The good news is, Reddit's large Oculus Rift community is talking about Palmer Luckey's thoughts on Second Life in the future of VR-powered virtual worlds. The bad news is, they're even more skeptical than Palmer SL even has a place in it. (The most upvoted comment being, "It's kind of incredible how obsessed second lifers are with keeping second life alive. Let go already! It didn't catch on then, and it won't catch on now.") My take:
Obviously, a lot of the Rift community is missing how large the SL userbase still is -- still far larger than all the owners of Rift headsets -- but more than that, they're missing how difficult it will be for any new VR-powered world to reach anywhere near the success Second Life has had, in terms of usage and interest. And perhaps even more key, any new virtual world that doesn't deeply learn from the mistakes SL made in the past is bound to repeat them.
Anyway, much more here.
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They follow Lucky and He who walks behind the Singularity. They want a no rights world where our toil is only worth some free time in another game.
Second Life didn't go this way which is why they hate it. But no amount of hate can hide the fact that it is the ONLY VR making money and left standing. I swear how can people keep on not seeing reality?
Posted by: melponeme_k | Friday, May 30, 2014 at 04:19 PM
I am always amazed at how simple critics think it is to produce a VW with better graphics, better creativity, less lag and frame-rates to support a Rift - and get people to use it. Chances are the FB/Oculus World will be a fixed world where you can buy optimised objects from a store to build your home and wear, and it still won't look as good as Skyrim.
Posted by: Hitomi Tiponi | Friday, May 30, 2014 at 05:11 PM
These Occulus fans are both correct and also hilariously myopic.
SL is too clunky and difficult to again be more than a niche product. Yet when I hear the Occulus Rift hype, I chuckle. We've been here before.
Mainstream consumers will no more embrace wearing a scuba-mask on their heads for gaming or telepresence than they were willing to endure, a few years ago, SL's established culture and many technical shortcomings.
There's just another hype-cycle at work for this purportedly world-changing technology. The Rift as it currently exists has all the cool factor of a Segway Scooter.
Posted by: Iggy | Saturday, May 31, 2014 at 02:45 AM
Pictures of someone wearing an Oculus Rift is hilariously embarrassing.
However, the experience of the person wearing it... will override any care in the world.
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Sunday, June 01, 2014 at 09:10 PM
I laughed at one of the comments in the reddit thread.
"I think SL is best left to its few devotees while the rest of us move onto a true VR MMO that is qualitatively worlds better."
The telling thing is noone can name one.
Posted by: Connie Arida | Sunday, June 01, 2014 at 09:55 PM
Complacency is a world-killer. Second Life can have a lead role in the virtual future, but we're all (residents and Lindens alike) going to have to step up our game to get there. The sad truth is that we're lagging, not leading, and if we refuse to recognize and take steps to address that, we're toast.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 06:33 AM
@Arcadia
The platform is old and getting older that is the only lagging. But in the human rights department definitely not. Many people in SL fought very hard for digital and VR rights. This is the reason why we have IP rights, privacy rights (keeping VR pseudonyms), free speech. If you read very carefully what Palmer, Rosedale and others are saying...those are the very rights they want to take away. That is why they want to erase SL and its paradigm. SL is successful because the people in it fought for their rights and its existence argues for these same rights to be extended to all VRs. Something they don't want.
We are in a culture war, an ideological war and a religious war with these people. Don't forget it.
Posted by: melponeme_k | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 07:21 AM
VR only chance to become mainstream is when the Porno industry embraces it and i doubt that will pass by Sl or Open Sim.
Posted by: zzpearlbottom | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 07:42 AM
SL's whole business model is too wacked to survive any shifts in the industry. Why make virtual land scarce and expensive? That contradicts the point of virtual reality.
Posted by: Metacam Oh | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 03:44 PM
@Metacam
You might as well ask why WoW and other mmorpgs restrict bag/bank space. Why do they restrict housing space in their games?
Its all computing and energy resources. There is no fount of free energy and computer space. It has to be paid for somehow,someway.
Facebook can give "free" space because they sell the personal data of every person who is foolish enough to put their information on their site. You see? No such things as free.
Posted by: melponeme_k | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 04:19 PM
sorry Mel, empty space is not computer power, it's what you put in that space.
Posted by: Metacam Oh | Wednesday, June 04, 2014 at 12:06 PM
Oh but it is Metacam. The computers/servers don't turn off when you aren't using that space. They don't turn off when only half filled with junk. All games restrict computer storage space so that storage upkeep doesn't balloon in costs.
