Linden Lab announce a successor to Second Life

My thoughts on this announcement.


The breaking news yesterday on Wagner James Au’s always excellent New World Notes was that Linden Lab were first rumoured and then confirmed to be working on a successor virtual world to Second Life.  In a statement sent to the site, Linden said that the new, ‘next generation’ world will be “an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king.  [It] will go far beyond what is possible with Second Life, and we don't want to constrain our development by setting backward compatibility with Second Life as an absolute requirement from the start”  - meaning it likely will not be compatible with SL and any inventory you have will not transfer over (see my recent post on the finite life of virtual inventory here).  They do go on to add, however, that this “doesn’t mean you necessarily won’t be able to bring parts of your Second Life over, just that our priority in building the next generation platform is to create an incredible experience and enable stunningly high-quality creativity, rather than ensuring that everything could work seamlessly with everything created over Second Life’s 11 year history.”

Big surprise?  Not really.  I speculated earlier in the year about the coming age of virtual reality – which, let’s all take a deep breath and remind ourselves, could yet turn out to be as actually popular as 3D TV – and how this might give SL a boost in popularity because it’s essentially a free product out of the Oculus Rift box; part of my speculation was that whatever the take-up is, however, it will probably only be short-lived: Whilst SL’s various bolt-on upgrades over the years have undoubtedly improved its graphical appeal hugely, these are finicky things that require skill and experience to organise, and many newbie VR explorers, therefore, just won’t get the experience we know is possible.  Something better – and a great deal simpler – is needed, and SL will only endure as a popular VR virtual world experience so long as that alternative doesn’t exist.  If Linden don’t supply this then someone else will.

Other than reporting that the new world is only in its “very early” stages and that the company is “actively hiring”, Linden doesn’t give much information about the status of this project.  Potentially, it’s entirely conceptual right now (although it’s tempting to wonder if there is any flow of information between Linden and High Fidelity via Philip Rosedale). Whilst this likely means that the new world is potentially years away at this stage, getting the word out to SL’s core user base that something new is on the horizon might just help keep them loyal whilst other tempting products start to appear.  It’s ultimately a much wider user-base than this that Linden will want to attract, but long-term SL residents will include the skin-makers and the clothes designers and the furniture builders and the landscapers without whom any serious attempt at a user-content driven world will fail.

What I find most interesting about the statement are two things.  First, the use of the phrase ‘next generation’ suggests a new reframing of business at Linden.  Former CEO Rod Humble previously reframed the company’s work as making ‘creative spaces’, an ethos which resulted in a veritable tumble of products into the marketplace which were thought to fit this brief – dio, Versu and Blocksworld to name but a few.  Any of those that failed to turn a profit got swept away quickly and brutally when current CEO Ebbe Altberg took up the reigns (although Versu got a new lease of life recently following an outcry from fans of Emily Short when it emerged that her Magnus Opus for the interactive fiction platform, Blood and Laurels, was complete and unreleased) and with this new announcement we’re seeing Altberg stamp his mark firmly on what many of us have been feeling of late is a somewhat ailing franchise.  ‘Next generation’ is a phrase we’re used to seeing in connection with such markets as mobile phones and games consoles and mobile data networks, business areas we also associate with a large range of products.  The use of this phrase, therefore, signifies not just a step forward in technology but also Linden’s acknowledgement that we’re now moving into an era where they will face something they have never previously encountered: serious competition.  Over the eleven years of its existence, there have of course been a few alternatives to SL crop up here and there, but none have attracted anything like SL’s numbers.  This time, however, it’s different, and Linden’s experience in this field will not necessarily give it any more advantage in the approaching market than Nokia’s experience did when Apple popularised the Smartphone.  The question has to be, are Linden acting fast enough, or will they become yet another market leader that failed to respond in time to the developments in its own field?

Second, I find the phrase ‘content creators are king’ especially meaningful, and it gives me hope that Linden have actually tuned in to what has made SL, in its own words, “the most successful user-created virtual world ever.”  In a fractured metaverse of competing virtual worlds, content will become the new apps of this market.  As we have seen, time and time again – VHS versus Betamax, Blu-ray versus HDDVD, Windows Phone versus Android and iOS, to name but the headliners – content is what wins format battles.  I can think of no better combination for developing rapidly an attractive content base than straight-forward tools and an open system for user-generated content, and the means to make money out of it.  User-generated content has made SL what it is and any new virtual world product which fails to take into account this tremendous success – and which fails to put it at the very heart of its philosophy – is unlikely to make any long-term impact.  When you stop to think about it, user-generated content is what gave MySpace the edge over social networking pioneers such as Friends Reunited (anyone remember them?) and then Facebook over MySpace.

