Second Life (Second Try)

Cory Ondrejka extensively discusses creation as an essential element of the theoretical Metaverse. The Metaverse is an "online environment that [is] a real place to its users". It is a virtual world where users can socialize, conduct business, be entertained, and do a variety of other things, similar to those they do in real life. Ondrejka states that the Metaverse cannot exist without creation. This makes sense since our world would not exist without innovation and invention, and the Metaverse is essentially a virtual version of the physical world.

Ondrejka sees a distinction between creation, where users have the ability to alter gameplay with objects that they have created in-game and use in-game, and crafting, where users can make items within the confines of the game designer's programming. Crafting will never allow for completely new objects or new interactions, but only lets players discover objects which are new for them. However, creating allows for the introduction of truly new items. Ondrejka sites Second Life as a step forward toward the Metaverse because of its inclusion of true in-game creation.

In Second Life I've made a boulder and a small wooden table. I made my wooden table or stool or whatever it is by using five separate shapes. I started with four cylinders, adjusted their size, placed them on an equal distance apart in a square, and then used a rectangular shape to make the top. Again I adjusted its size significantly. Then I locked them all together and picked an external texture for the whole thing. I believe it looks like cherry wood. This is a very simplified form of creating. In real life, I could make a small table out of wood and stain it to be a reddish hue. Additionally, though I made a very simplified object, I was not limited only by my inexperience, not by the game code. Using spheres, cylinders, cubes, and a whole variety of other dimensional shapes, I could have made pretty much anything. My table can be hot pink, clear, or covered in velvet. Anything I desire and that is possible in the context of the real world is also possible in Second Life. This is much different from the crafting that I've done in LOTRO. In LOTRO I simply chose to craft an item, found the materials, and then crafted it. It required no creativity, and there was very little choice involved. Though I "made" it, the object was previously designed by game designers, and I was just making a replica of it. In Second Life, I can make anything and use my own design, I'm not constricted by the designers or their code.

Ondrejka sees this as an essential component of the Metaverse. Second Life offers players the ability to take a given sphere, make it oblong, add a small indentation, create inconsistencies in its size and shape, and add a variety of textures to it. In the end it looks like a rock. But players can also copy the rock hundreds of times to make a stone wall or carry the rock around with them. More experience and knowledgeable players may be able to throw the rock or add a script to make avatars interact with it differently. The ability to make an entirely new object, and to use it, is of great important in the real, physical world. And so it's no surprise that it's of great importance to the Metaverse. After all, the Metaverse is just an online version of the real world.

An awesome user-made Second Life Motorcycle.