But somehow SL is different and is supposed to ignore these same problems and shower everyone with "land". It can't work that way.
Unless you go Rosedale's way which he plans to steal computing resources from everyone who signs up for his new VR without giving proper compensation.
Posted by: melponeme_k | Thursday, June 05, 2014 at 03:17 AM
No, size doesn't cost anything, size in computing is just numbers, and 256 means the same to a computer as 4 billion. It's the amount of which content matters. With properly designed technology, SL could provide a sim the size of a whole planetary system, as long it doesn't contain more content than a normal sim.
Storage space is dirt cheap, either. We've can buy insane amounts of capacity for very little money. How many 2TB harddrives would it need to store SL? 20? 100? At 60$ each, that would still be peanuts compared to what people sink into virtual land in SL each month...
In fact, it's SL's aim to be an RL simulation which will ultimately let it fade into irrelevance. There's no point in letting a virtual world suffer from the same constraints as the real one. A truly universal vw needs to scale to its users needs. It needs to provide shared spaces the size of a galaxy down to small private rooms which are instanced for just 2 people each.
The world has kept turning since SL was developed. Modern Games have servers which can scale to demand, will only boot up once needed and can dynamically scale among multiple physical machines when required.
Cloud Computing allows to rent servers on demand, pay just what you need, when you need it. Games do not limit inventories due to storage requirements, it's a game balancing descision...
Sl hasn't seen any major progress under the hood since 2003... still the same server model, still the same interface.
HiFidelity won't provide that either, since it's yet again just trying to create a surrogate real world.
If you look through the Oculus subreddit, you will notice that people are already actively creating virtual experiences, be it wingsuit rides, stardestroyer bridge or just a hang out on a summer meadow... SL doesn't play any role in that, they decide for modern, lowcost technology like Unity3D.
The only reason SL hasn't seen any major competition was nobody saw a major economical chance in doing so.
I'm not sure if VR can change that, or if the "Metaverse" will always just stay a wide range of games and 3d spaces, each catering to a specific purpose, but I can most certainly tell we won't get a major boost for SL usage...
It's time to demystify SL, it's not an ingenious masterpiece of software, anymore, it's pretty dated and loaded with technical shortcomings from its initial design.
I think CloudParty had already shown what 5 people on a very tight budget can create in just 2 years with today's technology. Someone who's capable to devote 50developers with 10 times the money into could easily create a technology which would whipe the floor with SL....
I just doubt there's demand for it, time has shown people are not interested in one, universal virtual world which tries to fit any purpose, and I think a modern Metaverse would better be just a technical framework for centralised authentication and avatar storage, without making any actual assumptions about how the virtual space should look, be structured and operated, since it's better to make such decisions based on the kind of experience you're trying to create...
Just my two virtual cents...
Posted by: Wolkenreiter | Thursday, June 05, 2014 at 06:40 AM
Mel, it isn't though like Wolk said above. Why would someone with an empty sim have to pay asmuch as someone with a sim stacked to the brim with content that costs computing power pay the same?
SL should be in the cloud, a sim with no one on it with nothing on it should not cost the same as one that is packed to the brim.
If I want 2 miles of empty terrain I shouldn't have to buy 200 sims for it. They should just track how much data and computer resources I use and charge me appropriately.
If I have 3 visitors to my sim a month I shouldn't be charged the same as Bukkake Bliss Island that has 30 people on it 24/7. This is the problem with Second Life, the cost doesn't add up.
Posted by: Metacam Oh | Thursday, June 05, 2014 at 09:24 AM
We are paying for the land to be persistent and all data (objects) to be there for any passerby to see. When we are not in world, our spaces don't turn off to save on energy.
Again you are looking at VRs as infinite resources which they are not. You need to think of our gaming (SL, WOW etc) in terms of real life money. We as players must pay for electricity, we pay for internet service, we pay for our computers, we pay subscriptions, we pay rental space on servers in games like SL, there are a great many invisible costs that go into our gaming past times. In turn there are costs that go into running these games, electricity, development, marketing, salaries, office leasing, server leasing, internet service and more. The games must factor in their overhead just as we do in costs.
None of these costs can be magically wiped away. Unless you pull a Rosedale and trick the players into shouldering ALL the costs. If you are angry at Bukkake now, just wait until you get roped into the HIFI model and your computer is supporting them 24/7.
Posted by: melponeme_k | Thursday, June 05, 2014 at 10:13 AM
mel you obviously don't get it. I'm not going to explain it again.
Posted by: Metacam Oh | Friday, June 06, 2014 at 08:54 AM