I remember early days in Second Life and discovering Svarga and feeling, wow, this is POSSIBLE, there’s more to all this than misaligned prims and clubs, there are artists, and realms of possibility, and sure, even a little ecosystem, emergent environments, flowers that grow and bees that pollinate and I wonder what ELSE is possible.
Fast-forward a bit and I found myself waiting, along with all the other dot-watchers and for the arrival of the swarms that would come via CSI New York, and while the Electric Sheep folk claim that it was a success, there was a feeling of anticipation that wasn’t quite delivered - neither the numbers nor the grid failure from the inrush of new residents. I remember visiting the CSI sims and wondering how I’d react if I were a new user to all the CISCO signs and arrows on the ground and big neon banners that almost screamed out “THE MURDERER IS HERE” but had to give credit for big clear signs and an attempt at a different kind of orientation experience.
But it sure didn’t feel like enchantment or wonder, and the story was all packaged up with a little bow, and overall there was a sense of both relief and worry - if network TV couldn’t get people off their couches, then what could? And what next? Was Second Life doomed to grow older, less wondrous, filled with academics and empty commercial sims?
Look.
I want the magic back.
And I want to believe that the failures of the big brands in SL aren’t just being substituted by a lot of Open Sims and people wondering why their cheap little islands are so lagggggy (did they really think that splitting a sim 4 ways was going to be the same?), or replaced by a lot of university campuses, (sure, it’s academia who thinks through some of the tough stuff, and there’s more room for failure, but even the educators are aware there’s other options).
I want the magic of Svarga. Or the time I visited what was then Black Swan to swoon at Starax’s (oops, sorry, what’s his name again now?) ballerina, the feeling in the air, the mood, the art, the music (this is before he put up his blot in your face box in the sky with the creepy images).
I’ve taken a look around at some of the other grids, and for all the woe-is-me end-is-near doom-saying about Second Life, it still has magic, and all these other worlds are a long way off from having the depth of tools, content, best practices, insight and talent embedded in those groaning asset servers over in California or wherever.
Because Second Life is a story box. And while you can parse and divide up virtual worlds based on their usability or performance or concurrency or whatever you like, there’s very little that matches the range of expression possible in the little creaky grid some of us call home.
Bettina has me all a-tizzy, with her gorgeous art-slash-spin-primming-slash giant sandbox over on some Rezzable sims, a giant mash-up of paradise, the hell and the hereafter, what will surely be a chaotic landscape of floating trees and sculpted birds and all to be wiped away, I understand, like some giant mandala, how beautiful is THAT?
And I won’t digress and get off into how art is a hint at future tools for visualization or collaboration, or how there’s immersive and then there’s just art for the sake of it, I’m looking for the impossible here so that we can come back to what’s needed and what’s possible with fresh eyes.
And I want Rezzable to let down its hair and let us all into the fantasy that without CSI we’re far better off, that they’re up to more than just date sims, they’re looking at building environments with a deeper engagement….and I want to know what it is and how it rolls out and what next.
Because it’s time for some leading lights again, radiant hills and swooping textures. It’s time for a few new tools for telling stories that don’t involve land barons or land markets swamped with open sims, or worries about copybots, we’re moving beyond all that, it’s time for the guild halls to gather, and the giant guild that Rezzable has going to send out the messengers and blast horns from the hills.
All right - I’m off on a rant maybe. A little fantasy. But let’s face it, we’re either headed for doom and the grid is slowly crashing sim by sim, and the weight it’s groaning under is misguided policy, leaky code, and an asset server that should be sent out to the Sheep’s pasture. OR, we’re about to move up a level or two, up past a house on the beach and what we’re really getting ready to do is redefine the Second Life economy around experiences instead of linked prims.
It’s time to stop just showing and start sending out some beacons for the rest of us. Some sculpted prims and a Garden of Delights will go a long way in convincing the people like myself who stayed in SL because of Svarga, or because of Starax….but what goes further is a feeling that it underpins a deeper vision of what next. Because surely we’re not finding it in Linden. And as much as we mope and pine about the land market, it doesn’t seem like the overlords particularly care. And as much as “education and collaboration” is the next thing, a lot of those folks are decamping for Wonderland and Open Sim.
So we turn inward and look for a few hints of people who see a roadmap of their own, and wonder, and wander, and hope that someone has a clue or two, because there’s enough evidence that there’s a lot of heart and passion and talent and a few boundless dreams, enough to go around at least.
A beautifully crafted post ; I can’t say the melancholy and forlorn hope do not touch me to the heart — and yet, and yet… there is so much magic around us ; the magic of people inventing new lives for themselves every single day, so much more powerful, if less spectacular than enchanted sculpty glades.
