Thursday, April 12, 2007
The origins of Second Life
Second Life was created with the intent of mirroring the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash. A virtual world where people were free to do as they pleased. Not a game in the traditional sense, Second Life still owes a great deal to a number of video games.
The earliest MMOSG (massivly multiplayer online social game) was Habitat. Playable on the Commador 64’s online service, Habitat was an online enviroment developed by Quantum Computer Services (who later became AOL) and Lucasfilm Game. Growing out of Quantum’s chatroom service, Habitat was the first attempt to develop a persistant, graphic based, social online enviroment. The game shares Second Life’s ambition of creating an enviroment based around creating and socialising, rather than conflict or aggression.
Another game that appears important in the relisation of Second Life is The Sims. The Sims proved to a sceptical world that there was a market for games centered around the development of avatars in a non fantastical setting, opening the gate for the possibility of a game like second life becoming a success.
Second Life is a very different game to either of these but owes them a great deal in terms of design and gameplay.
Second Life was created with the intent of mirroring the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash. A virtual world where people were free to do as they pleased. Not a game in the traditional sense, Second Life still owes a great deal to a number of video games.
The earliest MMOSG (massivly multiplayer online social game) was Habitat. Playable on the Commador 64’s online service, Habitat was an online enviroment developed by Quantum Computer Services (who later became AOL) and Lucasfilm Game. Growing out of Quantum’s chatroom service, Habitat was the first attempt to develop a persistant, graphic based, social online enviroment. The game shares Second Life’s ambition of creating an enviroment based around creating and socialising, rather than conflict or aggression.
Another game that appears important in the relisation of Second Life is The Sims. The Sims proved to a sceptical world that there was a market for games centered around the development of avatars in a non fantastical setting, opening the gate for the possibility of a game like second life becoming a success.
Second Life is a very different game to either of these but owes them a great deal in terms of design and gameplay.
# posted by Matt @ 5:18 AM 
