

First, the most prominent libertarian political figure, Ron Paul, keeps saying, more than any other liberal Democratic candidates, that we need to pull out of the whole region of Middle East. Who's "pro-war" here? Ron Paul, standing for libertarians, or Barack Obama, standing for liberals?

Second, the Libertarian Party specifically rejects initiation of violence. I suppose the fact that this is a cornerstone of that organization is more of a relic of history, when they wanted to distinguish themselves from communist or anarchist groups that wanted to overthrow the U.S. government entirely, but in any case, libertarians believe in retaliation (and hence their pro-military view, so that they can retaliate when necessary), but not initiation.

Third, of all political philosophies, libertarianism is one most emotionally devoid---both negative and positive---of them all. It starts out with simple premise that all rights derive from property rights, starting from self-ownership, and the rest of the philosophy is pretty much logical deduction from that premise, guided by respect for everyone's rights, untainted by fuzzy standards of empathy or special consideration of any particular group of people, such as the poor or the rich. Of all the emotional characteristics that you ascribe to libertarians, perhaps one is even remotely close: fear, that is, fear of the government, but the libertarian fear of the government is only a useful rule of thumb, because governments are the most effective destroyer of property rights who can also legitimize their acts of destruction.

And finally, "domination" is the characteristic most aptly applied to liberals, not libertarians or even most conservatives. Small-government conservatism, which is the core of any American conservatism (I won't deny that there are some flavors of conservatism which go much, much beyond these core principles, but they are fringe, not mainstream), can be described as "live and let live", i.e. we won't dominate others, but we will not let others dominate us. On the other hand, the core of progressive liberal agenda is reforming the humanity into their image. Public education (for which I do credit progressives) which instill in the children their view of right and wrong. Government programs incentivizing particular set of behaviors. Tax incentives that amount to micromanaging people's behavior. High taxes that make these tax incentives look good. As ... laudable as some of these goals are, reforming others must necessary include dominating them first, militarily, economically, or by some other means.

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[Teriblows]

griefers aren't conservative, they go against the system for crisake. calling people on bullsh*t is hardly conservative.

Re:Good thing we've got fact checkers here

[spun]

RTFA. These griefers were conservatives. I don't even know what you mean by 'calling people on their bullshit.'

At last a fair post about SL

[Anonymous Coward]

If it doesn't interest you, then move on. I find that most of the people opining negatively about SL haven't spent more than 5 minutes there, if at all. So, it doesn't have orcs, elves, level grinding, or killing a million bears/boars/wolves/goblins to obtain the Uber Sword of Smackery. Just how, exactly, does that make it inferior to games that do (or makes those games better?)

SL is unfairly impugned constantly by people who haven't a clue what is really going on there, and it's certainly not just sex. Music and live performances thrive there, and just about anything else you're interested in. Oh, except orcs, elves, and level grinding.

He simply doesn't "get it"

[TrogL]

There are no goals, no objectives, no points or levels to completed.

That's because it isn't a game - it's a simulation. The point, like in most non-directed play, is to make your own fun. I'm doing it by programming in LSL (SL's development language - reminds me of really early PERL), seeing other people's kewl stuff and making friends. I've even got a boyfriend. He knows perfectly well that I'm not "real", but as it stands he doesn't have a hope in hell of getting a real girlfriend (yes, I'm using female atavars - it's a Jungian thing) for socioeconomic and cultural reasons, so I'll do in the meantime.

There was an article a few weeks ago (on here?) about people coming to Second Life for "shopping", because they couldn't afford to do it in real life. I can see their point. I just bought a brace of cannon for my front porch for $CAN 0.50 ($L100), positioning them nicely so they fire into my next door neighbour's front windows. Pity I can't do that in RL.

Re:He simply doesn't "get it"

[myowntrueself]

That's because it isn't a game - it's a simulation.

It isn't a simulation - its a social club.

You can fly in SL or use any other vehicle known

[Anonymous Coward]

You can fly like superman using the pageup/pagedown keys, so stop insinuating that it's so bloody hard to travel or move. The camera controls are completely free of the usual limitations of other video games, so you can look anywhere you want free of your body. Every kind of vehicle has been made there, and you can instantly teleport to any spot on the map, any search hit, or share a teleport with a friend. Have you ever even played Second Life, or are you just making up an angry rant based on "what you've heard"?

Furries

[soupforare]

Five-wanged vixen/dragon/Na'vi hybrid of eternal lactation looking for a good time, yaff~

SL needs to beef up its infrastructure, fix bugs

[TrogL]

There's one major outstanding bug (having to do with email) hearkening back to 2006 and another one that messes up your menus (turning them black) if you stray too close to a certain type of freeware TV set (may only affect some video cards, eg. mine) as well as a variety of other petty annoyances.

The big problem at the moment appears to be system-wide lag, especially at popular spots.

There is going to be a system-wide outage Wednesday 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. (probably PST) to address "database issues", which hopefully will improve the situation, which only got really bad about three weeks ago.

