Massive *Uh* idea.

Ok, before I begin:

I love it when people go out and create and innovate, they deserve mad props for just going out there. That being said, just found one of the *Uh* concepts here in the forums. *Uh* is when you just sit there dumbfounded uttering a really long Uhhhhhoooooooawwwwwwuhhhh.
Not going post the varying info about the specific post, do not want to pick or single a innovator out.

The concept? So, uh, basically charge people to bring virtual food items to an event so people can look at the pretty food (not to mention balloons and banners).

I like the fact people are testing the water, but *Uh*. This is Second Life, why create a service for something that makes no sense to reproduce in a virtual world. That all being said I will now offer some constructive feedback on the idea.

The only thing that carry over from catering service in Second Life is the atmosphere created by the environment. So basically nix the food and serve up atmosphere in ways that make more sense, mood lighting, music, hospitality, revamping the area with different stuff that meets the real world analog (and still carry over well to virtual form)

So yeah, I hope this post is not so http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/ (FTW)
p.s. I am very tired and feel a tad sick, so that is my weak excuse for this post.

Logically, a group sitting down and eating in a restaurant - if the animations are good, makes as much sense as dancing. People can still chat, but instead of saying:
"X spanks Y's ass", they can say "X spits date stone in Y's face"!!!!

The *Uh* is just a spark of an idea or inspiration, in the same vein as the * Eureka* as uttered by Archimedes. There would still be much efforts to fresh it out with a metaphor applicable to the web medium of Second Life. Wish you all the luck and success with your *Duh*.

makes note, never go to dinner with Conifer, but dancing my be fun.

Logically yes, but practically no. Pretending or role playing eating in SL is just awful. It only makes you hungry and there can't be any satisfaction to the hunger. Unlike other activities such as dancing, for example, where there can be a feeling of participating.

I would certainly lean towards the "event planner" aspect of such an idea, but I can imagine a nicely hosted banquet, with speeches and conversation.
Come to think of it, hosting a murder would seem ideal; easy to make up the theme, and people could gather for a short-term, not as dedicated roleplay.

What kinda dance poses are you using?

LOL

I have a kids placemat that serves me spaghetti, fish sticks, juice boxes etc. It wasn't cheap but I liked it so much i went back to the store and bought one for each place setting at the dining room table. Sometimes the family sits at the table and eats, sort of like a RL family after school/work. When I have a friend visiting sometimes I say "Hey! I know how to make macaroni and cheese!" and I run off to the kitchen and go through the motions of showing off the food making abilities of an unsupervised 8-year-old. Then we go to the place settings and eat it. If a babysitter comes over she will do the cooking, and it goes a little more smoothly . I think it adds a great deal to the experience. The placemat serves as a non-verbal cue that it is time to relax and have a conversation.

If you continue to think of it the way you're thinking of it now, very little makes sense to reproduce in the virtual world. Its all just flying electrons and spinning metal. What's the point of any of it, if not to play pretend for a bit?

(incidentally, the placemat is by ~*~CAS~*~ Voti (201, 49, 23), along with many catering-style products not specifically for kids.)

I vote in favor of the food.

I attended a wedding reception the other day where touching your plate gave you a fork, and wearing the fork gave you an eating animation. There were glasses of champagne that you could "drink"...and drinking too many of them made you drunk. It was fun to sit down and eat, drink, and talk for a bit before starting the dancing.

I wear virtual clothes on my virtual body, take it out and go virtual dancing with my virtual date. I drive a virtual car, shoot a virtual pistol, and fly a helicopter made out of software. I have virtual vices and virtual pleasures. I live in a virtual house in a virtual village, and it has a virtual bathroom with a virtual shower and toilet.

So bring on the virtual calories, I say!

The only "real" thing here is people, and communicating with them in various ways (talk, music, gestures, whatever). Everything else is window dressing...but without it, SL would just be a chatroom.

ha ha ha ha. You made me smile and laugh visualizing this. You're awesome.

And yes, Cas makes great food and drink products.

I think it would be cool if they made it so avatars would need to eat ..or die..

that would add a little more realism and would also encourage the creation of a vital industry as well as Restaurants which seem to be missing here .

actually you are right in my thinking, I would love if people would free there minds more and move away as much as possible from the real world while in Second Life. Freeing ones mind is much harder then it sounds. It is wonderful to play pretend for awhile, just think carrying over a catering service into Second Life with a pay by hour scheme is a little weird.... The real world recreations can be summed up to "You cannot get bananas from an apple tree" - You cannot imagine what is not there.

Go play The Sims.

I love the virtual food/drink - bring 'em on!

If we go to all the effort of having folks over to the house, or hosting a party, sending out fun invitations, making the venue look inviting, have good music playing, people are dancing, chatting...what's missing??? Oh yes, the food and beverages! A virtual party or gathering needs virtual victuals!!

