Aurelia Kuhr Looks at the Linden Prize Nominees in Search of Fun and People

Aurelia Kuhr of the Ephemeral Frontier has a perceptive review of the ten nominees for the Linden Prize (awarded earlier this week), and I encourage anyone involved with those entries to give it a look, as critical as it can be. For Ms. Kuhr found them wanting:

• Sims that were almost entirely empty... [with] few or no visitors.
• The usual sort of visual communication techniques and design choices that make most SL exhibits and museums so terribly ineffective--panels and text on walls, objects to click on to get notecards, etc.
• Environments that did little more than replicate real life educational spaces and exhibits.

Some of these points aren't entirely fair to all the nominees, but they're worth keeping in mind. As a positive example, Aurelia offers Patriot Island, a veterans' support location which I mentioned on Memorial Day. Unlike most of the Linden Prize nominees, this one comes with an essential asset: People.

There were more people on Patriot Island at 11:30 PM than on all the Linden Prize finalist sims combined. They were talking about nothing earthshaking--mostly they were just being silly and having fun (although there was one volunteer in dress blues doing sentry duty in very dignified fashion at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier)... But yeah, what made the build appealing and encouraged me to stay there longer than I did at any other place I went tonight, was the human element.

Read the rest here.

Comments

[Toxic Menges]

Seems that small charities as well as large corporations haven't grasped the basic tenet that "If you build it, they will come" only works in the movies.

[Kimberly Winnington/Gianna Borgnine]

I have to agree with Toxic, and kudos to Aurelia for pointing out some of what these amazing projects are still lacking virtually.

[Kimberly Rufer-Bach]

The winner of the Linden Prize was a prototype for a real-world museum’s exhibits. What would you expect it to look like other than a real-world exhibit? And what does traffic have to do with the effectiveness of a prototype for a real-world project like that, or a region only used while students are in class? Inworld Residents aren’t the target audience of at least a couple of the prize nominees and the entries shouldn’t be judged based on criteria that haven’t got anything to do with their real-world purposes. These are not entertainment projects.

[Graham Mills]

I must have spent at least 90 minutes piecing together the Uncle D StoryQuest (and bemoaning the missing parts). Yes, the sims are in some respects conventional (the giant retroviral apart) but that was surely the point.

As for interaction, it can be a tough call. The StoryQuest was always going to be word-heavy. Notecards are at least easy to read for n00bs. The books by contrast, while pretty and more lifelike, take time to rez pages, can only be read by one avatar at a time and require some sophistication in terms of camera skills.

The sim was, indeed, quiet but that suited me. If your objective is to engage the creator or a visitor, you need to have attended one of the live sessions they've run in the past.

From a creative perspective, I've reflected and subsequently blogged, tweeted and now commented on my visit. Incidentally, StoryQuest itself seems to have become part of Dusan Writer's SL operation in the guise of Startled Cat.

[Opensource Obscure]

I can't see why Patriot Island would be interesting for most SL residents.