It’s not like I need another online habit to add to all the others that I have accumulated over the years (stop sniggering at the back). However what happens when you find a net based environment that encompasses gaming, commerce, communication and design in a flexible cross format platform and all for nothing. Yes folks, before you tell me to go out and get a life, let me tell you I already have. A second one courtesy of the boys and girls at Linden Labs and recently when I’m not wandering around on this Earth you can find me in a virtual one. I am of course talking about Second Life, a virtual reality environment that is growing on an almost constant basis. A vast virtual world that is shaped almost entirely through the actions and interactions of its inhabitants. How simple or complex those interactions are largely dependent on the individual.
Linden Labs created Second Life in 2003 as a combination of a gaming experience and a social experiment. An opportunity to build nothing short of an electronic subculture that would exist in real time. The experiment was always intended to be an open ended project that would focus around the user rather than the restrictions of more traditional gaming systems.
You move through Second Life in the form of an avatar, basically this is the figure that represents you in your travels. The default shape is male or female. However this is where the first elements of customisation come into play, you can literally alter any aspect of your anatomy in incredible detail. For the graphically minded the avatars are based around the 3D modelling application Poser. As a result you can make alterations to such things as skin tone, textures and clothing.
Navigation through the world is pretty straightforward, using your arrow keys makes you move in the standard first person perspective that should be familiar to any gamers. There’s also the option to fly that allows you to cover ground more quickly. Because of the high level of customisation involved each individual can use a collection of gestures when they are communicating with others. Say for instance someone says something funny; your avatar can be programmed to laugh (with accompanying movements and sounds). Then of course there is the environment itself, and that’s where things start to get a little unusual. Walking through Second Life you pass through residential areas with casinos, cinemas and car lots. Pretty much anything you can imagine seeing in real life has been attempted in this world, and that includes a currency system. That’s where things start to get a little more interesting.
Using “real world” money (in this case US Dollars), you can purchase “Lindens” which is the currency used in the Second Life world, with a basic account you get an allowance of $50 per week but you soon find that doesn’t go very far and the job opportunities for beginners in this world are frankly limited. With money you can buy land and with land you can develop property, one of the more recent developments with this concept is that real money has been used to buy virtual land and the profits that land creates have been transferred back into real life (courtesy of sites such as GamingOpenMarket.com).
Although individuals are reluctant to disclose actual figures when it comes to earnings. There are a handful of individuals who are pushing the $100,000 income bracket from their online activities alone. It’s a crazy concept to get your head around because what you are essentially doing is investing money in something that doesn’t actually exist.
Trying to sum up everything you can do in Second Life is impossible in just one article, the tag line “Your World. Your Imagination” is no exaggeration. However attempting to make your mark in the world isn’t the easiest task, the user interface despite being perfectly workable in the short term does have a certain rawness about it. If you’re familiar with the concepts of 3D modelling then that undeniably helps your progress and if you are prepared to master the way this world functions then your experience will be rewarded.
As I mentioned Second Life is cross platform, both Windows and Macintosh users can participate but be warned, you’ll need a hefty machine and a broadband connection to deal with the heavy duty rendering overheads that are placed upon your machine. When you are established there is also the option to upgrade your free account to a premium version, this gives you an increased monetary allowance and increased land buying rights.
It’s not hard to see how the potential addictive nature of Second Life would push the user to upgrade. Like so many new online experiences this offers the user so much to do there’s a danger of plenty of time being lost in this world. There’s also the danger of this world being just a wee bit unhealthy. It’s a little strange to “overhear” conversations with other characters that are alarmingly like everyday interactions you would find in real life. I did find myself asking just how seriously some people were taking this experience.
In conclusion I reckon that Second Life is worth a little of your real time. If only to see another facet of the internet’s evolution and to show that when a group of people are dumped in a first person environment they can find more things to do than run around shooting each other.
