oh dear

[egypturnash]

So Stacey came home from GDC with a code to get into Second Life without paying ten bucks. Sammi tried it last night, and I tried it today. My machine is way too slow for this thing. I'm lucky if I get, like, 3fps. Especially in crowded areas.

I don't know if I'll get into Making Things there. I'll probably give it a shot. For now, I just hacked up hair and body to caricature myself, and did a cheap version of the coat I have iRL by merging together a jacket and a slit skirt. For a while I was going around in nothing but that; it's not like the avatars have any naughty bits. Perhaps my first building project will be Groin Tentacles.

Sammi and Me. Or, rather, "Alexia Mechanique" and "Mechanique Thirty". I was going to be "Margo Thirty" but there was some sort of weird cut-and-paste accident when I created the account.

Mme. Thirty dancing dorkily around Mme. Mechanique. We're on the sea-bottom here...

Comments

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

That does look eerily like you...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I amped the nose size up from the default. That helped a lot.

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

This is all taking on a distinctly Pynchonesque feeling. When I first saw Second Life, I thought it was all comfortably distant and I'd never, ever have to make a serious decision about whether I wanted to check it out. Now, it's less than a full degree of separation away from me. ( <3 ) I can't help entertaining paranoid fantasies that some day, while I'm sleeping, Rik will slip a demo CD under my pillow, then get up and call a number he found written in purple ink on the back of his hand to confirm the drop has been made. c_c

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Also, having half of Sammi's name plus a number is sexy for reasons I can't possibly begin to describe and yet am terrified are all too transparent. :)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I think it requires more machine than you likely have. I know it runs like Utter Ass on my box.

I honestly can't see getting sucked into it - sure, make stuff, futz around, but I dunno. It's not there yet like text is. Still at the toy stage.

And yes, I chose that last name partially because I figured you'd find it kinda hot. *grin*

[twotails.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't see getting sucked into it - sure, make stuff, futz around, but I dunno. It's not there yet like text is. Still at the toy stage.

That's kinda how I feel about it. Nothing can compare to the flexibility of text, even if one isn't doing fun things with language on PBX. :)

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

If I had some more energy and confidence, I'd try making stuff on there, purely for money. One of these days I'll find a commercially viable activity that I don't despise. As a hobby, though... I don't know. All those _people_. I'm bad at staying in touch with the people that I _already_ know and care about. :>

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's... creepy, really, to be in a slightly crowded area (5-6 people) and see most of them just... standing there, looking in random directions. And even though the crowd's supposed to be smarter on 2L than on places like There, I still saw my share of dorkageness.

"If I want to have sex," I said, during a conversation with Proto, "I'd probably go back to Puzzlebox."

If I get into it enough to make stuff, then I'll stick around. I could see it just turning into a treadmill of making random stuff and having IRC-tasting socialization with people in funny costumes, which isn't really my idea of a lifestyle.

Also, good morning, tasty Mooncat. <3

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's... creepy, really, to be in a slightly crowded area (5-6 people) and see most of them just... standing there, looking in random directions. And even though the crowd's supposed to be smarter on 2L than on places like There, I still saw my share of dorkageness.

This makes me wonder about an aspect of electronic socialization that Neal Stephenson brushed on in Snow Crash. One of the things I've always found interesting, in one direction or another, about MU*s is that, while presenting a physical space, they largely strip away all the kinesic elements of social interaction. (What's evolved in the place of that highly complex dance is a mix of complex poses and sketched allusions to real gestures -- a mix that changes from place to place and time to time. I stopped MUCKing for a few years, and when I returned, felt that the rituals had changed significantly.) I sometimes get antsy in social situations, trying to place my body in a way that's neither intrusively close or too-coolly distant. In the brief experience I've had with graphical MMORPGs in the past, I've found myself, absurdly, anxious about trying to do the same thing in digital space, but I got the impression most people didn't bother. Those were "work" games where the interaction was driven by trade and group-formation; do people in a "social" game like Second Life pay more attention to kinesics?

Also, good morning, tasty Mooncat.

Good morning to you, pretty Spider. :)

[cobaltie.livejournal.com]

Though Stephenson took a shortcut for the major public areas by making people out on the Street able to just pass through each other transparently. Only inside the nodes could you actually interact.

I'm curious to see what Second Life is like, since people can make their own gestures but usually have a battery of pre-programmed ones.

In some sense, without the posed interactions and such, I still imagine anyone in a muck room as standing around looking in random directions. There's nothing but a name-placeholder, so the default is usually assumed unless told otherwise.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think this is why IRC and I never get along: it completely strips away the physical dimension, leaving me feel lost. (Yes, I know there's a pose, but I always see it used for "Bob thinks that's a bad idea.")

I think my reactions to modelled physical space mirror yours: I, too, found myself jerking about now and then, trying to position myself in a way that looked like I was talking to the people I was talking with, and yet also let me see how cool my avatar is. So far in my day's worth of 2L experience, I haven't seen people really paying attention to how they position with regards each other.

Mooncat mooncat bleep mooncat. Mooncat. <3 Mooncat.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Would you say your reaction to modeled physical space is about the same one that you have in RL? How conscious are you of that kind of social-spacial positioning?
(Of course, if you WEREN'T conscious of it before... hey, Mx. Spider, how do you walk with all those legs? :) Bleep. <3 )

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Mm. It's only been a day of experimenting with modelled physical space, and I have been aware of my reactions to it. I avoid crowds because they make my framerate go to hell - but I also avoid more than about four people in one place on mucks, nowadays.

I think I'm aware of it in 2L because it's often wrong. Is someone showing their back to me because they Don't Want To Talk, or because they're losing control of their character, or because all they're really seeing is the text scroll in one corner? Am I insulting someone without realizing it when I do the same thing? I'm chatting with someone off my camera and about twenty feet away but this makes no difference in the tenor of the conversation - or does it?

hey, Mx. Spider, how do you walk with all those legs?

With grace and beauty, of course, dear Mooncat. Bleep.

[slinky-treecat.livejournal.com]

Watch out for people with hoochie hair, that'll really frag your fps, d00dette. ;)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

"Hoochie hair"?

[slinky-treecat.livejournal.com]

Some players build extravegant hair-do's for their characters using 50+ prims.. it can look nice, but it absolutely kills the frame rate of any sim that they are in. >.0;

[catgirlhunterc.livejournal.com]

Second Life still looks cool. Wish I had a system that could run it.

[jenkatb4u.livejournal.com]

Eeee.. She's like a living dessert.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

The one with the purple hair, or with the pink? Pink-hair is me. As if you couldn't guess, given my occasional RL photo.

[jenkatb4u.livejournal.com]

Pink! S'like icing on a cake.

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

She is indeed.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

:smears creamy white frosting over her entire body, puts a cherry in her navel and sprinkles all over her front, and lounges about seductively.