With Announcement of Second Life 2, SLers Must Consider Embracing Virtual Worlds Unlike What They Know Now

UPDATE, 7/25: Post bumped up for weekend reading/discussion!

On June 20, the day when news broke that Linden Lab is working on a successor to Second Life, a subtle but important shift of perspective started among the SL community, and it's crucial we recognize and amplify it. You could see it in social media and SL-based discussion boards, and in the comment threads of news coverage about the announcement, and very roughly summarized, the transition looked like this:

• Second Life Enthusiast, June 19: Yay, Second Life is the best virtual world ever, and no matter its shortcomings, there's nothing else like it!
• Second Life Enthusiast, June 20: Yay, Second Life has a successor, which is great, because Second Life is getting really old and it has a lot of shortcomings!

So in the space of 24 hours, many of Second Life’s most ardent advocates turned on a Linden dime to become SL2’s most avid supporters. (Which leads one to think they weren’t Second Life supporters fully by choice, but also felt there was nowhere else to go.) Now that development of SL2 is public knowledge, and an alternative exists, I also see less zealous defenses of SL from hardcore fans. (Used to be, you'd explain why Second Life’s user interface is horrible and a total barrier to user growth, and you’d be guaranteed die hard SLers appearing in comments to insist no, no, it’s not that bad, it’s the users who are the problem.)

Now, hopefully, we can more openly and honestly talk about all the ways Second Life as a virtual world and a platform has not lived up to its promise -- and point to ways SL2 can and must be better. (Which is why I encouraged Iris to write her great post yesterday, about SL’s failings on the avatar level.)

That means at least two more important things:

We must realize SL2 will by necessity be very different to Second Life in many fundamental ways. Developed from the start to work seamlessly with Oculus Rift, that alone suggests many profound changes. Despite that, many SLers seem to think SL2 will be everything they like about Second LIfe, only better. With the exception of SL user names, the rest is very much in the air (as well it should.)

We must also realize SL2 can not be developed to appeal to Second Life users first and foremost, because for SL2 to be successful, it must attract a far, far larger user base than what Second Life has now. (And many existing SLers, I’d estimate the third who make up the user base’s most hardcore enthusiasts, will probably decline to make the transition.) For this reason, Linden Lab is surely looking to other models of user-generated worlds and content than Second Life, in the creation of SL2.

And for that reason, I’d encourage existing SL users to broaden their own horizons. Take a look at Minecraft and its many successors; or for that matter, the Apple App Store. (Just for starters.) Look as well at what games are being made for Oculus Rift, and think about why and how the people who develop them would want to develop in SL2.

Above all, look beyond what we’ve had for the last eleven years, because a new world is coming.

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Comments

[A.J.]

One of Linden Lab's strongest qualities has always been their ability to anticipate what people want and then deliver it with major success. Never mind.

What better way could they start their second chapter, than turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to those who have manned the ship of their first chapter?

There's this big assumption that current SL users are losers that are only holding things back and the only way to get to that huge crop of "good" people who are just dying to get into the virtual worlds, is to dump on the losers who have stuck around in virtual worlds for years.

It's a bit like building Titanic II and saying "this time we'll get better passengers and everything will be okie dokie".

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Ah, yes, throwing out all the people with a demonstrated interest in virtual worlds will surely lead to success; I have to agree with AJ, there.

I expect SL2 to improve on SL in many technical and perhaps even a few usability aspects. I don't think I expect a massively larger audience. I have to agree with Gwyn Llewellyn here - the very nature of a creation-focused virtual world limits it to people who are inclined to make their own fun until the pioneers have built up a base to work from. Some of Second Life's most interesting things to do only became truly possible within the last few years - not because they were technically impossible, but simply because nobody had built the tools to build the tools. Can't run dogfights in your fighter jet without a fighter jet, which requires a decent physics engine, a decent flight script, a well-run combat system that is, hopefully, compatible with all kinds of other things. And aside from the physics engine, none of that is something Linden Lab supplies or works on.

