Iris Wants To Know: What Are Your Second Life Predictions For The New Year?

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Well it's 2014 and the future is now... Kind of. We may not have our hoverboards or jetpacks or sassy lady robots in the real world, but there's infinite promise in the virtual one.

So what will the new year bring to the metaverse? Innovations in the viewer perhaps? Maybe even that long awaited announcement for Second Life 2.0? Share your predictions in the comments below and, of course, have a very happy New Year!

(Picture by Dita Actor)

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

Comments

[Timo Gufler]

Some years ago I wished, they could fix region crossings, but today things are more or less same as seven years ago.

Then I dreamed about return of cheap Homesteads. No, no, no!

Then they promised meshes and we got them. Great, but what about tailored mesh clothing? Years have passed already...

Then I wished, they could return the cool last name culture. No, they didn't want to.

Now I wish, they could fix their broken TOS, but silence continues.

Even if this sounds very pessimistic, I predict, that the residents will be unhappier and fewer by the end of 2014. That's (second) life.

[Yak Wise]

I expect to still not be able to drag chat- and other user interfaces to a second monitor :-\

[Loki]

Linden Lab will continue to mistake Facebook users for Second Life users

[shirc desantis]

The sky will continue to fall =^^=

[Botgirl Questi]

I predict Linden Lab will announce a new technology project with a catchy code name.

[Issa Heckroth]

Linden Lab will start selling content to Inworldz.

Somebody will find out how to steal scripts.

It will be revealed that 78% of SL traffic is actually the NSA.

Philip Rosedales new start-up will collapse and in a desperate last ditch effort to achieve oneness with the singularity, he will attempt to plug his brain directly into the Second Life servers, at which point the whole internet will dissolve into a laggy soup of badly sculpted vaginas. Ushering in the next great extinction.

[Gordon Twine]

I predict that at the end of the year 2014, the same naysayers will post the same Anti-LL/-SL slogans here in the comments, as at the beginning of the year.

But Second Life will still be there and many people will still having fun with it. :-)

[Metacam Oh]

As I begin to write predictions for Second Life I realize I don't even have the effort to write predictions for Second Life.

So my prediction for Second Life in 2014 is one word, "Meh".

[Bixyl Shuftan]

Second Life goes on much like it has, with a Lab that tries to make the Grid work for the residents while at the same time keeping it's distance from them, great builds that attract attention from other residents, and an occasional charity or medical worker that briefly makes real life news.

[Ajax Manatiso]

I predict that someone at LL will finally realize the bulk of visitors don't care about shaders, don't know what a mesh is, don't want to be a vampire, don't want to strap goggles onto their faces, don't care if their outfit has the hottest fashion, but just want to hear music and socialize.

[Motoko Henusaki]

I predict the following: whiners will whine; LSL will get llLinkPlaySound() and other things; Fitted Mesh will usher in novel uses for collision bones over and above the things demoed as Liquid Mesh; the ToS will be corrected and still no-one will be happy.

[2013]

I predict the oldbies will predict SL will end this year, making it ten years they've made this prediction.

[Archangel Mortenwold]

I predict Second Life and Linden Lab will continue to experience drastic region loss (and thus revenue loss) as the inflated prices are too much for virtual landowners to bear.

[Pussycat Catnap]

I predict my list of predictions is too long and getting screened out by typepad.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Oh that WAS it maybe...

1. Something will come along that will kill SL, only it won't. Again. :)

2. Tier will be the same on Dec 31, 2014 as it is on Jan 1, 2014.

3. We will lose about 20% of the private sims.

4. Mainland will hold steady - but more because people leaving private sims will move to it, people on it will give up, and it will be in 2015 that the folks lost from the 20% sim drop will fade from mainland. Ie: holding steady will actually be a loss, seen in delay.

5. 90% of new furry avatars will still have head size 0, so that rigged hair won't work for them, even though this has been an obsolete need since the debut of alpha maps. But more furry users will become aware of this flaw over the year...
- Hint: The ONLY reason you can't wear most hair with a furry these days is because the head size of the shape is 0, not 40-50.

[Pussycat Catnap]

6. Exactly the same kinds of griefing that have occurred for the last 10 years will occur in 2014, and people will be all over blogs and forums claiming there is some new major threat or ability to steal control and hack the game despite it being the same old same old.

7. The NERD-Goggles (Oculus Rift) still won't make much headway. Even if they start to really work with SL, adoption will be low.

8. Collision deforming will go live at some point - people will be very upset when its not as amazing as they thought it would be, and we will still have a need for some common numbers in some parts of the shape. Leeway will improve, but only slightly.

9. Avatars under 5'6" to 6'5" will still get banned all over the place, and then called 'height nazis trying to force a height rule' when they complain about getting banned in the usual reverse illogic...

10. Most people will still have T-rex arms that can't even reach their own 'goods' and yet not notice...

[Pussycat Catnap]

I predict that I hate systems with word-filters they don't announce so I don't know what to edit...

11. That weird freebie dance that tilts the avatar at a 10-degree angle from straight up and then steps the legs back and forth will STILL be the most common dance in SL clubs despite years of high quality low cost motion capture dances...

12. There will be an even higher percentage of pale blond female avatars than the current 99.99999% of everybody.

13. Some new trend will replace the fish mouth. Maybe sad anime-bug eyes with black eyeliner.

14. The last Lindens who's names are known from the days when lindens used to log in will leave LLs. Including Torley.

[Iggy]

I predict that (second try):

--I will remain a grumpy oldbie and will occasionally be pleasantly surprised by developments in VW technology within and outside SL.
--Loss of private estates will remain at 4 or 5 per day, and LL won't need to worry much for a few years longer as they roll out other bandages to apply to SL.
--Many of my comments in 2014 will be eaten up at NWN, and non-grumps will shout "hurrah."

God bless us, everyone.

[Pussycat Catnap]

15. Marketplace will get one of the other things LLs does attached onto it.

16. They will try making real life names visible as a requirement.

[Pussycat Catnap]

OMG I tried like 50 variations on those two (15 and 16) that it kept blocking...

17. Rather than fix the simplistic errors in design that allow the forums to be spammed daily by South-Asian accompaniment offers (for people in South Asia), they will simply close the forums.

18. Rather than fix my-secondlife's frequent issues, they'll give up on it, and put our profiles directly into a third party social media platform - resulting in no profile at all unless you link it to your real life info.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Well that didn't take long. New SL contest requires Facebook login to enter:

http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/ll-launch-new-year-new-you-competition-facebook-style/

Not yet requiring for SL... but there's a shot in the direction. An accident, or a testing of the waters of linking SL id to RL id?

[Commizar Janick]

Wow, what a bunch of Debbie Downers.

As an optimist, I predict that the oculus rift viewer will bring new interest to Second Life where people can visit hundreds of already built environments that do not make them want to lose their lunch. Hopefully, by the end of the year they will introduce code that will allow you to use your camera to mimic certain hand gestures for use in Second Life.

I also predict even more amazing artistic builds to explore like all of the great ones from this past year.

[GoldyVPN]

Once you get netflix vpn service you will experience high speed so you can easily test your gaming skills. You will be able to watch netflix from abroad with vpn from anywhere in the world.
http://www.goldyvpn.com/vpn-for-netflix/

[Oink]

Hitler's prediction of his Second Life sims
Hehe, those poor sheep, they are honeytrapped by the wolf...
http://youtu.be/MsXyFxB_PeU