Time passes

January 6, 2008 by Leave a comment

What with the holidays and everything I’ve not been online much in the past couple of weeks, and when I have, I’ve been too busy checking out the predictions for the Iowa Caucuses to waste time in Second Life. Not that anything I read deepened my understanding much – I was confidently predicting to anyone who would listen that Hillary was going to walk it. I still think she’ll get the nomination though.

Anyway, I’ll try to get on the grid a bit more this week, and work up a column for Friday.

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Feeling Small

December 20, 2007 by 1 Comment

I noted a while back that there seemed to be essentially no restrictions on what Second Life residents can do with their property, and my neighbours have proved this with some spectacularly anti-social development:

neighbours.jpg

As you can see my little mountain hideaway is now overshadowed by a big rocky outcrop that my left-hand neighbour has thoughtfully constructed on his land, presumably with the intention of creating enough flat space for a substantial dwelling. At least it looks natural, unlike the giant bookcase that the guy on the right has installed on his patch of mountainside, the purpose of which I can only guess at.

I know that I shouldn’t be too bothered by this, since I spend only a tiny fraction of my life in my cabin, and my “land” doesn’t really exist in any material sense anyway. It has been annoying me though, in way that is indistinguishable, in nature if not degree, from the feeling I would get if my real life neighbour cut off all my sunlight by planting a massive hedge in his garden. I guess that goes to show that even a sceptical observer like myself can be unconsciously drawn into the virtual reality of Second Life.

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Elf Actualisation

December 6, 2007 by Leave a comment

I’ve not had much time to be online this week, so I don’t have any interesting Second Life stories to recount, unless you find virtual interior decorating particularly fascinating. (I got a new coffee table!)

Instead I’ve been catching up on some reading, looking through back copies of CyberPsychology and Behavior. There was an interesting article in the August 2007 issue – “The Ideal Elf: Identity Exploration in World of Warcraft”. The researchers recruited a sample of 51 World of Warcraft players, and got them to complete rating scales evaluating their real-life personality, their in-game personality, and their ideal personality. The characters were (mostly) viewed as closer to the ideal than the players’ real selves, with players who rated themselves poorly more likely to idealise their characters. This isn’t terribly surprising, but it’s always nice when intuition is given some scientific back-up.

Also interesting is “Multiple subjectivity and virtual community at the end of the Freudian century” a paper by Sherry Turkle from back in 1997, looking at psychological aspects of MUDs. Turkle notes that a player can create multiple characters reflecting different aspects of the personality, and deploy these adaptively in different situations. She draws parallels with Dissociative Identity Disorder, but argues that, unlike in DID where such personality splitting is dysfunctional, in the context of a MUD it can be integrative, and lead to enhanced functioning.

Neither of these papers relate directly to Second Life, but it seem likely that SL users will create and use their characters in similar ways.

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Almost Famous

November 30, 2007 by Leave a comment

This blog has been getting a steady trickle of hits, most of them via Google searches featuring the words “second” and “life” somewhere (like “second life adverse events” or “how to find adult club in second life” – that guy must have been disappointed). Hardly anyone ever leaves a comment, so I’ve no idea what visitors think of the site, but I suspect most of them click away again pretty quickly.

Since it’s clear that there is no way that I’ll make money from Second Life by any means other than writing about it, I’m going to have to do something to improve the stickiness of this column.

Writing stuff that’s vaguely interesting would be a start I guess. I can see two ways that this column might develop an audience.

The first option would be a gonzo-journalism style travelogue, where I dot around the grid like a virtual Hunter S. Thompson, cataloguing the collision between the established order and the emerging counter-culture. The problem is that Second Life hasn’t been around long enough for a dominant culture to develop, so nobody is really pushing the boundaries, because there are no boundaries to push against. I guess I could contrast SL with real life, but my feeling is that SL is more of a complement to the existing social order than a threat to it, so there’s none of the sense of danger that would give the column some edge. It’s possible that I’m underestimating how liberating the SL experience can be for people though, and it might be more revolutionary than I think. There is probably some mileage in exploring that further.

The alternative model for the blog would be a character-based episodic narrative, something like “Tales of the City”. To make that work I’d have to find some sort of vibrant SL social scene and immerse myself in it, and I’m not sure that I have the patience for that, if such communities even exist. I don’t think my writing skills are up to it anyway.

Even if I do build up a readership, there would still be the problem of turning hits into revenue, something that has defeated smarter business brains than mine. Advertising perhaps, or syndication, particularly to non-internet media. Maybe Rolling Stone would bankroll me while I did some in-depth research, like John Travolta in “Perfect”. They printed a big article on Second Life just a few months ago though, and anyway it’s not like I’m Lester Bangs or anything, so maybe not.

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Face/Off

November 28, 2007 by Leave a comment

The Second Life interface provides a multitude of options for fine-tuning the appearance of your avatar (or “av” as we SL regulars say). In fact there are rather too many options; I managed to spend a couple of hours tinkering with my av’s nose, chin and hairline:

before_after.jpg

I hesitate to say that my new features are any better than my old, (and my av still looks nothing like the real me) but at least it’s a change from the standard issue.

