Week 7 - Summary and The Future

Over the last 8 weeks, I have been taken back into the virtual of Second Life. I have been a part of Second Life virtual world since mid-2007, and I have been on at least once every week, and way more in my more active periods, since then until 2011. Once 2011 came around, I lost a lot of the friends that I had previously met before and shared great experiences with them, so I stopped logging on. There were, however, still some of them left, and they definitely always made me feel at home when on Second Life. On top of this, I lost the land to the virtual clothing store I ran with my best friend, Darrel Parx (one of the ones who left for good). Anyways, it was not until this class and this project did I get re-introduced into this crazy, fun, and messed up world of Second Life. With this project, I saw the world from a much different perspective than I ever did when I played for my own reasons.

            When someone plays a game for the sake of their own entertainment, they skip a lot of different things and go straight to what they think is the most fun part about a game or so. This is pretty much what I did. I created stupid stuff, crazy silly avatars, and “trolled” and “griefed” people to our fullest extent at times, all with one of my best friends online. When one plays a game for the sake of research or for better understanding or learning, you get to see the science and the un-biased truth behind everything that is happening. This is exactly what happened when I was presented with this project.

When I started this project, I did not start fresh, like a lot of people would if they were to do this project, I assure you. I took this project because I KNEW I could explain the world, the people, and the communities much better than someone who was completely new to the world. I have had plenty of experience before, so I thought it was perfect. I was taken by surprise at how much more I learned through these research questions and ideas. Taking that past experience as a regular player, and mixed with my new knowledge and experience as a researcher, I have found the world of Second Life to be much more different than I used to view it. I was used to being stuck in one or two places, always hanging out with the same people repeatedly, and no one new. Once I had lost all those friends, I basically had to start over. Over my research journey of this course, I met (and even regained base) with new and old friends alike. While this paper is more of an overall view of the project and experiences, my blog is much more in depth and talks much more about these different experiences I have had throughout the project.

All in all, I felt that this project is a great way to get people into the world of Second Life, to help them learn, discover, explore, and enjoy every aspect of the world… or at least try to get them to delve further into the world than just the project. It definitely got me more interested in the world and game as a whole again, especially with all of the new and amazing updates. In fact, as I stated before, by re-meeting old friends I was able to get my old clothing store back up and running. It was such a great feeling, to be able to log onto the game for something again. I gave me a quick and easy outlet for my creativity, whenever I wanted. Since my return, I’ve been helping my friends build their new stores, their new lands, I’ve met some incredibly nice and amazing people, and I’ve definitely made some new, good and supportive friends. This is what it is like to be a part of an online community and world. This is what makes me want to play more. While not everyone will accept people for who they are, there is always at least one place or one person who will. Always, that is what matters to me, at least.

Buildings I was commissoned to help build.

Front of my shop, \RCS\

A Friend (Land Owner) and I inside my shop.

Thank you for reading. If you ever have time, please check out the world of Second Life. You'll see the online world differently from your expereinces.

Week 6 - Reactions and Real Life to Second Life Behaviors

This is going to be my second to final week in my blog postings for this amazingly fun research project! This week’s post is not going to be as large as the past ones, but it is still valuable information.

In this week’s installment, I am going to be covering how people react to when I tell them I am researching Second Life for my Universities class project. I am also going to cover a little bit of how people on SL show similar behaviors to that of a real life.

I was expecting a very wide range of responses to when I told them about my research project, and I expected many questions. Here are the results from a few people said.

The message I sent out in private messages:

“Hey there! My name is Mike and I'm a student at DeVry University. I’m currently doing a research project on Second Life for my Emerging Technologies class. I was just wondering if you had any comments for me!”

1. The first 4 people I sent this to, completely ignored it and never responded. These were people who were ACTIVELY TALKING on microphones in a public setting.

