Shadows on the wall, mimes in the street

Feldspar - at my command?

“… their avatars were less coy. While flesh and blood reporters and photographers banged on the door of the couple’s homes, virtual ones were trying to doorstep …”

” … one of the South West staff who “controlled” Meggy, ” … our characters started chatting and it was different. … Amy’s character was much more confident in the game than she was in real life.””

” … his character got the run around from Barmy because he was a novice in the ways of Second Life, … “It was difficult sometimes because there was a blurring between reality and Second Life.”

All quotes above from How South West News got its divorce scoop in Second Life.

The above article is from the Guardian, Friday November 14 2008. Giving the impression that ‘characters’ (perhaps they mean ‘avatars’) have independent action, and perhaps a life separate from their creators, this article demonstrates a common fallacious idea. An avatar, whether as a component of a gaming or non-gaming digital environment, cannot be said to be controlled by a person, nor can it have its own actions.

An avatar, in digital terms, is a visual representation of the person behind the screen. As the person behind the screen, you do not have direct access to you avatar – as many a person has bemoaned on the Second Life development lists, there is no way even for programmers without access to the servers for a digital environment to move or otherwise interact with an avatar.

Instead, what we have access to is an ‘agent’. The agent – defined either as an entity capable of action, or as something that acts on behalf of a[nother] person – is the thing that acts on your behalf. When you create input through your keyboard or mouse, those instructions run through your agent to the server. When ‘you’ move, you are changing the location stored in your agent. Effectively, the agent is an invisible point in a virtual space which moves by proxy. The avatar then, is a visual representation of changes you have made, or actions you have taken, through your agent.

In a digital environment, the things you can typically do involve moving, communicating, and interacting with or editing objects. In each case, your input is sent from your input device to the servers via your client and through your agent. Some manner of response to that input is then sent back to your client. This response might lead to text being displayed on your screen, or you hearing some audio output, if you are communicating; if you moved, the response will involve visual output – you will see your avatar ‘walking’ or perhaps ‘flying’, moving with respect to the background. If you are interacting with an object, you may receive visual output or text-based output, depending on the type of interaction. In each case, the agent acts on your behalf – moves, communicates, or interacts – and you then receive a response based on your actions.

Your agent is not the only entity that can cause a reaction in your avatar. If in Second Life another person starts to type, your avatar will turn their head in the direction of their agent, independently of any action you might take, unless your camera is locked. The servers may also cause your avatar to react. You can send an action request to your avatar through your agent to allow your avatar to be animated, but your agent is still doing the work on your behalf. Your ability to get an avatar to do anything that does not reflect an action you took at the input level, then passed through an agent, is very, very limited indeed.

Finally, an avatar most certainly has no life of its own. It cannot do anything the agent has not done, since it is a visual representation of what the agent is doing. Avatars do not communicate; people communicate through their agents. A somewhat inadequate analogy might be this: think of your computer hardware as if it were your phone – would you say that phones talk to each other? Think of your agent as a person taking dictation and typing out Teletext for a deaf person – would you say that you are communicating with the person you called, or the person taking dictation? Think of your avatar as an annoying street mime, following you and reacting only to your actions. Better yet, think of your avatar as a shadow thrown against a cave wall – would you say that the shadows had a life of their own, and could wander off and communicate with other shadows?

It may seem like a purely semantic issue – does it matter whether avatars can do these things or not, or which terms are used to couch these ideas? Well, it matters very much to the people who design and code digital environments and it matters in legal terms. It should be of importance to you, whether you are a user of these environments, or a reporter of these environments, or an outsider. Why?  It means that many of these amazing and outlandish stories never even become an issue, and that people have a better understanding about how these things work, legally and socially. There’s less cause for confusion and less wiggle room for those gaming the system.

Wouldn’t you rather know where you stood on this issue concerning digital environments?

The Magic Circle – is not so helpful, actually.

