Poll: What Is SL?

Thanks peeps, won't comment on the techy/non-techy issue since it's really a case-by-case thing.

So, are there people actually suggesting something like SL could replace the web? 'Cause that just sounds silly to me. I always thought the "3D web" comments from Philip et al. were simply meant to imply the idea of SL was to set up a standard format/system for this type of content, not that the mediums themselves are particularly equivalent.

Hee, I'm not disagreeing, just making it sound like I am. Doh.

I don't think the world wide web will be a 3D environment anywhere near the sophistication of SL in the future, i believe allot of it will remain 2D. However I believe there will be sections of the web built on the foundations of SL, For example shopping, browsing through your local 3d supermarket with fully interactive products that provide all information about its contents, manufacturing, links to the product creators website etc. Also things like clothes shopping, create a 3D replicate of yourself and try on clothes to see how they look on your shape etc...endless possibilites. i believe there will be a generic client to access the 3D pockets, prolly developed by MS with a variety of compatable clients by the wannabies.

I thought LL was developing a prim that could support HTML so you can browse the internet from within SL. I thought that was a significant step forward when i heard that announced.

The problem is that the utopian, fictional concept of the Virtual World is pretty much dead in the real world and honestly that could have been predicted a long while back. Unless you have some way of automating the creative process, it will always involve work and skill and talent and that will often wipe out the aspect of virtual worlds that was always shown as most appealing by fiction - the unlimited freedom and (perhaps more importantly) spontaneity. But when many members of the public think of virtual worlds they are still thinking of ones where Neo can say "we need guns, lots of guns" and have a thousand racks of guns appear. The film cleverly left out the bit where Neo had to spend 5 years building them all in 3D Studio (and then they weren't that great because he was a programmer, not an artist), or got sued by someone for copying their 3D models, or where he was told he would have to pay for every gun and decided to settle for just one or two instead. This isn't meant to imply these are failings of Second Life - they're just the realities of the situation, and would apply to just about any virtual world.

Most of the virtual worlds of MMORPG games we have now are built around a particular purpose, but Second Life lacks that single purpose for most people, and although it's possible to find a purpose in it, very often it's mispercieved (as with the "adopting a role" thread from here earlier) or actually based in the real world. So many of the "virtual world" things are actually just propagating from the real world! For example, the virtual ballet, which happened a few weeks ago, I was later told they had selected their dancers on the basis of RL ballet experience! Now I suppose they have to do it somehow and that's a fair enough way of doing it, but at the same time it just leaves me wondering, if they're having to do that what's the actual point of the world being virtual?

Those are very valid points, Yumi, but I wonder how much of it is inherent and how much of it is due to the way the medium (or even the concept of the medium) is being used. And by 'used' I don't necessarily mean just by users, but by the developers, too.

And in this world when you try to tell the kid that, actually in truth, both glasses have some kind of poison in them you get accused of displaying "arrogance, condescension, general contempt for others" !!!! (Yes, I know.... my arrogant writing style probably doesn't help. I will try to tone that down. I promise.)

This is a new frontier. All of us bring our own personal expectations and perspectives. Some expectations are realistic, some are idealistic. Being right about how things work is not the same as being right about how things probably should work. There are extremely valid points on both sides of that spectrum, they're just extremely difficult to reconcile.

On both sides there will be disappointment and frustration, because things will continue to change and shake out, some days becoming more like what the idealists expect... some days becoming more like the realists expect.

Has anyone seen the series 'Deadwood'? Despite the tos/cs and writ of law, SecondLife, without effective enforcement, is in my observation, nearly as lawless, and not in a good way.

I think, in time, this world, and us, will find some middleground and hopefully relate to each other better.

I voted pie, since as usual, the options are far too limiting. It's both a dessert topping /and/ a floor wax! It's a platform. Some people use that platform to construct their virtual lives, and go about their virtual business and play their games, that's peachy, but for others it's a place to bring about real world goals, spreading messages, making money, doing real work. As I've mentioned before SL is much like the fable of the blind men and the elephant, each one describing the little bit that they had a grasp of, and convinced all the others were mad, since they didn't line up with their own description. There is no reason why it must fit into one box or the other. It is much like FL in that regard.

Well, it would be nice if the only person who knew the poison was in there in the first place would make it a point to make sure the kid knows it's there.

coco

Or - it's a place where people can construct their virtual lives, go about their virtual business, play games, bring about real world goals, spread messages, make money and do real work.

coco

And better yet if the poison wasn't there at all.


Think of it this way:

A scientist typically understands refractive indexes. They might look at the two glasses and say "That one is unsafe! Isn't it obvious by how the light passes through at an odd angle!?"

