The Top Five (Non)Complaints About Second Life

Complaining about Second Life seems to be a pervasive virtual past time, but are any of these complaints valid, or are they just distractions or complete nonsense?

A quick disclaimer about what follows: none of this is scientific or particularly precise. I've been reading blog posts and comments for a while now, and I've noticed some patterns of complaints about SL that are reflected below. These are just my thoughts on the subject, and I welcome other's opinions.

Lag

Lag, or the slow response of the system to user inputs, has been a chief complaint of SL residents for a long time now. It's a valid complaint, but also one that can be partially addressed by users. There are lots of resources out there that describe how to reduce lag by limiting the number of scripts running on an avatar, reducing graphics and other settings in the preferences menu, and by upgrading video or memory cards.

So, while this is a valid complaint, enough already. Client-side rendering is slow, and it will probably always be so. Adjust your settings, upgrade your PC, and let's all move on.

Griefers

Griefers, avatars that exist primarily to irritate or antagonize other residents in SL, are another valid complaint. Griefers are a nuisance and a problem, but they are also easily dealt with. Instead of trying to reason with jerks like this, which is something I see people doing all too frequently, just mute them, report them, and most importantly, ignore them.

These are often just troubled people trying to express their pain or dysfunction through inappropriate behavior. Trying to correct them just feeds their need for negative attention. Consider muting them as simply a way to customize your Second Life experience. They're no longer your problem, so no more complaining about them.

Viewers

Viewers, the software applications that allow users to visit Second Life, are yet another source of irritation for many users. Every time a blog post goes up on the Second Life blog on this topic, the whole issue of viewers gets rehashed, ad nauseum.

There's nothing wrong with expressing a constructive opinion about viewer shortcomings, but many of the comments are just over the top. If you hate the viewer you're using, try another. There are lots of them out there. I use a variety of them myself, depending on what I'm working on.

Insisting that Linden Labs is stupid/irresponsible/obtuse/or out to get you just because of viewer problems smacks of conspiracy-theory thinking, and is irritating in its own right.

Sexual Behavior

For a number of reasons, sexual behavior is a popular past time in Second Life. Sex is a part of life, of course, so it's not too surprising that it shows up in an environment where people can hide their identities and engage in anonymous activities. Acting out sexually in ways that have only limited, if any, consequences for others is generally not problematic. But, many people complain about sexuality in Second Life as if it was occurring in their living rooms in front of grandma and the kids.

If women want to role play as slaves, I can't imagine why that's anyone else's concern. If people want to go to an adult sim and engage in anonymous sex, so what? Mute anyone whose behavior offends you, sexual or otherwise. If it appears to be illegal behavior (age play, for example), report it. Otherwise, let it go.

TOS Violations

This is probably the most complicated of the complaints I've seen. Forum posters and commenters often report abuses by Linden Labs regarding violations that result in a suspension or a ban. It's hard for me to know the truth about any of these, and I'm probably generalizing here, but I have yet to read an account by a person who was suspended or banned that doesn't have a ring of falsehood to it.

Too often, the complainer writes of not having done anything to warrant a ban, or having made extraordinary efforts to correct the situation, only to have Linden Labs, in its imminent awfulness, take action against them anyway.

It's hard to know if any of these complaints are true or not, but I've been involved with Second Life for a little over 3 years now and have never experienced one negative interaction with LL. In fact, when I've contacted the support line for help, I've always received excellent service.

I guess my feeling is that LL doesn't have the resources to pursue a campaign of intimidation or harassment against any particular person. So, if you follow the TOS, I can't imagine you'll have too many problems.

Conclusion

I'm no apologist for Second Life or Linden Labs, but I also don't think that the most common complaints I've seen have much merit. Most of them have more to do with skewed perceptions and overblown expectations than they do with the reality of participating in a virtual world.

Multi-user Virtual Environments in general are in their infancy, and problems are to be expected. Constructive, solution-oriented feedback is warranted, but most of the griping and complaining I've seen has simply been counterproductive.

What are your thoughts?

Depth of Field Feature in the Second Life Mesh Viewer

I'm not really sure what to make of the depth of field feature in the mesh viewer displayed below, but it looks pretty interesting. I think it makes more sense in terms of in-world photography, as opposed to just normal viewing while exploring, but take a look for yourself.



According to the Second Life Wiki, the viewer only works on the Aditi test grid, but the submitter of the vid wrote that it also works on the main grid as well. I tried it, and it does work on the main grid, but the sims I was able to teleport to was limited.

The creator of the vid also provided some details as to graphics and debug settings. I made most of the changes, but still didn't get the dramatic effects seen in the video.

"Depth of Field is active by default if Shadows are enabled. Global Illumination must be disabled.

Three debug settings affect how Depth of Field feature works. In this video, I set CameraCoC to 0.010 while I let CameraFNumber and CameraFocalLength to their default values.

I also changed another already-existing debug setting, CameraPositionSmoothing, setting it to 32 (that makes the bouncing camera effect). I usually make my videos with a SpaceNavigator but I didn't use it here."

So, I'm not sure if this is just an interesting diversion or something more significant, but it's definitely a different view of Second Life that I haven't experienced before.

Second Life Whiteboard Application

I ran across this vid on youtube.com this evening and wanted to share it here. This seems like a great tool for teams that collaborate in Second Life, but I'm not well versed in virtual collaboration tools. Take a look and see what you think.

The Disappearing Virtual World

It's an unfortunate fact that nothing comprehensively captures the constant process of change, either in real or virtual worlds. In the real world we do manage to capture some aspects of ongoing change through museum exhibits and various artistic mediums, such as Jules Aarons' street photography or the San Francisco street car video.

There is too often no systematic way this occurs, though, and what survives to future generations is unfortunately left to chance in many cases.

Cataloging some aspects of virtuality is a little easier in some respects, especially for the standard internet, which is captured by features such as Google Cache and the Wayback Machine, systems that create a repository of web pages and provide a way to observe and measure change in that medium.

Virtual worlds, though, defy easy documentation and seem to function more like the real world in that respect. We do document some images of the ever changing virtual landscape through blogs, Flickr pages, and machinima, but many sims and their attendant builds come and go with little attention ever being paid. Just like the real world, memorializing the virtual world is too often a hit or miss proposition.

One example that my good friend, Freckle Heron, pointed out to me this weekend was the upcoming remodel of the Empress and Hierophant sim (SLurl here) that, as far as we can tell, is scheduled for a complete makeover in the coming days.

The Empress and Hierophant Sim - Image by Freckle Heron

We visited the sim this weekend, and it is quite a beautiful build that looks, according to Freckle, very much like Wales. I've never been to Wales, but I can tell you that the design was very captivating and did give the sense of visiting a quaint English village in the British countryside, complete with fog and rain.

What the remodeled sim will look like is anyone's guess, but what we can know is that this image, or other ones like it scattered in various places across the web, are all that will remain to document it's passing. The beauty that was this place will never exist again, and 100 years from now, no one will have any way of experiencing its details in any meaningful way.

And, for every sim that is captured through such imagery, who knows how many others wink out of existence without any documentation at all.

While some might argue that this is of little consequence, I would argue the exact opposite. The virtual world is an important aspect of our technological and social development, and thoroughly and systematically documenting it will be a boon to future generations.

And, if the virtual realm is of no consequence, what are we doing in it and should we be there at all? If you believe that virtual worlds are worthwhile, then perhaps it's time for an organized effort to document them.

Virtual Smithsonian, anyone?