“One of the more fascinating issues that bubble to the surface from time to time are real world legal consequences for things that happen in the virtual world.” Tech Law Prof Blog

“However this wasn’t a theft that happened on a street corner or schoolyard. This was a theft in a virtual world and the goods don’t even exist outside of this virtual world they were a part of.” The Inquisitr

Understanding the concept of digital environments seems to be so tricky for many people – in both quotes above, the authors are having trouble with the idea that things that happen in a “virtual world” can have consequences in the atomic world.

A term that is bandied about when discussing this problem is “magic circle”. In play and game theory, the magic circle is comprised of both physical and conceptual boundaries. These boundaries are intended to demarcate where real life and work lie, as opposed to play and game activity. Often, this term is applied not only to single player games like first person shooters, but also to multiplayer games (MMORPGs) and so-called virtual worlds or digital environments.

There are two major parties who, whether they use the term or not, have trouble with the size of their magic circle, and the application of the principle. Let us call them the Thompson-ites and the Something-Awful-ites.

The Thompson-ites believe that only they can see the magic circle – only they know where the boundaries between real life and virtual lives lies. Whether they think that other people are too naive or too stupid to realise that the magic circle exists depends on the individual. However, a common point seems to be that they expect people to carry rules from their gaming or virtual settings and apply those rules in their real lives – I shot you in a game, therefore it’s ok to shoot you in real life, too.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Something-Awful-ites. The Thompson-ites have a tiny magic circle – the Something-Awful-ites have an enormous magic circle, much larger than most other people. At the extremities of this idea, these folk actually believe that the magic circle encompasses the entire digital world, and that no consequences can or should escape from it into the atomic – see the second quote above. In a sense, they are violating their own principles: in trying to force other people not to take the game so seriously by griefing, they are breaking the magic circle they claim to believe in – they look to create real-world consequences from within the game world.

Unfortunately, the whole concept of the magic circle has been stretched out of all proportion in its application to digital environments which are not solely gaming environments. Dutch historian Johan Huizinga used the term first, in his study entitled Homo Ludens (1938). Huizinga describes play as “a free and meaningful activity, carried out for its own sake, spatially and temporally segregated from the requirements of practical life, and bound by a self-contained system of rules that holds absolutely.” He is thinking here of a game of chess or some other higher order play, rather than a child at play with a doll – in chess, the magic circle is much more clearly delineated. A child at play has a porous and weak magic circle – elements of real life and play may intersect or overlap each other.

Likewise, the magic circle for a virtual world is poorly delineated. As stated by  Edward Castronova, a synthetic world “cannot be sealed completely; people are crossing it all the time in both directions, carrying their behavioural assumptions and attitudes with them.” Elements of real life regularly creep into discussions in digital environments, whether they be social virtual worlds or MMORPGs or the like, and discussions flow the other way, too.

Indeed, the magic circle is almost always a bit leaky – any time you add other people into the equation, the circle becomes fuzzier and can only be reinforced by tightening and strengthening the gamespace rules. Elements of play move away from the imaginary and into the real.

The poor old magic circle was never designed for this kind of work. What kind of conceptual structure would you use to help us understand digital environments better?

On being level 70

Early this year I wrote about my initial experiences with World of Warcraft. Since then I’ve been grinding away and recently I reached the Holy Grail of Level 70.

I didn’t track the hours spent reaching the top but I’ve read estimates of 250 hours and that seems about right from my experience.

My thoughts on World of Warcraft after surviving this far:

1. Like any good MMO, the quests are challenging enough to keep you grinding through the levels.

2. Solo play is surprisingly engaging, although I’m biased having played a Mage – I’d be interested in hearing the perspective of other classes.

3. The performance of the game is exemplary – the servers are up and running pretty much 100% of the time except for the scheduled weekly to fortnightly maintenance on a Tuesday. That service level has dropped recently with the latest patch and preparation for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, but given the scope of the change it’s not unexpected.

4. I wish I’d got involved with battlegrounds much earlier on in the piece. They’re not only fun but I had totally failed to grasp the importance of honour points and am now playing a very large catch-up.