But what excites me most of all about this announcement is the sense of new energy it communicates.  Has Altberg managed to shake Linden out of its fatigue and re-inject some of the pioneering spirit we all miss from the old days?  I sincerely hope so.  Now needs to be a time of group huddles and fist-bumps and air punches and battle cries at Linden HQ.  If it all comes to pass as the pundits are predicting and VR really does become the Next Big Thing in the IT world (again – deep breaths – it might not), we will be faced with a whole range of competing worlds and experiences; the very notion that Linden wouldn’t be there with its sleeves rolled up and slugging it out confidently with the newcomers is alarming.  Second Life is an amazing product and its architects should be diving in to whatever is approaching: they have earned their place there.

I’ll reiterate now my (previously expressed) belief that the company has to rethink its policy on land if it’s going to achieve a mass-market appeal in its future ventures: content is great, but you need somewhere to display it and nothing roots you to a world more than having a home there.  Hopefully, these early days of the construction of ‘Second Life 2’ will include a period of reflection on what’s been learned from SL that will include such issues.

There is, after all, so much that has been learned.  SL always was a product ahead of its time, but that time is now approaching.  In years to come, we might look back on our current world as ultimately the testbed pilot that led to a metaverse as pervasive as Facebook, as inspiring as nature, as unifying as sport and music.  Get in there, Linden: no-one knows this business better than you do; make us the place we have all been dreaming of.

Yamato Memorial

Following a link from a recent blog post by the amazingly talented Eve Kazan (the header image on my site is by her), I came to the Yamato Memorial by Masakado.

This extraordinarily detailed 1:1 model remembers the heaviest and most powerful warship built by Japan during the Second World War.  The ship is moored quietly between a hilled museum area and an airplane shop, where Masakado's equally precise Japanese WWII aircraft can be bought.

At over 4,000 prims, it's one of the most detailed builds I've ever seen in Second Life.  It's a staggering achievement.  Masakado was nearby when I visited and I IMed him, hoping to learn if he had a personal connection to the vessel, but I think he was AFK.

The potential for virtual worlds for teaching history is enormous.  We can recreate any era, any place, any building, any machine.  I cannot begin to imagine the hours of research and construction that must have gone into the Yamato, but whatever it was, it was worth it.  This is an awesome, beautiful, frightening work.

The Yamato was sunk by American bombers in April 1945, taking with it over 3,000 of its crew.

Arromanches: The Mulberry harbour

70 years ago today, the Mulberry harbours at Omaha beach and at Arromanches were open for business.  These extraordinary constructions - built because existing suitable French ports were too heavily defended - enabled the landing of over two million soldiers and 500,000 vehicles following the capture of the Normandy beaches on D-Day.  The various sections were built in the UK and then towed across the channel, making it one of the most audacious engineering feats of the Second World War.

A heavy storm on 19 June destroyed the American harbour, however the British harbour at Arromanches - nicknamed 'Port Winston' - survived and was repaired using parts from the Omaha harbour.  It operated for ten months in total.  70 years later, the remains of the harbour can still be seen at Arromanches, including this huge 'Spud Pier' section that has become washed up on the beach.  At low tide, you can walk up to and around it, reach out and touch this incredible artefact of an incredible conflict.

At hide tide, the sea rises halfway up the landing surface, creating an even split between erosion by sea and erosion by air.

Now, seaweed, barnacles and limpets cover the surface where once men's feet fell.

Out at sea, a number of the Phoenix breakwaters remain lined up, a permanent feature now of the Arromanches horizon.

Photographs by Huckleberry Hax.

Inventory: Your own personal ticking time bomb

How one day you’ll have nothing to remember your Second Life by, and possibly the real reason for that terms and conditions update.

There are a couple of completely unrelated activities I’ve become involved in lately that have got me thinking about the stuff we hold on to.  The first of these, in chronological order, is the clearing out of my mother’s attic.  It’s a long overdue job and I’m approaching it slowly and methodically, going through everything one box at a time and sorting according to whether each item should be thrown out, scanned/photographed and thrown out, kept, or ebayed.  After four, hour-long sessions, I’m approaching the end of my first box and there must be at least fifty boxes up there (most of them much larger than the one I’ve nearly finished).  Many of the boxes haven’t been touched in over twenty years.

When I committed to this project, I did so with a somewhat heavy heart and only because I knew that it had to be done sooner or later.  Much to my surprise, however, I’m actually quite enjoying the task.  I’ve discovered all kinds of things that have brought back memories of moments lost or simply a recollection of the world as it once was through my then more innocent eyes.  Letters, photographs, Christmas cards, magazines, things my father wrote when he was alive, toys long forgotten; and so on.  It’s nice to occasionally reconnect with how things once were, even if only for a few minutes.

