Official Guide to Second Life
It looks like Linden Lab, makers of the virtual world of Second Life, have quietly gone and found someone to write an “official guide” to getting around their corner of the metaverse. [Via Tony Walsh and Aimee Weber.] Due out in mid-December, the volume “explores in detail every aspect of Second Life’s rich and multilayered virtual world, explains how it works, and offers a wealth of information and practical advice for all Second Life residents.”
The book was written by Michael Rymaszewski, who in the past has penned official guides to such popular video games as Age of Empires III, Zoo Tycoon 2, Rise of Nations and others. On first blush it seems an odd choice, since game guides usually focus on getting from start to finish as easily as possible and uncovering hidden corners of the game in question. But Catherine Smith at Linden Lab tells me that it was the publisher who approached the company about doing an official guide. In addition, “LL has had lots of input into the content, the look and feel and the writing of the book,” she says. The volume promises more than just min/maxing tips, to be sure.
From the Amazon description:
The first part, “Getting a Second Life,” acquaints potential and new players with the Second Life world. It describes the metaverse’s geography as well as its society, explaining its written and unwritten rules. The second part, “Living a Second Life,” deals with the practical and economic aspects of Second Life: creating and customizing an avatar, building objects, scripting, and making money. The third part of the book, “Success in Second Life,” discusses ways to enjoy Second Life more. It includes profiles of successful Second Life residents, discusses fascinating in-world events, and examines how some are using Second Life for business, training, and other purposes. The book closes with a glossary as well as quick-reference and additional-resources appendices. The book’s CD includes special animations, character templates, and textures created by Linden Lab exclusively for this book. The disc also guides new users through the installation and includes a code that grants a special object the first time they enter the metaverse.
The book has clearly been in development for some time, if it includes all that. I’ll be interested to see who’s been profiled, what “fascinating in-world events” are highlighted, and whether this is original reporting by someone who’s been around SL for a while or stuff lifted from other news sources.
Do I sound over-protective? Perhaps I am. I think it’s important to present early attempts at the metaverse as just that, and not as games. It’s quite possible, though, that this will ease insertion for new residents, who are often baffled at their first contact with SL (see the first comment at Tony’s post). Whether they’ll care to shell out $20 to learn how to navigate a platform they’ve just entered for free is another matter. In any case, I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy, and will report my findings here.
Feeds
>I’ll be interested to see who’s been profiled,
>what “fascinating in-world events” are highlighted,
>and whether this is original reporting by someone
>who’s been around SL for a while or stuff lifted from other news sources.
You and me both. I forsee plenty of drama on the horizon over who was profiled and who wasn’t. And I suspect Rymaszewski went to the usual SL bloggers for research–I’m particularly interested to see if the book comes with a “references” section.
Re “It includes profiles of successful Second Life residents, discusses fascinating in-world events, and examines how some are using Second Life for business, training, and other purposes.”
I have to wonder how Aimee found out about this, and also about whether she’s dissing on it now as being an inappropriate “game manual,” though I can’t believe she’d not be among the profiled.
Once again, the LL media machine goes to its very worn-out rolladex of FIC and SIC types and trots them out for media consumption, so there’s an endless reinforcement of the same tired characters. So it’s another business promotion of LL’s spin-off businesses like MOU and ESC.
Yeah, I was a little puzzled by the choice to include something as transient and generally useless to the new player as SL player profiles. I guess they’re inspirational “local boy makes good” stories to try to help the newbies form some idea of the goal of the game. “Join SL, make money, be famous for 500,000 people you’ll never meet!” I’m guessing profiles of legendary griefers and griefer groups are conspicuously absent-too bad, those would actually be useful for a beginning player.
But, as far as the publishers know (or care), SL is just another MMORPG. And they have to put SOMETHING in the “Monsters” section.
Not terribly optimistic about the value of this guide, in practical terms. It’s due out in 4 months. Which means it’s probably been in the works since, what, March? Think how much has changed since then, and how much will change in the next several updates between now and then. I sure don’t see the included maps being worth too much, either, for obvious reasons. I’m sure you can find dozens more examples of little gotchas and pitfalls that will be out of date and/or flat wrong.
I suppose it does add a bit more of an air of legitimacy to SL, though. That’s probably, on the balance, a good thing.
Moriash ~ You say, jokingly, “Be famous for 500,000 people you’ll never meet.”
But, that of course, is the whole deal with fame, isn’t it? I mean, that’s certainly the currency it holds IRL: That one is known to a large number of people one will never meet. If you’re known only to people that you know, you’re not actually famous, are you? (I mean, there are gray areas, sure … but those are just probably taking a while to rez. Because some lame bozo has just built a blingtard casino next door to your humble home, most likely, right?)
Not that fame is a good thing, per se. Nor a bad thing, for that matter.
But that if the potential for gaining it were the deciding factor for someone, for whatever reason, the “500,000 unmet people” would actually be a case in point.
o.O
And, you’re right — this guide won’t be all that practical, will it?
But who needs practical? This will be a fancy, published document of the SL that we have all, to various extents, already known. That — and its attendant “air of legimtimacy,” as you say — is a GREAT thing!
And, hells, Prok: Of COURSE Aimee should be in such a book. How could she — and Cristiano, say, and B. Anubis, and I. Ingersoll, et autres, et autres — NOT be in there? And you, too: it’d be incomplete without YOU, Prokofy yaddayadda Neva.
Because, to all those eyes that will be seeing this iteration, this abstraction of SL for the first time? Those “same characters” will be by no means “tired.” The Prok-defined FIC and its ilk, and its Prok-including detractors, are among the most vivid representatives of SL — avatars, in SO many senses of the term. Who ELSE would you have “trotted out” for media consumption? Like, if you wanted to do an IRL fundraiser, say, Prok … would you have, as the guests of honor, Johnny Depp and Brenda Laurel and the Dresden Dolls? Or your three bowling-league-champion cousins from Paramus?
Hmmm?
*cough* *cough*
Excuse me, the lag’s making my asthma act up. Better go.
Well, I don’t have any cousins who bowl or who live in Paramus.
But it turns out I’m mentioned in this guide as a “dissident” lol.