Minecraft works because it constrains the creativity along certain lines, and even then, not everyone is jumping to download the Feed the Beast modpack and make a huge turn-cobblestone-into-diamonds factory powered by a nuclear reactor and bees.

[RULosingHair]

SL Bar Assoc Event - LL ToS Update 2.3
http://ht.ly/zzkjg
#slbarassoc

[Pyewacket]

The real question is, just what advantage will Oculus SL2 have over Oculus Harry Potter - or Oculus Star Trek - Or Oculus Marvel Comics or Oculus “live and on stage"?

[Issa Heckroth]

"Despite that, many SLers seem to think SL2 will be everything they like about Second LIfe, only better."

Now wait just a cotton pickin' minute!

Go to the SLU thread that broke out in the aftermath of this news where Ebbe personally answered a number of questions the ONLY seeming response we could get out of him was "It will be like SL.....but better!"

It was pretty much the ONLY damn thing he would say.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Let's make one thing perfectly clear: we the residents created Second Life. Linden Lab provided a platform and tools, we built a world.

I expect Unnamed New World to be radically different in many respects, but if the differences are such that they alienate a large segment of the established creator base, it's already dead. That "far, far larger user base" that it supposedly needs to be "successful" is never going to materialize without content.

[Metacam Oh]

Pyewacket, That's an easy question, the answer is SL2 will allow you to build your own Oculus experience, while the others will put you in ones already created by someone else.

[Pussycat Catnap]

I get the distinct feeling Hamlet is trying to say how stupid we all are with this:

"Second Life Enthusiast, June 19: Yay, Second Life is the best virtual world ever, and no matter its shortcomings, there's nothing else like it!
Second Life Enthusiast, June 20: Yay, Second Life has a successor, which is great, because Second Life is getting really old and it has a lot of shortcomings!"

As if these two statements he has made up, were even contradictions. Which they are not.

[zzpearlbottom]

Who can compete against Facebook?
Linden lab?
Yes, if it remembers the fundamental base of success of Second Life:
Freedom to do whatever!
Freedom to be whatever!

[Adeon Writer]

I'm hopeful, but in the mean time I have SL, and despite it's shortcomings, there's nothing else like it.

[Adeon Writer]

I'm hopeful, but in the mean time I have SL, and despite it's shortcomings, there's nothing else like it.

[Shug Maitland]

You talk like SL2 (Next Generation) is just around the corner! As I pointed out in a recent blog post, Ebbe recently said "The “next generation virtual world” Linden Lab is working on is “quite a ways in the future” and “it could be many, many, many years before what really works for people in Second Life is something they could replicate and achieve in this next generation product”.".
If you like SL, continue to work to make it better, it will be a very long time before there is a viable replacement from Linden Lab.

[2014]

I'll hold my breath for SL2, right along with Oculus Rift being a hit in SL. not!

[A.J.]

Now that all of us have adopted Google Glass as just a part of our everyday life and and things like SL Go have put a virtual world in everyone's hand, it's inevitable that Oculus Rift is going to be calling the shots for our future.

When Zuckerberg buys it, we don't even need to think anymore.

LL is chasing the money and SL users are paying for their expedition. Beyond funding this whole show, we are of absolutely no value. Just tired old goats who know nothing, who desperately need to change, and who ruined everything that could have been in the past.

I think that Linden Lab is the one that needs to change and there's no better place to make that change than right where you're at. There's not going to be any pot of gold at the end of a magical rainbow if they don't learn how to serve customers. If you think that a dedicated niche base is difficult, just wait until you try to serve a mass market who is apathetic about your product to begin with.

After all of the hype and shiny wears off, what is going to make these millions of people stay and work for hours and hours every day to learn it and grow? If anyone thinks that people are going to be able to just pop in and out of a virtual world in a la-di-dah fashion and still care to spend money on it... they're delusional. It's a world and a life and you have to own it.

I'm skeptical that Linden Lab has the vision to build it, but they are proving very day of the week that they don't have the ability to manage it.