The second activity is far less wholesome for the soul.  I’m somewhat ashamed to say I’ve become addicted to the online game ‘Simpsons Tapped Out’.  Those of you familiar with this app for phones and tablets will know it involves creating your very own version of Springfield by saving up virtual dollars accrued through sending the various residents available on jobs; these dollars can then be used to buy land or construct buildings.  All well and good, but the game involves a lot of waiting around because these jobs can take anything up to twenty-four hours for residents to complete, as can building construction.  To get around this, you can speed everything up using the second currency of donuts.  But here’s the catch: donuts can only be bought using real money, and this is where EA Games, the makers of Tapped Out, make their return on the app.  Buying donuts is a temptation I’ve so far avoided, however there are clearly plenty of users who take this approach, since the game – free in all other respects – is reportedly a huge financial hit.

How is this relevant to my musings on stuff?  I went to a discussion forum a few days ago to find out what people were saying about a new set of quests that have recently been added to this game, with a whole new set of items than can be earned.  People were discussing these with some excitement, and one of them eagerly posted, “I’ve got them all already with some donuts I got bought for my birthday”.

It’s a funny old world.  I can listen to some truly dreadful news items with the most dispassionate of responses, but for some reason this really hit me.  Actually, anything concerning childhood innocence usually does it.  I once saw a really aggressive kid I knew taking a glimpse through a crack he’d found in the papered-over window over of a Santa’s grotto and the look of childhood joy on his face made me want to blub uncontrollably.  I assumed, you see, that this post had been written by a child (I might be wrong) and it upset me that for his or her birthday they had received something they would never one day be able to come across in their attic and hold and feel and smell.  One day, Simpsons Tapped Out will be an obsolete title and all these purchased items will be gone.  The game doesn’t work without a connection to the game server, and when it reaches the point, to quote Troy McClure, where it’s no longer profitable, that server will get its plug pulled and everything anyone ever ‘owned’ on it will vanish.

As it is also with Second Life.  Everything in our inventory – everything we think somehow belongs to us – actually resides on Linden servers which one day will get turned off.  Everything: every picture, every notecard, every outfit, every building, every piece of furniture you ever bought or made, every trinket and curio, every garden feature, every single hairstyle you’ve ever worn; one day, it will all of it be gone.  You do not own any of it.

Whatever you think Second Life is, it cannot last forever.  Whatever improvements are made to it, it will not in the long term be able to compete with new virtual worlds that aren’t built on an eleven year old architecture (happy birthday, by the way, SL).  Eventually, there just won’t be enough people buying land or paying tier or purchasing stuff on the marketplace for Linden (or whoever ends up owning SL, if Linden one day decides to sell it) to make money out of it.  Some people will definitively leave; others will drift over to new products and find their visits to the first ever virtual world less and less frequent.  Whatever.  Whether it’s a year from now or five or ten or twenty, that moment must inevitably come.  There are things we can export, such as pictures and notecards and any objects we’ve built ourselves, but more or less anything we’ve bought or received from others is stuck forever in our inventory, and the stuff we can take out the majority of us will probably never get around to moving because there’s just too much of it.  By the time we realise we want to keep hold of it because of the memories these things unlock, it will all be too late.

The more and more I think about it, the more I feel a pull towards the conclusion that this inevitable, unavoidable truth is the real reason – or part of it, at least – why Linden changed its terms and conditions regarding ownership of inventory last year.  Because we tend only to think in the here and now, this got misread as some sort of nefarious plot to make money out of our intellectual property.  I don’t think it’s that at all; Linden denied this and we’ve yet to see any evidence to the contrary.  But now that most commentators seem to agree that our metaverse is now entering its final age, anxiety at the labs over what rights people have to items in their inventories must have started to grow considerably.  Solution: let everyone know that Linden owns the lot so that if (when) they chose to extinguish it, then they have every right to do so.

What, if anything, can be done about this?  Experimentally, I’ve exported a couple of items I made in the past to InWorldz and it worked okay – textures had to be uploaded separately, but that’s doable.  InWorldz, however, isn’t all that different from SL as I understand it, insofar as it’s still one central organisation holding all the server space.  OpenSim would appear to be a much better long-term storage option, since (as I understand it) you can use it to run your own region on your own PC, rather than having to connect to regions online.  Still, this is only a solution for things you have actually made yourself, which in my case would be less than one per cent of my total inventory.  And even some of those are un-exportable: much of my own furniture, for example, uses all-permission sculpted elements I’ve bought such as mattresses and cushions; using these in my items is entirely ‘legal’, but, when it comes to exporting, just one of them in an item I've made will block the whole thing from being saved to my hard disk.

