Ophelia's Gaze: 4 Reasons Why Skyrim is Like Second Life as a Single-Player RPG

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world fashion

I've been playing a lot of Elders Scrolls V: Skyrim (like everyone else on the Internet pretty much) since it launched last week. From the intense fights with epic creatures to the relaxing horseback exploration of the sprawling countryside, the world feels almost limitless, and leaves control of your character and your story completely in your hands. And after only a few hours of playing, this odd thought struck me: Skyrim is basically a single-player fantasy RPG version of Second Life.

Before you tell me that statement strips away everything that defines Second Life as we know it, hear me out. I see four major parallels:

The World is Chaotic and Non-Linear

Once you've completed the introduction to Skyrim, you're thrown out into the world to fend for yourself; you can go wherever and do whatever you're interested in doing. There are strings of quests at the core of the storyline, but you can choose to ignore them, or get them out of the way immediately. Skyrim is an amazingly complex and open game world (as Hamlet discussed on Monday), and your character is not just there to live out the story -- they're there to live.

Even if you finish the main story, the game just nudges you out the door and back into the incredibly expansive world, filled with all manner of ruins, caves, cities, villages, shacks and the various men and beasts that occupy them (and persist with or without you). I can remember when I first joined Second Life, I teleported around all over the place, soared over the mainland, snooped into houses and explored cool builds with the same wonderment that I have in Skyrim now. There's no right or wrong route to take, and getting spectacularly sidetracked is the best part.

Your Experiences Will Be Wildly Different from Everyone Else's

I've been playing this game at the same time as many of my friends, and we are all having very divergent experiences. Events are often triggered by being in the right place at the right time, and we've all gone in completely different directions, starting completely different quests and triggering completely different events. Things are always happening, and a lot of those things may never happen to someone else playing the same game. While my best friend was assassinating an abusive orphanage owner, I was saving a small village from a dream-eating god artifact sealed in a lair full of hibernating cultists. Later, I came across an argument between a group of villagers and some bandits. Before I could pick everyones pockets intervene, a dragon landed on top of them and gave them bigger things to worry about.

The feeling I get from comparing my interactions in Skyrim to those of my friends is a lot like the feeling I get from discussing Second Life with my RL parents, who are both alarmingly avid SLers. We're all in the same "world", but we all have very different goals and directions, so our experiences rarely overlap. With Second Life., that's completely expected, but it's a genuinely surprising thing when it comes from a single-player RPG.

User-Generated Content is Already Available

If you played the previous Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion, then you already know that the there is a tremendous community built around modding the PC version. New clothes, equipment, textures, and tweaks are abundant, and Skyrim is already headed in the same direction. Right now these mods are a little limited, but since the game has been out for less than a week, it's fair to say that more will come. I'm looking forward to some re-textured casual clothes and revamped hair textures (not unlike what I look forward to in Second Life). My favorite mod so far smoothes out and sharpens the avatar face textures for example, but it's only a matter of time before someone releases character skins of their own.

You Can Live Whatever Life You Want

Morality meters have become a very popular game mechanic, but here's the thing: Skyrim doesn't care if you're good or evil, and much like real life (and Second Life) the citizens of Skyrim only care if it affects their lives directly. You're judged for your actions, and those judgements often only extend as far as the witnesses. But there's more:

The character you create has no backstory to speak of, at least not one dictated by the game. Your character appears in a situation, and no one can explain why you're there, nor do they particularly care. Whatever backstory you want is left up to you as a player, with the game washing its hands of your origin completely.

On top of that, you level through training skills and not simply through combat and quest experience as in most games, so if you decide that your character dreams of being the best damn chef in all of Skyrim, your advancement in the game won't suffer even if you spend more time cooking than questing. The result of all of this is a persona that only you fully understand. Are you just being yourself in a new environment, or are you in a carefully defined role? Only you know for sure. 

Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Nexii Malthus]

I agree those are some really good points.

But I honestly believe that's just mostly from most game developers lagging behind the curve on modern game design due to lack of research, knowledge and education.

It's a direction that gaming has been set to be taking many years ago.

