Okay, so I’ve had a few too many “Second Life” posts lately. I’ll do my best to make this the last one for at least a few days.

The other day I bought my land- yesterday I put the finishing touches on my house.

I like the “rustic” look as opposed to the modern appearance many favour. The house itself is something I purchased at a shop.

I’ve also been working on the interior…

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In real life, I own a home. Well, actually, the bank owns most of it. But in Second Life, I now actually own a piece of property.

This is a view from 30 metres or so in the air- my view of the ocean is not so good at ground level, but I like the area. I didn’t pick this area using a great deal of logic- I was looking for land, flying around looking at lots, and in the game saw me flying by and called me over. Jessica spent about an hour chatting with me about land ownership. She invited me into her home and let me wander around to get some ideas regarding how many primatives (”prims“) a lot of a certain size can support. She also pointed me in the direction of some lots a friend of hers was selling. I decided to buy my property more or less based on a snap decision.

So why own virtual land? One reason- if you want a place to “put” your stuff in Second Life so other people can see it, you want land. Every object consists of primatives, and land is what is required for those primitives. Another reason, and the main one for me, is that its “neat” or “fun”: sort of like having a virtual house construction kit. You can change the topology of the land you buy, construct your house (which you can buy in prebuilt modules if you like), and then you get to furnish the place. I spent four or five hours just assembling my house- I’ll have pictures of that later, once I figure out how to get that pesky tree out of my living room

There is a lot of buzz in the on-line community lately about a “game” called Second Life. And not just amongst traditional gamers- there are folks within many big companies that are experimenting with this world which relies almost entirely on user created content. What’s the big deal?

I “get” the concept behind Second Life. Firstly, in essence it’s like a big playground. There are some basic physical laws, but no real “game”- instead, users can create their own content. Objects like a table, a chair…or even a pair of ears or a new face…heck, even an entire new body for their character to wear: all of these things can be created by any user. Objects a user creates can have scripted behaviors- a table could have a fold out extension, or those ears I mentioned could wiggle. Even more intriguing, an objects behavior could be based on something outside the game: virtual weather in an area could be based on real-world weather reports, for example- or a soccer ball could move based on telemetry from a real-world soccer ball.

Secondly, anything a user creates in Second Life is “theirs”. Unlike other games like EverQuest or World of Warcraft, anything new a user creates actually “belongs” to them, not to the folks who run Second Life. The user can copy, buy, or sell items as much as they want. Add to this the fact that in game money (Lindon dollars, or L$) can be bought for real world money via an official money exchange. So…if you are artistic, you could create a new painting for someone to hang on a wall in their virtual Second Life house (assuming they have a house…that costs money too), and you could earn a real-world living from it. Basically everything is for sale. People have bought Second Life “land”, subdivided it, and sold it out at a real world profit. Thousands of dollars of profit, actually.

What kinds of things can players make? Anything, really- cars, planes, helicoptors, horses. Houses, stadiums, entire islands. A mouth, an ear, different eyes, or sex organs. A tattoo, or a different hair style, or a dance animation. A completely new player avatar…it doesn’t have to be remotely humanoid- one I saw was a butterfly. A networkable vendor kiosk complete with financial management and automatic emails to the owner of sales status, or a security system complete with “repulsion fields” that can be attached to a home.
All of this is interesting enough, but is it a game? The game itself is free to download: you pay a subscription fee ($9.95 a month) if you want to own land, which at least to start is probably beyond most people. So I downloaded it and tried it out. My opinions? Well, I can see how people could get addicted to Second Life, even though I can’t really detect a “game” here in the traditional sense. Anyone who comes to Second Life expecting to go out and slay some monsters or something is in for a rude shock.