[melponeme_k]

The audience for virtual worlds now and in the near future are of a certain education and time period. We are people who are, by and large, generations that encompass the 50's through 70's (a little of the 80's), and were educated before big tech.

That is not the large massive audience of the VR tech world's dreams but it still brings in healthy change.

To get rid of us in lieu of younger people who are different and developed differently (due to tech), who have not even shown an interest in VR, is sheer folly.

I'm waiting to see the next crash and burn.

[Hamlet Au]

"That 'far, far larger user base' that it supposedly needs to be 'successful' is never going to materialize without content."

Actually Minecraft gained rapid growth as a sandbox survival game first; the massive UGC content explosion happened a bit afterward.

[MB]

Whatever they build will not go far without a satisfying customer service experience. Seems like that may be a problem when you cant find a Linden in the SL world right now.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

There's are different views about 'SL2' in the SL community. But the vast majority haven't even heard about it.

[Shockwave yareach]

If sl2 is not the only sl, and all our land and purchases won't move over to it, then how is this any different than all the other grids like Inworldz? If people won't move out of sl because of their investments, then they won't move to sl2 either. And then LL will be paying for two grids, only the new one will be devoid of both content and the builders to create it.

If they can't translate existing stuff into the new grid, then they need some better programmers as well as new executives. Nobody is going to dump all their stuff to go to sl2 anymore than they dumped their stuff to go to any other grid.

[Desmond Shang]

It doesn't really matter what anyone builds for a next generation 'world' per se.

What matters is creative control over it. That, in fact, is what people pay for and what people can make money on, selling. The venture capitalists, the platform owners, and people like us.

* * * * *

Technically, many platforms are at their most successful when they are still close to their worst. Or even, at their worst *and* breaking down regularly. Some stay embarrassingly low tech on purpose, because they fully understand it doesn't really matter. Example: minecraft.

In the beginning, SL had a lot of freedom. For many, it wasn't too terribly different from the level of freedom one might have, in say, Grand Theft Auto. Because nothing yet mattered much. $L weren't money yet; land 'ownership' was still evolving, and very little was taken seriously. Now, it's perfectly technically possible for people to commit felonies on the platform. Fraud, gaming, vice crimes, theft, you name it. We still have freedom, of course. But it's tinged with responsibility, not escapism. Slay a dragon now, and it is very likely to file an abuse report.

It was the search for creative control, both on grand visionary levels and in every little way, that originally drove SL to fantastic heights. People wanted creative control over their environments, their social landscapes, their digital bodies... every last little thing. And they were willing to pay for it dearly.

It never much mattered if someone else made the bits and bobs. Just assembling prepurchased material was enough creative control for most.

And above all, when things weren't ideal, it was the *promise* of creative control that kept people going. Would things get better? This is why Ebbe is right to stress 'better' as the #1 talking point. Regardless if it truly is better for everyone, or not. They have to try.

In particular, creative freedom intersects poorly with 'real money' as we have all seen. Combine the two, and almost certainly the 'real life' wealthy start the game with near total freedom, while many others are stuck staring longingly at it from behind banlines or 'buy' buttons.

I am not offering a solution here, even if one comes to mind. Corporations need money to survive, of course, and a small number of wealthy players can (in essence) subsidise a platform for legions of free players. And that equalising costs for all players may do more social harm than good for those on the low income end. The point of all this, is that *this* is the problem to solve; this is the business model at hand. At what price creative control, and how much can truly be for sale?

[Darien Caldwell]

Just because someone supports SL 2.0, doesn't mean they don't support SL 1.0. That's a silly assertion. SL is the best VW out there, that's true. And hoping Linden Lab can build on that success to make something even better doesn't diminish that in any way.

Assuming SL 2.0 is better, SL 1.0 will still be the best world up until that point. But nothing lasts forever. That's all that people are recognizing.

[Darien Caldwell]

"Now that all of us have adopted Google Glass as just a part of our everyday life and ..."