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Property Speculation

November 25, 2007 by Leave a comment

Although I have in theory bought my little patch of heaven outright (for the princely sum of L$3725 or about US$16), what I have in fact purchased is an indefinite leasehold. The landholding system in Second Life is effectively feudal – possession of land is dependent on keeping up payment of tribute to the feudal superior, in my case Linden Labs themselves. It’s true that my monthly membership fee covers the first 512 square metres, but the costs escalate as the amount of land held grows – a 65,536 square meter estate incurs a monthly charge of US$195. I have no idea how close this is to the cost of the hardware and electricity that is required to host that amount of virtual real estate, but I suspect L-Labs are making a healthy profit.

Instead of buying land myself I could have rented a plot from one of the so-called “Land Barons”. This can be rather more expensive than dealing directly with L-Labs, but has one big advantage; regulation. L-Labs impose practically no restrictions on what can be done with land; my neighbours are free to build big ugly buildings right next to my property, or, even more annoyingly, start up a popular business that would suck up all the server resources for the sector. Big landlords can enforce planning regulations, so tenants can feel secure that they won’t wake up one morning to find their quiet beach house overshadowed by a six-storey strip club.

Renting out premium land does seem to be a reliable way of making money, reliable by Second Life standards at least. A big attraction is the fact that it’s not very capital-intensive – US$1675 will buy you a whole island – which makes it easier to get into than real-life property investment. However it also means that you would need to look after an area the size of Antarctica to make any worthwhile return in absolute terms. The associated administration would be a full-time job, and a dull one at that. Not quite the escape from the rat race that Second Life promises.

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Magic Mountain

November 20, 2007 by Leave a comment

I’ve invested in the virtual property market; here’s a picture of my spread:

my_land.jpg

It’s 512 square metres in area, though it looks a bit smaller since about 500 of them are vertical mountainside. The compensation is the view, free of the lurid advertising hoardings that disfigure most of the mainland skyline:

my_view01.jpg

The lack of flat ground isn’t too important anyway, since the laws of physics aren’t too closely followed in Second Life, so it’s possible to build structures that balance precariously on the narrowest of ledges, like this little alpine cabin that’s going to be my virtual home for the time being:

my_house.jpg

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How to make money on Second Life

November 12, 2007 by Leave a comment

It doesn’t surprise me that someone has figured out that the best way to make money out of Second Life is to sell people a book that promises to reveal how to make money on Second Life.

To be fair to the author, Daniel Terdiman, he is upfront about the fact that not many people are getting rich on the grid, but I’m sure his book will sell to a lot of hopeful entrepreneurs. And there’s a chapter on how to profit from a Second Life blog …

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Rotterdam Bar

November 12, 2007 by Leave a comment

I finally went someplace with more than a couple of other people in it; the Rotterdam Bar, which recreates a real place in Belfast, to catch a live music set from Chris Dickson.

The crowd did mean that there was a horrendous lag, which made moving around a bit unpredictable. I accidentally rushed the stage at one point, a bit embarrassing when the performer is a sensitive singer-songwriter. I did manage to say “Hi” to a couple of people, but it was far too crowded to have any sort of sensible conversation. Still, it was the most fun I’ve had in Second Life so far.

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The thousand natural shocks

November 12, 2007 by Leave a comment

Here’s a picture of me at the Three Lions Pub, a popular virtual hostelry.

Me at the Three Lions

Apart from getting a new shirt and trousers I haven’t customised my avatar at all, so my appearance is exactly the same as about a million other guys wandering around the grid. I look nothing like this in real life of course – what would be the point in recreating my current less than perfect physique when I can revert to the svelte frame I last enjoyed 20 years ago? The pose reminds me of those days too – when I was a student I rented a flat across the road from a pub with a beer garden, and spent many a happy summer afternoon passed out on the tables.

Three points to note:

  1. The Three Lions seems to be one of the better-known destinations in Second Life. I’ve read about in in several online guides, and I vaguely remember seeing it mentioned in a newspaper article a few months ago too. Despite this it was pretty much deserted when I was there on Friday afternoon. Maybe all the regulars were out at a real bar.
  2. That pint of lager on the table is for decoration only. As far as I could tell there was no way to buy alcohol at this establishment, which must be bad for business in a pub. Obviously virtual intoxication isn’t as appealing a concept as the real thing, but even so it must be possible to write a script that would produce some comedy “drunk” effects, like staggering around, increased aggression and other avatars looking strangely attractive. I’d buy that for a dollar.
  3. I am wearing no shoes. In keeping with the whole “recreate my youth” theme I’ve been trying to find some footwear that resembles Converse All-Stars, thus far without success, so I’m going around barefoot. This has no adverse effect on my feet at all, whatever type of terrain I traverse.

The last point is the most important, since it illustrates what I think is the fatal flaw in the Second Life economic system: the cost of living is essentially zero. Residents can exist indefinitely without eating, drinking, buying new clothes or paying for somewhere to sleep. All spending is discretionary. The whole layer of productive economic activity supplying the staples of life just doesn’t exist, and without it there is nothing to support the flimsy service economy that passes for commerce on the grid.

What is needed is some sort of tamagotchi-style feeding and nurturing system, where neglecting your avatar has negative consequences. Failing to spend enough money on food would lead to emaciation and eventual death, clothes would wear out and fall apart, and not buying or renting a place to live would get you busted for vagrancy. Avatars would get old and sick, and ultimately die.

Recreating real life to this extent might seem to undermine the whole point of Second Life, which is to get away from the frustrations of this mortal coil. I can’t help thinking though that a life without pain and misery wouldn’t be very interesting at all. Maybe that’s why I’m such a fun guy to be around.

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