Friday, November 25, 2011

Sven Analyzes "the Threshold"

Swedish virtual worlds blogger Sven Idyll over at Svens(k) Idyll has been thinking over Philip Rosedale´s statement to the New York Times recently and come up with this interesting analysis (rough translation by me) in his post "It becomes impossible only when you know it is"

"Philip Rosedale made a statement recently about the threshold of Second Life being high, and to some extent it is true, but one thing is absolutely critical, the willingness to learn and explore. I have in the past month seen how quickly primary school pupils will take on such a thing as building in virtual worlds like Second Life and Open Sim. They do not think it is particularly difficult - if they have the interest they learn extremely fast. Learning how it works is not the hardest part for them but to learn to utilize the many options that are available is difficult. Children do not see so many obstacles, but they try - and often several times. Sometimes, the impossible happens.
Children have not acquired the limitations that we have as adults. We as adults mean something else with "impossible" than children do. Impossible for us older people is a pretty solid stop but for the young, it is a condition that exists until someone finds a way. A few adults manage to keep this desire to conquer the impossible and I would have liked to be one of those but I have put up too many stop signs and signs for both "one way traffic" and "forbidden passage" in my mind.
If you could make a wish for new feature or something else new in Second Life would it be something that has a counterpart in real world, or you could come up with something completely new - something that can only exist in the virtual world? Some children just spurt out such ideas. We are well accustomed to some of those things, being able to teleport, fly and change our avatar anyway we wish - or so we think.
We have a whole new world waiting for us where everything is possible, but we just copy things from real world into virtual reality. When will things start coming in the virtual worlds that we can copy over to the real world? Lack of imagination is in short supply in the virtual worlds!
We want to come to the virtual world because it is different but when we get there we immediately start converting it to a copy of the world we want to disconnect from.
In how many areas of your life are you free from rules and patterns and have a belief that there are no limitations? If you have that, can you describe that which has no borders and that cannot be captured by rules or exhibit patterns?
Second Life needs pure imagination to grow but to let go of the rational thoughts completely and let your imagination reign free is probably the hardest things to do."
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I must say I agree with Sven, if a total gaming idiot like myself - and a few other fools I know all to well - could learn to enjoy SecondLife and develop our skills inworld by ourselves and with the eager help of our friends I do not really see where the huge threshold problem is. There is nothing "impossible" with SecondLife!

Sven is also correct in my mind when he calls for even more imagination in virtual worlds.

Challenges should not be easy, but they must be fun and interesting and allow us to develop in our own pace. Only then will the curiosity and childlike creativity be awakened that makes life so fun sometimes.

Model: Millimina Salamander
I am still waiting in vain for my fashion statement "The Jesters Hat - only for the boldest among fashionistas" to be copied into first life.

7 comments :

  1. Imagine how much more we could create if we do not have to spend so much time to get viewer to work. For restarts, to empty the cache and so on.
    Ability to sell on commission without down payment in advance would provide even more creators the ability to create even more.

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  2. Be a child, Vanadis, do it for fun not for profit! ;)

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  3. Profit is the language best understood in the business world. Entice them with a profit and you get yuppies to dance after your pipe. Female smartness!

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  4. I disagree, Vanadis, how much has first been created, designed, built, imagined or dreamed off by the money-mongers in this world?

    Those people are only creative in how to merchandise and increase profit by streamlining production of goods and services and sell products for a profit. I am not saying we do not need people like this in the world, but that they cannot be reckoned upon to fill our worlds with anything that adds to our worlds.

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  5. -Second life itself!
    You don´t understand me, of course, if a lot of creative avatars sell and let Linden Lab profit a percentage of it Linden Lab will earn more money then today. I have a lot of things I made in my cupboard I could sell but I dont have the money to open a store and hope to sell enough to pay the rent. A business calculation that is not legal tender in the first world, how will it be viable in the other world?

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  6. I would be very worried if you understod me and agreed. Then I think I lost my touch. :)

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  7. Haha Vanadis, I don´t think you will ever lose your powers to confuse me ;)

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