2. Veleska: Second Life is a virtual environment that allows resident's to be who they want to be, where they want to be and when. It allows expression and choice's not commonly made in real life. Want to be some furry animal, and let your beast rage? Go for it! Want to be a stay at home mom during the day and a stripper at night and never have to work in rl again, you can do that too. If I thought for one minute years ago that I'd be spending my time in a virtual world I would have thought you were crazy, but truth be told, everything is at your fingers . A click away, and that's how life should be. So quit your day jobs folks! 3D IS THE WAY TO GO!!!

3. Baloo (eln.alter): Isn’t that some kind of sex game?

4. Aeson Amat: I’m afraid I'm do not know your study, so no comments.

5. GGH (goldy.southpaw): It's not what you think it is.

6. Cinda Valentino: this place is a petri dish for social research. Not to mention there are some sick individuals in here. It’s becoming more and more difficult to avoid them, the more people come in.

For my last topic this week, I’ll be talking about behaviors. People express so many different types of the behaviors, it’s just like real life. People’s behaviors in the real world are very reflective of the world and area around them. Unfortunately, in the online world, anyone can do, say, or be anyone they want. What is strange is that people can become the complete opposite of what they are in real life, and no one will ever know… unless extensive research and time is taken to find out. People can spread lies, rumors, and even horrible stories that are not truth. This applies to real life… but what is different is that people do not care as much as they do in real life about repercussions…. But at the same time, people will react the same way as if it were being spread in their real lives. I’ve seen people quit the game completely, I’ve seen people converge on a person or group of people because of how they act or what other people have said about them (usually bad things), and I’ve even seen people do malicious things to themselves and others in real life AND Second Life. 

Being mean, nasty, and evil are not the only behaviors that take place in the game. People are also very kind, generous, and even very helpful when you do not ever expect them to be. People want to be whom they want, and for many people, this is their real self. Just like in the real world, people come in all types of forms on Second Life. This world can be a very bright one, but at the same time, a very dark one.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read through my blog up to this point. I will be giving a general summary and collection of thoughts in my final blog post next week, so please stick around!

Week 5 - Online Living, Personalities Through Customization, and Communities

This week in my research project, I am going to go over how people use this 3D virtual world in correspondence to their interests and personalities. Going along with this, I may even touch a little bit on different communities that are seen throughout Second Life.

First up, Second Life is more than capable of allowing it’s users to fully express themselves, their life styles, and their personalities. While the creators, Linden Labs, allow customization, a lot of the interests and styles come from the other players who create products, clothes, and avatars of the same style and so. Content creation, customization, and sharing these things with other players is what drives Second Life and the world around them. Take me, for example… a few years ago, I created a few different uniforms and avatar sets based off the popular game franchise Metal Gear Solid.

(Marketlink: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Metal-Gear-Solid-Snake-Big-Boss/1205971)

I have made plenty of sales and I’ve even been approached by buyers asking me to create more content of similar nature, so that they could start a Role Playing Group solely BASED off MGS. This idea practically goes towards any single kind of product you will find out in this virtual world.

               

Another very large way to express one’s personality and style is to own a house, or “land” and many people would say. “Land” meaning a plot of space where they have full control over what goes on it, who is allowed on it, and what they can do to it. These plots are either bought DIRECTLY through Linden Labs for a moderate to large amount of real life money (depending on the size of the land), or through other players who are allowed to rent out the land for a price. This is exactly how it is in real life. Anyways, back to customization… this is a picture of typical houses I have found while wandering through random Sims.

It seems as if this Sim was dedicated to a residential district for players, allowing pre-fabricated houses and homes to be rented and used by players who are looking for a home of their own. The best part about a home is that it allows a person to show off their true colors. Players can put up decorations including pictures of friends, pictures of adventures they have had in Second Life, or even pictures of things from real life! These houses and lands allow a player to just “get away” from everything and everyone, giving them space or the private time they need to work on other stuff or to recuperate. On the flipside, they are also amazing places to have friends come and hang out! These two pictures a great example of that exactly.