Perhaps, between now and the end of SL, someone will come up with some sort of magic tool – a deus ex machine to my prophecy of doom – that will allow the export and conversion of everything to some new virtual world we’re all emigrating to.  I’m not technically knowledgeable enough to know whether such a thing might be possible, but even if it is it’s likely to cause an outcry among sellers, who have been fighting the copybots for years.  It would probably get banned.

We should probably reconcile ourselves, then, to saving what we can while we can.  For my part, that will mean saving my snapshots to hard disk and maybe trying to take a few more pictures than I ordinarily do in the time we have remaining.  Regarding objects, the vast majority of my stuff is junk I no longer use and I suppose it won’t be the end of the world if it should all pass into non-existence.  Like so much stuff we get rid of in real life, pictures of it will suffice.  There are a few gems here and there, however, which I will really, really miss: the first home I built (it included cheap bits and pieces I picked up from dollar stores), my unbelievably cool 70s bed (not actually finished as a saleable item yet, but you simply have to see the furry leopard skin cover), the neck chain my best friend Dizi made for me from a maze design (carved into stone at a place in Tintagel) when I told her how much I liked it.

I would love one day, years from now, to come across these things in a virtual box in a virtual attic so that I can look at them for a while and enjoy the memories they evoke.

But I’m pretty sure that I won’t.

Remembering D-Day

In 2008, I spent a week on holiday just outside of Bernières-sur-mer, the seafront of which forms part of Juno Beach, the Canadian landing point on D-Day 70 years ago today.  During that time, I also visited Sword and Gold, the British landing points, and Omaha, one of the two American beaches (and the bloodiest).  My visit to the latter of these in particular led me to making my first real attempt at writing poetry, 'At the beach', which you can read here.

By chance, a couple of weeks before the trip I'd picked up in a charity shop a copy of "Not in Vain" by Ken Bell, a Canadian photographer who landed on Juno on D-Day.  For this beautiful book of photographs, Ken revisited in 1979 some of the locations he'd photographed in 1944, taking new pictures to show the contrast created by 35 years of peace.  It turned out that Ken's exact landing point was Bernières-sur-mer and I resolved to seek out during my trip some of the locations photographed so I could create 2008 versions of these pictures.

I the end, I managed to track down four of these - three in Bernières-sur-mer and one on the way to Ouistreham.  Today, the last major event to commemorate this historic moment, seems a good day to publish these.

Landing at Bernières-sur-mer, 1944.  Photograph by Ken Bell.

The beach in 1979.  Photograph by Ken Bell.

In 2008, a plaque identifies this house as the first to be liberated in France.  Photograph by Huckleberry Hax.

1944.  Photograph by Ken Bell.

1979.  Photograph by Ken Bell.

2008.  Photograph by Huckleberry Hax.

The railway station in 1944.  Photograph by Ken Bell.

A bus station in 1979.  Photograph by Ken Bell.

And a tourist office in 2008.  Photograph by Huckleberry Hax.

The road to Ouistreham in 1944.  Photograph by Ken Bell.

And in 1979.  Photograph by Ken Bell.

And in 2008.  Photograph by Huckleberry Hax.

State of confusion

I've seen Denise Rowlands's State of Confusion sim pop up in a couple of blogs recently and decided I'd go take a look with my camera, now that I've blown the dust off it.

The sim is located next to Crash Boat, which is, in fact, where your teleport touches you down, just outside an old railway station created by Denise.  Follow the road across the track (exercising due caution, obviously) and eventually you find yourself on a narrow wooden jetty which leads you across the sim border and onto the first of the islets.  Take a moment to appreciate the couple of food stalls (by The Biscuit) on the sea front first, though.  Actually, if you're on a diet, don't.

The three islets which comprise the sim are open, sandy isles spotted with palm trees.  Each has a single feature: on the first the ruins of a house by Kendra Zaurak; on the second an incredibly detailed rise of Alex Bader's plants and moss-covered logs and one of those source-less waterfalls that ever-so slightly irritates me (my bad, entirely); on the third a gorgeous beach bar by Eduardos Ducatillon.

As always with such sims, it's the space between these various gorgeous 'sets' that turns it from a showroom into a place.  Whilst the second islet's feature is so detailed that it feels just a little incongruous there to me, the overall balance between detail and space is well managed.  There's some very subtle details too, like the rock pools and the seaweed waterlines.

Ultimately, however, it was the wooden bridge connecting the second and third islets that I spent the most time on in this lonely, yet lovely, sim.  There's just something about a bridge, a view and solitude that's very hard to top.