Unless you’re a WoW player yourself, this all may be a little boring, but I am actually working towards a point here. In the past decade, the time spent per game has increased incredibly. Some hardcore gamers I know would cover off a complete game in 10-30 hours. With the current MMOs, you’re looking at potentially hundreds of hours just to level up. Since hitting Level 70, I’ve spent roughly another 150 hours in WoW. Thanks to the recent achievements system implementation, I know that I’ve achieved 69 out of a possible 750 achievement points. This means I could easily spend another couple of thousand hours before the expansion arrives in a couple of weeks. You don’t need me to tell you that’s a lot of time.

It’s time that has to come at the expense of other activities, whether they be other recreational pursuits, time with family and friends, sleep or work. The obvious response to this is – “well you don’t need to achieve everything” – and that’s true. However, the intrinsic structure of most MMOs works toward the opposite. The WoW achievement system is a classic example – it directly motivates players to do quests they otherwise may not have done. Is that a problem? I think in a minority of cases it is.

That said, I was certainly chuffed to reach level 70 and when I pick up the expansion pack I’ll happily work toward level 80. The recent addition of a Barber Shop for avatar facial customisation was a godsend given I kept the bog standard face when I first registered. Now if only I could buy land…

Linden Lab instigate price rises: backlash plus

In a move that’s already garnered some heavy criticism, Linden Lab today announced some significant prices on a type of land called Openspaces. It’s the type of land meant for ‘light’ use. Over the past seven months that Openspaces has been available, some have exceeded any sane definition of ‘light use’.

That’s not a bone of contention – but Linden Lab’s response to it is. Instead of warning or banning the offenders, all Openspaces owners are being slugged with an extra US$50 per month (from $75 to $125), effective 1st january 2009. In addition to that, the previously available educator discount is being removed. From an Australian perspective, our current exchange rate woes mean that the cost hit is even higher.

To use a real-world example, this decision is the equivalent of a local council informing all ratepayers in a particular zoning area that they have to pay much higher rates each year because someone in their street has ignored zoning regulations. Add to that the real world economic situation and you can imagine the push back from Second Life residents. It’s actually one of the more nonsensical decisions I’ve seen Linden Lab make and aside from some short term revenue gains it seems the end result will be an even greater momentum for OpenSim grids who provide more competitive pricing. The educator discount hit is particularly significant – they’re a key demographic driving innovation and interest in virtual worlds and treatment like this is far from deserved.

No-one can fully blame a private company from seeking to increase revenue, but when the rationale doesn’t match a community’s expectations of fair play, only dissent and an impact on the Second Life economy are the likely outcomes.

What are your thoughts? Is this decision going to affect your current land holdings or influence your future purchasing decisions?

Update: There’s an excellent roundup of the coverage and protest options on Vint Falken’s blog.

Update 2: Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has communicated a backdown on the pricing policy.

The growing secrecy

Browsing back over some previous stories we’ve run, it reinforced to me again just how more secretive Linden Lab have become in the past year or so.

alone

There’s a growing list of communication mechanisms that have gone by the wayside:

1. The monthly population metrics are no longer supplied in anywhere near the detail they used to. We used to report monthly on the number of Australians actively using Second Life – that’s now not an option.

2. The Second Life forums are a shadow of what they were 18 months ago. There’s been more traffic recently (see point 3 below) but the community is still fairly small.

3. The official Linden blog has had a marked decrease in activity as far as communication from Linden Lab, with comments either closed or moved to the forums. Linden Lab have never argued that the blog wasn’t well read. I can vouch for the significant readership as everytime we report on a Linden blog post, we get significant traffic via the trackback – that’d be a tiny percentage of the overall traffic for each blog post published by Linden Lab.

4. The Second Life Jira is the mechanism by which issues with Second Life are reported and tracked. I’m yet to meet a person who believes it is both user-friendly and effective. Have a browse for yourself – I’d love to hear your thoughts.

5. I’ve been involved with Second Life for nearly two years, a new user in some people’s eyes. Even so, I remember when Linden Lab used to run Town Hall sessions.

6. There used to be regular updates in-world and via email from Linden Lab’s PR – I can’t remember the last time this occurred. There’s an excellent post on Linden Lab’s media management here.