Finally, I want to touch base on a few different popular groups that you might see out there in the Second Life world. These groups are seen very differently based on a person’s opinions and ideas, but people will fit in with what they are. First off, there are players that consider themselves “Furries”. These are people who dress up in avatars as their favorite animal and sometimes even act like these animals (small, timid, and shy creatures).  These types of players are usually found sticking close together to a small pack of friends or community. This is a picture of a group of friends at the “Flyin’ Tails Airfield”

Another very popular group of people is vampires. These people go around to wherever there is a large amount of people in an area, and they will proceed to attempt to “bite and suck” the blood from players avatars. Now, players can either play along or decline, since everything is done through scripting. When the people who use this system, called Bloodlines, they use their blood for prizes, bragging rights, or whatever a community or group will use them for (like currency or seniority).

The last group of players I want to cover are the Second Life Military people. The SL Military is a large-scale Role Playing organization mainly focused on combat tactics. Each military group has its own leaders, officers, and members… along with having their own headquarters base, equipment, tools, and weaponry. Leaders of each group often schedule attacks on another militaries base or gather its members to defend their base. These combats use Second Life’s health and damage system, allowing players to die and respawn in specified locations, much like in a First Person Shooter!

That is it for this week. Hope you had a good read!

Week 4 - Virtual Goods and Economy

Virtual goods are a big thing in Second Life. Every single piece of land, every building, every avatar, every object, etc., is built by the people who inhabit the game, by using the given tools from Linden Labs. Before I talk about virtual goods, I want to dive into the history of the tools that Linden Labs has given us for these goods to be created.


When the game first went into closed beta in 2002, the game used standard “primitives” and textures. Primitives are your basic “3D modeling” shapes (like cubes, cylinders, spheres, and cones), that you can move, rotate, scale, cut, and skew to your hearts desire to create your target idea. Some of the first things made included buildings, hair, and other types of clothing bits! Shortly following this, in 2003 when the game opened to the public, LL updated their creation system to include vehicle API (scripts), new terrain textures, animated hair and clothes, bump mapping, and shininess. (Nino, 2010) This allowed creators a slew of new options to further enhance their ideas and already made creations.

Basic primitive shapes and options

Linden Labs has constantly been taking steps in updating their game to keep it modern for its players and creators. In June of 2007, Sculpted Prims were announced to creator's groups and were soon put into test on Second Life's Preview/beta grid. In just a month, they were released to the main grid for everyone to start using. (Linden, 2007) Sculpted Prims were much different from standard prims, and somewhat hard to deal with. These did, however, allow creators to have much more freedom in creation, and allowing creators to condense shapes. In order to create a sculpted prim, you need to use a special shape in a 3D modeling program, which was most usually a sphere consisting of 32 or 64 vertices. In order to get it into SL, you would need to export it in a special way (which is mostly done by user-created plug-ins) which would then create a sculpt-map texture. This texture would contain the objects shape and details. Putting this texture into the game and putting it on an object would then create your sculpted prim! Sculpted prims have been heavily utilized for dynamic shapes such as curves and rounder objects.

Basic Sculpted Prim and Texture File

Sculpted jeans and shoes

By 2010, Sculpted prims have hit their potential and have been used in many impressive builds, avatars, and outfits. It was at this time that Linden Labs announced the upcoming support of Mesh objects. After two complete years of beta testing, Mesh Support was finally released in 2012. Mesh is the most wonderful thing to happen to Second Life in its history (in my opinion). Mesh allows a complete freedom, surpassing that of what sculpted prims had. Mesh support allows any 3D model created out there to be imported and used in SL, as long as it is exported as a COLLADA file (.DAE). This is a gigantic step in the way that SL content is created, worn, and used. By rigging these models, creators and users can have complete 3D models as avatars, clothing, accessories, and just about anything else, without having to use any of the games avatar creation system. Just attach the mesh object and you are good to go!

Mesh Hoodie

Mesh creation import and options

Complete Mesh used as an Avatar

Shoryuken!

Now that I have covered the brief history of creation tools, I'm going to talk about the products that are made by these tools, how they are bought and sold, and how, exactly, they drive the virtual worlds business and economy.

Creation company who's looking to hire!

