Second Life celebrates seven years

By Katier Reitveld

Seven years is an impressive age for any online world, when many virtual worlds and MMORPG's fall by the wayside well before that age.

This week, Second Life reached that age and celebrated with its annual birthday sims, events and more.

The party was run over just a single week, compared to previous years two, but as always, it is themed.

This year's theme was "Unexpected Collaborations," which leaves a lot to the imagination.

The Linden Lab Second Life Blog, describes the theme as, "A celebration of that which is only possible through our virtual world. While the event is sponsored by Linden Lab, it's really an unexpected collaboration of its own-the fruit of the collective labours of exhibitors, volunteers, and Lindens."

This year, the event was held in 21 sims, eight of which were primarily dedicated to stages and other official buildings, with the other 13 mainly exhibits.

The previous two years' birthday celebrations both had 20 sims. On the face of it, this year seems to have increased in size, but the larger space dedicated to stages resulted in a shrinking of exhibition space.

Phaylen Fairchild, an exhibitor this year but part of the organising team in previous years, was able to give an insight into this rebalancing.

She said, "I think they did the right thing. Mia consulted with me often prior to her leaving, and that was a suggestion I made. There is a delicate balance in accommodating large scale events, such as those taking place on designated stages and still allowing exhibitors who have put tremendous work into their showing remain relevant to the exhibition.

"It was critical that exhibitors not be locked out of their own exhibit because a concert was happening on a corner of the sim they were located in. The Main stages tend to be heavily populated at all hours, so my suggestion was to designate them a region to keep an orderly traffic flow. In previous years it had been an issue where people were playing tug-o-war with region resources, and since we had encouraged residents to hold events at their exhibits, placing them around stages proved counter intuitive.

"I think the organizers did really well with allocating space and using it wisely. Certainly if there seemed to be more open areas and official infrastructure, it was because exhibitor attendance wasn't what everyone anticipated this year. It makes sense to fill the unused areas with things that lend itself to the aesthetic of the event."

The 13 exhibition sims didn't feel as packed as previous years, and Fairchild agreed that this was definitely the case.

She said, "I think it was most definitely smaller this year, largely in part do to the sinking moral of the typical Second Life enthusiasts that usually participate. Over the past year, there has been a chasm develop between Linden Lab and their active community, with fewer community facing employees. The restructuring of the company and subsequent loss of even more employees who had been active in stimulating community engagement and activities caused the event to suffer as a result.

"It didn't feel as celebratory. Key figures embedded in its history had gone, and people who maintained an awareness were still disappointed in their departures. It's was a tough year, and with all the things occurring in the bigger picture, it didn't surprise me that it wouldn't have the normal turnout or enthusiastic participation."

The smaller turnout, therefore, doesn't seem to have been reflective of the new team running the celebrations this year. More a reflection of the recession that Second Life Is going through right now.

One area that seemed a bit confusing was the theme. Every year the birthday has a theme. In previous years, the theme was one that would be obvious to those visiting the exhibition sims.

This was especially true last year with the 'into the future' permanently dark theme meaning exhibitors brought out their glow sticks and artificial environments in force.

Also memorable was SL4B, which took a look back at previous years, and the exhibits could only be built using the prims available in that year. Each quarter of the exhibition space had a different year allocated to them.

This year, the 'Unexpected Collaborations' theme didn't seem to work. Fairchild gave her insight and expertise into why she felt this was the case.

"The theme this year was underwhelming. There was not a lot of room to manoeuvre or to allow easy interpretation or reinterpretation of it. And when you have an audience that has no idea how you intend for them to represent, follow or contribute to such an ambiguous theme, they just ignore it. It is the responsibility of the organization to invoke inspiration, creativity and enthusiasm for the theme, usually by example. There wasn't anything there that I saw embodied in official infrastructure or signage to give it a signature," she said.

"Last year, people saw the theme everywhere they looked, some even re-imagined their entire exhibits, excitedly taking it back to the drawing board to exploit the potential for integrating it into the world build around them. There was a direction they had, one that didn't take their individual voice, but challenged them in ways they didn't foresee. Upon arriving, they expected the same old process. You go, you build, you leave. I think last year was a definite triumph in how we unified as a community and shared an experience together collaboratively. I was disappointed that didn't happen this year. "

Overall, the exhibition team did a good job given the fact that many were new to the job and the challenges of the recession.

The infrastructure was excellent, and really well put together. The use of sims dedicated to stages was good, although if Second Life picks up next year it will required a larger area for exhibitions.

Fairchild had a few pearls of wisdom to give to future birthday organisers.

She said, "Always have a back up plan. Never rely on things to simply go as they should. Expect the unexpected and be prepared to act swiftly. There is tremendous confidence given in those scenarios that seem to fall apart and you can whip out your alternative plan to put it back in functional order.

"Never let Phil deliver a keynote speech via voice! Remember the event is bigger than the boundaries of those 20 sims, and people care about what he has to say. Streams allow for remote listeners as well as those web based. Many residents don't want to fight lag and crowds to attend. Many more can't due to sim limitations. People were bouncing off the borders. The speeches are a tentpole of the birthday and the one critical performance that must work. 

"Be more attentive to region performance: Physics lag, time dilation, resource hogging can all cripple an entire sim. The status of each needs to be monitored. Restarts to wipe the brains and start fresh are necessary as hundreds of prims are rezzed, scripts are added, people arrive, options are enabled, ect. This was a morning routine for us in previous years. It allowed us to provide the best performance possible in terms of the technology. Not enough attention was given to this. I saw so many things that were not optimized for region performance, and quality of experience can suffer as a result.

"Ultimately, these events are a learning experience, each one. Developing the instincts required to know when to react and what to expect is inevitable. It's part of the process. You grow into the role, and soon it becomes second nature. I believe the people involved this year did a stellar job in very little time, and will just get better with each new event they head up. "

So Second Life moves into its eighth year, and what it will hold is impossible to say. With Philip back at the helm it's hoped Second Life will recover and come back stronger than ever.

Happy birthday Second Life!!