I wish this is what the future holds… but, somehow I doubt it.

Virtual Society future, video, Virtual Society

The eastern most island in the Tiki Island chain now has an amusement park in it, which just opened today! So now I have an excuse to check out There again, lets see what we find.

If you have There, open the There internal browser to this link : http://webapps.prod.there.com/funzone/funzone?op=view&id=558847237

Woohoo, Love the Ferris Wheel, and it is fully rideable, just click on an empty seat as it scrolls by (it makes occasional stops too).

For a swinging time, try the pirate ship.

Um, dude what are you doing down there?

After riding the Tilt-A-Whirl, I’m about ready to hurl.

Virtual Society exploring, There

In part one, I mentioned that Second Life players can pretty much be lumped into two categories: Role Players, and Virtual Utopians.

The role players are the ones who come into the game pretending to be someone else. It could be as simple as a change of race or gender, or as complicated as an alter ego. This is what Second Life was designed to be. There are lots of people who play as animals, or mythological creatures (there is a large Vampire subculture), or warrior like characters. There are also accompanying settings for all of these roles.

There is also the subculture of sexual role play. A lot of people who are in real life probably decent upstanding citizens, like to roleplay all sorts of sexual fantasies. Escorts and strippers are pretty frequently viewed. There is also Furby sex (people playing as animals) which is pretty much can only happen virtually. But there is also some sexual role playing that personally are a turn off for me. You have of course your BDSM groups, which are big enough that even if you are just a casual explorer in SL you have probably run into various props. Another related subculture are the Goreans or Master-Slave role players. Related to these is of course Ageplay where the submissive player takes the role of a child.

There has been a recent crackdown on ageplay in Second Life, partly because of its association with pedophelia and even fake pedophelia is illegal in some European countries, where Second Life is growing in numbers (in fact, Second Life is more popular in Europe than the US right now.) But the truth is that ageplay in second life always involves two consenting adults. Yes, occasionally kids make their way onto the main grid, but in order not to get caught, they ALWAYS play as adults. So any child avatars you see running around SL are adults role-playing.

The role-players of Second Life are pretty universally upset with the crackdown on ageplay. Not because they condone ageplay, but because a crackdown on one form of role-playing sets a precedence that other potentially offensive forms of role playing could find themselves under close scrutiny as well.

The other side of the player set are the Virtual Utopians. They pretty much play the game as themselves, or more accurately an idealized version of themselves… at age 20 and with a perfect body hair makep and clothing. They come to SL for various reasons, mostly to meet people, or make money, or build the perfect house.

From a standpoint of someone interested in making a mainstream metaverse, it is the virtual utopian view that should be emphasized. The Role Players do not have to be sold on a metaverse, but the vast majority of the population are not role player types.

And there lies the reality for Linden Labs and all other virtual world companies. If you really want to see growth, you have to sell the game to the virtual utopians out there. One upcoming virtual world (ok it was PS3 Home) has already announced that roleplay is pretty much discouraged and unsupported in the game.

So it comes as no surprise that virtually all upcoming changes encourage VU behavior rather than RP, even the seemingly innocent ones.

• Lets start with Voice (which apparently wont be out for a few months). As a rule, role players dont like voice. It spoils the illusion, especially because most role players are crappy voice actors. Having been in There when voice came out, I can tell you that voice will have a divisive effect on the community. there will be those that refuse to use it, and those that refuse to associate with people that don’t use it. Virtual Utopians, in general like voice.
• Age Verification (which rumor has it may not even happen) is another anti role play move. Role players prefer to keep online activities and real life activities as seperate as possible. The truth is, most role players don’t really give a damn who is on the other side of the keyboard, as long as they are into the same stuff.
• I have already pointed out how the crackdown on ageplay affects all role players.
• What about innocent radical changes like the new atmosphere effects? Role playing islands like strict control over their islands, and ideally want everyone to be experiencing the same thing. As cool as the atmosphere effects are, they will generally differ from player to player, thus at least partially disturbing the common experience of role play.
• Sculpted prims pretty much benefits everybody though.

Lets add to the list the potential disappearance of internet radio, which LL has nothing to do with, but will ruin the game in many ways as I wrote earlier. Bottom line is that the Second Life experience may be very different by the end of the year. I forsee a lot of voluntary exits by lots of old timers over these issues.

For years there has been room enough in Second Life for both groups, and to tell you the truth I feel affection for both philosophies and I don’t like seeing them pitted against each other.

Legal Issues

It is only fair that I wrap this up by acknowledging the growing legal mess LL finds itself in. This seems the fate of anyone trying to be new and different. I already mentioned in part one the whole TOS being legally scrutinized by a judge in Philadelphia. It is also well known that the casino crack down and ageplay crackdown were the result of regional laws (US in the case of Casinos, Ageplay in the case of Germany) where Second Life does a lot of business.

But there is another ugly side. A recent court case sets a precedent that if Linden Labs starts censoring the players, they will lose an exemption under the communications and decency act. Could LL be forced to legally censor everything?

Virtual Society philosophy, role play, secondlife, virtual law

For Sculpted Prim Experiment #2, I am going to create something both useful and something really amazing: I will not use any 3D software at all, just a photo editor.