As I mentioned in my blog posting in week 2, the games virtual goods can be bought, sold, and given away via in-world and online through stores, personal transactions, or the Second Life Marketplace. These three areas are how products and creations are distributed through Second Life. There is a giant way these products and creations impact the world of Second Life, and why many people are drawn to stay in this virtual world. That way is through the gain of money. Each product can be sold at the creators price, allowing them to set a price from 0 - 999999 (and way beyond that!). This is all done using the currency that Linden Labs has created, called, the Linden. Lindens can be bought through real-life transactions on the website or through the games residents. The Linden dollar has an economy of its own, which is pretty incredible for a game. It is possible to become rich through Second Life by buying and selling land and products. (and many people have, too!) (MacMillan, 2007). Once players and creators have racked up a large sum of Lindens, they can either choose to spend them in the virtual world on products or land, or they can cash them out for real USD, or whatever currency they want! It is possible to invest into the Linden currency market, as the price of lindens to USD fluctuate, much like that of the real market. Large content creators or popular places have the ability to virtually hire other players to help them in creating, supporting, or inventing new products and services. I personally know of at least two friends on SL who make a living creating content, to which they can live on. Virtual products on Second Life are how the game and virtual world strive to continue living. With the constant support of Linden Labs, the users of the game can constantly create cool, new, and interesting products. 



References


MacMillan, D. (2007, April 04). Virtual world rich list. Retrieved from http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/04/0416_richlist/index_01.htm?chan=technology_special report -- virtual life_virtual life


Nino, T. (2010, June 26). The virtual whirl: A brief history of second life (2002-2003). Retrieved from http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/06/26/the-virtual-whirl-a-brief-history-of-second-life-2002-2003/


Linden, Q. (Producer). (2007). Sculpted prims in second life. [Web Video]. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlfpACg_lww


LindenLabs, L. (Producer). (2010). A brief look at second life mesh support. [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/TlIn35BuNfU

Week 3 - Personality and Avatars

Being a noob in any game is tough. In Second Life, however, it is a little tougher. Changing out of those beginner clothes is a big way to tell the difference between a new player and a seasoned one in just about every game. However, in order to change your appearance, you need money… or you will have to settle for something that looks bad and probably looks way off, forever putting you in damnation of being a “noob”. 

Avatar customization in Second Life is immense. When just starting in SL, you need to get the hang of how objects and outfits work. It is pretty crazy and overwhelming when you learn about attachments and how they work. Most attachments are able to be modded, which lets you change their sizing and positioning. Most people are not aware of this, and their attachments are in very bad positions or scaled incorrectly. Nevertheless, looking like a noob in this game is very unimportant, but that mostly depends on what type of group or individual you are in contact with. Most people on SL are interested in the PERSON, the PERSONALITY, and the LIFE of that avatar… not so much their appearance. As I grew through my time on SL, my avatar has gone through many stages.

This is a picture of one of my very first avatars. Yeah, it is pretty interesting, right? You can tell that I was definitely into the whole, “I can do/be/dress anyway I want.” I have met some very interesting and amazing people through my career, and I will never forget many of them. In fact, I still talk to and remain friends with many of them! Anyways, I was always seen for my person, not my avatar (for the most part). I would say that most of my experiences on SL are equal to that of my real life. I made friends based off what things I liked, my value of opinions, and just my friendly personality.

There are, however, people who are the complete opposite. They base everything about a person straight off of their avatar. I came across this article while doing a little research on this topic. This is a excerpt taken straight from the article:
“

"Well, I teleport into a region," she says, recounting a latter case.  "Where a couple people [are] standing around.

"One said, 'Look at the n***** b****.'" 

"Another said 'Great, they are gonna invade SL now.'"

I ask her if she filed an abuse report against them with Linden Lab, since racist speech is a patent violation of SL Community Standards.  She shrugs.  "Better things for Lindens to worry about." She spent three months in the skin of a black woman. Some of her friends shied away, she believes. Then there were the "guys that thought I was an easy lay, for lack of a better term. It scared me honestly, some of the assumptions made. Especially here where everything [in avatar appearance] is changeable with a click. I lost a couple of what I thought were good friends [who] stopped IMing and chatting. They were polite to a fault when I showed up, but [it] was weird. You know how you interact and something changes and no one tells you. Some were subtle, some weren't." She laughs without mirth, recalling how some friends would ask her questions such as, "'[L]ike, when you going back to being you?'

