Second Life Sketches: A Virtual Miscellany
By Warren Ellis
The following is an independent opinion column, and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.
In my Real Life, I’m a writer of graphic novels, prose novels and about half a dozen other things. And, today, all those things have conspired to erase the time I usually have to write these sketches. So, today, we’re doing fragments and images, and will return to full service next week.
I am manfully resisting the urge to induce you to seek out the pre-order page for my novel on Amazon.
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Why is the Cyberman staring at me?
I’m in Saijo City, trying to explore some of the constructions and take some photos for a planned future column on building. But this bloody Cyberman, the 2006 model, is following me around. Wherever I go, he appears next to me, speaking in audio captures from Doctor Who. He’s going to, I dunno, assimilate me or something. This end of Saijo City is combat-enabled. And, yes, I know this is just Second Life. But this guy is beginning to really bug me.
I jump to a broad flat roof. He settles next to me and starts jabbering about destroying me again. Bad enough I’m always running into kids who think they’re Torchwood (which, to my mind, means nothing but that they’re Welsh and always bloody crying), but now I have to put up with some Cyberpervert stalking me. So I show him a very, very large gun based on some ludicrous cannon from the anime MD Geist. He pauses for a moment, and then goes back in to the “I will destroy you and replace your bodily organs with toasters and microwave ovens” routine.
The thing about this gun is that it pushes people out of the area so quickly that they appear to instantly vanish.
I stand there for a moment, wondering what has happened to my life that I find myself shooting Cybermen in the course of my work.
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Possibly the single biggest business in Second Life is that of avatar styling. Your avatar is the figure that represents you inworld, and it is very nearly infinitely customisable. In fact, when you think you’ve seen the limits of what can be done with an avatar, someone will inevitably wander past who’s pushed beyond the envelope.
Wander five minutes in any direction and you’ll find a store, large or small, devoted to avatar styling. The stores sell clothes, sure. But they also sell skin. They sell eyes, jewellery, new arms and legs, robot parts, suits of armour, mechanical exoshells and weird textures. A devoted user will spend a great deal of time baking their own avatars to make unique statements or just to out-weird everyone else.
At some point soon, I want to do an entire column about the extremities of avatar design. Today, I just want to show you a couple of people I met during the week. Sometimes, you just can’t describe what’s inworld properly without a picture.
I met Ickabod Humphreys down by the Wall in Transylvania. The conversation went like this:
ME: Ickabod, I’ve got to say… you just rezzed into view here, and you look just **** disturbing tonight.
HIM: Thank you. My job here is done then.
ME: I should take your photo for Reuters.
HIM: Okay, now that would be disturbing.
Because, you see, he’s a deformed Goth mouse with one tooth in his head, and I’m the disturbing one. He’s not the most extreme avatar I’ve seen in Transylvania — sometimes the things that walk through my place make me double-check to see if someone slipped something into my drink — but I think he does illustrate that not everyone inworld is an arch little fantasist.
My friend Aki messaged me while I was in the Wastelands to tell me I should catch avatar designer Kazuhiro Aridian. Weirdly, I was talking to Kazuhiro at that moment, who apparently has some notoriety as a customiser of Second Life bodies. I’m told this is one of her more sedate bodies. Later on, I saw her limbs unfold, deploy and spread like some kind of skeletal mechanical bat, her pale face floating in its metal cradle like the Bjork-robots in the Chris Cunningham “All Is Full Of Love” video.
Next week, I hope to get more time in-world in order to show you how strange avatar-invention can really get.
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Finally, a couple of news pieces worth noting. Sony Home has been all over the wires this week, a Playstation 3-powered entrant into the Second Life stakes. “Game 3.0” is the term they’re using to describe their planned virtual world, which will offer avatar customisation and land parcels, but will otherwise be geared to providing a new environment for Sony games and Sony media downloads.
Most notably, it is reported that Sony will be imposing strict moderation on anything considered a “public space.” This would seem to me to place Sony Home as a competitor not to Second Life, but to more controlled, “PG” virtual worlds such as There.com or Active Worlds. “Game 3.0” would seem to me to miss the point of Second Life. I’m willing to be proven wrong, however, and will follow this with interest. Or, at least, will follow it as closely as I can without owning a Playstation 3.
Also, today I read an article about games designer Peter Molyneux’ planned late-2007 production, Fable 2. In this game, it is reported, “gamers will be able to start a family and watch their child grow over time.”
“Everybody is talking about emotion, story, engagement and narrative,” Mr Molyneux said. “We have tried to approach it in a different way. We are going to explore love.”
Other reports indicate that Fable 2, an X-Box game, will have an online multiplayer component. Which means another console is going to allow you to move into a user-populated online world and form relationships. In Fable 2, however, it seems that the Filthy Avatar Sex will come with consequences, and your cybershagging will produce a screaming digital baby that probably poops singing metal bat heads.
I will pay real money for someone to script this into Second Life.
