Second Life
Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:48 am
Anyone else here on <a href="http://www.secondlife.com/">Second Life</a>? I finally got around to trying it out a few days ago and it's amazing how much stuff there is to do, and how fun it is. It's also pretty addictive.
On there I'm named "fluffy Pennyfeather" (they require you take one last name from a predetermined list, which helps avoid name collisions and also provide more metadata about the people behind the character).
For those who don't know what SL is, it's basically a freeform MMORPG which allows anyone to build and add to the gameplay; almost all of the game modules are written by the users, and even though it's a hobbyist effort, a lot of it is quite good. The really interesting thing about it is that there's only a one-time $10 setup fee which gives you a character and a bunch of in-game currency, and then it has an economy of its own with an exchange rate into real-world money. Some people actually make a real-world living as fashion designers, builders, etc. on Second Life. The way the game is funded (aside from the tons of VC money which keep on getting thrown at it for whatever reason) is just from land maintenance (essentially property taxes to keep the property - meaning the game servers - alive) and the (fairly small) costs of uploading files into the system.
Also, another interesting thing about SL is in terms of the ownership of intellectual property; Linden Labs (the company which operates it) asserts no ownership over property uploaded into the game, and all IP has flags stating what can be done with that IP as an intrinsic property. So, someone who creates a texture or a character model or whatever can essentially GPL or BSDL it, or they can treat it like physical property (you can resell it or give it away but you can't copy it), or they can even treat it like the clusterfuck that is DRM (no modifications, no transfer of ownership, etc.). So far, most of the content I've seen is treated like physical property.
The main downside to it is that it's not very efficient, and needs a pretty beefy system to run well. I have to turn the graphics quality down pretty much all the way on my computer. They don't seem to have any sort of dynamic visibility determination going on, so I'm really kicking myself for not handing them my damn resume when I first saw them at Siggraph 2003. (My master's thesis was on dynamic visibility determination for large-scale immersive environments, designed for the exact same kind of system as Second Life -- because I'd started designing a freeform MMO back in 1997. When I saw SL I just felt bitter, though. The amazing thing is that SL is VERY much like how I was envisioning my system, but with different mechanics for many things, and I honestly think that most of the SL mechanics turned out to be <em>way</em> better overall.)
Anyway, I bet that SL could be used for some interesting collaborative songfighting. One of the things you can do in it is stream mp3s to a radio, and people can also upload short audio clips (up to 30 seconds long) and play them back. I can imagine using it to create a <a href="http://trikuare.cx/audio/Project/">collaborative Eno-esque soundscape</a>. (Yes, I am aware that link is down. Hopefully it will be back soon, along with the rest of my site... 'coz I'm obviously itching pretty badly to post a weblog entry!)
On there I'm named "fluffy Pennyfeather" (they require you take one last name from a predetermined list, which helps avoid name collisions and also provide more metadata about the people behind the character).
For those who don't know what SL is, it's basically a freeform MMORPG which allows anyone to build and add to the gameplay; almost all of the game modules are written by the users, and even though it's a hobbyist effort, a lot of it is quite good. The really interesting thing about it is that there's only a one-time $10 setup fee which gives you a character and a bunch of in-game currency, and then it has an economy of its own with an exchange rate into real-world money. Some people actually make a real-world living as fashion designers, builders, etc. on Second Life. The way the game is funded (aside from the tons of VC money which keep on getting thrown at it for whatever reason) is just from land maintenance (essentially property taxes to keep the property - meaning the game servers - alive) and the (fairly small) costs of uploading files into the system.
Also, another interesting thing about SL is in terms of the ownership of intellectual property; Linden Labs (the company which operates it) asserts no ownership over property uploaded into the game, and all IP has flags stating what can be done with that IP as an intrinsic property. So, someone who creates a texture or a character model or whatever can essentially GPL or BSDL it, or they can treat it like physical property (you can resell it or give it away but you can't copy it), or they can even treat it like the clusterfuck that is DRM (no modifications, no transfer of ownership, etc.). So far, most of the content I've seen is treated like physical property.
The main downside to it is that it's not very efficient, and needs a pretty beefy system to run well. I have to turn the graphics quality down pretty much all the way on my computer. They don't seem to have any sort of dynamic visibility determination going on, so I'm really kicking myself for not handing them my damn resume when I first saw them at Siggraph 2003. (My master's thesis was on dynamic visibility determination for large-scale immersive environments, designed for the exact same kind of system as Second Life -- because I'd started designing a freeform MMO back in 1997. When I saw SL I just felt bitter, though. The amazing thing is that SL is VERY much like how I was envisioning my system, but with different mechanics for many things, and I honestly think that most of the SL mechanics turned out to be <em>way</em> better overall.)
Anyway, I bet that SL could be used for some interesting collaborative songfighting. One of the things you can do in it is stream mp3s to a radio, and people can also upload short audio clips (up to 30 seconds long) and play them back. I can imagine using it to create a <a href="http://trikuare.cx/audio/Project/">collaborative Eno-esque soundscape</a>. (Yes, I am aware that link is down. Hopefully it will be back soon, along with the rest of my site... 'coz I'm obviously itching pretty badly to post a weblog entry!)