" (Wagner, 2006)

Anyways, jumping back to me for the remainder of this post… here is a little list of people that I have met over the years and a little bit about them.

Name: Chronic Benelli

Date Met: February 2, 2008

What brought you to SL? What did you want to do?
 “Boredom and the urge for something new and exciting brought me to SL.”

How did you view me when we first met?
“I thought you were really dope and I knew we were going to be friends for a long time. You were super chill and very easy to get along with.”

Name: Stevie Muggins

Date Met: April 18, 2010

What brought you to SL? What did you want to do?
“What brought me to SL was one of my online friends bugged me to join this thing. And I’ve been addicted ever since. I was a complete douche to her though and never met her in world. What I wanted to do in SL was become SL famous by making some good stuff. That never happened though. :P”

How did you view me when we first met?
“I just remember going to your store once and buying a lot of shirts. You were standing there and I was like, “ohhayy I like your stuff!” I thought you were pretty awesome, and you still are today.

Name: Violet Aldrin

Date Met: March 29, 2010

What brought you to SL? What did you want to do?
“I was watching an episode of the office when i had mono, the one where Dwight’s talking about SL, and wanted to see if it was real. I used it while I was home sick and then forgot about it for like a year. Now I use it whenever I’m bored or bed ridden.”

How did you view me when we first met?
“First impression: scene kid punk; personality: could be nice, but insists on being loud and gross.”

Name: Mochi Nyoki

Date Met: May 13, 2011

What brought you to SL? What did you want to do?
“When I first joined it was just to practice Japanese, because I met a lot of Japanese people, but when I learned more about SL it became just a social thing for me, something to do when I was home and bored.”

How did you view me when we first met?
“When we first met, I thought you were one of those people who had some kind of self-importance and didn't talk much to people unless they had a certain status. I learned shortly after that you were pretty much the opposite!”

Name: ReleaseTheZombiies

Date Met: April 24, 2012

What brought you to SL? What did you want to do?
“I saw it on CSI or something and thought it was cool. So, I looked into it been playing since.”

How did you view me when we first met?
“I viewed you as cool. You were Lonnie's (Chronic Benelli) friend and you have a sick obsession with ham (an inside joke story between us, it’s extremely funny!) ... xD”

References

Wagner, A. (2006, February 23). The skin you're in. Retrieved from http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/02/the_skin_youre_.html

Week 2 - Personal Relations and Products

Hello again! This past week I've spent some more time in Second Life to research a little bit more. Most of my experiences this week have come from the public store [Buried] (as I talked about last week), random meetings with friends at places where they would bring their own friends, and random stores I wanted to check out.

First of what I want to talk about is how people behave, react, and live on SL. Much like in real life, every single person comes with their own special type of personality and behaviors. While I play, I like to act, joke around, and just be my REAL self. Many other people, on the other hand, like to keep their 1st life and their second life completely separate. What I mean by this is that people will create their own character, and only act, think, and speak like the character they are presenting to the world of SL. Lastly, there are many people who like to do a mixture of both, where they have the freedom to change who they are, but still keep some or many core values about themselves.

(A much older picture of me. Showing off how I look in real life versus Second Life. Pretty similar.)

For me, being myself, I find it very easy to talk to new and old players alike, and they all seem to get along with me right away. There have been many times, though, where I decide to change what I look like and sometimes even how I act (maybe more rude, maybe more pushy, maybe even more dumb), and there is definitely a change in how people react and talk to me. When I'm annoying and pushy, most of the time, people will tell me off and ignore me, unless I continue to harass them. In Second Life terms, I would be considered a "Griefer" or "Troll". People do these types of things constantly because they get a kick out of it. It's just a lot easier to harass people online than it is in real life, so they have a reason to try.

