
A reader who signs themself "LGBT+ anon" throws some important and necessary cold water on my tribute to virtual worlds as safe havens for LGBT people:
Virtual worlds are surely helpful to LGBT+ people, gender expression and more, and in general I agree, but since we are talking about safety and "safe havens" after this election, I think it's important a word of caution. Apart from some abusive people you could meet also in virtual worlds, I won't feel safe with USA-based Internet companies, as David Bell said, even less now and in the next years.
Second Life is an especially bad case: communication is still sent plain-text and it's logged, with anything you did and where you did go. They keep the info for long, also the employees access to those logs, your other data and your inventory. That's for tech support, but also to investigate abuse reports. For those purposes it is fine, right? Except it's well known... that US government agencies spied on virtual worlds, among which Second Life.
Now, think about all this under a hostile government. Yikes!
More from LGBT+ anon and my reply after the break:
Dear Linden Lab: Advertise Second Life's Huge Geography Compared to Most (All?) Online Games -- Comment of the Week
The new test ad for Second Life attracted quite a bit of opinions from longtime SL users, including some on-brand snark -- and this smart suggest from longtime virtual world explorer Kaylee West:
As a regular user of both SL (17 years) and VRChat (6 years), one of the big things that keeps me in SL and frustrates me with VRC is how much easier it is the change up my avis look and wardrobe in SL than VRC.
I also feel, strangely, that the continents are a big selling point. Many AAA games boast about how big their maps are, how you can endlessly explore every corner of their maps. [Emphasis mine! -WJA]
VRC has some biggish worlds, but nothing like SL's continents and Blake Sea. Only in SL can you buy a luxury yacht and sail for hours on end, stopping at different port and explore the surrounds, or jump in a car of your choice and drive around an extensive road network.
From another perspective, there appears to be a growing number of people looking for AI companions. I have made one for myself so that I have "intelligent" company when I travel around SL (not all of us are good at the socialising thing). Maybe making the creation of AI companions (actual avatars not animesh which can't be rezzed) easier and highlighting this as a feature of SL (as against Replika or Kindred) might draw these users in?
I believe something like those AI companions are coming soon, so set that aside. The map size point is a very good one, especially since SL is a single-shard virtual world with truly massive areas that are contiguous by land, air, or sea. (Yes, region crossings usually involve hiccups, but still.) It's a key differentiating feature of Second Life!
Consider: Currently Second Life's size is roughly that of Los Angeles (as Philip Rosedale recently noted in an interview), i.e. 1300 square kilometers.
Contrast that with some leading AAA online game worlds:
Continue reading "Dear Linden Lab: Advertise Second Life's Huge Geography Compared to Most (All?) Online Games -- Comment of the Week" »
Posted on Monday, February 03, 2025 at 03:50 PM in Comment of the Week, Linden Lab News & Analysis | Permalink | Comments (5)
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