I’m not sure if I blogged about my 13-hour drive to Boston when I attended Podcamp back in September. Well, if I didn’t, just a quick narrative that the drive from Toronto to Boston should’ve taken 9-hours through 1 province (Ontario) and 2 states (New York & Mass).
So why did I see New York state, Pennsylvania, Conneticut and Mass in a span of 13-hours? Don’t ask…
Well, that’s how I felt trying to navigate through Second Life where Toronto’s CaseCamp was held last night. Here’s my story.
First, don’t use anything but Windoze XP to login to Second Life. My workhorse computer in my office is on Windoze 2000. Everytime I logged into Second Life using Windoze 2000, Second Life crashed. Everytime. And yes, Second Life is supposed to be supported on Windoze 2000.
At one point, I left my avatar fully naked because Second Life closed before my clothes could be downloaded. Poor Caprica Spark (that’s my avatar’s name).
I finally had to bribe my sister to let me use her laptop and told her that studying for her final exams is a waste of time since you never use what you learn. She was more than happy take a break, $10 richer.
So, on Windoze XP, I finally got in. I was in a cafe and could hear the voice of the presenter, but when I went into the room, no one was there. Figuring I was in the wrong place, I double clicked on the map and got a bird’s eye view of the local area.
At this point, I still wasn’t sure where to go, so I just started clicking on buildings and being teleported there. I arrived at one place where hallelujah music was playing. No, I don’t think C.C. Chapman and crew wanted us to get a holy ghost conversion.
I zoomed out, clicked on another building and was now standing on a street corner. I looked around and saw no one. Then out of nowhere, this chap walks towards me. I’m all nervous because I don’t where he came from. But, he just passes me by.
As I stood there, 2 other avatars materialized out of nowhere. One was a woman, the other was a catwoman. Now I’m scared because it looked like a bumrush. So, I quickly logged out for fear it was going to be a beat down.
I checked my email and saw that Bryan sent us a direct link to the U-Turn cafe. So I clicked on that and was finally in the right room.
I walked in and again, I could hear the voice of the presenter. There were about 10 people in the room, with one person floating in the air. Purposely. I grabbed a hot apple cider, then sat down.
The wrong way. Instead of having my back towards the bar so I could face the middle of the room, my face was towards the bar. It took me about 3-minutes to figure out how to turn my avatar around the right way.
Once I got it, one of the avatars called Azriel Nakamura was staring at me the whole time. She was standing up and was about 6-feet away, yet the whole time, her eyes were on me.
It felt creepy, so I started to play around with the gestures and accidentally blew Azriel a kiss. It must have been the kiss of death because just after doing that, Azriel hung her head as if she died on her feet.
As the presentations wore on and the presenters kept referring to slides I couldn’t see, my attention turned to a newly arrived avatar named Darth Emperors Hand. He looked like a ninja with his long red sword. And flip flops. And a skirt. Only strong, confident men can wear flip flops.
I asked him about his sword, wondering how many he slayed with said instrument. To which he replied:
“It’s purely decorative.”
If I were a guy and a pretty gal asked me that question, I would’ve lied and said:
“Too many hearts to count, my fair lady.”
Even chivalry is lost in Second Life.
Darth clearly showed that he was the star of the show. He started to do something with his head, like a festival of lights coming from his scalp. The whole place virtually lit up as he emitted a shower of dandruff from his head. It was quite spectacular.
After 45-minutes, I asked one of the avatars, a woman named Badass why we couldn’t see the slides. She said something along the lines of:
“Because everyone’s in the Amphitheater. I’m surprised you’re not there because you have the pass to get in.”
She was right. Above my head was my name and another line that said Casecamp SL. That meant there was a seat reserved for me in the Amphitheater. Bummer.
So after all that, I was sitting in the wrong place. Well, at least that’s the one thing different from my Boston trip. At least I ended up in the right city when I was on my way to Podcamp.
At the end of the day, while I liked Second Life, it can’t beat the face-to-face interaction. The Crayonville Amphitheater was limited to 40 seats and at the CaseCamp I spoke at back in the summer at a place near the ROM, there was just over 100 people.
While using Second Life was a nice experiment, I trust that CaseCamp will return to a physical room in the New Year.
I was in the overflow room also (don babcock) and this explains why you werent answering any of my questions about why you werent in the main area for CaseCamp. I quite enjoyed casecamp and the overflow room we were banished too. But when the sound went down we all just stood around and chatted. Then someone noticed that you could hit the music button off and on and the sound came back on. The mighty wisdom of crowds…….see you in SL capricia. That is if we both make the random pick to attend. Thanks Bryan I enjoyed the overflow room with my eggnog!
Well, it was still nice that you could join the rest of the ‘not-lucky-enough-to-make-the-cut’ crowd at the U-Turn Cafe. It was nice that they added additional audio feeds for the overflow to be able to listen in … though I’m sure the slides would have been a nice addition.
I have to agree, I find the blank avatar stare disconcerting as well. Almost as bad, however, is when your avatar just won’t keep its head still… constantly gazing left, right, up and down … refusing to look at any given spot or sit still. Like an ADD child after the consumption of a Mt Dew and pixie sticks. Finally learned that holding Alt and clicking the mouse will force the AV to hold still for a moment and look at something but then you’re left with the stare.
One of the user interaction aspects that needs to change is to make it easier for the eyes of the avatar and the eyes of the user to be looking at the same thing. Having a virtual representation of someone to interact with is nice – but it would be nice to know when they’re looking at you vs. digging through their inventory/interacting with another on instant message or just watching the ninja with the light saber. And let’s not even get on to the subject of roving camera views peering where they shouldn’t.
Brief aside, the avatar with the kitty ears and paws was Mischief. Badass Canuck was the title of a group she belongs to (what is it with Canadians in Second Life … they’re everywhere! Almost expect to see Tim Horton’s opening up in every sim to accommodate).
Leesa:
Interesting experience, huh? I would certainly agree that Second Life has its limitations. One of them is the amount of avatars it can accommodate in any one sim, or island. A regular-size sim in Second Life still can’t have many more than 50 avatars on it at once, or the system is likely to crash.
Clearly, this needs to change, and I believe that it will, in time. And if Linden Lab can’t do that for Second Life, then it will be another company that starts its own virtual world or universe and does it better.
I agree that it’s tough to beat face-to-face meetups. But when you’re in Toronto, and I’m in Boston, and Balaji is in India, etc. and we want to participate in the same marketing unconference, what better way than this? Now when 100 or 200 or 300 of us can do that, we’ll really be rolling.
–Bryan Person
CaseCamp Second Life organizer