Bonus Mission #2: Not a Game but a Second Shot at Life

To label Second Life as a game would be degrading to the makers, Linden Labs and its scores of residents. A game has winners and losers, ratings and scores are tabulated. But Second Life has none of these characteristics.

The tagline Second Life adopts is Your World. Your Imagination. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 5,332,185 people from around the globe.

Imagine a virtual world where in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world that has been built by members also known as residents in it. Imagine locating a new island and maintaining your very own population in it. Give them the resources and materials to start a life there and build everything from scratch. Residents are pretty much able to do anything they want to from doing business to watching concerts. (Second Life, 2007)

Unlike any other computer game, Second Life requires players, or what Second Life users refer to as residents to build up their own character. This is distinctively different from a game where people simply assume their characters from a set of players that have already been programmed into the game. The adopting of a character and then customizing it shows that it is more than just a game. (Levy, 2006)

Participating in the thriving economy is another strong factor in setting Second Life from a game. Second Life participants are able to trade in a virtual economy using "Linden Dollars" and they can be converted into U.S dollars at about 300 to the real dollar by using a credit card at online exchanges. Anshe Chung, for example made her money through property in Second Life. According to the Business Week, Chung's firms’ now has currency holdings worth $250,000 in real U.S dollars. Chung's business on Second Life has been doing so well that she has just opened a 10 person studio in Wuhan, China. Life in Second Life pretty much reflects life in reality (Anshe Chung, 2007). Residents have to work to earn Linden Dollars or make items to sell to other residents. In some cases, users have made real money out of selling their created items on Second Life.

Second Life is masked as a sophisticated social networking program. Unlike instant messaging (IM) programs where users communicate on windows through the exchange of text messages, Second Life provides a whole new virtual playground for users to break beyond the lack of social cues on IM programs to express themselves in a 3-D world. Basically, Second Life has placed IM chatting in an active 3-D environment setting.

With real emotions, real currency and the strong human communication involved, Second Life is anything but a frivolous game. Those who insist on seeing it as one are only foolishly robbing themselves of the plethora of opportunities available in Second Life. This is where the future of the Net is heading to, where we can upload life onto the Internet and take a second shot at life.


References:

Levy, S. (2006). World of Warcraft: Is It a Game? Retrieved April 7, 2007 from
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769/site/newsweek/page/3/print/1/displaymode/1098/

Second Life. (2007). In: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved April 7, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life


Anshe Chung. (2007). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 7, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anshe_Chung&oldid=120060081

Qotw10: Meet My Alter Ego

Second Life opened up a whole new world for me. Prior to this week’s assignment, Second Life was simply a passing mention in class, all thanks to Mr Kevin Lim who waxed lyrical about it. I knew I would never attempt SL willingly on my own as I never favoured video games or anything remotely close to it. As you can imagine, this week’s Qotw threw a curveball at me. Ready or not, SL was coming into my life. (read: invading my increasingly slurry computer system)

Choosing a pseudonym is always fun. Meet Skarlet Jewell. It means a red gemstone who listens to ska music. Okay maybe not quite. Jewell caught my eye out of the long list of exotic last names and Scarlet was already taken therefore I went with Skarlet instead.

Picking out an avatar character was cool. ‘Girl next door’ and ‘city chic’ bored me,’ the fox’ was way weird and the ‘nightlife girl’ looked skanky. In the end it was really a toss up between ‘cyber goth’ and ‘harajuku’. I went for the latter.

It came no surprise to me that my first difficulty encountered in orientation island was moving my character. I have awful hand-eye coordination skills and that was painfully discovered in my virgin attempt at CounterStrike years ago where all I did was stumble into walls and tables. But Carol threw me a heads up about the arrow keys and pretty soon I was walking into stone walls and falling into water. Progress in baby steps is still progress I say.

Editing appearance made me go all Nip/Tuck on my avatar. It was intentional on my part to pick a character that ressembled the complete opposite of me in reality so I went all out on my harajuku chick. Long raven hair, bared torso and rose tattoos, Skarlet Jewell was ready to venture out.

I suppose its only in SL that tanned beefy thriplets would be chatting me up. Again, not quite. Actually I just bumped into other clueless souls who were in the midst of doing their tutorials. They even asked me for help but its really a case of the blind leading the blind because I just wanted to leave the orientation island already.

Joining the COM125 group was a breeze, some of the names were easy to figure out and the rest like mine, gave nothing away. Finding places to teleport to were a riot. Its amazing the myriad of places available in SL and how gorgeous the landscapes looked.

I found a modern art gallery, it had beautiful baroque feel with the detailed cornices and paintings complete with music to set the ambience.

Along the gallery, I spotted this odd looking object and was staring at it for the longest of time and finally decided to sit on it. Lo and behold, it perched me right up on the coil and the whole picture looked grand for a snapshot.

Everything seemed pretty decent until I discovered a teleport beam where I could choose to go to other sections of the gallery elsewhere. Beam me up Scotty!

This was taken at the garden of tranquility. Which lived up to the name completely. Streams, chirping birds, cushioned gazebo, it had all the elements of a fairytale. Only Skarlet was no princess, she was a harajuku rebel. At least she looked the part.

SL is indeed an eye opener. Despite my initial reservations, Im glad this week’s assignment allowed for me to explore the world beyond. Although I experienced many hiccups along the way, right up till the end where I found myself stuck in between two pillars, I most definitely am keen to explore further.
Get a life? I’ve got two, beat that