So what did I do in Second Life? Here’s a brief list:

• First, I went through an orientation that told me how to walk around and change my appearance

• I made an avatar that sort of looks like me: dumpy looking, skinny with a pot-belly, red hair. I couldn’t get the face quite right

• The clothing I’m wearing in the picture above came later: the default clothing you get is basically a pair of blue jeans and a white T-Shirt
• While experimenting with my appearance, I discovered that the method for changing your appearance is not only very flexible, but that you can have multiple appearance “packages”, including body shape, physical attachments, and scripted behaviors…and just drag and drop to switch between them
• then I “teleported” into the main part of the game world; I found a car dealership which offered to give me a free test drive. I spent five minutes driving around a car that really couldn’t be said to be much more than a dressed up roller skate: fun, but its not a simulator
• I wandered around near the car dealership, and stumbled through some private homes- some had “security systems” that kicked me away. Those that let me in varied in terms of furnishings and details radically
• I talked to another player who’s name indicated she was a “Trainer” from something called TeaZers University…at the time, I had no idea what this was, but I’ve later learned that TeaZers is a fairly well respected educational community within the game…I have no idea how or why this exists, but apparently they even pay their instructors. Anyway, this young lady gave me some guidance (including a landmark so I could find the University) while I admired her ears…yes, her ears. She was a normal human avatar, except for a pair of “cat” ears that were swivelling and and wiggling realistically- scripted objects attached to a person
• I wandered some more and found a shop selling complete new avatars- critter avatars (wolfs, felines, etc). I liked what I saw, so I made note of where the place was- they also had “freebies”- the T-Shirt I’m wearing in the above picture, which has an advertisement for their shop on the back
• Off I went to check out the location of TeaZers University- I found a bunch of people (instructors) playing with different body modifications and outfits, and also received some more free items- the pants and boots I’m wearing in the above picture plus many other odds and ends

Netting it out…I still really don’t know if Second Life would keep me interested over any really extended period. A lot would depend on the social network that you build in the game, and I’m generally anti-social. Another thing that might keep me interested would be if I got involved in creating things…but from what I’ve seen, this market is flooded with highly talented people with lots of spare time. Making something purely for my own amusement would become boring after a while, and I lack the artistic talent to make the visually appealing things people would want to buy.

Second Life is an intriguing place. It’s not for your “average” gamer…I’d say its more appealing for people who might like the Sims, or who want a graphical chat program they can customize. People who partake of more free-form MUDs and MUCKs would likely find much to appreciate here. And, from the large selection of “functional” sexual body parts and animations that can be acquired, I’d say Second Life would appeal to people who enjoy pixellated sex.

But then I’ve barely even skimmed the surface- I’m sure there are much greater depths to be found in Second Life. I know some schools are using the “restricted” (PG/teen) areas for on-line education. I could also see businesses using Second Life for informal presentations for the same reason they have streaming videos of conferences: it “personalizes” things. Thus far it seems like whatever it is Second Life offers has attracted enough participants to make it sustainable, and that in itself is intriguing.

I’ve been playing computer games for…<shudder> decades. The first computer game I played was probably a text adventure game I hand-typed into my Apple II from a magazine. I saved it to cassette tape…I think the game had something to do with exploring an abandoned mine, but I’m not sure. That would have been about 1979/1980 or thereabouts: my memory is a bit hazy.

I still remember calling the support line for the first Ken and Roberta Williams game I played on my Apple, maybe a year later- I’m not sure what it was called, but it had graphics and you typed in text commands, and there was a snake I couldn’t figure out how to kill. I’d been playing for hours, and it was about 2:00 am, when I flipped the zip-lock baggy over that held the documentation and noticed a phone number. I called and talked to Ken Williams…yep, at 2:00 in the morning, one of the founding fathers of computer gaming was programming away and answering his “tech support line”. I apologized for bothering him, he said something like “No problem, I was awake programming”, and then he gave me a hint…look at the rocks. I did, found a rock I could pick up, and bashed the snake. I was hooked…computer games were fantastic!