The six examples above are the more obvious ones. Some communication channels like in-world Linden office hours still occur but I’d be fairly confident in saying they’re less frequent than in days of yore.

I’d be happy to admit to being a sentimental whinger if anyone can point me to where alternate communication channels have popped up in lieu of the ones above.

Ahhh… the sound of silence.

Linden Lab blabs about the blog.

ABC Communication Tower

<sarcasm>Linden Lab display their aptitude with resources and their grasp of technologies once again with their plans to close down the current main blog and forums and replace the software behind them.</sarcasm&gt. It seems unfortunate that this company, which we rely on to produce the product we desire, keeps behaving like it had its head chopped off. Do they figure that having gotten this far, and getting this big, without any solid plan, that they can just continue on in the same vein as always and achieve the same or greater results?

The greatest surprise to me in all this is that Linden Lab has discontinued the use of the official blog at least a month, if not more, before the new product has been released; worse, they are committing to a system that has not even been fully worked out yet: “I don’t know yet what the new forum structure will be. We’re happy to hear your thoughts about ideas for different boards though.” – Robin Linden. In the meantime, we are expected to find information based on leads from the message of the day from the log-in screen; this information is to be dispersed in some manner amongst other blogs, side-bars and other unexpected places. It all sounds most unsatisfactory.

The benefits of the new system to residents seem pretty thin on the ground – this is not necessarily a problem. However, if the changes are being made to benefit Linden Lab, it would be a pleasant change to know what those benefits are, rather than being told that they are doing this for the good of the residents – transparency, transparency, transparency!  I’m sure Linden Lab are finding it useful to tuck away all those resident comments on the forums, especially the nasty ones, where the search engines cannot reach, and where folks who are not already residents cannot access them.

It also seems hard to believe that the software Linden Lab is currently using is completely outmoded and inadequate for the task. WordPress and VBulletin? Both configurable and flexible.  How much more integrated do they need to be? How much more nicely will the two new pieces of software play together?

Then there’s the second-most intriguing idea: externally sourced moderators. Some residents are disappointed that resident moderators are not being selected, feeling that they would have a better grasp of “what goes” than outsiders with potentially no experience with Second Life, or, perhaps worse, new folk with a little training in the new rules and regulations pertaining directly to the forums and no knowledge or experience outside that. I think that we are better taking our chances with moderators who are not also residents – less chance for over-emotional involvement.  Also, it always seems that the very folk who want to take on these positions for the love of it are the ones who should not be encouraged to do so – people who want to be politicians should never be allowed to be politicians, either.

Moderation of forums is required. People are people – they make mistakes and  they disagree, sometimes violently. Penalties are required – where is your motivation for keeping within the rules if no penalties apply? However, when it comes to moderation and governance of forums, it’s necessary a) to know where the boundaries are and b) to have penalties that are appropriate and suitable. Linden Lab are not known for making firm boundaries, however, and the only penalties available are (figurative) exile or death. There is no evidence to suggest that these things will change substantively come October.

Maybe Linden Lab is trying to put on a more professional look for all those “mainstreamers” streaming in as the early adopters are pushed out. Maybe this new integrative approach heralds a new phase for both the blog and associated forums and for the whole of Second Life.

Maybe not. What do you think?

Future freedom loss creeps up unawares?

Above and beyond Second Life‘s many attractions, many residents prize the ability to make and enjoy user-created content. It is the main thing that separates Second Life from the profusion of other virtual worlds making their appearance, both recently and further in the past. Nonetheless, Linden Lab is pushing for a more “mainstream” approach. Does this spell out the demise of user-created content? During this push, does Linden Lab plan on cravenly sidling up to each step necessary to achieve this end?

