How Linden Lab Could Create a Minecraft-Style Game Mode in Second Life

Last week's Comment of the Week included the toss-off line "Second Life cannot be changed to be like Minecraft," but reader Will Burns has this week's Comment of the Week arguing just the opposite:

I have to disagree that SL cannot be evolved closer to the Minecraft model. You already have object materials. You already have the damage indicator. There's just no compelling reason to use them. This is because they were never fully fleshed out and implemented as their own options.

That is where LL dropped the ball. Evolving those already existing attributes and giving them purpose baked into the very nature of SL experience itself and not an arbitrary or superficial addition.

By creating the need for it, it makes the experience compelling long term.

Effectively, you'll end up with a Game Mode sim option where items have durability, people have various stats like and RPG, materials can be harvested and used for items to determine durability and so on.

This wouldn't be a foreign concept either, because you'd just be building the mechanics of Life2 HUD and its various components into the grid itself native.

For those who want to set their sim to God Mode, then those game rules are suspended in such spaces and SL operates in those zones like it does now. Leave those zones and the mortality may resume.

Then you start new users out in the mortality mode in an area that can help cater to those needs. They will figure it out from there. Just like in Minecraft where nobody specifically tells you to punch trees. It's emergent behavior.

Yes. In Second Life's early days, the damage-enabled Outlands had much of this spirit and consequently, had a vibrant culture of its own. It really wouldn't take much effort or cost for Linden Lab to experiment with creating a whole new Gamer continent, and see if it gets any traction. And there's already numerous Second Life users building Minecraft-type content. One or two developers could do this in a year or two, so what's the downside?

Comments

[Summer Haas]

Are we talking about the same game that after 15 years can't figure out how to make 2 avatars give a proper hug? Now we want it to track 134 million prims in a sim. Who comes up with this stuff?

[Amanda]

This would be fine as long as it's an option and not forced on anyone. If I wanted to be in Minecraft I would be in Minecraft.

[TDGunner]

Hey, how ‘bout Linden Labs work on Second Life? We have Minecraft already. If I want to play Minecraft; I will play Minecraft, or Roblox. If I want to wait endlessly for a simulation to load without having anyone else in the world, I will play Sansar.

I, however, would like to play Second Life and there is a boatload of work they could do to make it work better. Let's spend time and money on the moneymaker for the company.

[pokemon let's go]

I think minecraft is boring..maybe some version of pokemon lets go for avatar? just joking

[Pulsar]

Well, it's a fact that the Minecraft model is way more successful. The evidence of the sheer numbers is there. Had Second Life developed in that way, maybe now Second Life would be the current Minecraft. It would be a different beast and... with a different audience.

Instead Second Life has been made and developed as it is now. Being like that, it attracted another kind of audience. Compared to your typical MMOG, you can see more retired, disabled and people with any kind of issue, that seek for company or comfort in various ways. There are small spiritual communities too.

In Second Life, for many people, there is relax and escapism, instead of grinding to level up a character.

Although most people call it a "game" and they say they "play" Second Life, and besides roleplay regions, the relationship user-avatar is quite variegated and it tends to be different than the typical gamer-character relationship.

So what's fun in Second Life, for the audience that has been attracted? Let's see. Simply write in your Second Life profile that you are only looking for fun: there would be immediately who translates "fun" as "indulging into erotic fantasies without sentimental involvement", unless you specify that better. If you say you want to have fun in Minecraft, I don't think pixel bumping would be the first thought to so many dudes.
In fact, despite someone who takes Second Life as dating agency or an erotic game and believes everyone must be there for the same reason, you can have fun in many other different ways in Second Life - and no, I don't mean just dressing up an selfies - and you can ignore that virtual flirting and erotic stuff entirely (or almost); but it's a fact that there is a strong presence of "adult" content and that SL is banned from Twitch. At some point, Second Life attracted that component, possibly driving away someone else, who felt uncomfortable with that.

Minecraft is a creative game, with a rule-set to do this to get that. Second Life used to be a quite creative sandbox with those cubes and primitives and you know what? That was social too. There still are creative people, but the inworld creation tools have been left alone: rather to improve and extend them, you are directed outside SL, relying on external professional or semi-professional software to make something good.
While Minecraft thrives, that fun part inside SL is almost gone.

However, in Second Life there is this audience now, and SL is helpful to some people.
I agree that Second Life doesn't have to turn into a Minecraft-ish game for everyone, I feel the same. I think everyone here agrees that it should be optional.
I can imagine setting up a new SL continent dedicated to that. If new users come, that won't be to the detriment of the existing user-base.
Linden Lab already created game regions within SL: Paleoquest, Linden Realms... and yes, a Pokemon-go-like game too, scattered around the grid, that maybe needed to be developed further to stay interesting for longer.

[Ac Market]

Thank you so much for the information