Maybe that is the vision of the future : that there isn’t any grand one. Just a new world growing out of tens of thousands of small ones.
Awww sure Rheta. And first, well, this blog’s my metaverse blog, but none of us should forget that there’s a wider world as well.
But I suppose that’s one vision and I guess in many ways it was Philip’s. A grand vision of everyone connected for a better humanity, everyone growing their own little worlds, but it is nice to hear and listen to what people will think that means and I almost feel ashamed now to think that one time I thought brands might kind of get it, but I suppose it was too early for them, or this ONE grid was too early in any case.
I’m at a Games for Health conference in Baltimore where I’ve seen people using platforms for all kinds of things - helping kids exercise, stroke patients rehabilitate, scientists discover proteins through massive online games, brain wave controlled racing games for ADHD treatment instead of using drugs, or MTV doing some amazingly simple stuff to educate about HIV infection.
I wonder whether with larger shared visions we can find other ways to focus our thinking, creativity, and attention on technology development. But you’re right - there was no grand vision for the Internet really as it started to sort of make itself up. I suppose it would just be nice in a period of grid crashes and asset server freeze-ups to know that there’s others with hope and optimism and to hear what that hope and optimism is based on.
I was feeling inspired down here, listening to excited people talking about how video games can help cure, treat, educate, engage. SL has a wider purpose than just ‘let’s buy a beach house’. Or maybe it doesn’t. And maybe a beach house is enough. I am curious what the talent thinks - the ‘guild hall’ at Rezzable or our friends at Avatrian or other dreamers who might have some ideas on what it means for us to share a platform for stories.
We are of course very glad that you picked-up on the upcoming Garden of NPIRL Delights event. Watching people realize their visions in the virtual world over the last week has been very exciting and reminds me of why we got into the virtual world in the first place.
The virtual world is a new frontier and it is amazing to explore and join. It is unexpected, it reminds of things from the real world and from our dreams at the same time. It is like a time machine where you zip forwards and backwards. Most importantly it is a unique place for self-expression without limitations or pre-judgements. Of course the social and real-time nature of interaction is fanatastic and adds the energy to the experiences.
So where’s the problem? Let’s face it…CSI was/is a flop. Most of the corporate builds are empty (deservedly so) and the one good one Pontiac Motorati got canned. Why? Every corporate we meet has a negative comment about SL. SL was overhyped by the media and clumsy developers delivered boring sims at high prices. Also experienced online marketing people took a risk on SL, but with weak traffic they cannot justify what looks like wasted money. They built it but not enough people came. LL promotes a ridiculous registration statistic when so few people can even get off the arrival islands. There is now a backlash. LL is flat on a meaningful response to this. They should wake-up and start telling their own good story.
However, the main issue — is content. The core SL audience (the 400,000 or so active/engaged users) has a collective early adopter profile. They want/demand edgier stuff and are not bothered with the rough usability or need to understand technical details to enjoy stuff. But the taste, patience and interests of the much larger mainstream audience are different. So really, making more of the same or even better more of the same is not going to increase meaningfully the SL active user count.
The concern for the future of SL is how to attract the mainstream users without killing what is unique. So maybe it would have been worse if tons of CSI fans came into SL and the whole grid reacted to become more like WOW.
For what it’s worth here’s what we are trying to do right now:
* more user generated content. Garden is an example, we are also continuing to host more fairs and festivals on our 4 special events sims. We take request from people for 1 or more sims.
* more digital art shows. We already run the largest art collection in the metaverse — Black Swan, Collectors’ Gallery, the Cannery and the Dagger Eye. We also have sculptures scattered across the void sims as well as a new goth cemetary next to Carnival of Doom. We are bring digital artist into SL from places like deviant and flickr.
* Open Source community project to make surfing waves and boards. This is being announced shortly, but main point is to allow more people to participate in making surfing great. So we will support a LSL development community as well as give Board makers free sales areas on our sims.
* More interactive. We are opening a 2nd Greenies sim in next few months. It will involve questing and exploration in a great build context.
* User participation build for a new version of the Toxic Garden. We will announce this soon as well, but effectively we want users to build the story from an outline about utopian dreams gone awry.
* Carnival of Doom will start running a weekly show all done by SL residents. We are in fact offering free rentals in a new trailer park for the performers.
You will also see more pay-to-visit across our sites. In most cases the fees will be nominal. We think people will pay for quality and value–our mission is to understand what that is.
As far as LL goes…we still think they are the best platform for this kinda stuff. If we had any wish, it would be for them to sell off Mainland and focus on establishing service level agreements for customers. The grid is way passed the point where LL needs to prop-up the rental market.
Anyway, not sure if that was hair down or knickers down…cu on the grid (when it’s up again)!