Second World

When I reviewed Second Life for VGL, I rated it at 93%. Re-entering the Second World today - a year or so later - reminded me why I placed it so highly. First there's the glee of exclaiming "Look! Look guys, I'm buying clothes in a game. Omg look, industrial themed roller disco lottery night in a game! R0FL to the max, cosplay! In a game."

The depth of this virtual world is so uncannily life-like, that the lines begin to blur to the point where you wonder what the purpose of your being there actually is, referencing that real life has the noticeable benefit of soft shadows. First Life food also tastes better.

Today's italics inducing experience was actually the reason for my visit: the newly opened Always Black library, a 3D extension of an excellent site showcasing people's mainly gaming related writing. Even lil' 'ole me has a submission there somewhere. I entered the co ordinates supplied by Rossignol into the teleporter/mapscreen, and followed a red marker from the point I spawned at, some 800 meters away. The UI made it obvious exactly where I was going, but to humour myself, and to get a sense of the local inhabitants of the Furness region of SL, I paused as a green dot came into view on the mini map. The human player was standing on top of an enormous glass dome, someone's ostentatious mansion, or perhaps an up-market car sales room, I floated down to her level and perched near, floating on the glass tiles. Yonke Ming was a large, tubby cat with a feathery tail and blue shoulder length hair, she looked at me as I descended.

You: hey
Yonke Ming: Heyas.
You: how goes?
Yonke Ming: Fines.
You: I'm looking for the Always Black library, seen it around?
Yonke Ming: Nope...
You: oh, ok.
You: Do you have a place round here?
Yonke Ming: A place?
You: yuh
Yonke Ming: No, it's in Munro.
You: Oh ok. What do you do?
Yonke Ming: Make avs and stuff. Fatfurs, roleplay, that stuff.
You: cool,
You: roleplay? Like, act? Are there SL stages?
Yonke Ming: Nope.
You: oh,

...pause

You: Well, hilarious talking to you.
You: I'm gonna go look for that library.

It was only 200 meters away, a tall, white, airy building with spacious windows and open-plan interior. Swanky. I waited for the geometry to load, (everything loads on the fly in SL), wanting to get the full effect before I went in. When it had done, I fell to the entrance steps and sauntered into the high ceiling main room. Alice, Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, John Walker and others were all up on display. Downstairs, a door to what seemed like a private office (almost felt like trespassing) had two laptops on the desk. One invitingly titled with a pop-up "blog from here!".



"Guys, guys! Come look at this! I'm blogging, in a game.