Is Second Life the best metaverse?

[Aristocrazia]

The answer would be obvious because it is an SL forum.

But i have to say that Second Life is truly the best metaverse for both graphics and open sim interaction in Blake Sea.

Furthermore, there are beautiful Sims that I have never seen in other metaverses.

And what do you think?

 

Happy second life everyone!
 

 

[Modulated]

1 minute ago, Aristocrazia said:

The answer would be obvious because it is an SL forum.

But i have to say that Second Life is truly the best metaverse for both graphics and open sim interaction in Blake Sea.

Furthermore, there are beautiful Sims that I have never seen in other metaverses.

And what do you think?

 

Happy second life everyone!
 

 

It's the only one I use , so yes.

[Arielle Popstar]

8 minutes ago, Aristocrazia said:

The answer would be obvious because it is an SL forum.

But i have to say that Second Life is truly the best metaverse for both graphics and open sim interaction in Blake Sea.

Furthermore, there are beautiful Sims that I have never seen in other metaverses.

And what do you think?

 

Happy second life everyone!
 

 

I don't see that SL is a metaverse in the sense of how a Metaverse is defined. It is a closed garden platform. Opensimulator is the best definition of a metaverse in that there are separated grids but they are interconnected.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

I've never logged into or signed up for any other online world,  so I have nothing to compare SL to.

[JeromFranzic]

Is it the best? For me, hardly. There are technically better functioning metaverses, including VRChat and Sansar... As in more optimized graphically, etc.

As far as experiencing stuff, SL and Open Sim are my favorites. It is funny to see avatars that sometimes look better than the sims we all walk on, that's hilarious to me! But I wouldn't trade the time I've had so far in both places. ... OK, maybe Open Sim is more awesome to me because of the mega huge hypergrid concept vs SL's singular grid. (Or two grids, there is a beta grid for SL Residents available to mess with.)

[Phil Deakins]

1 hour ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

I've never logged into or signed up for any other online world,  so I have nothing to compare SL to.

The OpenSim grids that Arielle mentioned are a bunch of independant reverse-engineered SL clones. I'd guess that the total number of sims doesn't equal SL's number or, if it does, they may be about equal. But that's just a guess. Where OpenSim loses is that comparatively few people use the grids. On the plus side, it's good for getting away for things like scripting and such in peace, most stuff is free, and free land is available in many places (I have a free 3k in one of the grids, and I had a free 10k in another but there was never anyone else around). I can imagine it would be very good for a group of people to get together. So it does have its good points, but my answer to the OP's question is that SL far outshines any other similar system.

ETA:
Another plus for the OpenSim grids is that you can create your own grid on your own computer and connect it to the OpenSim grids. Your own grid would be just like SL.

Edited March 27 by Phil Deakins

[Arielle Popstar]

5 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

The OpenSim grids that Arielle mentioned are a bunch of independant reverse-engineered SL clones. I'd guess that the total number of sims doesn't equal SL's number or, if it does, they may be about equal. But that's just a guess. Where OpenSim loses is that comparatively few people use the grids. On the plus side, it's good for getting away for things like scripting and such in peace, most stuff is free, and free land is available in many places (I have a free 3k in one of the grids, and I had a free 10k in another but there was never anyone else around). I can imagine it would be very good for a group of people to get together. So it does have its good points, but my answer to the OP's question is that SL far outshines any other similar system.

ETA:
Another plus for the OpenSim grids is that you can create your own grid on your own computer and connect it to the OpenSim grids. Your own grid would be just like SL.

According to the latest reported numbers, HGB Link there are about 135,000 SL equivalent sims spanning the Hypergrid. Hard to know for sure but there could well be the same amount of unreported ones that exist on the dark HG. Myself I don't report my 100 regions as they run on my spare laptop and are just for personal use but they are accessible to the hypergrid (metaverse). Unknown how many people are on there but with that many regions they are widely dispersed yet messages are only an IM away the same as SL.

Anyways that's how I see a metaverse should be, platform agnostic with no central governing body.

[Istelathis]

As far as I have experienced, it is the best virtual world I have visited.  There is a large open world, the ability to create in the virtual setting, it is pretty close to what I would envision a metaverse to be.  Opensim is great as well, but it is based upon SL, it is heavily reliant on Second Life and often tails behind the innovations made here.  Plus, I do enjoy having access to a superior marketplace, and feel safer with my inventory being stored on LL's servers.

