Dach Stryker is having connection troubles to Second Life, from where
he works. (Dach's a new resident-- he joined in early June.) It's not
the bandwidth that's the problem, because Dach shares a private
satellite connection with his co-workers, and it's 768k/128K. A land
line connection via DSL, say, or cable, would work better, but Dach's
employer has set the office up in a fairly remote location, out in the
countryside, so his options are limited, when it comes to getting
online. Still, while he's only been in Second Life twice, and the day I
meet him, he's pretty impressed, so far. "[Although] the lag can get
frustrating," Dach acknowledges. "Right now, it is not too bad, [but]
when I move around a lot it can get that way-- I get some packet loss."
Still, he decides, after I take him on a brief tour, "This game is a trip. You could get lost in here."
In Dach's case, getting lost may be a unique virtue to being in-world, because of the
occupational hazards he usually has to deal with, on the job-- and in the off-hours, when
he gets back in the morning from his usual graveyard shift.
"We get mortared every once in awhile," Dach tells me, "but it is not that bad. The attacks have calmed down a lot. I am not sure why; I guess they figured they were fighting a losing battle, I am not sure. I don't get much intel, so I have to assume, but I am not allowed to leave the base, so I am not sure what is going [on] here."
"You can't leave the base at all?"
"I am not sure I would want to," Dach says, drily. "People want to kill us out there."
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