1. Caliandris, I'm somewhat torn by these kinds of negative reviews.

On the one hand, they suggest that the person writing the review just didn't "get" what Second Life is about. They criticize world elements like the "sit" property existing on objects that really shouldn't be sitable, or the clumsy animations, and forget the fact that the content they are experiencing is dynamic and resident created.

On the other hand, these kinds of reviews uncloak the invalid perception given by some advertising and reviews that Second Life is the "ultimate game platform". You know the ones: they give the impression that it's a driving/flying simulator, a first person shooter, and an adventure MMOG all rolled into one. In reality, it sucks at all of these things: what makes Second Life different and unique really takes a lot more effort to understand.

One of my pet theories is that a lot of the griefers and malcontents in Second Life came to the world because of that "ultimate game platform" perception. If there were more articles that debunked this perception, and talked about it more in terms of a collaborative social world with a "tinker toy" type building environment, maybe those people wouldn't come in the first place.

We really need to create better analogies between Second Life and other "play" experiences so that folks considering entering the world can more accurately choose or reject it based on their preferences.

How about this...everyone has played with toy cars at some point in their life. World of Warcraft, EverQuest and its ilk are like the incredibly detailed diecast miniatures you can buy. You can't alter them in any significant way, but they are fantastic cars and everything works with great precision. These games are the best at what they do because they do one "thing" well: if you play WoW, the way the game plays is largely immutable. Such games are what the developer makes them to be: the players are consumers, not creators.

Second Life is like a Meccano set. You can build a car- it won't be a great car, but it will recognizably be a car and will have wheels and such. But you can also build a plane, or a sky scraper, or a space ship. None of them will be great, but they can be pretty cool. In Second Life, the "game" is a creation platform, not a game at all in the conventional sense. And the residents are creators, and in fact are almost solely responsible for all of the world's content.

My little analogy is far from perfect- but more articles that explain this kind of thing well might eventually direct potential residents more effectively in or out of the world.

Posted at 3:21PM on Sep 1st 2006 by Tomas Hausdorff

2. Thomas I think your analogy is very good and it highlights the major dfference between SL and MMPGs - there is very little structure to the experience of SL. You get out of it what you make/do for yourself. In a game-like environment there is a great deal of structure, and changes are rolled out like a software development project... in a structured way. You don't see unfinished objects in WoW. In SL I think, that's part of its charm.

The difference might lead a gamer to feel quite lost. There are no quests, no path mapped out for you to follow, no set goals and levels and you have an endless variety of options just with your character's avatar. For many this will be a barrier and if they came here because of some misleading piece that implied otherwise, they will feel very disappointed.

Posted at 9:27PM on Sep 1st 2006 by Mabb Dilweg

3. But wait a second -- we're not talking about the whole of Second Life, where, no, there's a game, a quest, a purpose. We're talking about this game-withing-a-game, Numbajulla, which *is* a quest. And here, regardless of the whole sim being a really amazing build, and there being many neat things about it, the platform *does* matter and you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear. Even with good connections, good graphics cards, etc. you have grey squares, lag, etc. and the experience is increasingly diminished. You have to be able to be navigating Second Life as just some other kind of realm in which you hope to accomplish other things -- socializing, sight-seeing, a business, etc. -- but trying to craft a WoW type game out of it is not in the cards. The sim seams, the problems with physics and linking, the Havoc 2 issues, all these issues you know full better than any of us, mitigate against it becoming a place for rich game experiences. You do no one any good, least of all yourselves as developers, by covering up that fact.

Re, "I'm a little fed up with people who can't be bothered to acclimatise properly coming in world and then being negative about the ways in which Second Life is deficient when compared with their favourite RPG/MMORG/FPS"

You can't social engineer, browbeat, hector people into pretending they're having a good experience. The truth of their bad experience will out. They have a bad experience. They can't move around. It's a laggy sucky atmosphere for many people. There's no sense in trying to whitewash that fact.

Posted at 10:29AM on Sep 2nd 2006 by Prokofy Neva

4. "You can't social engineer, browbeat, hector people into pretending they're having a good experience. The truth of their bad experience will out. They have a bad experience. They can't move around. It's a laggy sucky atmosphere for many people. There's no sense in trying to whitewash that fact."

Numbakulla was bought by the people playing it in July 2005. They paid for the sim, and donation completely covered the tier for the first six months of operation.

If people didn't enjoy the game that wouldn't be the case.

I don't remember hectoring, rather thought that was *your* kind of game.

Posted at 10:45AM on Sep 2nd 2006 by Caliandris

5. I read the article in question, and honestly, he's a lot less harsh than I thought he would be from the tone of the above post. To me it read like he fully blamed the limitations of the platform rather than the Numbakulla creators ("regular battles with the interface and Numbakulla’s battles with the engine"). And really, he's right, especially when you look at where he's coming from - he's a gamer, not a creator or a socializer. His needs are different. SL does pretty damn well catering to the last two groups, not so well catering to the first, and that's been a problem going all the way back to the forum posts by new residents asking "What's the point of this game?"

Every time we see something really awesome inworld and we say "This is fantastic!" there's always a part of us in our minds finishing the statement, "...for SL." Which is fine! SL, like Thomas said, is a different beast than a video game. People get addicted to SL for different reasons, almost none of which I'd be willing to bet is the traditional game experience they get from WoW et al.

Posted at 12:47PM on Sep 3rd 2006 by Cory Edo

6. I can say hands down that Second Life is in severe need of a makeover as far as movement and camera controls go.

A game like World of Warcraft showcases very immediately accessible and easy to use character interaction controls.

Second Life should be more customizable and smart about the ways they offer for people to control their avatar.

Even after I've gotten used to the Second Life controls, as a Usability Engineer by profession I can say that they are still really badly done.

The world of warcraft controls do everything the second life controls allow you to do, and then some, only they do it with intuitive left and right click and drag options (for camera) and standard FPS movement keys (for movement). These controls are something nobody ever complains about in WoW. And there is a good reason, they are good controls.

As a long time fan of Second Life I can easily say it needs work in the UI and controls department very badly.

Posted at 4:32PM on Sep 5th 2006 by joey