Assignment 6: Second Life… a second life…
Second Life, the game that can easily be described as a “second life,” that’s for sure.
Without a doubt, Second Life is certainly one of the most creative and emergent environments in the market. Noticed the word “environment” instead of the word “game” that is mentioned, that is because of the impression that Second Life has given me is a nearly complete player created content. The game world itself simply offers the background and space for the players to extend and create. I find this not only interesting, but a prelude of the future digital systems.
I will address three emergent game plays that I have experienced, player avatar, player created objects, and the world of second life overall.
Avatars have become an important element in the online community that addresses the player identity as well as connecting the play with the character. In Second life, the customization goes quite a distance allowing dramatic differences and emergent characters. This includes the pokemon character that I met while shopping at Dwellget.
As mentioned, Second Life is a collection of player created content, in which the buildings, transportation, terrain, and objects are all part of the emergent creation. I have came across, let’s say, many “unexpected” objects, from take home dolls
to multifunctional weaponry
.
This provides the players to express their passion and interest in a creative environment where it can be shared and recognized, which is pretty awesome.
This is a picture of me playing slots at a player created casino, burned some time there... and L$.
Second Life, the world itself is undefined, divided simply by land, space, property(user created content). As Salen and Zimmerman mentioned in the article “Rules of Play”, this is part of creating a complex system that drives meaningful play experience. The way I see it, is that Second Life is a second world in development, in other words, the beginning of a civilization. As a starter in Second Life, I feel that the world is slightly choatic, not well organized and structured as a whole. WorldMap Various parts of the player content is well displayed and introduced, however, there is a wide range of objects and land that is not formalized to fit in the overall picture. Not that this is a bad thing, it is simply the start of a revolution in the realm of player created world content and emergent game play.