[17:54] Jeffronius Batra: Kind of funny to have a PPT of a virtual picture of real books , presented in a virtual world!

That pretty much sums up my thoughts regarding my recent attendance of my first in-game presentation, this one hosted by Jeff Barr of Amazon Web Services. This particular presentation, held at the Info Island Open Air Auditorium to an audience of around 45, was, as you might imagine, focused around Jeff, on the stage standing by a podium, typing away his words with a large projection of a PowerPoint presentation displayed on a screen behind him. It amounted to an unmoderated text chat, and it was interesting to see both the self-restraint of the crowd in attendance (as I imagine it would not have been terribly difficult for someone to make a nuisance of themselves) as well as the amount of direct feedback, largely in the form of questions, throughout the presentation.

( Read more... )

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It seems that the bizarre is considered more or less the norm in SL. Take for instance Versu Richelieu, who, according to Slashdot is a renowned virtual world builder who in a promotion for the Intel Centrino Duo processor, is spending 72 hours in a storefront window on 5th Avenue and 39th Street in NYC while she builds "a new masterpiece". Just have a look at the live video streams; it's kinda cool and just a little creepy. (It's a shame though that Second Life isn't multi-threaded, because then the dual core processor might have actually meant something...)

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I hear TUAW is hiring bloggers. I wonder what it's like to blog for a living... not quite journalism, not quite editorial... what exactly do they do again? Witty banter?

If I can figure out exactly what "TUAW's style" is, I might send in some samples this weekend...

Okay, even I think this is a bit ridiculous. But I promised earlier in the week that I'd post my two cents on Second Life, and well, evidently I had a lot to say. Still, this is an inexcusable length for a blog post, so here's the gist:

1) I really like it at the moment. In fact, it's become something of an addiction of late.
2) I can understand why others may not share my enthusiasm; it's not exactly easy to get into.
3) If you're at all curious about trying Second Life for yourself, please please please consider using my referral link (this one) as I get a bit of a kickback if you do end up subscribing, and more importantly, send me a message (Dragaroo Rexroth) as my friends list is rather barren...

Thanks. If you're reading this via syndication, apologies in advance. Click here to jump down to your next post.

Intro
It’s been one week since I, once again, took the plunge and joined the bizarre world of Second Life, and I’m a bit embarrassed to report that… I’m absolutely hooked. I’ll admit, it’s a bit curious, because if you were to ask me exactly what I’ve done over these last couple of days, it wouldn’t amount to whole lot, but this is in fact more to do that Second Life is not a game in the strictest sense; there’s no grinding, no boss, in fact, there is no objective other than those which you set for yourself. And this goes a long way in explaining why my first excursion in this virtual otherworld in September of last year lasted no more than two days.

So, why is it that I’ve returned? Frankly, I got sick of repeatedly hearing about it in the news. Feature articles and cover stories in mainstream publications like Business Week, The Economist, Popular Science, and Wired and attention given to it by politicians and universities, not to mention a number of the niche podcasts I subscribe to (Leo Larporte’s TWiT among them) alike piqued my interest and, once more, inspired me to figure out what all the fuss was about.

Press
And the mainstream love doesn’t appear to just be a mere fad; earlier today, Sun Microsystems, became the first Fortune 500 company to host a press conference exclusively in Second Life, and Jeff Barr, a representative from Amazon.com, will be giving a lecture regarding the Amazon Web Services API and integration into SL tomorrow afternoon that I’m hoping to attend. It even recently garnered the attention of United Nations, which is running an in-game "Stand Up" campaign where participants who wear a wristband on Oct. 15-16 will be counted towards the Guinness World Record as a supporter of the Millennium Development Goals. (And yes, I did get a wristband from a kiosk in the Lost Furest.)

But what’s the appeal? Why does Second Life succeed where so many virtual worlds fail? The answer is simple: unlike the vast majority of graphical multiplayer online games (MUDs possibly being the significant exception), it puts content creation in the hands of the users, and empowers them to create what they want. Case in point:

My Experience
The first few days I spent in-game, most of my time was devoted to exploring the world, hitting landmarks I'd read about (mainly in the Wired Travel Guide), and more specifically, searching for a new avatar (your character’s physical manifestation in the virtual world; essentially a Poser mesh) and found myself visiting a variety of unique sims (the term for each block of land), and interacting with number of publicly accessible, hand-scripted vendors in locales ranging from seedy malls to meticulously crafted tree-top vendors, even a kitschy cartoon rendition of Hollywood dubbed 'Taco', before finding the avatar I wanted (at the previously mentioned Ninja Weasel Studios).

Satisfied with my exterior appearance, I proceeded to check out the surrounding locales. I’ve since visited a few clubs, manned by live DJs who take requests and rotate on a scheduled basis (it’s a paying job), made a friend and won some money, LindeX an in-game currency exchangeable for US dollars; it is in fact possible for skilled players to turn a cash profit for their in-game work. Avatar animations (including dances) also appear to be Poser-compatible exports and thus can be either manually posed by hand or tracked through a motion-capture device and mapped onto your character, and look surprisingly fluid considering the simplicity of the meshes. Also, as I feel all good MMO environments should (I’m looking at you, World of Warcraft), when you move your mouse, your avatar’s head follows it so you have some idea what your comrades are looking at: a long way of saying, you can look at the person you're talking to.