Skyrim is up there as one of the few games developing the state of the art along with Dwarf Fortress. A certain "Quality Without A Name".

[Tateru Nino]

The four-point comparison works just as well if you insert the words "real life", or "Tunisia".

I find the mention of Second Life in the context of Skyrim - or actually with respect to these four points - to be questionable at best.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

I don't, Tateru, although I wouldn't have used those four points. Certainly, Skyrim is like SL in that it doesn't do much holding of your hand; while it's further along in the "game" spectrum aside from the basics established after the tutorial it's pretty much "go do what you like", as unlike Oblivion the main quest has no particular sense of urgency.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Skyrim sounds absolutely incredible. Let me know when they come out with a massively multiplayer version and I'll give it a spin.

It's not that I never play single-player games, but only on a casual basis (or to tear them apart and do a forensic on the pieces). If I'm diving to the depth you're describing, I want it to be in a shared world.

[Orca Flotta]

Okay, 4 points that make Skyrim comparable with SL ... and Tunisia :)

What about the roundabout 3 mio points that make it absolutely NOT comparable?

What about the basic fact they recruit their user base in large parts from a totally different demography?

What about the one-dimensional focus of Skyrim, which is in no way comparable to SL's multifaceted approach?

It's ok to compare VW's with VW's or even the Sims. But comparing any VW with a singleplayer game (even if it's playing in a wonderful world) is not. Careful, Iris, not to follow Hamlet on his wrong (war)path. He has some beef with LL, you too?

[qarl]

anyone want my L$2?

the difference here is complexity. how big is the skyrim dev team? 20 people? 40? 80? working for three years, say? so 240 man years?

now, how many man years are in SL?

[mark c]

"I find the mention of Second Life in the context of Skyrim -or actually with respect to these four points - to be questionable at best"

Yes, it's definitely questionable that SL has user-generated content. Or open-ended goals, or that different users have very different experiences. High-quality comment there.

[mark c]

"It's ok to compare VW's with VW's or even the Sims. But comparing any VW with a singleplayer game (even if it's playing in a wonderful world) is not."

Last I checked, it's a free Internet, unless you live in China. What's up with the general cluelessness of the comments here?

[Pussycat catnap]

"Okay, 4 points that make Skyrim comparable with SL ... and Tunisia :)"

Or toast.

These are 4 great reasons why sliced toast is a better virtual world than Second Life, or at least, after people get on my case for such a bad analogy, in my new blog entry, a lot like Second Life. ;)

Keep the Pac-Man blogs to the Pac-Man blogs. Or at least admit you're not posting about SL when you start posting about the latest version of Pac-Man.

[Nexii Malthus]

Technically, there is user generated content, a surprising lot in fact.

It's a shared singeplayer virtual world. Odd right? Have you seen how incredibly massive the skyrim modding community was right from start day one?

I got a few mods in my game right now.

Last I checked, the SDK still isn't even released and people are jumping on doing such things.

[Nexii Malthus]

(The above was @ qarl, assuming he was talking about it being a one-shot pony of sorts, I'll counter that the modding community will be adding many years of development beyond the initial phase)

[Orca Flotta]

@ Mark C: What are you trying to say? The internet is free so Hamlet and Iris can make the boldest wrong assumptions but "clueless" commentators must shut up? Clueless like Quarl? Puh-leeze.

[Tatum Lisle]

"...doesn't care if you're good or evil, much like real life ...the citizens of Skyrim only care if it affects their lives directly". Wow, big statement! Where does that leave politicians, ethicists, environmentalists, charity workers, amnesty international activists, those who fight and die for their principles..etc? I'd say not, on the whole, spending much time playing MMORPGs

[cube republic]

Reason 5: the graphics are rubbish

[metatraveler]

If Skyrim has a virtual content marketplace, I'll probably be an immigrant creator there.

[shockwave yareach]

Hey, I have a backstory about Xevious. And the people I'm shooting and bombing don't care what my backstory is, either. There's also the whole world there to explore, so long as I can get to it -- I love watching the Nazca lines pass by.

So by your logic, a 2D shoot em up from 1983 is a Virtual World!