SecondLife
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Second Life: scalin' on up
With nearly a quarter-million registered users, Linden Labs' Second Life is nowhere near the massive success of massively-multiplayer front-runner World of Warcraft. CNET asks the fascinating question of will they be able to get there. They don't mean will MMOers accept the unique environment that Second Life offers but, quite literally, can their technology scale as high as World of Warcraft's has. To outside observers, the world's 2,579 dual-core servers for only 240,000 players equates to an unusually high ratio of servers per user. SOE's Everquest II has over 250,000 users and manages on as few as 1,100 dual-CPU servers. According to Linden Labs, however, these numbers only tell one part of the story.Linden Labs' CEO Philip Rosedale equates Second Life's infrastructure to the decentralization of the Internet, and to companies like Yahoo! and Google. Interestingly, this is an equally apt metaphor for the distinction between Second Life and its more centrally controlled competition like Everquest II and WoW. Rosedale said, "Can it scale indefinitely? Absolutely. It can scale to infinity. The underlying architecture of the Internet and of Second Life is perfectly scalable." Now they just have to put it all to good use. How long until we're at 6 million?(Update: my servers were all mixed up with my users)
Read Joystiq from within Second Life
A recent update to Second Life that allows players to view the game's online help pages using a custom Mozilla browser has been hacked so that you can view any webpage. Although there's no way to type web addresses without some basic hacking knowledge, it's quite simple to change the homepage to Google or any other website. Of course you could always just tab-out and use Firefox, but this option has a much greater "geek cool" factor. Let's just hope Fox News doesn't cotton on to the possibility of people browsing "questionable" content from within SL. Anyway, the first commentator to post a screenshot of themselves commenting on this post from within Second Life bags themselves a star.[Via Clickable Culture]
WoW + Second Life Crossover Event?
While browsing the latest WoW news today, I stumbled across this tidbit of info; A faction of players from two of the most popular online games, WoW and Second Life, are apparently planning some sort of unofficial crossover event, to take place in late July, according to this blog posting. No solid details are given on exactly what the event is or how it's to take place, but I'm just curious as to how such an event could happen. Players from one game meeting up in the other, and vice-versa? Ok, fine...but doesn't sound all that sexy right off the bat. Then again, there could be something actually cool going on here that I'm just completely unaware of....it happens. I'll keep my ears open...
Second Life publisher sued: Bragg v. Linden Research
Attorney Marc Bragg has filed a lawsuit against Linden Lab, publisher of Second Life, alleging that the company unfairly shutdown his game account, cutting off access to his virtual real estate, which includes several nightclubs. In addition, Bragg can no longer withdraw any of the linden (Second Life currency) he has earned, which if exchanged (in total), would be worth roughly $3,200. The West Chester attorney is now demanding $8,000 in restitution.Linden Lab froze Bragg's account after the attorney took part in a suspicious online auction in which he acquired significant plots of virtual land for far below market price. Bragg indeed exploited the auction interface to snag the land at a discount, but maintains that the onus is on Linden Lab to run their auctions properly and securely.[Thanks, chris]
Second Life added to University's curriculum
Sarah Robbins, a.k.a. Intellagirl, is gearing up to teach her English 104 course online, in the world of Second Life. The Ball State University professor will guide 18 students through the core-curriculum class by encouraging them to explore a virtual island campus, which Robbins designed. But slackers hoping for that easy 'A' will be in for a surprise. "It's probably going to be harder than any other 104," says Robbins, adding, "but it may be more fun."
Virtual prostitutes make real cash
Sex sells in Second Life, as it does in real life, and this article by Computer Gaming World delves into the story of prostitution within Linden Labs' virtual world. While Second Life prides itself on being driven by user-created content, including user-driven entertainments at nightclubs and gaming plazas, it's no secret that cybersex is amongst the entertainments on offer for the discerning punter.According to the article, escorts can earn up to L$10,000 a week from a few hours' work -- approximately $30, although the exchange rate fluctuates. It's not something that a brand-new character would be able to pull off, though; an expensive wardrobe of realistic avatar clothing, skins and animations is an asset, as are gender verification and a location in which to practice. The industry supporting the sale of these items, and arrranging escort encounters, seems more profitable than actual on-the-street work.Does this render sex-based MMOs redundant? No; there's room in the market for more than the offerings from Second Life residents. But as the recent suspension of Spend the Night shows, creating an erotic MMOs isn't plain sailing; Second Life's exploration of the genre, with or without endorsement from its creators, is a useful first for any developers that wish to follow.[via /.]
Second Life secures $11 million in funding
Linden Lab, publishers of Second Life, announced the completion of an $11 million round of funding led by venture capital firm Globespan Capital Partners. The company plans to use the money, in part, to launch an "“aggressive international expansion, ” focusing on Japanese and German language versions of the game. In addition, Linden Lab will boost its staff from 70 to at least 100, with the possibility of a complete interface overhaul looming on the horizon.