And the non-scientist gets angry because they'd already taken a gulp from the bad glass. "Who would be stupid enough to leave this sitting next to a perfectly safe glass of water!?"

Well.... some other scientist, most likely.
One who assumed everyone else could tell the "obvious" difference between the two.


Replace "scientist" with "coder" and "water" with secondlife's features... and "Refractive index" with "client/server programming theory"

Oh yeah, and replace "poison" with "feature compromises that were made to keep things simple(r), speedier, and cheaper". (ugh)

yes but the poison is there so I dont know about you any rationalization I come up with still says that if i know what glass its in i should at least TRY and say something about it. Then if the kid does't head your warning and call you arrogant at least you did your best.

Bottom line its about responsibility of people in general you can say nothing or say something its your conscience I guess but to just say "its your fault for getting hurt" its just not the way to go.


hehe this collection of essays is by a game developer anyhow here is the original article its with regard to content and that would embody LL as well but it relates to game culture as well if you read it

http://lostgarden.com/2005/04/child-and-glass-of-poison-our-social.html

Whether the wells posioned or not - someone somewhere has decided its all good filming you get you get your virtual water from it.

Even though its in your basement.

Took a minute to wrap my brain around that one......

I think the SL model has a potential to be a considerable extension of the internet, but not a replacement. Much like video conferencing didn't replace chatting and message boards, but rather became another available tool.

With a STABLE 3-d world there would be the potential for numerous benefits on top of the format we currently see in the internet. Right now I would have a hell of a time explaining how to change a starter in a car even with pictures and figures to post online. If I had an accurate model to work with where I could direct people's attention and physically manipulate it to show what I mean then that would be invaluable.

This doesn't even BEGIN to touch the potential for entertainment/escapism available (which we already see with some of the more "entrenched" residents in SL!). If people aren't already doing this, I see people never leaving their houses and essentially existing as pod people...almost a voluntary battery in the Matrix.

The way I see it happening is much like the "Infonet" setup in SL. I think you'll have the option of either having a 3d representation in a world where you could look at a panel on your wall to look up everything on the internet. Your house would be your MySpace page and people could stop by and look at...you.

I don't think the current format of the internet will ever go away...at least not in our lifetimes. Just like typewriters and fax machines are still around even though they're extremely obsolete these days.

With that being said, I think LL has a chance to make SL an ACTUAL contender in the 3d Web area if they were to give (complete or even just partial) open source access to the server side program to allow stabilization and expansion of SL into a network more resembling the internet. I think they have more of a chance to survive if they do that as opposed to keeping proprietary and closed off to this. There are already much bigger players out there working on similar concepts that have a better chance at longevity! Just look at PS3's "Home" and the potential it holds!

/me dismounts soap box in 3...2...1...BREAK

Whatever it becomes, I just wish the Providers would get it to work properly. Then we can figure out what we want from it.

Great article... my only disagreement is that violent/mature games are not a deadly poison that kills, they are an addictive substance that erodes innocence at an unnaturally accelerated rate.

The problem: any environment that grants a great deal of freedom will have manymanymany poisoned glasses of water. Some started out poisoned, some can be poisoned later, some are harder to poison than others.

There are classes, how-to's, faqs, forums, knowledge base articles, friends, google, wiki... the warnings and proper uses are many, but a new resident's attention span can only absorb so much before it just tunes out the rest.

"Beware, be careful, experiment, test, invest only as much as you're willing to lose, and find more senior or experienced residents and KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS"



I was amused by the character assessment in the article, however I'm an independent Linux using, PRO-activist judge, western LIBERAL, net-a-holic, porn non-addict, GTA DISLIKING NON-moralist.

haha sorry this isn't meant as a put down but you just gave me a good chuckle ^^.

Ain't that the truth.

in my opinion:

Secondlife can't be a true "3d web", or a real "metaverse" until the linden lab monopoly over the grid is broken.

That means independent asset servers, independent sims, independent currencies, independent login authorities all interacting together in one growing grid.

And to be clear, this introduces many new freedoms.

And with those freedoms... many more poisoned glasses of water that people will need to be warned about.

I picked pie because your poll is very flawed.

You left off: platform, game, and toy

Second Life is a game to me.

It just remains to be seen if those glasses are half empty or half full....

The half full one's are safe... the half empty one's are poisoned. (obviously!)

i've created a monster I should be shot (or poisoned in my sleep I suppose)

As you count Electric Sheep......

I think the main problem is that certain Electric Glasses are half-cracked.

OT, but I reckon an over-inflated sense of "the innocence of children" and an (as far as I can tell) unfounded desire to force them to keep it as long as possible causes more problems than children getting access to media they shouldn't. But, meh.