What Minecraft Can Teach Second Life and OpenSim -- and How to Play Second Life, Minecraft Style

Minecraft, the hit indie sanbox game that I write about often, now has almost 2 million registered users, a third of whom are paying customers. A number of them are longtime Second Life Residents, and Jacek Antonelli, lead developer of Imprudence, the popular OpenSim/Second Life viewer, is one of them. In an excellent post on her blog, she explains why:

[W]hy is Minecraft so inspiring, so addictive, so fun? Why do I find it so much more compelling to build a create a castle in Minecraft, when I could create the same or better castle in SL/OS? I would say that it’s precisely because of its constraints and limitations that Minecraft is more engaging and compelling. Too much creative freedom is daunting, and can actually stifle creativity. Minecraft strikes an appealing balance between constraint and freedom, guiding your creativity without forcing anything.

She also has suggestions for enjoying in Second Life more as you would Minecraft, among them:

Set challenges and constraints for yourself. Use half as many prims as you thought were necessary. Pick an unconventional color or style, and make it work. Build it in a way that would be totally impossible in the real world. Make up rules about which shapes or colors can be next to each other.

Much more here. Now that she brings it up, I actually think you could create an SL sim that followed Minecraft's general rules: a randomly generated landscape made of prims that you can turn into tools, some AI-powered creepers that show up every few hours or so, and so on. Anyone up for that?

Image credit: Tilt shift photo of Minecraft from cresty.tumblr.com.

Tweet

Comments

[Chimera Cosmos aka Liz Dorland]

I have a feeling that the folks who really appreciate Minecraft are the true hard-core techies with major computer skills. I doubt that pseudo-techies like me (and the majority of Second Lifers?) might not find it so much fun.

I hated command line (still do). I want things to be as beautiful as possible. Minecraft just doesn't do it for me no matter how you spin it.

Am I weird? Or am I mainstream?

Chimera Cosmos

[Chimera Cosmos aka Liz Dorland]

Make that "would" find it so much fun -- not "might not". Oops.

[Kevin Reid]

I have a different theory:

It's not primarily that limitations help creativity (though they can), but rather that the limitations mean that it's easier to make your work fit the world.

In Second Life, if you aren't a texture artist, there's only so much you can do, aesthetically. In Minecraft, the minimum resolution, 1m×1m×1m cubes, is available to everyone, built into the game engine; there are no major technical skills that let you do better than that.

[Breen Whitman]

" I actually think you could create an SL sim that followed Minecraft's general rules"

Except a minecraft world is a little bigger that the 256m SL region. A minecraft world is thousands of meters.

@Chimera Cosmos" Am I weird? Or am I mainstream?

Minecraft is exactly like SL. Download viewer, visit world, type in chat bar to say hello.

A minecraft server is like a second life or Opensim server. Roll up sleeves, issue command line code.

As in SL, most want to just play the game.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

I find that the lack of things I take for granted in SL, such as scripted objects and fancy props for sale at low cost, has spurred my creativity in OpenSim.

If you have to make it, even with an Open Source script and some tweaking, you learn. So while what Jacek writes might apply to any grid where content can be purchased (InWorldz, SL), in DIY grids creativity and experience dictate the end-experience.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

As for looks - I'd point out there's many good graphics mods that make Minecraft look much better if you're into that - the painterly pack at painterlypack.net is my favorite, but there's a lot of choice.

[Secondlifer]

I would have to say I've been a builder/sculptor on secondlife for the past 3 years.I've tried minecraft it really sorta limited me on what i could build.One thing i love about SL is you can sculpt and make shapes you really cant on MC.So yeah just thought i'd voice my opinion bout this subject.

[Metajunkie]

I think it would be very cool to mimic the behavior of minecraft in an OpenSIM. I do wonder the difference in resources (server-side) to try and recreate the size of minecraft in an OpenSIM. I haven't posted in a while on my http://silicon-worlds.blogspot.com blog... but I should. I recognize the posts above this one are quite old. But, I also know that I tend to wax and wane regarding my involvement in cyberspace and virtual worlds.