Hmm, hard to know where to begin with my Second Life debut really, and that in itself is probably the most acute description of what the thing is like, right there – a kind of motivational agoraphobia. For so many years, I’ve bitched about rigid and uninspired treadmills and level-quests, and suddenly, that’s all been ripped away, and now I’m a bit frightened and lost by it all. It burns us! What am I supposed to do? My problem is that I’m fundamentally, a Gamer, and Second Life is not a game – at least not in and of itself.

Just the Basics then, while I gather my wits for a more incisive post or two at some later date.

It’s certainly interesting from the ‘virtual tourist’ perspective – being something along the lines of The Sims Online on acid, with much of the first incarnation of Star Wars: Galaxies’ social gameplay thrown in – Tailor, Architect, Image Designer, etc. The various lands are a riot of inspired, and not so inspired, architectural wonders, from the painstakingly mundane, to the outright impossible. Some degree of earth-like commonality runs through the majority of it, but then again, principle travel seems to be by flying, Superman style, over it all, or teleporting, so ‘reality’ never really gets a chance to assert itself that much. Explorer-Type players will get a lot out of the game on this alone, although there doesn’t seem to be any inherent difficulty getting anywhere specific, so it’s more in the nature of artistic and technical appreciation, than actual discovery of the new.

Avatar customisation plays an enormous role in the thing, particularly given the social nature of the environment – ‘be who you want’, and the various options to achieve that end are surprising and diverse. I've not seen anything offer this much control over what you look like online. This seems to lead to an economy primarily based around clothing design; with those who have the skills selling them to those who don’t want to code or design, merely dress up and chat. Arguably, the entirety of Second Life could be considered a ‘graphical chat client’ above any of its other claims, and anyone who spent the majority of their time in SWG dancing in the cantina is likely to get a massive kick out of this hedonistic haven from power-gaming and the 40-man Raid Paradigm.

Crafting is perhaps the nearest thing the game has to a ‘main game’ by more traditional MMO standards. I’m still too awestruck by the potential of the system to have actually gotten on and built anything yet, but it does seem fairly straight-forward, and both the modelling and scripting seem to be fairly accessible, with a bit of reading and practice. Failing that, a significant internal (and RMT exchange) market seems to exist, so the relevant expertise can always be hired, although it is hard to see how money can be earned without the having ability to create something yourself. More on economics another day. Some of the examples of finished scripts and objects are surprisingly intricate and sophisticated though, including working vehicles, functioning Tetris-style boardgames, working weapons for PvP combat in special areas, store vendors, and more.

The look and feel of the place is a little dated, largely due to the sheer quantity of objects and textures all over the place, and the way it progressively renders it all. This content is streamed to the client as needed, so even with 2Mbit Broadband ADSL, lag borders on the point of unacceptability, by comparision to WoW or similar. This doesn’t seem to matter greatly though, since it isn’t a fast reaction sort of game, and once everything around you has finally loaded, it does look quite good, although the lighting could use some work, seeming quite flat most of the time.

Of course, like Greater Internetshire around it, Second Life is a technologically advanced medium which allows full expression of the human spirit, and so somewhat inevitably, is largely driven by porn. I’m not entirely sure a real society could function with that many lingerie shops, (complete with a mind-ravaging diversity of associated working toys, animations and avatar…customisations) but there really is something for everyone if you look hard enough; even a casual glance at the map and directories turns up the kind of keyword list that would get this blog reclassified by Skynet in very short order. Still, you learn something new every day: I thought Furries were bad, but the ‘Gorean’ subculture is a cyb0ring RP sect evidently based on bringing the works of Boris Vallejo (SFW, but don’t zoom in) to full, shackled and heaving, life. My mind is going... Foresightedly enough, Linden Labs use the account holder's DOB to redirect 13-18yr olds to their own, presumably cleaner ‘Teen Second Life’, a place where the soft cuddly toys almost never try to give each other a good seeing to any chance they get. (The whole situation is further complicated by the fact that gender is…err…hot-swappable, rather than hard-coded on creation. Paging Dr Freud!)

I see a lot of comparisons made to the novel ‘Snowcrash’ by Neal Stephenson, but I’ve not read that myself yet, so am most reminded of Michael Moorcock’s ‘Dancers at the End of Time’ series of short stories, detailing the whimsically comical adventures of the last inhabitants of Earth, in an ultimately distant future. These powerful and jaded beings had been bequeathed almost limitless command over the physical world around them, often reshaping entire continents for a morning’s entertainment, yet had lost their human sensibilities; conscience, morality, and imagination over the epochs, leaving them childishly obsessed with petty amusements and faddy fashions. Worth a read, and for some reason, seems to put me in mind of Second Life perfectly.

Second Life is probably the most extreme case of ‘Make Your Own Entertainment’ I’ve come across since I sold my bucket of Lego back in the 80s, but for some, that is the best kind of MMO out there. I think it could possibly be for me, but I know that years of linear levelling treadmills have shaped my expectations a lot. My continued fascination with Second Life will hinge entirely on whether I can overcome that conditioning, and set myself goals of my own. Definitely not a game for couch potatoes – virtual or otherwise…I think I may keep World of Warcraft going, just to be on the safe side…

More later.

Edit: Turns out they've already thought of the Grey Goo - objects are unable to create other objects. Damnit.