While exploring I found a typical staircase which was really just a ramp with painted stairs on it. This is a common trick, because a ramp is one prim, and a staircase is at least one prim a step.

So I thought maybe I could create a sculpted prim staircase, but thanks to lessons learned from experiment #1, I figured out how to make a sculpted staircase using a photo editor only. I start with a blank white image, then edit the RGB layers seperately. The Red Channel is the x axis, so a gradient fill white to black going from left to right will do. Green is y axis, so a gradient fill white to black going from top to bottom will do.

Blue is the z axis warp, and I want a zig zag pattern. So I gradient fill a pattern from black to white to black, then copy, shrink the height to 20%, then paste 5 times as horizontal layers. After merging the RGB layers I get this:

Here is a TGA file of an 8 step stair case you can use yourself

So I open SL, upload my staircase sculpted prim pattern and create a sculpted prim. The result is an odd zig-zag shape:

But then a little stretching and rotating results in a one prim 5 step staircase:

While it is not perfect (feel free to experiment) one advantage is it is easily texturable.

Virtual Society building, sculpties, secondlife

I have been meaning to write a comprehensive essay on how many recent changes in SL may have a cumulative affect of making the world completely unrecognizable in a few months.

I want to do the story, but the changes keep coming and it is increasingly hard to keep up with it all. Here are two big hits that just came in the last 24 hours.

1. SL Terms of Service In Legal Limbo

Lets start with the big news from Bragg vs Linden Labs court case. Let me summarize:

Bragg: I found an exploit to make Lindens really cheap
Linden Labs: You are not allowed to do that!
Bragg: Your sucky code lets me, so it is legal!
Linden Labs: You still can’t do that so shut up! (account closed)
Bragg: You can’t close my account, I invested money!
Linden Labs: Yes we can, its in the TOS!
Bragg: Well your TOS sucks, I’m going to sue you!
Linden Labs: You cant sue us, its in the TOS!
Judge: Yes he can sue you, your TOS sucks!

Here is more on the case. Personally, I’m rooting for LL in this case, because Bragg is a “cracker lawyer” who should be thrown in jail for virtual land fraud.

Basically this means that the Terms of Service agreement you have to agree to is no longer legally binding and will have to be rewritten to be more fair to players who have a dispute with Linden Labs. Here is more on that.

2. Second Life’s Patriot and Domestic Surveillance Act

On the same day that a federal judge has put the TOS in jeopardy, ironically Linden Labs decides to release a vague statement to the affect that activities that many players engage in are now not allowed in Second Life anymore.

The diversity of things to see and do within Second Life is almost unimaginable, but our community has made it clear to us that certain types of content and activity are simply not acceptable in any form:

• Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors;
• real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual violence including rape,
• real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and other broadly offensive content

are never allowed or tolerated within Second Life.

Please help us to keep Second Life a safe and welcoming space by continuing to notify Linden Lab about locations in-world that are violating our Community Standards regarding broadly offensive and potentially illegal content.

Our team monitors such notification 24-hours a day, seven-days a week.

Individuals and groups promoting or providing such content and activities will be swiftly met with a variety of sanctions, including termination of accounts, closure of groups, removal of content, and loss of land.

It’s up to all of us to make sure Second Life remains a safe and welcoming haven of creativity and social vision.

WTF is this? What happened to “Your World, Your Imagination”?

What exactly does this mean? It means that the stuff they were planning to sweep under the rug as “adult content” restricted to age verified players is now just simply not allowed period. If someone reports you, LL can delete your account if they feel like it, it says so in the TOS (that a federal judge ruled as sucky).

There are two kinds of players in SL, you have those that equate virtual activity with real activity (the “Virtual Utopians”) and those that see it as all pretend (the “Role Players”).

On issues like this, I am squarely on the side of the role players. Ageplay does not equal Pedophelia, virtual nudity does not equal real nudity, virtual sex does not equal real sex, virtual rape does not exist, and to say it exists is a slur against real rape victims. (Ignorant newbies being fraudulently coerced into virtual sex, not knowing they could easily report the conversation to abuse, is sexual harassment at best).

The Virtual Utopians don’t see it that way. They don’t understand that virtual and reality are two very different things. That is what this new (they are claiming it is not new) policy is trying to cater to. To them, virtual sex and violent acts can lead to real sex and violent acts. They think we have to clean up virtual reality to have any hope of cleaning up real reality.

Except, the evidence says no, in fact even the opposite:

• Increased access to internet porn has reduced sex crimes
• There is no causal relation between violent video games and violent crime

If people want to get their yayas out doing stuff virtually that could cause physical or psychological harm if done really, I have no problem with that. Lets keep extreme sex and violence in Second Life where it belongs!

Motive: Follow the Money

What does all this add up to? Why are they doing this? When a company starts pissing off its core audience, just follow the money.

The answer can be found in the notes of the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference. Corporate sponsorship was more interested in PG rated games like There than they were in more open NC-17 games like Second Life.

With everything going 3D these days, the small companies that run today’s virtual worlds have to be considered prime takeover targets. Second Life is worried about its reputation. It wants to go mainstream. It would rather have the corporate dollars than the player dollars.

That’s what its all about!

Virtual Society secondlife, virtual economy, virtual law, virtual sex, Virtual Society