It seems clear that Linden Lab is ready to start making changes, both in their business model and in their approach to the governance of Second Life. In “mainstreaming” the running of the Lab, one hopes that the plan is to move from a start-up model to a corporate model. Right now, the Lab seems to function as a conglomeration of start-ups, each of which has a large amount of trouble communicating with the other start-ups in the system. Improved communication between the parts should improve the overall capacity of the business to run efficiently and competently. In “mainstreaming” Second Life, the newly effective and better-resourced Linden Lab might have less trouble governing, even as they bring in tighter measures to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for all-comers. Unless, of course, they continue in the current vein of slowly taking away our favorite toys and making it look like they’re hoping to keep the patronage of the current crop of residents until the money from future residents – “mainstream” residents – comes flooding in. Hey, Linden Lab? We’re adults – do you seriously think that we’re not going to notice if you pull the table-cloth out from under us, even if the flowers are still standing? Also, as mature-minded folk, we can accept that sometimes you need things for your own benefit – just don’t try to pass them off as things that are for our benefit.

It looks like the coming changes are destined not to be necessarily popular with current residents. Perhaps as the residents we should be concerned about this, about the welfare of our virtual tribes, virtual locations, and virtual hobbies. Linden Lab, perhaps, should not be concerned about our reactions at all. They have a business to run, and profits to be made. If this a major priority for them, they should by all means be looking to the future, to future residents and their desires. If this is the case, it would be nice to see two things happen:

1. A removal of the potentially hypocritical slogan “Your world. Your Imagination.” (or even “Your world, Your Way,” a trademark Linden Lab recently applied for);

2. For Linden Lab to “supercharge” the changes in Second Life and get it all over and done with as fast as possible. They should risk losing all the residents they have now, if that is their end goal anyway. Much better that to be strung along and hugely disappointed in the end.

Despite being supported by observation of the news and current events within Linden Lab, this is to some extent just speculation. Things are certainly changing within Linden Lab, but without more straight from the horse’s mouth, it is very difficult to see where the next few months might take us. I’d personally like to say to Linden Lab, “Don’t take away the thing that makes Second Life special. Let us keep our freedoms, and let us deal with all the consequences that come with them. We live in the real world. Virtual worlds can be a reflection of that reality, as well as having their own unique aspects of reality – don’t make it a sheltered thing, a lesser thing than it has been.”

Linden Lab has claimed repeatedly that they and the residents are partners in this world building – shouldn’t partners tell each other what is going on?

Linden Lab zones out.

Mainland sim

Jack Linden has made a heads-up post about new policies to be implemented concerning zoning and advertising on the Mainland sims in Second Life. There is no word yet on when these policies will be enforced, just a brief message intended to reduce panic and confusion when further announcements are made in the future. Unfortunately, the post itself brings with it much confusion, as there is very little in the way of detail concerning what the policies will actually entail, or how enforcement is to be brought about.

In the Zone – or out of it?

Jack’s post implies that zoning will be applied only to new Mainland sims. Considering that the goal of zoning is to improve conditions for Residents using this land, what does this imply for existing Mainland sims, which will presumably remain unzoned?  It would seem that if there is no retrofitting of zoning, existing sims will become marginalized – poor cousins to the more attractive zoned regions. However, picture the uproar that would be caused by retrofitting covenants into previously unzoned sims – imagine the governance required to go through with such a scheme.

Advertising – stronger measures required?

We only have vague hints as to what measures might be taken regarding advertising at this point. The new ad farming policies, having little to do with actual advertising and more to do with littering and extortion, are the only general policies previously instituted with regards to advertising, and give little idea as to what might be coming. Jack states that “we need to professionalize all aspects of advertising inworld”. In fact, Linden Lab has had almost no contact with advertisers beyond that created by Abuse Reports. There is no relationship to foster or improve. I wonder though, why “it has to” change, and why now?  Must advertising policy change now, when it is already too late? Or must it change now, as a herald to something we are as yet unaware of?

Resources, resources! You must obtain more resources!

All these necessary and wonderful changes – not only must there be policy put in place, but governance too. Where will the resources come from to enforce these policies? To date, Linden Lab has been either unwilling or unable to provide adequate resources to police existing policies – a poor performance considering their “hands-off” approach. The Abuse Reporting system has an average of 30 seconds allocated to each case – obviously the people in this team are horribly overworked. Despite the gambling ban being put into place almost a year ago, gambling dens continue to pop up here and there – this system is also failing. I can only hope that Linden Lab has some plan for greatly increasing their manpower, and that they are not under the mistaken impression that their current teams can take on the new load, or that another mere eight or nine people will significantly beef up their governance load.

