Well, today marks my 1 year anniversary since I started Second Life, and as most old people do, I'm going to take this moment to wax a bit nostalgic about the past and give a bit of insight into what I have seen change in the past year.
One year ago today I downloaded a game I had read about on some on-line magazine. It said they were looking for beta testers and I thought "what the heck". Once on, I found myself standing in the middle of a wooden corral in front of a store. I watched as the Hulk, Harry Potter, and a slimy green guy with bat wings stood in a corner and talked. With a grin, I knew I was going to love this place. At the time there were no Mentors and it was the Lindens that met you at the door, trying to field the flurry of questions, the most common of which was "Now what?!" Once I was shown how to fly, I headed to the furthest reaches of the western world, to Tehama, and there I pulled my cabin out of my pocket and set up home on the beach, overlooking the water. I spent the next 2 months in solitude, never seeing another person, content to learn to build and change my Avitar on my own. At the time there were many doubting thoughts in my head that the game would flourish.
I was often confused and frusterated as there was no "how to" manual. Everything I learned was learned by trial and error and it would take weeks to figure out you could change a single texture, much less changing texture at all. I thought that people who were less patient would give up.
While I tend to be a loner, I thought that most people would be unhappy with the solitude of the land. I'm not much of a social-lite, but I know many are and I figured most would give up trying to have neighbors and just return to the "newbie corral" to meet people, ignoring some of the most interesting parts of SL, the building. Finally, once my cabin was out of my pocket, I began to worry that there really wasn't much to do in the world. I figured once the beta was gone people wouldn't pay for these frusterations and the game would end in a short time. I know.. I'm a bit of a pessamist.
I stand here, one year later, pleased that I was so wrong. In that short year I watched as they set up a new newbie area, Eden, (ask me about my accidental trip to Eden sometimes.. it was deliciously ironic). People were "stepping off the boat" with enough information to start building on their own and I saw the frusteration level decrease incredibly. I witnessed a flood of new people, giving those that are interested in the social side of things more new friends than most can handle. I watched as the world filled out, changing from a rather rickety skeleton of a game to a fleshed out entity, full of events, people and one of the most curious social experiments ever created.
I sit back today and wonder if those at Linden Labs knew where this world would go, or if they are as surprised as I am with what has taken shape. I know there was an overall plan, but can one really plan when each person entering the world brings a whole new list of probabilities to the equation?
So there it lies, a few of my thoughts on where this place has begun and how far it has come. In doing so, one has to turn fully around and look to the future and wonder if we've come this far in such a short time, what does the future hold? I am not sure myself, but rest assured, I will be here to see it.
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Happy anniversary!
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