The new Second Life Web site adding new, well, realism I guess is the word for it, to our understanding of the virtual world. As I’ve posted about before, it’s mostly about…people. Notwithstanding counter-culture or whatever you want to call it. Most of the representations are human and geared to a broader market. Which is fine.
But putting that aside, I give you two competing machinima of shopping in Second Life….the ‘official version’ and, well, another one (after the jump so I don’t autoplay on you). You tell me – which is more ‘realistic’?
hahah yep that right people will be a bit surprised that their first experience is nothing like the top vid
The first one makes me depressed that I’m sitting behind a computer monitor.
The second…it wouldn’t be SL shopping without walking into a few walls.
Dusan,
fun fact; there has always been a hard-coded limitation in the SL client not to accept avatar appearance updates from the server other than on the initial login sequence; every appearance update must be preceded with a ‘wear’ – so either they are changing this, these vid shots was made with a special client, or there is some serious post-production going on. Either way, the contrast is striking. Thank you for yet another great article!
hehhhe…. love it…
and the fact that you have to get naked (as a noob) in a sand box isn’t even hinted at.
none of those outfits were boxed???
Whats worse, having people come in and be massively disappointed, or not having them come in at all? The experience in SL’s official video is almost laughable.
Is it realism? The official promo gives me the a weird sickly feeling but I’m not sure it’s the realism. It’s the life of toys. SL Residents are being portrayed in that promo as living the life of toys – life-like but never real.
Am I doing something wrong? Shopping the last few days everywhere I go the walls are blurry or grey pictures. Sometimes if I wait a few minutes I get the grey gone though.
Is that first client plugged into a local sim? where is the lag?
If only SL was anywhere near as slick as the top video depicts. Frankly it verges into false advertising territory… instant outfit changes, no rez/texture errors and vehicles that work in something other than “stutter stop”? Sign me up for *that* world.
Wahahaha! Gawd I hate lowest-common-denominator marketing. I’m sure they’re trying to convey the (true) impression that you can dress all sorts of ways, you can be a shiny robot, etc, etc; unfortunately the actual images they use to do with aren’t representative of what actually happens in SL.
(”Note: to actually try on all of these outfits, you would have to buy them all first. And clothing changes are much much slower. And you usually end up with private bits showing at least once during the process.”)
I’m also amused by the “A Place to Love” sequence, which makes it clear that SL is a place to love… prim animals.
(The second one was fun; but I was hoping to see him wearing a box on his hand…)
The fact that the noob had all his textures rezzed is the first thing, and neither viddy showed much lag. All the other points mentioned above are apt as well.
Ads are ads. Most of us don’t go drifting IRL in our cars on deserted desert switchbacks either.
@daleinnis – I was ecstatic when I learned that I could unpack most boxes by dragging items from the Content tab while in Edit mode WHILE wearing them!
Of course, that might be a bit complex to teach to noobs and doesn’t work with “no copy” items.
Still, if you are ever wondering why I’m wearing that box after 3 years in SL, it’s cause I’m unpacking while on a no-build sim. ^_^
It’s also the case that SL DOES work like the first video when I’m on the university’s fast web connection and a newish computer. But that’s hardly the common denominator user experience, is it?