After playing the game I really couldn't tell you "what it is about", so I had to do some research. The basic premise is that Second Life is an online 3-D virtual world imagined and designed by the players of the game. On the game's website there is an introduction video titled "What is Second Life." The video shows avatars chatting, shopping, working and doing amazing activities. The premise behind the game seems great and the idea that you can interact with friends from around the world is very innovative but something in Second Life goes terribly wrong. This leads me to the Key concepts I will be discussing. Key Concept 1: I want to take a look at Noise within the gameplay including Lag, Language and Lingo and Key Concept 2: I want to look at Second Life as a synthetic world that can be used as a social experiment.
When you first sign into Second Life you chose your name and are given the choice of about ten avatars. After this you are prompted to join "help island" where you can in theroy learn how to play Second Life. I immedietly noticed how crowded the interface is. There are tons of different buttons, menus, popups, options, etc. There is also just stuff everywhere most of it just being
advertisments for various things (above image).
Key Concept 1
The "noise" in Second Life really makes the game unenjoyable. It pretty much ruins the experience of the entire game. As soon as you teleport to a new area random objects begin popping up all around you and the lag makes it unplayable (above image). Eventually after the loading process people will begin popping up. These people are constantly chating in different lingos. This lingo really makes you feel distant from the game more as an observer than a player. There is also a language barrier within the game. Traveling to different rooms and areas I heard many different languages. This is great for the player that speaks these languages but can make other players feel distant within the game.
Key Concept 2
Second Life seems like a social experiment in itself. Players from all over the world are given the ability to do whatever they want in this synthetic world. What seems to happen is that the people playing the game manifest their imagination inside the game which can be very interesting. I teleported to an avatar staring center and in the middle of a town square there was a group of people chatting. This wasn't an ordinary group of people. I watched minature stick figures walk around casually, people dressed up as cats asking me if I need some new clothes, a midget holding a picketing sign and a safe box open up, reach out it's tounge swallow a girl and then rolled around on the ground (above image). This was the most interesting part of Second Life just seeing what people created.
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