I have not logged into VRchat, so I can't comment on that, I do think Sansar, IMVU, and Avakinlife lag behind, because I see them more so as glorified instanced chatrooms.  My interest in a metaverse would not be so much socializing as it would be exploration, and I think that is fundamental to a metaverse.  The problem with the other ones I have visited, is that they are designed almost solely around socializing, and not exploration, there is also a steeper incline to express yourself creatively.  

Edited March 27 by Istelathis

[Clem Marques]

SL is the best by far. There is simply no comparison.

Edited March 27 by Clem Marques

[Chic Aeon]

9 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

The OpenSim grids that Arielle mentioned are a bunch of independant reverse-engineered SL clones. I'd guess that the total number of sims doesn't equal SL's number or, if it does, they may be about equal. But that's just a guess. Where OpenSim loses is that comparatively few people use the grids. On the plus side, it's good for getting away for things like scripting and such in peace, most stuff is free, and free land is available in many places (I have a free 3k in one of the grids, and I had a free 10k in another but there was never anyone else around). I can imagine it would be very good for a group of people to get together. So it does have its good points, but my answer to the OP's question is that SL far outshines any other similar system.

ETA:
Another plus for the OpenSim grids is that you can create your own grid on your own computer and connect it to the OpenSim grids. Your own grid would be just like SL.

The last statistics that I found easily are from 2021,

It is probably good to note that these are PUBLIC regions and not the number of folks, schools, universities, corporations that are using the software which is suspected to be an equal amount.  Those of course wouldn't be considered part of the "metaverse".  

I don't see how SL really can be defined as a "metaverse" as it is a closed platform.  

Sansar still has better tech in some ways (no people however) but again closed system. 

 

Just some info.  

[Blush Bravin]

The generally accepted definition for metaverse is as follows:

The metaverse is a loosely defined term referring to virtual worlds in which users represented by avatars interact, usually in 3D and usually focused on social and economic connection. The term metaverse originated in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash as a portmanteau of "meta" and "universe".

I've not seen any definition that distinguishes between "open" vs "closed" platform. I played around in the OpenSim arena many years ago. It was just too dead to be any fun outside of experimenting with building in a relatively free environment. So for me there's not anything that begins to compare with Second Life. 

 

[Katherine Heartsong]

I'm in the camp that SL is certainly a strong contender for the best example of what Blush said, with the small change I made to her words ... "a virtual world [singular] in which users represented by avatars interact, usually in 3D and usually focused on social and economic connection.

It's one world though, isolated island unto itself.

My definition of the metaverse are a huge number of virtual worlds like SL each with their own physical attributes and basic rules that allow you to move between them freely, bringing your avatar, inventory etc (where appropriate based on theme) much like thousands of websites you can simply navigate to. Everything from purely RPIng worlds, to worlds where the owners have made rules that you are merely twinkling glimmering balls of light that pulse and float around the environment with no physical structures or body. There'd need to be a standards org that helped define the attributes of the worlds, items, etc but build and explore whatever you like.

Think a thousand unique SLs. All connected.

Edited March 28 by Katherine Heartsong

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

SL has the best creation tools, and the biggest community.

Roblox and Minecraft have bigger communities, but they are more gaming focused, and too kid friendly for me.  I don't want to have to worry about everything I make being PG.

I have tried many other pre-Oculus grids, and none of them come close in terms of content, tools, and population.  Some have some super cool features (see:  portals in Croquet/Open Cobalt), and some have tiny, yet loyal fan bases, but they never had the pull to get critical mass.

Just a reminder:  OpenSim is still out there, and it's not as primitive as many of you might think.  Just look at their megaregions, or OSSL.  SL scripters drool over the things OS scripters can do.  There's not much content, or people there, and no real economy.  I like to run it locally sometimes, just to doodle around with.

In 2024, most competitors to SL are worlds that run in head mounted displays, like the Oculus...

If you like head mounted displays, VR Chat seems like a big name in the sector, but all it really does is give VR platforms a bad name.  VR Chat is a bunch of walled gardens.  Imagine SL, but every land owner has their own full grid, so they are never next to anybody.  Also, every grid is invite only.  The public spaces are full of greifers and kids being obnoxious.  If you can survive the noob areas long enough, I hear you can get invited to some super cool communities, where a lot of cool stuff is happening, but I've never been able to stay interested that long.  I have friends who are obsessed with staying immersed in VR Chat, making rooms and places to hang out for their little clique, which is neat, I guess... but I personally don't see anything but greifers.  Worst community in VR, IMHO.  I also score VR Chat as worst content in VR, just because the noob areas are so tiny.  Maybe they have more content, but if I can't see it, then I don't care about it.

