SL 3.0 How should it be?
Intro
Second Life is a game…well more of a social networking program built on a VRML like engine. I’ve had to mess with it for about three months. It is awesome in the possibilities it offers, I think by using SL you see a glimpse into the future. Unfortunately that glimpse is pretty dark and primitive right now. I’d say Second Life is mainly used for interactive chat and virtual sex, which is a shame. Second Life as a platform for a Web 3.0 or 4.0 interface is a possibility with a few changes, which I’ve listed below.
Do I think that SL will become the Snow Crash Metaverse? Probably not. But it is the first great stab at it, so for that reason it is worth paying attention to. If you don’t play the game, I actually wouldn’t recommend it because you would be surprised at how easy it is for some of its darker aspects to get their hooks into you. But watch it…it may evolve beyond its porn beginnings, just like the internet did.
The Engine
First, I would like to say that the graphics engine in SL rocks. It is made by pure geniuses that I could never hope to even come close to in skill. With that being said, ultimately SL is a X3D/VRML Java engine pushed to the max. And it appears to have maxed. Time to look around and see that even though SL has awesome avatars, compared to the latest game 3d engines coming out ABOUT 2 YEARS AGO, SL looks dated, let alone compared to the game engines coming out today. With user created content that is updated all the time by thousands of users, this might present technical challenges for engine optimization that I am not aware of, but I’m sure some techniques like improved zoning, not rending behind walls, faster loading, etc…could be done. It might mean that the game designers have to loose their love affair with XML based protocols, the direction they are moving, but all and all I think this has to be done. Take a plane for example. Unless your plane moves really slow, you can’t even do a fly by on the ground below, because things won’t res fast enough. If you want to keep SL to a porn chat room on steroids that is fine. If SL wants to evolve to a multi use platform where SL can be used for a simulation/gaming platform, this issue needs to be fixed.
Integrated Voice Chat
I understand why SL wants to use a third party to do this, and that is fine. But their needs to be a unified framework for avatar detection for voice ranges, private voice conversations, etc.. that hook into third party applications. This seems to be in the works, just needs to be official.
More Game Play
Ok, now that the engine and chat is sorted out, let’s address game play. Essentially the biggest communities that use the game are Goreans, Furries, Vampires, and humans. There are many other “cultures” as well, but these are the biggest ones. Why one use that in game play. Right now property owners can set if people can fly, or take damage on their property. Let’s add some new options. When you build new weapons, clothes, items, etc…for a small fee you can get these items certified with “tech levels.” Or maybe even go beyond tech levels and have genre certifications. Then land owners can specify what gendras items they allow in their properties. Let’s also add things like Magic vs Technology as well.
Also the idea of frontier regions need to be encouraged, so battles between genres can happen. I would love to go shoot up some Furries and Vampires, but I can’t most of the time, because they are to anal to play along. I’m sure vampires would love to swoop down on unsuspecting humans wondering around in the frontier and drain them. I can see some interesting scripts for that. Some kind of in game promotion of this concept needs to happen.
Professional Usage
This once a week taking down of SL needs to stop. For one, it kills a chunk of SL time (on Wednesdays) that may be the low point in SL usages but is a high point in professional usage. Plus people on slower connections can’t afford to be downloading 20+ meg update files once a week. Also, I hate to say it, but there needs to be a professional grid, like the teen grid, where all the pornography doesn’t take place. SL Porn will be a huge show stopper for many corporations that would love to investigate the use of Second Life for education. Sure, you can protect them while they are on your land, but you can’t keep them there, which is a huge problem.
The Future
This is what I would like to see in SL 3.0. I would like to teleport to a virtual Ikea and check out furniture. I would like to buy that online and have it shipped to my house. Then I would like to teleport to a board room meeting and be able to see Flash and PDF presentations, use and interactive white board, and talk to fellow attendees through voice chat. When I am done, I would like to gear up for some combat, and duke it out on a virtual 1980ies battlefield or future sci fi mecha attack. If I feel the adult need, I could head over to a frontier zone and hunt down a sexy vampiress for some adult fun. Or if I get smart and quit doing wickedness on SL, I will skip the vampiress and attend a church service on Calvary Chapel SL. I then would like to go relax at my pad in some ancient Roman realm, where my avatar automatically suits up appropriately when I teleport in. I would like to have both the ability to set the media streams globally for my land but also allow for multiple audio and video to stream in on the same parcel. If I could do this, and hundreds of thousands like me with very little lag, then we would have a metaverse.