(A friend and I going around holding people up at "gunpoint", trying to get a few laughs. Many people igored us and laughed at us and called us dumb. We assumed no one would pay up, but some people played along and gave a few dollars! Good sports.)

(This is someone who came into the area and did an improvised rap talking trash and making fun of everyone he saw. Many people yelled at him, ignored him, or simply blocked him.)

For the reasons above and more, there are so many different ways people are attracted to Second Life. Most people find their true calling or place after adventuring online for a few weeks. What used to be a simple game where you would talk to people and be someone else might have evolved into becoming a store owner, selling the lands most popular shirts, jeans, skins, or hair! This is pretty much how it happened for me. I came to SL one summer because I saw a time-lapse video building of an acoustic guitar, so I assumed it was like a version of The Sims, or something I could mess around in and 3D Model. I had no clue what I was about to jump into at that point. After a few months of playing and getting a few friends involved, we quickly found a community of people and became friends with everyone. This shows exactly how people can change and adjust in SL, much like in real life.

Finally, I want to touch a little bit on shopping. There are many categories that creations can be sorted into. Finding exactly what you want in SL can be VERY EASY to achieve! In-world, there is a search engine that helps you find common tags such as free, newbie, clothing, hair, skins, shapes, furniture, vehicles, weapons, HUDS, etc. Also, there is a Second Life Marketplace, which is all done through your web browser. The SL Marketplace can be found here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/. Other ways include word-of-mouth, or right-clicking the object on the person and "inspecting" it.

When starting off in SL, there are very very many places that are dedicated to new players, allowing all of their creations to be bought free of charge. Granted, most of these things are either old or poorly constructed, but it's still something to get people up off their feet!

(Some Freebie Island merchandise)

Using the Marketplace, I went on and found 5 different items from 5 different categories. For each item, I will go over what it is, what category it comes from, how much it costs, and who would be buying it.

1.)
GunCraft - Custom Weapon Crafting Tool
Category: Weapons - Rifles
Price: L$1,000
Who would use this?: Anyone who is very into military-type things, guns, customization. It's harmless unless you are in a zone where health/damage is turned on.

2.)
Damani MediaViewer - Youtube, Dailymotion, ShoutCast, Music, Movies
Category: Home and Garden - Electronics
Price: L$4,95
Who would use this?: People who have houses or land of their own. It allows the sharing of videos and music from YouTube and such.

3.)
Bike red
Category: Vehicles - Motorcycles & Scooters
Price: L$0
Who would use this?: Anyone who wants a motorcycle! It's drivable in "rez enabledb (able to drop items)", "script enabled" areas only.

4.)
*HB* Kenshin Samurai Full Armor - by Hanzo Blades
Category:  Avatar Accessories - Armor
Price: L$1,200
Who would use this?: People who Role-Play or want to dress up as a samurai.

5.)
aLidas black S-V-E-D
Category: Apparel - Men's Footwear
Price: L$99
Who would use this?: Regular people need some kind of pair of shoes!

As you can see, there is plenty of variety in builds, quality, style, prices, everything else.

Until next week!

Week 1 - Intro to Second Life!

Hello there! This blog is dedicated to my online course GSP475, where I will be jumping into a game called Second Life and doing an analytical research project over the next 8 weeks.

Second Life (or SL for short) is definitely not just a game. This game is a large virtual world, where real people from all over the world can join, communicate to friends and strangers, buy and sell products for their avatars or land (which also can be bought or sold), explore the world, and just.... basically anything you can do in the real world, you can do in Second Life (plus a few extra things because it's still a computer game :P).

Now, I've actually been a part of SL since 2007 (yes, that's right! 5 years!). I've explored so many different places and met so many different people, I can tell you upfront how amazing this experience can be... but also how different and weird things can be.

This picture was taken at a popular clothing and hair store for teens and young adults called [Buried]. It's become one of the most popular hang out spots for these type of people over the past 3 years, but it still attracts people of other types. Further into the project, I will go furthur into SL, meet new people, and get to know and learn what it's like start from scratch again.