Second Life becomes a marketing case study
Linden Lab's popular virtual world Second Life serves as a case study for this week's Marketing Sherpa. Though people often make fun of companies that lose money on every sale but make it up in volume, that's essentially what Linden Labs has managed to do by giving away free subscriptions and counting on customers to upgrade over the long run to paid subscriptions. The secrets to success: (1) making basic membership free; (2) a greatly simplified registration page, according to Second Life's VP of Marketing David Fleck. The elephant in the room that wasn't mentioned in the case write-up: (3) Hot Virtual Sex with Furry Humanoids. Lots of it.
Sex sells in Second Life
The boundary between virtual reality and the real world never ceases to bewilder, and this Wired article marvels at the amount of cold, hard cash changing hands in Second Life. Several Residents have given up their day jobs to work exclusively in this MMO, and it's a tidy earner for many others.Especially appropriate for this time of year, the Sex & Games blog points out that a large proportion of the objects being sold in SL are sexual in nature. An in-world gift would certainly be a novel approach to Valentine's Day.
Is Second Life your life?
Do you spend the majority of your first life in Second Life? Does your primary contact info involve telling people to download the client and find you in-game? Weblogs, Inc. wants you--we're hiring bloggers who know the world inside out and want to write about it!Please show us your stuff by sending three sample posts, a brief bio describing yourself and your experience with Second Life, and your contact information to winapply AT gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
Lawrence Lessig visits Second Life
Academic, lawyer and Free Culture proponent Lawrence Lessig recently visited the virtual world of Second Life to talk about his book and solicit feedback from Residents on an upcoming opus. It seems to be increasingly fashionable for real-world events to echo into Second Life, but Lessig's involvement with the world dates back to 2003 when he advised Linden Lab on IP rights.You can read the transcript on Hamlet Linden's blog, and it's interesting stuff: issues of law and intellectual property in virtual worlds have far-reaching consequences for players involved in any sort of online game, as recent lawsuits have shown.
Second Life hits 100k residents
In amongst all the news about World of Warcraft, we often forget there are other massively multiplayer games that don't revolve around elves and orcs. Virtual world Second Life has been going from strength to strength recently, and even the darker sides of the game (if it can be classed as a game) are interesting rather than insalubrious. Linden Lab started offering basic membership for free last September, and the user base has grown and grown since then, reaching the important milestone of 100,000 registered users. What's also interesting is that according to Linden Lab, members spend an average of 4 hours a day in the game, showing that for the average user it is becoming something of a "second life". The economic statistics are also pretty staggering--the fact that Linden allows users to own their intellectual property leads to many users making real-world cash out of the game. Over 515 people made $1000 (in real money) last month alone. It's free to check out, and quite different from other MMOs, so give it a whirl.
Second Life miscreants punished by boredom: The Corn Field
Linden Lab have implemented a unique system, with a Twilight Zone twist, to punish misbehaving residents of their popular virtual world, Second Life. Dubbed "The Corn Field", this virtual prison contains nothing more than a (slooow) tractor, a black & white television playing a continuous feed of the campy 1940 educational film Boy in Court, and row after row of corn. The pictures were obtained by one such offender, Nimrod Yaffle, who predictably lamented, "There's nothing you can do there except ride a tractor and watch a boring movie, which was black and white anyways." Considering his curiosity first propelled him to try and "crash the server The Corn Field was running on in order to be teleported to the nearest safe simulator by default," the punishment appears perfectly suited; the inquisitiveness of hackers/griefers makes the confines of The Corn Field a particularly inhospitable place, the virtual equivalent of an 8-year old sitting in the corner. The group that pulled of this stunt would surely resent their stay, although something tells me they were probably dealt with a little more severely.[Via BoingBoing]
Linux client for Second Life on the horizon
As gaming under Linux often means using Windows compatibility software, it's great to see game clients being ported to run natively. Virtual world Second Life is known for exploring new ideas and setting trends, and so the news that its Linux client is in a semi-workable state is definitely welcome. Cory Linden reports that a recent demonstration of the Linux client worked "flawlessly", despite numerous potential sources of trouble, so hopefully a release candidate will be available soon; there's also a mailing list if you want a first look at the client. Of all modern MMOs, Second Life--which features its own scripting language for nearly full control over the world--certainly has the potential to appeal to tech-savvy Linux users, and this move may help more developers consider porting their games to Linux too.
The year in Second Life
Continuing the "end of 2005" theme (anyone would think it was the last week of December), in-game embedded journalist Hamlet Linden reports on the highlights of the year in the virtual world Second Life. A massively-multiplayer space, Second Life isn't exactly a game, but is a place where you can build and script pretty much anything -- a giant virtual sandbox.Hamlet (known in the "first life" world as Wagner James Au) has explored a lot of what the world has to offer in the past year, including such intriguing pieces of Second Life culture as private detectives, Tringo, Cory Doctorow's publishing experiment and sweatshop workers. Given free rein in the world, it's pretty impressive to see how rich and complex it has become without major input from the developers.
Apple Second Life Feature
Are you familiar with Second Life? It's a virtual online community where you create your own custom avatar and interact with other losers whose first life isn't fulfilling enough other interesting people in a magical fantasy world beyond your greatest imagination! (Okay, okay, so I'm being a little hyperbolic and also mean with the strikethrough; in the words of the Great McNulty, "I kid, I kid.")