My personal favorite is the absinthe which is accompanied by little green fairies.

I am of exactly the opposite mindset. The more we can re-create in SL from RL, the more we blur the boundries between what is real and what is virtual. That is where innovation will occur. Virtual worlds like SL thrive on new and inventive ways to express what we already have in the real world, because it is a pre-determined frame of reference for all of us. Making the virtual environment as real as possible, not as surreal as possible, is what will measure progress in SL.

Hmmm. I'd much rather visit an underwater garden, or a spaceship in orbit, or a castle in the clouds designed by M.C. Escher, than a two story clapboard house with a white picket fence on a surburban SL street. In that sense, I disagree with you, Ghosty. I think SL should be a place where the imagination can run free.

On the other hand, you have a point. A virtual reality should have SOME underlying rules, and the closer those rules come to "reality", the more real the virtual world will seem. Realistic rendering, realistic animations, realistic physics (with glorious exceptions like teleportation and personal flight!). I think I draw the line at imposing a virtual metabolism, though...we spend so much time caring for ourselves in the real world, feeding, cleaning, sleeping. I'd rather not have to do all that in my virtual world, except for the fun social aspects (sharing a meal with a friend or friends, showering with a partner, and so on.)

When you talk about an underwater garden, or a spaceship in orbit, or a castle in the clouds designed by M.C. Escher, I already know what you're refrencing. This is because those concepts already exist in the real world, even if its simply a literary reference. Imagination does run free, but the mind is not in SL, it is in RL.

But the opportunity SL provides is to extend our imaginative perceptions beyond the familiar ones, the ones that are RL-referential, and move them into a new way of perceiving reality in the digital mode. That is, it makes sense to me that the first steps into this new world will be done in a way that is referential to the physical world, because this taps into our pre-existing mental reserves of perceived reality, which has been almost exclusively, to date, been developed based on our interactions with the physical world. As the digital reality expands and grows, I think that the mental reserves become expanded to include reserves of perceived reality that have only been experienced in the digital world, and the need for things to be more RL-referential lessens over the course of time.

QFT!

When we have people over at our home (Japanese themed), we kneel in our tea room and I serve tea and "drink" it as we converse. The set we use makes the cup disappear after a certain number of sips.

I've gone to large parties/celebrations and seen a whole spread of food laid out as one would at the same type of RL event. The food is all wearable and clickable to "eat." Even if I don't choose to "wear & click" I like the added realism or "immersion" - same as I wore winter clothing during the Northern Hemisphere SL "winter" - even though where I live RL our summers are in the 70-75 degree range. It just made me "feel" more wintery.

Something my partner and I like to do for anniversaries is go to a nice dance venue or lovely garden sim that offers the little "table for two" with drop down menus to change the style of the china, serves everything from drinks to appetizers to desserts...and has "flirting" selections.

OTOH, I flee a place quickly when I hear the first "Hoo".

Which makes SL a great place for "different strokes for different folks.

Well, to be honest, all reality is perceived reality.

The point I was making was that it makes little sense to move away from the real world in our virtual innovations, because that's where our point of reference lies. In order for things to make some sort of sense, even in the most fanciful concepts, they must have an anchor in the real world. This anchor is what bridges the gap between the two environments. The anchor can, of course, be fanciful and even surreal, but without that real-world reference they become nonsensical.

'nuff said.

And my point is that as the digital reality grows and more people have experiences in the digital reality, that physical world anchor becomes less neccessary over time. It is a transitional bridge in the early pioneering days of the digital reality (i.e., now), but I honestly do not think it's a permanent referential need for a physical world anchor. That may be the case today, but it won't be the case forever -- in time, the digital reality will create its own anchor proper to itself, just as the physical reality does now. It is simply a question of how many experiences how many people have in the digital reality, and in ways that differ from the familiar, comfortable referents from the physical reality.

I don't know ... I've offered food items at my cafe, and there never seems to be much interest in them. I've taken them back into inventory after a while because the platters are very primmy. People don't even drink the coffee or the chai all that much.

Maybe if it were more of restaurant-style place with tables and waitservice, people would get more into food-eating role play, but at least as it stands, I haven't seen much interest in simulating food items in SL. And I know that if I am sitting and chatting with a friend in SL, I'd prefer lounging on a comfy couch to sitting up at a restaurant-style table. That's just my own preference though.

I think the innovation you speak of will thrive in two key areas -

1) Accomplishing in the virtual world what is not possible in the real world, yet impacts the real world positively, perhaps profoundly.

2) Accomplishing in the virtual world what is already done in the real world, but in ways not possible in the real world.

That's where I see power in intersecting real and virtual

food & party items are just a fine detail in creating a desired atmosphere for an event. just enjoy it!