LOL what planet are you on? :O) I'd say the vast majority have rejected Google Glass as part of everyday life.

[Amanda Dallin]

"Now that all of us have adopted Google Glass as just a part of our everyday life and ..."

I took that as a facetious statement since it's as silly as Hamlet's assertions about SL users.

[A.J.]

"Now that all of us have adopted Google Glass as just a part of our everyday life and ..."

Amanda wins for recognizing my nastiness.

I thought Google Glass was dumb and SL Go had problems. And now the next big thing is Oculus Rift.

I keep thinking... but you have to wear that box on your face! What person can afford to be that detached and vulnerable? It's grounds for divorce and it's the stuff that merits a call to child services. So then, it's for kids.

Well, the kiddies shouldn't be in an adult virtual world. So why build a virtual world around it?

[Tracy RedAngel]

SL Go still has problems. They still haven't updated the viewer to support fitted mesh, so if you're around a lot of it, it's a hot mess. Yet the pimping continues....

[Carlos Loff]

I don't know what People are doing on SL - Kitely is a good example of a professional company that picked OpenSim and made it better, reliable, very very cheap and evolving - Im stating this from inside a 16 SIMs World I have for only 50$ a month - 100 Avatar allowance - no lag - 100.000 prims allowance - Leave SL alone unless your are rich

[zzpearlbottom]

Sorry, but you do forget this:
When i want, i grab a boat and move from server to server on Sl without very lil harass (Sim crossings are good now).
On kitely, i can't cross until the server is up (at least a minute waiting).
So, despite having a region on kitely for over 3 years (yes i think i was one of the 1st to have a world there) and recognizing it's importance to Open sim development and that kitely can be what SL missed long ago, the bridge that connects virtual worlds (with a marketplace, with hypergrid, is as easy now to visit a world on Kitely just by teleporting from Osgrid or any other grid that has hypergrid, I do believe that for some like me and many (Yesterday for example, Leeward Sailing cruise gathered more then 50 sailing boats, that filled 3 sims, for its weekly cruise, that went for over an hour across nautilus, for over more then 30 sims) Sl with its mainland and its swift crossing sims is without rival (Even if Inworldz is doign a tremendous effort on that, as they know that the 1st grid that offers better vehicle travels will atract, not only the sailing, but the biking, the racing , the flying communities that so far don't have a choice but Sl).

[Dr Feelgood]

@ ZZpearl & Carlos

Stop wasting your time with open sim they have had 8 years to get things right just like second life has had going on 12 years but both are failures to live up to their true potential.

https://highfidelity.io/company is the future
.......................

SL2 will be a closed version borrowed from HiFi with a custom back end & a different game engine.

It is just a fork of freeware people will soon find that out it is just a HiFi clone that uses linden servers instead of your pc & owns your creator content instead of you & they will own the world instead of you.

Deluxe & Infinity [LW] Linden Worldz $175 to $400 a month

Hifi Universe 3rd Servers Costs $30 to $150
that you own with full control & your own rules

Rewrote title..

"With Announcement of Second Life 2 & High Fidelity , SLers Must Consider Embracing Virtual Worlds Unlike What They Know Now"

[zzpearlbottom]

Virtual worlds are not for the masses but for the old, the poor and the farmers (Yes Philip i will not forget that, never!).
So i for sure not see myself on that Hf or Facebook virtual reality and if Sl2 is on the same path, not there as well, but rather stay on the niche that are the actual virtual worlds, a niche that im proud of being in and that will survive, with our without SL.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Hamlet said: "Actually Minecraft gained rapid growth as a sandbox survival game first; the massive UGC content explosion happened a bit afterward."

Minecraft is BRILLIANT. And you're right, it launches you out there with nothing but your bare hands and ingenuity.

But it's not primarily a social experience. And here's the kicker -- it gives you eight times the surface area of planet Earth to play with for a one-time charge of what, five bucks?

If Third World does that, then yes, they could call every Second Life creator personally, insult their parentage and suggest anatomically unlikely actions, and we'd come to the party anyway because we can't resist a blank canvas for (almost) free.

