I finally decided to begin a new life... a second one. I heard a lot about this Second Life game (it is not a game in fact) but personal experience certainly worth thousands of words.
Besides, it was promised on the website that to start a second life as easy as a few clicks. It was almost true with the only difference that I had to install a Second Life client on my PC and to register on-line as a new citizen. Every person in SL (Second Life) has a unique name and I had to choose my one in order to create an account. Surprisingly, there was absolutely no possibility to use your real name as a name for your SL character. I could type in whatever I wanted as my first name but I had to choose my surname from the short list of common last names. I was a bit disappointed with this fact at first but then I realized that probably it was done on purpose to prevent using somebody else’s real names. Eventually my name became Max Ballard and since then all emails I receive from the SL-team are addressed to Max Ballard.
After the registration I was asked to choose an avatar for myself and then I was teleported to the newbie’s zone. Before going to “main grid” I was offered sev-eral tutorials on the very basics of Second Life. There were some simple tasks I had to perform in order to prove that I could properly orientate myself in the world, chat with others and search for events in SL. All these tasks and tutorials were optional but they were definitely worth doing. There were around 20 per-sons in that newbie’s island who were also learning how to walk, fly and chat. At that time everything looked like a game where I received missions (such as to find a vehicle or talk with a certain person) and had to complete them.
Finally I used a special teleport to transfer to the main grid of Second Life. It was a real virtual world and it was huge. Unlike Neal Stephenson’s Metaverse there was no any main street or any other identified centre. The world in SL consists of the so-called Mainland formed by the three huge continents and of an uncountable number of islands (mostly private estates). There is a special map provided by Google that helps people to find what they need and not to get lost in the neighbourhood.
The most important observation I made on my first visit to SL was that the con-ventional rules of urban planning did not apply to this virtual world at all. The reason for that was quite obvious – there was a teleportation. It is simply amaz-ing how teleportation changes the feeling of urban space! In some way I can compare it to the underground transport system. Thus, using the underground as the main transport means did not allow me to understand the real scale of the city when I came to London for the first time. My urban map of London consisted of several scraps and I could only guess how all these scraps were joined together. It was a sort of groundhog-lifestyle when I knew only a small territory on the surface around common burrows. The only way to estimate the real relationship between districts was to start exploring city by bus or by car. And it is always very exciting when all these separated scraps begin to combine in a single map.
Introducing a teleportation as a transport means significantly deteriorates the sense of spatial relations between parts of the city. Comparatively to the underground where you at least can estimate the distance between departure and destination points, teleportation is completely confusing in terms of distance awareness. Moreover it blurs the boundaries of the city as such transforming the whole world in a single urban territory. Thus, having a land in the central part of the continent in SL has not any visible advantages over living on an island or in any other part of the world. And that was definitely the main and the most exciting discovery of my first day in Second Life.
After the registration I was asked to choose an avatar for myself and then I was teleported to the newbie’s zone. Before going to “main grid” I was offered sev-eral tutorials on the very basics of Second Life. There were some simple tasks I had to perform in order to prove that I could properly orientate myself in the world, chat with others and search for events in SL. All these tasks and tutorials were optional but they were definitely worth doing. There were around 20 per-sons in that newbie’s island who were also learning how to walk, fly and chat. At that time everything looked like a game where I received missions (such as to find a vehicle or talk with a certain person) and had to complete them.
Finally I used a special teleport to transfer to the main grid of Second Life. It was a real virtual world and it was huge. Unlike Neal Stephenson’s Metaverse there was no any main street or any other identified centre. The world in SL consists of the so-called Mainland formed by the three huge continents and of an uncountable number of islands (mostly private estates). There is a special map provided by Google that helps people to find what they need and not to get lost in the neighbourhood.
The most important observation I made on my first visit to SL was that the con-ventional rules of urban planning did not apply to this virtual world at all. The reason for that was quite obvious – there was a teleportation. It is simply amaz-ing how teleportation changes the feeling of urban space! In some way I can compare it to the underground transport system. Thus, using the underground as the main transport means did not allow me to understand the real scale of the city when I came to London for the first time. My urban map of London consisted of several scraps and I could only guess how all these scraps were joined together. It was a sort of groundhog-lifestyle when I knew only a small territory on the surface around common burrows. The only way to estimate the real relationship between districts was to start exploring city by bus or by car. And it is always very exciting when all these separated scraps begin to combine in a single map.
Introducing a teleportation as a transport means significantly deteriorates the sense of spatial relations between parts of the city. Comparatively to the underground where you at least can estimate the distance between departure and destination points, teleportation is completely confusing in terms of distance awareness. Moreover it blurs the boundaries of the city as such transforming the whole world in a single urban territory. Thus, having a land in the central part of the continent in SL has not any visible advantages over living on an island or in any other part of the world. And that was definitely the main and the most exciting discovery of my first day in Second Life.
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