Zuckerberg's Horizons actually has a really nice in world content creation interface.  LL could learn a thing or two from that.  Last time I was there, they actually staffed their welcome areas, too, and the staff was friendly and helpful.  The world is super PG, like Roblox, and the setup is very gamey, and Roblox inspired.  I kinda liked it, but at the same time, I will never spend more than 15 minutes making anything there.  For me, it's a question of trust.  I know how Zuckerberg runs Facebook, so I know what to expect from his Horizons virtual world.  If I spend months, or years, making things in Zuckerberg's Horizons, then at any moment, his AI can decide that that shoe or castle I built looks too much like a nipple or *****.  Then they nuke all my work, ban me for life, and isolate me from my family and friends who are on their platform.  Plus, ever since they reneged on their promise not to require a FB login for Oculus, if they cut off my Facebook account, they effectively shut down my Oculus hardware, so I can't do any VR with it, at all, and I lose all my creations on other VR platforms.  So I'd be out $400, lots of time, and social connections, all over a rogue AI who doesn't know the difference between a hat and a nipple.  That's not worth the risk.  Or, alternatively, maybe they will just not let people see what I make, because it upsets advertisers or political allies, so they end up wasting all my time and energy, while I make things that nobody will ever see, and I don't know that until I publish, and am quietly shadow banned by some politburo in Silly Con Valley.  So I see doing any work for Zuckerberg as a losing game.  I don't create for money, I do it for fun, and to show friends my stuff, but on Horizons, I would want money to do it.  If Zuckerberg isn't paying me enough for my creations, to make up for the risk of creating for his AI moderators, and paying me up front for it, then I'm going to work on somebody else's grid.  Somebody who won't trash my creations for no reason.

RecRoom is like Zuckerberg's Horizons, but it's even more kid focused.  It's basically a Virtual World that's completely dedicated to Nerf gun shootouts (Hasboro is missing a golden sponsorship opportunity here).  It has a much bigger population than Horizons, but the population is less mature.  They're nice, but you know... you're hanging out with middle schoolers in a room full of nerf guns and dodge balls, so you aren't going to be debating the finer points of Aristotle in this world.  Content creation is also a bit more clunky than Horizons, but it's not bad.  I met some German school teachers there, who seemed to be having fun using it for history education.  I think Rec Room is the closest to is Roblox.  If I wanted what Rec Room is selling, I'd just play Roblox.  Fun world, but in the end, it's just a Roblox clone in a headset.

Neos is a really cool virtual world.  Small community, but very creative, highly technically literate community.  Most of them are furries.  They will help you tweak settings and import mesh, and build things.  There's a LOT of settings in Neos, too!  Neos is like the Linux of head mounted VR.  You can tweak all your hardware and software settings, nothing is abstracted away.  The place is just a busy sandbox.  You have to make the mesh and textures in something like Blender, of course, and then you import it and make stuff.  If you want to create for a head mounted VR platform, hang out in Neos.  They don't have as much content as other grids, because it is a small community, but IME, nobody beats a Neos user in per-capita output of VR content.

Big Screen is the best hang out spot on the Oculus.  It's got one gimmick, but it's a really, really good gimmick.  You log in, and go to a movie theater, and watch movies with strangers in a public room, or with friends in your own private room.  People can talk, throw popcorn, and draw graffiti in the air during the movies.  Some rooms will kick you for acting up, some rooms are a party atmosphere.  Some rooms have a DJ instead of a movie.  The rooms generally have a limit of 15 people, so they don't get too overly crazy, but you can still have a lot of fun with 15 people.  The 15 person limit makes it difficult to get into some popular rooms, which is annoying.  I wasn't able to get into the 3D Godzilla marathon today.  If you wait around enough, slots open up sometimes.  If you want to set up your own room, you can rent movies from Big Screen directly (2 days at a time, IIRC), or stream off your home PC's desktop screen, or stream off a web host.  I think most people with public rooms stream their movies off cheap web hosts.  They also have integration with a bunch of streaming services, so if you want to watch, for example, Prime Video, with your friends:  You set up a room, and you give your friends the link, and you all log in with your prime subscriptions, and watch it together.  This is a good selling point to not share Prime subscriptions, because for it to work, everybody needs a prime subscription.  You can stream just about anything.  You can stream twitch, which means you can stream your own web cam.  Big Screen is not really a sandbox where the sky is the limit, but it is the best head mounted virtual world, IMHO.  Financially speaking, I think they are doing a lot better than other virtual worlds, because they recently came out with their own headset, called the Big Screen Beyond.  If I wanted to spend the money for a new VR headset right now, I would get it, for it's small form factor.

