First Thoughts on Second Life
I’m taking two classes in the spring semester (531 and 532) that use Second Life for class meetings, so I thought I would get acclimated to the program over the weekend.
I’m still not sure about what I think about Second Life. I initially hated the controls and the fact that you can’t inherently rebind any of the keys. It’s hard to take it seriously as a mature client when a function that is so useful, simple, and pervasive is left out. However, I found a set of instructions online that explained how to do it by changing the keys.ini file, so I can’t complain too much there.
I think the thing that I am having a hard time with is the open-ended nature of the program. All of the other MMORPGs that I have played have specific tasks, quests, achievements, etc to them. Second Life has none of that. You are just…there. I don’t see what the fun of this is, but I am going to continue to try it for a while to see what I am missing. In addition, I hope to find that the assignments and classroom sessions give the program some purpose in my mind.
Speaking of purpose, Sunflower posted a Second Life scavenger hunt on the NoobToob forums recently. The strange thing is that I have seen many of the things on that list already, and I haven’t gone on any of the adult servers.
I attended a Second Life “end of semester” party with other students and instructors in the program last night. It was mostly a dance party with people chatting. I actually found this to be kind of fun. This brought up an interesting discussion topic between me and one of the instructors: why are dances in Second Life fun? I see people in Guild Wars dancing all of the time, too, but it hadn’t occurred to me before to ask “why?”
I think people enjoy dancing in large groups in MMORPGs for a few reasons:
- Dances have become a metaphor for social interaction in our society. Even if many of us don’t enjoy going to dances or dance clubs (and I say “us” because that includes me), we enjoy participating in the strange ritual with others.
- Dances in MMORPG’s allow us to participate in that societal norm while still participating in an intellectual conversation with others. The “body” dances without the lack of communication.
In a sense, such activities allow us to conform to societal norms, even as we break them.
I’ll keep you posted as I progress through the courses.