But if it follows the Second Life model and gives the average user a tiny plot (or no land at all) with minimal prima allowances for a premium recurring fee...

If it requires advanced skill with professional-grade third-party modeling and graphics tools to create anything you're not actively embarassed by...

If it wants to be the premier virtual world destination at launch and not several years later...

Then they need to get out there and start kissing some creator backside on a very personal and individual level. The pool of people who can produce top-quality content in such a scenario is limited, and other markets are (slowly) opening up for those skills.

Honestly, I'd prefer the scenario where it's so cheap and easy to produce high-quality goods within the built-in tools that an individual's design aesthetic is a more important determinator of success than facility with tools or marketing skill. If that's the model, the big talent will tend to gravitate towards it anyway, because let's face it -- just because you've mastered Blender or Maya doesn't mean that you enjoy using them if they're barriers to pure creativity.

But frankly, I don't think Linden Lab has the programming chops or drive to pull that off. So if they can't appeal to the high-end creators with the technical skills to build a compelling virtual world for them, they're hosed long before they even launch.

[Dr Feelgood]

@ zzpearlbottom
"a niche that im proud of being in and that will survive, with our without SL."

Good for you & just remember there are still people who use There.com so no worry's.

Open sim could have had voxel's 5 years ago when a developer wanted to help integrate it into the platform.. Core Developers said no

Open sim could have had its own viewer 7 years ago .. Core Developers said no

Open sim could break compatibility with Second life to developers new features .. Core Developers said no

Open sim refuses to fix the bugs by doing an overhaul that would stop development by 1 year but fix every single bug & uniform the code..
Core Developers said no (linden style)

Open sim is in alpha with no plans to ever offer an end product fully polished & completed..

New Features are decided by core developers not the user base.

Fragmented Roadmap

Instead of fixing all the bugs and offering a robust platform they force others to fork the software that leaves the platform more unstable user compatibility wise with no uniform system.

The platform is a dead end for true business development ask IBM or Sun Micro.

The lindens are not much further above.
seeing how this technology is derived from the first dead wave of virtual worlds from the mid to late 1990s (20 years ago).

a huge learning curve that most people have little time to learn or develop but great for the old, the poor and the farmers

[Ajax Manatiso]

SL2 will be much better than current SL and everyone will want SL2 and not original SL -- just like everyone liked New Coke and no one liked original Coke. I think this will ring true and LL will be firing "the idiots" who thought investing in SL2 was a good idea. (And Ebbe will be putting on his resume that he never liked SL2 and advised against it.)

[Carlos Loff]

Little detail - Worlds Opening - compared with the humongous advantages on land price - In Kitely you find several creators of 9 or 16 Sims worlds and when you enter them all 16 Sims are up and running and better connected than on SL (Megaregion Mode) - Forget looking for a piece of mainland ocean and come to whole continuous 16 SIMs detailed sailing worlds at Kitely

[Gordon]

Kitely isn't a 'world'. It is a database of stored regions. They are all offline whithout avatars. If one have pets or plants with scripted usage of resources, then nothing happens while in offline mode.

No, Kitely isn't a virtual world!

[Pussycat Catnap]

@Carlos:
"I don't know what People are doing on SL - Kitely
Im stating this from inside a 16 SIMs World
********************

My world has some 25,000 to 27,000 sims, and 50,000-70,000 user concurrency.

Your has 16 sims and a concurrency of what? 1 on average?

That is why people are in Second Life.

[RULosingHair]

SL Forum 03-27-2006

Question: What would make a good competitor for Second Life?

Answer: I say Garry's Mod... GMod already gives you the ability to run your own sim, with the server option. It lets visitors come by your sim. It lets you build inside your sim; you can both save what you build and save the state of your sim; and best of all it's very possible to both import and export objects to-and-from GMod -

That was 2006, now we have Garry's Mod 13 + Standalone Version 14.01.22 in 2014!

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/108/6a/96447/1.html