So, IMHO... I think Big Screen is the closest competitor to SL, in terms of where I'd like to be on any given Saturday night.  They both do different things, though.  SL has a bigger population, better avatars, more content to explore, and better music.  Big Screen is better for watching movies and video with friends.  I like to watch video with friends in SL, too.  My video setup is an AVEN TV, streaming off my google drive.  I don't think Big Screen has easy Google Drive streaming like AVEN does, but they might.  I haven't looked deeply into setting up Big Screen streaming in a few years, so who knows?

Edited March 28 by Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia
elaborated on why I won't create in Horizons

[Conifer Dada]

I haven't tried any other virtual worlds recently apart from OpenSim Grid, which I visit occasionally - and that looks and works exactly the same as SL, which it's based on.

But in the past I've tried other worlds or watched videos of them. I tried Sinespace, which looked promising at the time. SL's 'Achilles heel' has always been performance - mainly slow rezzing and lag. But when it works properly and you happen to be in a nicely constructed environment with convincing looking avatars (even if they're dragons!), SL is amazing.

So, if good performance is your priority and you're not too bothered about cartoony avatars and environment, there are probably other worlds that might appeal more.

Edited March 28 by Conifer Dada

[Sid Nagy]

I tested the water a few times at other grids. But meh... far behind SL.
The social aspect is far less too in most other places.

SL is the only grid I visit on an almost daily basis. For me Our Wonderful World is by far the number 1.

Edited March 28 by Sid Nagy

[Persephone Emerald]

9 hours ago, Blush Bravin said:

The generally accepted definition for metaverse is as follows:

The metaverse is a loosely defined term referring to virtual worlds in which users represented by avatars interact, usually in 3D and usually focused on social and economic connection. The term metaverse originated in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash as a portmanteau of "meta" and "universe".

I've not seen any definition that distinguishes between "open" vs "closed" platform. I played around in the OpenSim arena many years ago. It was just too dead to be any fun outside of experimenting with building in a relatively free environment. So for me there's not anything that begins to compare with Second Life. 

The metaverse in Snow Crash was a single platform that pretty much everyone used. Graphically it was very simplistic and limited compared to SL. Avatar customization was difficult and expensive, but it allowed a grey market commerce between virtual reality and physical reality.

The metaverse in Ready Player One was more like SL in many ways (not surprising since it was inspired by SL), and was also used by pretty much everyone. It had semi-closed regions for education and a multitude of game, entertainment and social regions. Avatar customization was similarly easy and diverse as in SL, but fantastic ones were favored over realistic ones in the movie. It also allowed commerce between RL and virtual reality.

Edited March 28 by Persephone Emerald
Spelling typo

[Love Zhaoying]

45 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

The metaverse in Ready Player One 

ICYMI, RP2 is coming..

[Sid Nagy]

18 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

ICYMI, RP2 is coming..

PDYSMA all the time.
Not everybody belongs to the in-crowd when it comes to the English language on international forums.
Thanks. 

 

Edited March 28 by Sid Nagy

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

The metaverse in Snow Crash was a single platform that pretty much everyone used.

...

The metaverse in Ready Player One was more like SL in many ways (not surprising since it was inspired by SL), and was also used by pretty much everyone.

There is no such thing as a metaverse then since no virtual world is even close to being "used by pretty much everyone".

[Blush Bravin]

12 hours ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I'm in the camp that SL is certainly a strong contender for the best example of what Blush said, with the small change I made to her words ... "a virtual world [singular] in which users represented by avatars interact, usually in 3D and usually focused on social and economic connection.

It's one world though, isolated island unto itself.

