Second Life Sketches: Mapping
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.
Sometimes I just jump.
Go into Second Life and pull up the big zoomable map of the world. Pull the map about and zoom in until you can read the names of regions. I do this once a month or so. I’ll usually yank the map down, away from the mainland, until I start seeing islands. I’ll find an island name I like, and double-click a random point on the island to activate the teleport. And jump.
Matriarch: absolutely silent. Big, dignified houses set back from the main pavements, treed and hedged. If there’s a designated landing point with information on the island, I arrived at some distance from it. Walking around, I see a small sign on a patch of grass, proclaiming that I shouldn’t be wearing prim objects or, um, a shirt. Flying is switched off here, and I find I have to cross a canal to see more of the houses. This usually means just walking down into the water and out again. But, as I step into the water, a disc of ice forms under my feet, keeping me on the surface of the water. I do in fact find myself walking on water. On the other side, my MultiGadget picks up another inhabitant. I walk around the corner to see a man tied up and locked into an ornate glass box bearing a golden plaque reading “Prisoner.” All of a sudden, pings start appearing on my minimap radar. People are jumping on to the island…and it’s starting to look a little like I’m surrounded. Yes, I think it’s time to go.
Jump.
Space Frontier: a “sandbox,” a free construction space where people can build and test objects. This one seems to be dedicated to rocket-related building. One guy gleefully shows me his bomb-release tower, which dutifully drops a cartoon bomb down its interior shaft. The intimation is that, at some future point, the bombs will be “real”, as real as they get in Second Life, and that soon there will be explosions and launches and things at Space Frontier. Replicas of famous rocket boosters line up at the island’s edge. This is where I get lucky: I’m a space nut from way back, so I’m interested to see what this turns into.
Cookie: under construction. It’s going to be the site for a literary organisation. 700 meters up, I find the house of The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe and other nursery-rhyme locations, together with the disassembled segments of subway tunnels, all waiting to be connected up and dropped down to ground level. Keep an eye on this build.
Galaxy AFT: I materialise at the end of a boat. A big boat, a cruise liner. It takes me a moment to notice that the region appears to contain only part of a boat. Who makes a replica of the back end of a boat? It takes another moment for the system to reveal what’s going on: that the entirety of the boat actually fills three entire regions. It’s bloody massive. Three regions long, six decks deep, just an astonishing amount of surface area. I work my way through to the prow - and find the end still under construction. Naturally enough, there’s nobody here. I’m walking through an abandoned ship the size of the QE II…
…and jump.
Seydhisfjordhur: a very pretty Norse-themed island. Excellent attention to detail in places, and the whole place feels right. I half-expect to see Danish or Norwegian re-enactors wandering around the place. Maybe one of them could have explained to me how to pronounce the name of the sim. As I wander around the stone houses and bays, however, I stumble into the most hideous, tacky open-air disco you’ve ever seen, the sort of thing a ten-year-old girl would design if she’d only heard of clubs, complete with pretty butterflies holding up the spotlights. It is, of course, not especially Viking. So I jump.
Cars: into a parking lot. A parking lot that is vast, stretching as far as the eye can see, and apparently up in space somewhere. I am filled with horror at the idea of having jumped into a line from “Big Yellow Taxi,” and start looking for a shower, or something to kill myself with. But there’s nothing but cars. I mean, this comes as no surprise, as the place isn’t called Flowers or anything. But, really, just an amazing number of car replicas are lined up here. What become clear is that this is just one level, and that this island seems to be nothing but a stack of parking levels stuffed with replica automobiles. If cars do it for you, then you should visit. I know nothing about cars save that girls drive me around in them, so I jump…
De Lodi: The Postindustrial Ambience Museum. Which is a deadzone. Quite literally, I think. Sand the colour of run-off, of mine tailings. Rusted-out buildings. Standing locomotives. A scattering of buildings, with stylings ranging from 19th Century pavilions to 20th Century bunkers. A weird little art gallery. I’m not entirely sure what the point of De Lodi is, bu it does have an undeniable ambiance. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but it’s a pretty depressing place. After a little while exploring the place, I kind of lose the urge to jump.
I think I might just sit here and cry for a bit.