When I met my wife Irene we were both about 25 years old. We met at a stable- she was “horsey”, and so was I, although for me it was a passing thing- Irene still has a horse and, although I still love the equines, I’m not a rider any longer. I was still playing computer games when I met Irene. I’m still playing computer games today. Now and then I’ve managed to convince Irene to play on a game or two with me: Golden Axe on the console, Baldur’s Gate on the PC…just her and me, and always fun. But until fairly recently, I haven’t been able to convince her to play a massively multiplayer game. But then there was EverQuest 2…

I’ve tried to pin Irene down on why she has been playing EQ2 with me, and not other online games in the past. What has changed? She’s not sure…maybe it was the fact that she had time on her hands because of not being able to ride much lately- her hips have made it too painful to ride for a while, and more recently she’s had hip surgery which has reduced her mobility quite a bit. Or perhaps it’s because EverQuest 2 has the Kerra- cat people. And Irene is a cat person…although without the fur and claws. Or maybe she wants to have some shared time with me…although why, I’ll never know

Whatever the reason, now she comes to *me* to ask when we are playing EverQuest next. Sure, we just play as a duo, and our gaming sessions are fairly short (an hour or two at a time), but we do play, and it’s fun. I’m a lucky guy: a lot of married men who play computer games never manage to convince their wives to play alongside them. I just wish I knew how I managed to be so lucky

I’ve heard people say that they prefer the graphics in World of Warcraft over those in EverQuest 2. The discussions I’ve had with people about why they feel this way seem to boil down to a description of the characters in EQ looking “plastic”, “like corpses”, or “not cool”.

I like the graphics in EverQuest 2. But I’ve heard reference in the past to something called the “Uncanny Valley“, and now that I’ve spent all of five minutes reading up on it, I think I see how this applies to this discussion.

The basic premise behind the Uncanny Vally goes like this: at one end of a scale lies something which is somewhat human like but obviously artificial (E.G.: the characters in World of Warcraft). Such characters tend to inspire empathy in people: we feel “sorry” for them, or overcome their limitations by filling in the blanks between their obviously artifical nature and something “human”. At the other end of the scale are things that look and act truly human: we feel empathy for these things as well, since, well, they are “us”. Somewhere in between are things that look very human, but are subtly wrong: corpses or the seriously ill fall into this category. They move wrong, or don’t sweat, or have skin tone that is a bit “off”…such characters make us uncomfortable.

I think its possible that the characters in EQ2, somewhat like the characters in the movie Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within, are somewhere in that “valley” of empathy. They look just a bit too realistic for some people, and the things that are “wrong” (skin tone, motion, lack of sweat…) are disturbing. Although this makes sense to me, it does raise a question: why didn’t Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within bother me? And why do I like EverQuest 2? I know the characters aren’t “real” people, yet I appreciate their proximity to reality. I don’t find the flaws jarring: I think I would find it more jarring if they were so perfect that I couldn’t distinguish the real from the machine generated.

And that difference between the way I perceive things in regards to this so-called “uncanny valley” and the way some others do intrigues me. My threshold is at a different point, I guess. The day I watch a movie with a computer generated character that is so human that I can’t believe it isn’t human is the day I’ll feel a bit spooked out. I wonder why other folks feel that discomfort at an earlier point than I do?

Technorati Tags: Computer games, Graphics, Uncanny Valley

Back in the bad old days (circa 1999), massively multi-player online games allowed player to player interaction. I’m not talking about player killing: I’m referring to the ability of one player’s actions to impact another, for good or ill. Then things began to change…and I don’t personally believe the changes were all for the better.
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I play massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs, or sometimes MMORPG if the game is of the roleplaying type). At times in the past seven years or so, playing these games has consumed the lions share of my free time: up to about 20 or so hours a week.

When I first started playing, there was really only one: Ultima Online. I hated the PvP environment in UO so much that I would never go back after I quit, and nearly didn’t ever play a MMOG again…but thankfully (?) I tried EverQuest at the urging of my nephew. And for a couple of years, that was really the “only game in town”

I’ve found myself with more and more “good” games to choose from as the industry has matured. So has everyone else: this has fragmented groups of old gaming companions as we’ve ended up in various games. More choices has, for me, actually been a little bit of a curse along with the blessing.

I’ve bounced around through several games over the past couple of years- sometimes because I personally wanted a change, sometimes because someone I played with regularly wanted to move. Each time I move, there is a period during which I usually find it difficult to cancel the “old” game…just in case.