Kinda proves my point

[SmallFurryCreature]

That content, that took you X hours to setup is interesting to how many people? If your entire class is interested, 20 or so? Lets say it results in a hundred visits, and then it done. They either think it was funny and will revisit for a while to see if there is something new or think it sucked and never visit again.

Same with Second Life. LOTS of people visited, even spend a few dollars, then they noticed you can only see so many 3d willies and never came back. Just not enough content to keep people hooked.

The BBC airs christmas specials during christmas (quite clever of them if you think of it) and it has to recycle old ones constantly. Not because nothing new is being created but 1-2 new ones each year that might or might not succeed doesn't fill up 3-4 days of tv even after 50+ years of TV.

I wish I would have been in charge of the UI

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm one of those people that does not use SL for sex. I've always been fascinated with virtual worlds. I've tried all the major ones that have come and gone, as well as the ones still around. I think the biggest problem facing Second Life is the interface. It's left over from the early 90s and is plain difficult to learn for first timers. Linden Lab is supposed to be launching a brand new viewer this year with a completely new interface.

The other problem with Second Life is the name itself. I read somewhere that when people hear "Second Life", they think of a loser in a basement that didn't have a first life. This couldn't be further from the truth. I've met so many amazing people in Second Life that lead interesting first lives.

I just want to know why it's taken THIS long for any improvements to be done for new people trying Second Life. As long as I can remember the experience has always been rough for people that might not play a lot of games.

For those that find the idea of a virtual world where you can create whatever you want, I recommend picking up the book "The Making of Second Life" from Amazon. Really interesting stuff!

Blue Mars Online is the latest virtual world that might give Second Life a run for its money. However, it has a few things going against it: Windows-only. No client for Mac or Linux users. (I've always thought this was SL's strong point)

So far, Blue Mars Online is beautiful, but a ghost town with nothing to do even more so than Second Life.

The Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds

[ehackathorn]

For a few ideas of what might be in store from virtual worlds like Second Life in the future check out a trailer made for the "Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds." This group has over a thousand members from government, the private sector, and educational institutions.

http://www.vimeo.com/4623997

You can find more information about the group and their next conference at:

http://www.ndu.edu/irmc/fcvw/fcvw10/index.html

Re:The Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds

[argent]

What do they actually do other than make unrealistic presentations for government consultants?

Re:The Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds

[ehackathorn]

I suppose I should expect a comment like that from someone with a "Lynx-enhanced" homepage.
Seriously though, I'd be happy to fill you in on more details if you're not just out trolling.

Re:The Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds

[argent]

Yes, people who've been around a while have seen any number of cool presentations, but no flying cars. We're a tough audience.

I'm serious. What are they actually doing other than making cool looking presentations? Show me the code.

Second Life vs. eRepublik

[Anonymous Coward]

I played SL and i felt it was just a 3d chatroom, not much to do.
I started playing eRepublik last year and its a different thing. Its not 3D, its not WoW. Its a more adult experience, with an economic and politic plataform and a very rich offgame addition.
Like a mix between Monopoly, Civilization and Risk.

A much more pertinent question is...

[holiggan]

...whatever happened to Half Life 2 Episode 3? ;)

(I know, I'm offtopic, sue me alread :P)

I mostly agree, but not about CNN ...

[beer_maker]

Part of it all I think is the problem CNN has. They don't have enough news to fill 24 hours and I think the web as a whole might not actually have enough content to fill it all.

It's funny, but I can spend all day reading different news sites, covering different countries or disciplines (science/finance/funny_pictures_of_cats today) and yet CNN can't seem to produce more than about 43 minutes of bad summaries of (mostly 1st-) world events. There's NEWS aplenty, but they don't seem to care about sharing the majority of it.

What happened to Second Life?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got banned. :D

Not just my hardware, but my ISP's entire class-B netblock as well...

Re: SL != MMOG

[Duggeek]

Second Life had little point beyond being a sex simulator and roleplaying simulator. You can't really play a real game in there. There isn't any real combat Physics built into Second Life. You walk around, you chat, if you can buy stuff and sell stuff that looks cool.

Seriously!? Are we making comparisons between MMORPGs like WoW and EQ to Second Life?

It's patently and categorically misplaced. In other words, you're comparing apples to kumquats.

SL is about a virtual-world experience, but without any necessary objectives other than interaction with other “players.”

No “combat Physics” [sic] -correct! It doesn't need it... whatever that is. If you feel SL really needs it, why not develop it yourself? That is what makes SL unique; users not only help to populate the world, but also develop features within that world. Can you invent (not saying "build" here, but "invent") new-and-different weapons in WoW, GW or EQ? No! You can only use the items that devs have made for you. But you can always invent in SL. In fact, you could even invent a non-combat dingus. (many have, and quite literally)

It doesn't need combat; it's not supposed to be a game.

While SL has earned a “seedy” reputation—let's be honest, most people that spend enough time online are bound to Go There—it remains unique in the experience it provides. No gold, no mobs, no bosses to fight... at least not necessarily. Second Life is whatever its denizens want it to be. If Linden Labs wanted Second Life to be a game, it would have become a game-world by now. IFO am glad it hasn't.