Intro
Second Life is a game…well more of a social networking program built on a VRML like engine. I’ve had to mess with it for about three months. It is awesome in the possibilities it offers, I think by using SL you see a glimpse into the future. Unfortunately that glimpse is pretty dark and primitive right now. I’d say Second Life is mainly used for interactive chat and virtual sex, which is a shame. Second Life as a platform for a Web 3.0 or 4.0 interface is a possibility with a few changes, which I’ve listed below.
Do I think that SL will become the Snow Crash Metaverse? Probably not. But it is the first great stab at it, so for that reason it is worth paying attention to. If you don’t play the game, I actually wouldn’t recommend it because you would be surprised at how easy it is for some of its darker aspects to get their hooks into you. But watch it…it may evolve beyond its porn beginnings, just like the internet did.
The Engine
First, I would like to say that the graphics engine in SL rocks. It is made by pure geniuses that I could never hope to even come close to in skill. With that being said, ultimately SL is a X3D/VRML Java engine pushed to the max. And it appears to have maxed. Time to look around and see that even though SL has awesome avatars, compared to the latest game 3d engines coming out ABOUT 2 YEARS AGO, SL looks dated, let alone compared to the game engines coming out today. With user created content that is updated all the time by thousands of users, this might present technical challenges for engine optimization that I am not aware of, but I’m sure some techniques like improved zoning, not rending behind walls, faster loading, etc…could be done. It might mean that the game designers have to loose their love affair with XML based protocols, the direction they are moving, but all and all I think this has to be done. Take a plane for example. Unless your plane moves really slow, you can’t even do a fly by on the ground below, because things won’t res fast enough. If you want to keep SL to a porn chat room on steroids that is fine. If SL wants to evolve to a multi use platform where SL can be used for a simulation/gaming platform, this issue needs to be fixed.
Integrated Voice Chat
I understand why SL wants to use a third party to do this, and that is fine. But their needs to be a unified framework for avatar detection for voice ranges, private voice conversations, etc.. that hook into third party applications. This seems to be in the works, just needs to be official.
More Game Play
Ok, now that the engine and chat is sorted out, let’s address game play. Essentially the biggest communities that use the game are Goreans, Furries, Vampires, and humans. There are many other “cultures” as well, but these are the biggest ones. Why one use that in game play. Right now property owners can set if people can fly, or take damage on their property. Let’s add some new options. When you build new weapons, clothes, items, etc…for a small fee you can get these items certified with “tech levels.” Or maybe even go beyond tech levels and have genre certifications. Then land owners can specify what gendras items they allow in their properties. Let’s also add things like Magic vs Technology as well.
Also the idea of frontier regions need to be encouraged, so battles between genres can happen. I would love to go shoot up some Furries and Vampires, but I can’t most of the time, because they are to anal to play along. I’m sure vampires would love to swoop down on unsuspecting humans wondering around in the frontier and drain them. I can see some interesting scripts for that. Some kind of in game promotion of this concept needs to happen.
Professional Usage
This once a week taking down of SL needs to stop. For one, it kills a chunk of SL time (on Wednesdays) that may be the low point in SL usages but is a high point in professional usage. Plus people on slower connections can’t afford to be downloading 20+ meg update files once a week. Also, I hate to say it, but there needs to be a professional grid, like the teen grid, where all the pornography doesn’t take place. SL Porn will be a huge show stopper for many corporations that would love to investigate the use of Second Life for education. Sure, you can protect them while they are on your land, but you can’t keep them there, which is a huge problem.
The Future
This is what I would like to see in SL 3.0. I would like to teleport to a virtual Ikea and check out furniture. I would like to buy that online and have it shipped to my house. Then I would like to teleport to a board room meeting and be able to see Flash and PDF presentations, use and interactive white board, and talk to fellow attendees through voice chat. When I am done, I would like to gear up for some combat, and duke it out on a virtual 1980ies battlefield or future sci fi mecha attack. If I feel the adult need, I could head over to a frontier zone and hunt down a sexy vampiress for some adult fun. Or if I get smart and quit doing wickedness on SL, I will skip the vampiress and attend a church service on Calvary Chapel SL. I then would like to go relax at my pad in some ancient Roman realm, where my avatar automatically suits up appropriately when I teleport in. I would like to have both the ability to set the media streams globally for my land but also allow for multiple audio and video to stream in on the same parcel. If I could do this, and hundreds of thousands like me with very little lag, then we would have a metaverse.
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