Second Life immaturity – bell curve bungling.

Second Life is going through a troubling phase. It has entered young adulthood, but is still acting like a teenager – occasionally like a teething two-year-old in a tantrum. Unfortunately, Linden Lab has a very different view about where the Second Life product stands with regards to its consumers: they believe that they are providing a frontier product to the disorganized nomads of the virtual worlds. I believe this is far from the case, and that in fact the frontiersfolk have long since passed into obscurity and myth, and that this rustic product is now being peddled to a bunch of sophisticated townsfolk.

Second Life‘s frontiersfolk, the early adopters of the adoption bell curve of Kapor’s speech, have been leaving Second Life to become the early adopters of other technologies since mid-2005. The townsfolk or pragmatists have long since taken over; and though there are still hopefully many more of them to come, the townsfolk now represent a majority. It’s possible that Kapor managed to alienate both the frontiersfolk and the townfolk when he said, in essence, from the town square, “See here, all you woodsy hicks, y’all have to move over and make way for the townsfolk who’ll be moving in.”

So here we all are, a bunch of townies, doing our best with hides and stone knives to build a comfortable living for ourselves. It’s not easy, but despite the tools we’ve been given, we’re making our way nicely, thank you. We’ve workarounds galore to overcome limitations in the product (insufficient personal profile and group tools, etc), although there are still many problems that we must simply endure – an ongoing lack of stability, a poor permissions system for functional collaboration, a set of tools that are feature-rich for individuals and feature-poor for groups, and many, many others that simply make life less easy (feet sinking through terrain, poor Search functionality, the list goes on).

Microsoft, for all their other failings, did a good job of matching their product maturity to the adoption curve. Linden Lab is failing to do this. Windows versions up to 3.0 were for the innovators and early adopters. Increased stability and an increased feature-set were designed to encourage the pragmatists to buy and use their 3.1 version, and so on down the line. Linden Lab is still throwing version 1.0 grade features at customers who are expecting 3.1 quality. They are ramping up to pave the way for their 3.1-quality product targeted to attract new customers, however many of these people are already using it or have already tried and failed.

The townies are crying out for quality and beauty in their town. We like our solid buildings and manicured gardens, and a sign saying “Welcome To Our Town”. How does this translate? Aside from addressing the problems from above, two things come to mind: more social networking tools and superior orientation. If Second Life is to be truly hailed as a social networking haven, it needs the tools to support that boast, instead of people finding that they can work around the restrictions of the system. For Second Life to be welcoming, the whole orientation system needs to be addressed. Right now, no orientation at all would be better than what is currently available.

If Kapor, Kingdon and the rest of the team up at Linden Lab still think that we’re just passing out of the early adoption phase, we need to be prepared for a continuing disconnect between the Linden Lab view of the product and the consumer’s view – that is, how the product is actually being used.

Linden Lab CEO: my first two months

Linden Lab’s CEO, Mark Kingdon , has detailed his perceptions of his first two months at the helm on the official Linden Lab blog.

He makes five key points:

1. Second Life users are more mainstream than many assume.

2. The diversity of use cases in Second Life is mind-boggling.

3. Second Life has an enviable business model.

4. Second Life’s killer apps are just beginning to evolve.

5. Second Life is leading the industry toward interoperability.

It’s an lengthy read but my overall impression is it was similar to a pitch a CEO might make for a second or third round of venture capital funding.

What do you think? Do you see a new CEO with a vision for Second Life’s future or someone pitching for more time to pull things together?

“Hey. we’ve done some brilliant stuff here and the best is yet to come” is the overall message. The excitement shown toward Second Life as a meeting application is insular to say the least – some of the upcoming mirror worlds are likely to gain significant traction in this space as they demonstrate superior interfaces, easier setup and better performance.

A promise is made on a separate announcement on usability – to me this remains the number one challenge for a virtual world ground-breaker at risk of being run over by the convoy of tractors coming up behind with some tempting crops to plant.

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