The Metaverse project Second Life has been released open source — a step that I’ve been anticipating and looking forward to for some time now. Well … only the client-side viewer application has been released open-source, but that’s a step in the right direction. Some months back on an older blog, I talked about the concept and status of Metaverses, parts of which I will now republish here to celebrate the open sourcing and because I’ll be removing my old blog soon. What is this thing, why is it cool, and what’s uncool/needs to be improved?

When I was 10 years old, I read, and was absolutely taken by Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. The book (roughly) revolves around the protagonists quest for the cause of a computer virus which causes users of a virtual world called the Metaverse to turn comatose.

Since then, the concept of online, large-scale virtual worlds have always mesmerized me. It has also inspired the creation of many such worlds: Blaxxun (the name derived from a private club in Snow Crash called Black Sun), There, The Palace and Active Worlds, for example. — but about two years ago I discovered one that I was exceptionally impressed with: Second Life, in which players can create (almost) anything they can imagine with the use of in-world 3D editing tools, a scripting language and XML-RPC networking with the real world.

What’s Cool?

For those who haven’t heard of Second Life, it’s an online virtual world. It’s not a game as such — think of it more as MSN on steroids in 3D. The concept is simple; a virtual world where people can meet, socialize, and most importantly — unleash their creative abilities. Here’s a list of what I consider the important and most appealing features of virtual worlds / metaverses:

1. Everything in-world is created by the world’s residents

In short: There are no objects, houses or magical monsters who have been created by the developers through means unaccessible to the regular users. Everything in-game is created through the use of the tools available to everyone (except for landspace, clouds and sky).

2. What you create in-world — you retain the legal copyright of

This means that whatever you create, it’s yours. For a real example; a ‘player’ of Second Life invented and constructed an in-world game similar to Bingo. This in-world game became so successful amongst the SL community that a real-life boardgame company heard about it and offered him a business deal to manufacture it.

3. In-world currency (Linden Dollars) can be exchanged to real-world currency

For example. If you create something that becomes a popular commodity in-world (clothes, or a jet-pack, a car, or a spaceship, for example), you can exchange it to real-world money. There are examples of SL users whose main real-life income comes from selling virtual objects. At the time this article is written, 269 Linden Dollars (L$) is worth $1 USD.

4. Residents can own their own land, houses and islands
5. Second Life (SL), and other Metaverse-like worlds are not games

Metaverses are universes with no specific goal; no levels reached by gaining experience points — the ‘living’ experience depends on your ability to create or otherwise find interesting things to do. This fifth point is an immensely fascinating concept and in my opinion, the core of the Metaverse concept: A world in which you are not limited by game-like artificial boundaries (decided for you by developers), but only the boundaries of human imagination and certain laws (instead of spatial limits, we have bandwidth issues; instead of gravity, we have user interface considerations).

Well. That all sounds incredible — but it’s not perfect. While I check in every few months to see what’s new — I haven’t found it compelling enough to visit more frequently. I still feel like it’s a game. Besides making real money and meeting new people it’s not that practical. I felt as if I was wasting my precious time. We can’t escape the real world, it’s the top-layer — but in Metaverses we have a choice, and when put in context with real things like ‘dying’, spending your time in a virtual reality seems quite petty.

I’ve reached the conclusion that to escape the game-feel, a Metaverse must have very tight coupling with the real world. It must offer practical incentive to actually make spending time there worthwhile.

What to Improve?

In my older blog post, I compiled a list of things I think have to be improved to make the Metaverse concept actually take off and be useful — not just cool. Here’s the list, obviously, my first point has now been partially fulfilled:

1. Make it open-source and standardize the protocols

Allow the residents of the world full control over what’s possible. Allow everyone who wants the possibility of hosting a ‘grid’; a land that people can visit, like the websites of today. I envision, for example, a Metaverse integration with Wikipedia — in which users can explore Wikipedia entries like “Vostok 1” in 3D

2. Emphasis on fusion with reality and practical usage

With the standardization of the Metaverse protocols, it could compel companies and establishments to create virtual models of their workplace — allowing students to virtually tour potential universities in another country, or online shopping by actually walking through a store. Imagine for example customizing your avatar to match your real-world body — wouldn’t that make it a bit easier to find a shirt that fits and suits you online? This is actually already happening, IBM recently announced they would be opening an in-world store where people can buy real-world laptops. Similarly, there are multiple schools that carry out long-distance courses through the world.

• Open up more possibilities for teleconferencing and online collaboration. For example, when working on papers or projects with people from different continents. E.g. streaming your computer screen onto a big-screen in-world, allowing everyone to help you edit that text, source-code or graphics file.
• Integrate interfaces to allow Metaverse users to create in-world programs with languages like Java, C++, C# or LISP. I’ve seen and heard of very interesting experiments with Artificial Life within the SL world; user-groups creating virtual ecosystems of fish, experimenting with swarm-behavior and growing plants. The potential of these kinds of experiments would grow enormously if we could incorporate the use of more powerful programming tools.



• Improve upon the 3D modeling tools, allow integration with other 3D programs; a virtual world is a great platform for concept-designs. There is a great example of this already. Marvin The Paranoid Android from the movie The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, was originally modeled in Second Life (see SL newsletter 2006/03/22).

Unfortunately, I think more fusion with reality can prove exceedingly difficult without more open-source efforts and established standards.

3. In-world VOIP (voice over IP, like Skype) to allow audible conversations
• Bandwidth issues currently prevent this — they’re already streaming loads of textures, 3D objects and in-world sounds — clogging the internets series of tubes. While I usually prefer text-based communications, it seems wrong to have extremely detailed avatars capable of facial expressions — but no voice. This is besides the obvious advantages of voice-communications, like speed and more efficient turn-taking.

In the press release from Linden Lab (creators of SL), said Cory Ondrejka, CTO of Linden Lab had this to say:

“Open sourcing is the most important decision we’ve made in seven years of Second Life development. While it is clearly a bold step for us to proactively decide to open source our code, it is entirely in keeping with the community-creation approach of Second Life,”

The open-sourcing is great news, and hopefully they will release greater parts of Second Life to the community in the future. I personally look forward to seeing what will be accomplished with the now open-source viewer.

In summary: While we are certainly on the right track to a high-level Metaverse, we’re still some way from getting rid of the game-feel. Practical usage is essential for making a Metaverse as described in Snow Crash, and to appeal to everyone.

Despite of my criticism, I recommend trying out SL to know where we stand in the evolution of Metaverses. It’s free — and I would definitely like to hear your opinion and take on it.