Once again I find myself paying two subscription fees: one for World of Warcraft, one for EverQuest 2. Since I was initially playing EQ2, then played WoW, then went back (about two weeks ago) to EQ2, I’m really in a bit of a quandry.

I should just cancel my WoW account and be done with it….but what if we change our minds again? Sigh

I got my MMOG “fix” today…several hours of monster slaying in World of Warcraft with Shane, Monique, and Bryan…that’s the best kind of gaming for me. Then, a little later in the evening, I logged in again and finished a handful of quests.

I have to wonder about the way I play MMOGs, though. I love to be in a group of people I know and trust…people I’ve gamed with for years. The ultimate expression of this, of course, is the list of names in the above paragraph: my Nephew, his wife, and my brother in law. Family. But when it comes to grouping with people I don’t know…well, I forget that whole massively multiplayer part of the game entirely

Case in point: while working on my quests, I came to one part where a particular gnome had to be slain. There was another player nearby when I arrived at the scene, so I checked with him…sure enough, he was waiting for the same gnome. Since he was there first, I tell this other player “when the gnome shows up, he’s yours- I’ll wait.” The other fellow replies…”Uhm, we could group up and both get credit for him at the same time…”. D’Oh…yes, we could.

Forming up a group, possibly with a stranger: that’s at the heart of MMO gaming, and yet here I was playing like it was a single player game. I joined forces with this fellow, we killed our gnome, and everything went well. But here’s the question- why wasn’t grouping up the first thing I thought of?

The whole online gaming phenomena has created some odd social dynamics. To an extent, other players, thousands of them, are kind of like your next door neighbor in modern urban society. You know they are they, you appreciate there presence, but except in rare cases you really don’t want to get too close. If you talk to that neighbor, maybe invite them over for coffee, you are trapped: if they turn out to be jerks, or just incompatible, you can’t get rid of them…they are right next door. I can hear you saying “But I like my neighbors, and I love socializing”- hey, great for you! But that isn’t the way my mind works- I’m a natural loner.

And in a MMOG, everyone is “right next door”: every time you log in, if someone wants to they can know about it. Everyone has to go through certain areas…chokepoints, sort of…to get from area to area, to shop, to train- so you are bound to run into that “irritating neighbor” again and again. And since its a game, its something you do for fun- who wants their fun ruined by an unwanted intruder?

Thus I take the path of least risk- I avoid grouping with strangers. Strange…that word pretty much fits me

My life is made up of little patterns…things that I do that fit together in a way that makes me feel comfortable. I get up at a certain time, I read my email, I check my websites, I go to work…pretty much always the same sequence. It makes me feel comfortable and good.

One of my “patterns” for several years has been playing massively multiplayer games several times a week. First it was Ultima Online, then EverQuest, then Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Asheron’s Call 2, Star Wars Galaxies (beta only), Final Fantasy XI Online, EverQuest 2…and most recently World of Warcraft. Throughout all of these games I’ve had a partner in crime: my Nephew, Shane.

I’ve cut down quite a bit on my MMOG playing time during the last year or so. Back in my EverQuest days, I was playing 20+ hours a week. At the end of 2004, I was down to maybe 8 or 10 hours a week playing EverQuest 2. That’s all been good: I still have had my “prime” play time on the weekends.

My Nephew recently started cutting back his MMOG play time as well. Now, between us, we are down to maybe one day a week, usually Saturdays. Sometimes I come home on Friday from work and I’m not really sure what to do with myself. There is a “gap” in my schedule that I haven’t quite figured out how to fill.

I sometimes miss the old patterns. But change is healthy. I usually go for years with the same patterns, then boom, change a bunch of things, often rather radically. For example, for years I was getting up as much as two hours before I had to leave for work, spending that extra time puttering around reading and such. Recently I’ve started sleeping in until half an hour before I have to leave, and flying through my morning ablutions without “wasting” any time. I’ve started to sort of like that extra sleep time. Likewise, I’ve started to find things to fill the time I used to spend playing MMOGs.

Who knows what I’ll be doing a month from now? But those comforting patterns that rule my life sometimes become a rut. Its good to check out other alternatives now and then