early adopter curse...
Is it a curse or is it a boon.. and what is boon or boom really. Maybe its a curse. Do you ever have people come up to you and act like x is the next big thing but for you x was like so yesterday?
There's on going hype around second life as if its gonna change everything. To me second life is just one of a string of virtual world creations. I remember the old ones, the classics, the text adventures, the primitive 2d graphics, the EGA mode avatars, then we went to animals or strange abstractions since drawing people was too hard, then we went to robots, basic wireframes, it got gamey, we could edit things, neat, and then we get down with sounds, the art gets better and now we have second life.
When people call it the next great medium, oh man I hate those statements. Its not the next great medium. Now lets break this down, I'm all for 3d environments when they make sense, ie gaming, simulations, but like taking the web 3d, that could happen i suppose a-la-johnny mneunoic, but thats a ways off and thats not second life, thats more like 3d navigation of the web.
This is a good breakdown.
Course I disagree that World of Warcraft just about destroying worlds. Its really about quest objections, factions, war, sure, a little player vs player is good for the soul - but is far richer, more dynamic, sticker and vividly addicting thus real stuff vs the other 3d worlds in my opinion.
Virtual Worlds are here to stay.... here's Sony's upcoming world for the PS3
But not so sticky overall cause its console based, not sure if i'll do that all day long, also while the PS3 may be leaps and bounds tech, its not doing so well with the public.
Course maybe what we're really talking about here is creation. People dig the ability to create.
I mean who doesn't like to create? And I say that all the time.. the "and who doesn't" line..
Second Life just doesnt seem that rich to me. Its one of those things that its cool when people are there and when they arent? Its like cool pictures on a floppydisk no one sees.
So will it stick? Second Life, the new big toast or yesterdays jam? I don't know. I don't think so. Is it cool, sure, is it now, maybe, hype fest - oh ya its got that.