Chris's Random Ramblings
After reading some online articles about what some IBM employees have been doing in a virtual world I decided to check it out myself. Second life is a 3D virtual reality earth-like world. If it was real it would be about the size of Boston. You can see and communicate with other people, and are represented in the world by an avatar. There is no end goal designed into the game. What a person does, and how you interact with others is left up to the player. Its not really a game in the same sense as other virtual games such World of Warcraft or even Eve Online.
Inside this virtual world you can build objects out of simple primitives such as cubes, pyramids, and spheres (just to name a few) which can be modified and textured using in game editing tools. There is also a object oriented scripting programming language, whose syntax is similar to say C or Java. Using these tools in conjunction you can create objects which interact with other objects in the world or with other players.
I would not classify the graphics detail (at least with my reasonably oldish computer) as cutting edge. Nearly everything is downloaded on the fly from the servers so you do need a good internet link and reasonably large quota - I think I'll actually get through my 20Gb quota this month.
I find several aspects of this game quite interesting. I think I'll talk about them a bit more in detail in future posts, but briefly its:
The economy. You can buy and sell virtual land and virtual objects, as well as buy and sell services within this environment. There is a floating exchange rate between the in game Linden dollar ($L) and US dollars.
The building and programming of objects and their interactions within the world really appeals to the hacker in me.
There is, as far as I can tell, perfect virtual digital rights management within the world. When you build an object you can specify whether someone else can buy the object, copy the object, modify it, even if they can on-sell it or give it away. Its interesting to observe what happens in such a world where this can actually be enforced. Incidentally, it appears there is quite a lot of open source development occurring within Second Life.
Lastly, and perhaps the most interesting, is considering what sort of practical applications a virtual world like this can have. There are people who run courses within the virtual world which cover aspects of life in the virtual world as well as ones which would normally be in real life.
People also hold virtual meetings within this world. From the conversations I've had with people while in the virtual world (mostly with IBM colleagues) I've found there is something fundamentally different about talking to someone over IRC or instant messaging, and and having a conversation with them in this virtual world. There is enough additional physical (virtual!) context which leads to communication which feels more effective. You can see what the other person is doing (at least their virtual representation). There is non verbal/written type communication. You can discuss a topic or document displayed in front of both (or many) of you and feel much like you would in a real room. I find it difficult to describe accurately, but it feels much better than an IRC conversation. Its less impersonal. And it still has the advantages of IRC conversations - no one knows if you're really in you're pyjamas :-)
Here's a few snapshots I took in Second Life. My desktop system has 4 year old graphics card in it and it wasn't cutting edge at the time I bought it, so the graphics could probably be much better with better hardware.
IBM owns a virtual island within Second Life called Almaden. There are various presentations available for anyone to look at as well as some virtual freebies (t-shirts, caps etc).
Yes, thats a Stargate. It will dial other gates, just like in the TV show and teleport your Avatar to other places within Second Life.
That's my Avatar relaxing in a comfy chair while Kelly builds our virtual house.
Here's a few links to more information about what people are doing in Second Life:
Irving Wladawsky-Berger's blog entry on virtual worlds and some of what IBM has been doing in Second Life
The Register on a similar topic
Some IBM employees blogging about virtual worlds and what they do in Second Life
And yes, there is a Linux client. Its an alpha version, but at least for my hardware configuration, the graphics work better (less clipping bugs) than the windows version.