Can Second Life do...more? (Serious)

[LordHappycat]

Of all the gripes that are minor with Second Life and it's potential. Do you think we could see maybe with Project Sansar that you could DO more than Second Life? I mean, when I think about it, there's six core things you can do in SL. Six...those six are:

Dancing

Wandering

Having Sex

Dress Up

Play Mini-Games

Lounging

I mean, it's 2016 right now and you'd think there'd be more things to do. And I know someone could say "Well, you can do x thing at a particular sim..." I'm aware of that and I know of those places.

But I'm speaking in the sense where you can readily and easily do it. Like, going into water, any water, and just automatically swim in it. How about mountains? Climb mountains. How about play an actual game of Basketball? That'd be awesome!

But, no, Second Life is not capable of this and from the sounds of Sansar (based off of a few months ago), I don't think there's really going to be anything drastic.

[Christin73]

You can swim in sl using a swim hud. You can sail the Blake Sea. You can Drive on rout 8. You can even be a police officer or fire fighter in a city sim if you choose. SL is truely what you make of it.

[Persephone Emerald]

One can also listen to live Music,

Go to Art Exhibits,

Drive or Fly a vehicle,

Raise Breedable pets,

Learn to Build,

Learn a 2nd language,

Play Roleplay,

Do Hunts, Freebie & Sale shopping,

Sort Inventory,

Own or rent land, then Landscape or Decorate your house(s),

Join a Support Group,

&  Chat with people.

 

 - I think almost everything gets boring eventually, so you need to keep finding new things to do and new people with whom to do them.

[MishkaKatyusha]

indeed.the OP here highlights the mythical holy grail of MMO game balancing

 

see,there aretwo ways companies can go

 

1.highly prefab - that is,alot of things are inbuilt into the system.the advantages of this is that it seems alot more natural and free flowing,swim,fight,and other activities etc.the disadvantages of this approach is that it is both extremely costly,and difficult to add on to.its like an art peice that everyone loves.its beautiful and can inspire alot of people,but good luck if you want to put your own flavoring on it,or upgrade it in a meaningful fashion.also requires alot of maintenance

 

2.no prefab - this is the way linden labs chose.this is more like handing a person a big empty box where nothing exists,and giving them roughly the same power as a developer.with all of the same requirements of knowledge and training.working on a sort of hypervisor system,where the player is the dev and the company folk are above that,this is no prefab,so it is very brutal in its learning curve,which will repel alot of people.but on the other hand,this approach is literally unmatched in the freedom it gives to those who are willing to fight for it (beat the learning curve as it were).another big advantage over the other approach is that its comparitively lower cost to run,requires alot less maint,and less manpower to run.

 

approach 1 is going to mcdonalds

 

approach 2 is making your own meal at home.alot more difficult and requires alot more skill,but capable in the end of far superior things than approach 1

 

the only reason why second life might appear to have those difficultys that people occasionally notice is because someone hasnt invented the mechanism yet

take heed.the "hands off" approach of second life hypervisor devs is what gives us the power and might to make our own universe.that might be your thing or no,but you wont find this kind of freedom elsewhere

[Bobbie Faulds]

I second the Art Exhibits. Bryn Oh does some amazing interactive art exhibits on her sim. At one time, someone made a 3D verson of Van Gogh's Starry Night. There is a You Tube video of the building of it. You can find replicas of RL buildings all over SL. At one time there was an almost scale replica of the Titanic. There were also copies of some of Frank Lloyd Wright's houses, like Falling Waters as well. There have been several designers that did RL design work and copied their creations into SL too.

There is a football league and roller derby as well.

Look around and see the amazing things that people in SL have made. Take classes and learn to make them yourself.

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

LordHappycat wrote:

Of all the gripes that are minor with Second Life and it's potential. Do you think we could see maybe with Project Sansar that you could DO more than Second Life? I mean, when I think about it, there's six core things you can do in SL. Six...those six are:

 

Dancing

Wandering

Having Sex

Dress Up

Play Mini-Games

Lounging

I mean, it's 2016 right now and you'd think there'd be more things to do. And I know someone could say "Well, you can do x thing at a particular sim..." I'm aware of that and I know of those places.

But I'm speaking in the sense where you can readily and easily do it. Like, going into water, any water, and just automatically swim in it. How about mountains? Climb mountains. How about play an actual game of Basketball? That'd be awesome!

But, no, Second Life is not capable of this and from the sounds of Sansar (based off of a few months ago), I don't think there's really going to be anything drastic.

---

In addition to the things pointed out that you can do now, I should point out that having sex and playing mini-games aren't part of the core structure of Second Life and dancing is internal only in the form of very limited default gestures almost nobody uses. Like almost everything else, most of the functions you cite were developed by users.

[HarrisonMcKenzie]

---

Persephone Emerald wrote:

One can also listen to live Music,

Go to Art Exhibits,

Drive or Fly a vehicle,

Raise Breedable pets,

Learn to Build,

Learn a 2nd language,

Play Roleplay,

Do Hunts, Freebie & Sale shopping,

Sort Inventory,

Own or rent land, then Landscape or Decorate your house(s),

Join a Support Group,

&  Chat with people.

 

 - I think almost everything gets boring eventually, so you need to keep finding new things to do and new people with whom to do them.

---

This. I mostly roleplay, but I can break that up into more specific activities. I roleplay at school, which means learning how SL works and doing a little real world lerning and research. I roleplay with a family, which involves improv acting, telling joks, and a little problem solving. I'm in a Scout troop, which involved a little event planning and photography (shot composition, light levels, etc. Actual photography). Plus other rp stuff.

And that's just RP. I'm getting back into 3D modeling and my Photoshop skills have improved considerably. I like to attend DJed and live musical acts. Digital art exhibitions seem like a lot of fun (I'm a museum nerd), and I'd like to explore options for language learning. All of these are things that don't involve lounging or dancing.

[Canoro Philipp]

if I would add more potential to SL it would be the capability of custom skeletons and pupeteer animations, that would give creators the potential to make more natural flowing animations, making the interaction with the world seem more natural.

I would give it the possibility for more precision in speed of movement, like walking in different speeds, or driving a vehicle in gradual incremental of speed. that could make exploring and racing more fun or relaxing, going at our own pace.

besides better shaped system avatars, I would add the posibility of hand and face expressions, I know that would require more computing power from the user, but it will unlock more probabilities.

bendable objects, if an object physically interact with another, it has the possibility to bend it, a car crash may bend a certain part of the car, or a sofa may bend when you sit on it, and return gradually back to its original shape when you stand up.

particles with physics, that could create rain that will not go thru objects, or snow, it could create waterfalls, smoke that moves when an avatar pass by, sparks that bounce on certain metals.

integrated texture creating tools, it could include a board with different special effects, negative, adjustment of contrast, drawing, the possibility to create mipmaps in it, I know that uploading is a source of revenue for Linden Lab, but that was the original pupose of Second Life, a program that give you the tools to create almost anything you can think of, and see it work in a world, It would make more sense to me to charge taxes based on monetary transaction, instead of charging for any content that was not made with the integrated tools.

integrated mesh tools, it doesn't have to be as complete as many mesh programs, just enough to bend and cut a certain object to create or modify a certain object, think of Google Sketchup, something simple like that.

those ideas between many could raise the potential of Second Life.