Since then, I’ve moved on to the noob zones (including TeaZers and New Citizens Incorporated) as well as various sandboxes (free building areas with few constraints) in an effort to start building things. My greatest accomplishment to date was built on one of several large public sandboxes where I created a mesh cage suspended mid-air and filled it with several dozen beach balls (a simple gravity-enabled object you start with). I then deleted the bottom panel of the cage and watched the Havok 1 physics engine (utilized by SL for all physics-enabled objects) do it’s work: beach balls rained down upon unsuspecting denizens, bouncing off of other player's buildings and eventually flying off the sim or later auto-returned to my inventory on of the sims’ regularly scheduled sweeps. I also built a large octagonal structure and applied the physics engine to it with more devastating results; the thing came crashing out of the sky, crushing and otherwise displacing the construction beneath it. (This, I imagine, is one reason why most established sims prohibit building by any stranger except in designated areas.)

Needless to say, I’m in the process of enrolling in some building classes.

Yesterday, I also visited Info Island to check out the outdoor theater where the Amazon lecture will be delivered, right next to a new library (part of the Alliance Library System) that is launching this weekend. While checking out the island, I wandered into a SciFi Fantasy Center under construction. The door was wasn’t working (as scripts had been disabled due to a recent particle attack), so I learned how to fly into the building on a prim (you build a box, sit on it, and move the box through the door) where two people were in the middle of constructing the surprisingly professional-looking exhibit. Even so, I was invited to stick around and check out the premises, which contained scripted book models and movie posters, which as I described earlier, were disabled throughout the world.

Shortcomings
Which brings me to some of the pitfalls of the system. Over the last week, Second Life has been subject to a multitude of grid attacks by malicious users who have found ways to abuse the system to create self-replicating objects which tie-up and eventually crash the system, forcing certain grids to roll-back, blocking new logins, and occasionally necessitating a rolling restart of the entire system. It is speculated that the increase in the number of attacks stems from the fact that now just about anyone can create an account and jump into SL; at one point, account verification via registration of a form of payment was mandatory, which tied a user to a physical person. But the removal of this requirement (now it’s merely an incentive) appears to have enraged many players whose service has been disrupted as result.

Another problem also happens to stem from the degree of control players have over their own property: violations of the DMCA all over the place. Don’t get me wrong: I have no love for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and I love the variety in taste and content of streams which can be played within Second Life covering the entire berth of music tastes in just about any genre you can think of, from electronica and metal in the clubs, to the DJ who broadcast nothing but Johnny Cash throughout the sim a night or two ago. But when you give your users the ability to script an in-game television set, linked to a QuickTime stream of Madagascar (I watched a few minutes), and when you consider the prevalence of in-game casinos and the world's quickly growing user base (873,000 at last count, with nearly 10,000 of those online at the of this writing), these unchecked violations are going to become serious issues of legal contention, and I would wager sooner rather than later.

Finally, Second Life runs like a dog. It necessitates a competent machine with a solid broadband connection; anything less can quickly result in an unplayable experience as everything is streamed on demand to your machine. The interface, while functional, is not exactly easy to learn to use either. And while mentors do exist, once you leave the orientation islands, the game throws you in the real world and leaves you to determine what you’re going to do from there on. It’s open-endedness to an unnecessary extreme, which makes it all the more daunting for a beginner like myself.

Despite these setbacks, the team at Linden Lab has pulled an admirable feat and you have to give them credit for finally pulling these technologies together in one unified, multi-operating system, international platform at no cost to the end user. Though their aspirations for the world may seem like hyperbole, there is still yet a wealth of practically achievable potential just waiting to be tapped.

Socializing
Although my discussion here was largely limited to the technical achievements made within this virtual reality, the point should be made that one need not possess any technical skills to actually enjoy the experience. The social aspect of the game is of course key, and for those who couldn’t care less about constructing a house out of prims, Second Life can in fact function quite capably as an overzealous, visual instant messaging client; a sort of The Sims meets AIM, and I can attest to this having overheard public conversations.

So in short, if you are willing to stomach the hurdles, there really is something here for everyone. And in the odd case where there isn’t, there really is nothing stopping you from making it happen yourself. Second Life is the realization of virtual reality, a technology that seemed so compelling in 90’s but failed to practically materialize until just recently. The tools are in your hands, and they won’t cost you a dime, so what are you waiting for?

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By and by, Harvey Birdman Vol. 2 comes out on DVD tomorrow... and this time the commentary has Stepehen Colbert...

Well, turns out it's a busy week for me. Had a speech to give today (which was stressful), a program I needed to finish up and submit, and a test tomorrow (Note to self: BUY SCANTRONS) in Business Communications and Friday in Decision Systems. Not to mention, a blog post to write, obligatory sketches, and I kinda wanted to catch the season premiere of Lost on OTA-HD.

So, naturally, ( I played Second Life. )

Again, detailed impressions are down the pipeline... and no, I don't attend to turn this into a blog exclusively regarding my SL avatar. Just while I get my feet wet.