Here's a good video from longtime gaming/SL YouTuber Luca, who is demonstrably more passionate about improving Second Life than most people at Linden Lab. In it, Luca basically argues that Second Life can and should modernize its presentation and first-time user experience so it appeals to current gamers, and add a great opening setpiece -- i.e. a dramatic, exciting experience that gets these starting users interested in finding out more about the world and how to use it.
"Setpieces matter," as Luca puts it to me now. "They set the tone and perception of how modern or ahead something is more than words can do." (I said something similar about the opening setpiece to Scavengers, which a Linden vet helped create.)
"Other platforms are increasingly filling the shoes of dedicated social virtual worlds," Luca goes on, "and many that are not inherently social are adding more social features. Second Life's uniqueness in term of individual features is diminishing rapidly but it is still very unique as a whole, we just need to up our game in how we communicate that uniqueness and unique selling proposition."
This is all true. As an example of what current games are doing, Luca includes some screengrabs from Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Citizen, the MMO with a passionate following. But that's not to suggest Luca's suggesting Second Life look like Star Citizen per se:
Continue reading "Why: Why Second Life Needs a Better Presentation & Starting Setpiece" »
Here's How Second Life's New iOS App Could Bring In a New Generation of Mobile Users
Pictured: Pocket Metaverse, a third party iOS app for accessing select Second Life features from 2010
With the iOS app for Second Life coming soon, reader and blogger Devin Vaughn sketches out a fascinating vision for how it could transform the virtual world. While the app itself is launching with very limited features (the late-lamented Pocket Metaverse from over a decade ago was actually more robust), Devin sees a chance to bring in a new wave of mobile users:
VRChat actually does something like this, for users of the Oculus Quest, enabling them to teleport to worlds that have been optimized to run on the Quest. That way, VRC users are able invite their Quest-owning friends into the "kiddie pool" of VRChat. (That's how I first got to meet Syrmor in VRChat!)
"Imagine if SL had mobile-only sims for mobile style avatars," Devin muses:
Continue reading "Here's How Second Life's New iOS App Could Bring In a New Generation of Mobile Users" »
Posted on Monday, July 12, 2021 at 03:39 PM in Comment of the Week, Making SL Mass Market | Permalink | Comments (8)
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