My definition of the metaverse are a huge number of virtual worlds like SL each with their own physical attributes and basic rules that allow you to move between them freely, bringing your avatar, inventory etc (where appropriate based on theme) much like thousands of websites you can simply navigate to. Everything from purely RPIng worlds, to worlds where the owners have made rules that you are merely twinkling glimmering balls of light that pulse and float around the environment with no physical structures or body. There'd need to be a standards org that helped define the attributes of the worlds, items, etc but build and explore whatever you like.

Think a thousand unique SLs. All connected.

I didn't make up that definition, so changing worlds to world isn't something I'd change. Though I can admit that having a large number of platforms independent of each other but all accessible using a single avatar/inventory is highly desirable. I just don't see that happening within my lifetime. Okay I'm old, but I also doubt it will happen within my child's lifetime either. That would take a level of cooperation that I just don't see happening between businesses.

[Istelathis]

18 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I didn't make up that definition, so changing worlds to world isn't something I'd change. Though I can admit that having a large number of platforms independent of each other but all accessible using a single avatar/inventory is highly desirable. I just don't see that happening within my lifetime. Okay I'm old, but I also doubt it will happen within my child's lifetime either. That would take a level of cooperation that I just don't see happening between businesses.

I remember back in the 90s, VRML was pretty hyped - at least for a short time.  I think we came close to it, but the problem is that no one really seemed to want it or perhaps just did not have the hardware for it.  I thought it was really cool, but from a practicality standpoint a two dimensional representation for stores, forums, and so on, are just more convenient.  When I think of a multiverse, I mostly think of the web in a 3d setting, where people host their sites on a server, and we have 3d browsers hopping from site to site, it is more of a standard that is used to build such a VR site.

VRML as far as I am aware (not incredibly familiar with it) is still around, the problem is, there just is no demand for it.  I don't think any of us will live long enough to see it, simply because very few people seem to be interested in it as a means to replace the web.  Perhaps if it came close enough to simulate real life, there would be a demand for it, but right now, it is kind of out there.

I'm sure it could be done better than this, but this gives you an idea.  I imagine AR will be more popular in the future, which will give us an overlay over the real world, before we see a metaverse start to exist fully in VR.  I suppose the metaverse could be considered AR though, right?  

Dystopian future!  🤣  Okay, not realistic, by this point I imagine food delivery services will be automated, and people will be getting UBI or something.. who knows?

[Arielle Popstar]

16 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

Though I can admit that having a large number of platforms independent of each other but all accessible using a single avatar/inventory is highly desirable. I just don't see that happening within my lifetime. Okay I'm old, but I also doubt it will happen within my child's lifetime either. That would take a level of cooperation that I just don't see happening between businesses.

I see the possibility happening if various platforms recognize their specific strengths and how they could benefit if they had the ability to market that strength to a larger userbase then they can get on their own. As an example if the Lab put in their inworld building tools and MarketPlace, Tilia brought their economy, IMVU brought their shopping features and maybe their Inventory UI, Opensim brought it's ability to provide self hosted cheap land, etc

[Blush Bravin]

8 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I see the possibility happening IF various platforms recognize their specific strengths and how they could benefit if they had the ability to market that strength to a larger userbase then they can get on their own. As an example if the Lab put in their inworld building tools and MarketPlace, Tilia brought their economy, IMVU brought their shopping features and maybe their Inventory UI, Opensim brought it's ability to provide self hosted cheap land, etc

That's a huge if! Yep, don't see it happening!

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Blush Bravin said:

That's a huge if! Yep, don't see it happening!

Maybe but I will point out that Tilia has been spun off on its own and could now theoretically offer its services to competing platforms, Also 2-3 years ago it seems to me the ToS was changed in such a way that the Lab could potentially offer MP content to other grids, which I thought was interesting but never really saw where they were going with that up to now. The way I read the change is that in theory at least, both the Lab and Tilia could offer the content and linden $ to Purchase that content to other independent Grids.

[Modulated]

5 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Maybe but I will point out that Tilia has been spun off on its own and could now theoretically offer its services to competing platforms, Also 2-3 years ago it seems to me the ToS was changed in such a way that the Lab could potentially offer MP content to other grids, which I thought was interesting but never really saw where they were going with that up to now. The way I read the change is that in theory at least, both the Lab and Tilia could offer the content and linden $ to Purchase that content to other independent Grids.

Not theoretically offer them, it does. That is the whole reason it was spun off, to be a payment service focused on virtual worlds and digital currency, and the metaverse in general, and not singularly focused on SL.