This is me on my second adventure in Second Life. I still hadn't managed to 'drop' the various weird clothing and objects I had picked up in my first visit. So here I found my self-- In Gitmo, wearing orange detainee jumpsuit... with shopping bag and 'sparkly skirt.' Totally absurd. I was here to do serious work and I spent half the time stuck in mid-air, my head half-way through the barracks ceiling.
I love the idea of modeling real-world conflict situations in a virtual game environment, but it has to get easier to negotiate these environments. I know this stuff is second nature for a lot of people, but ot for everyone. I see that as a challenge to attracting non-gamers to interactive experiences. How can we design an environment where users can more easily intuit the rules of the game....and not waste 20 minutes on apple+point click, scroll, scroll, scroll, left hand, drop, shopping bag.
Comments (1)
Speaking as one who has played far too many 3D games, SecondLife is easily one of the most difficult 3D environments to get a handle on. The animations and controls are really very awkward and unintuitive.
So really, I don't think it's just you in this case. SL is really kind of crappy in this respect. :P On the other hand, it supposedly makes up for it by being basically infinitely customizable... so there's the tradeoff, I guess.
Posted by Cynthia Nie | September 13, 2007 3:33 AM
Posted on September 13, 2007 03:33