Terra Nova in that game sphere map resurfaced on Raph Koster's blog. This time embedded within a substantial essay suggesting that Second Lifers are insulated from the broader MMO tradition.
It is a nuanced essay that deserves the visit. If I had to abbreviate the point, however, I would choose this passage:
...If anything, this reinforces for me a certain insularity that exists; as a whole, the community of SL tends to see SL as highly exceptional, whereas those within the larger cluster don’t. I think in general they see it as part of a tradition that includes AlphaWorld, OnLive Traveller, Cybertown, Habitat, LambdaMOO, and many others. This (and the emphasis on “non-game” and “evil tekkies” and whatnot) has resulted in strange cultural gaps. I worry a bit that the fact that SL as a community largely talks to itself and (yes) the Web 2.0 techie crowd is causing it to become a bit more insular that it ought to be.
Whether or not Second Lifers have established a cultural desire to reconstitute the hermit kingdom is interesting but it also feels like its a red herring to a deeper trouble.
Let me weasel the argument in this way. What if in the Central Highlands of New Guinea a bunch of tribesmen on a slow season figured out the internet wave, and "Mount Wilhelm!" someone got this virtual worlds idea. Super for Tuesday morning fun, preserving tribal heritage and as an elaborate costumed social calculator for figuring out blood-debt, or something like that.
Whether or not their key designer used to steal looks at Terra Nova or Raph's site on Saturday nights is irrelevant. If the Mount Wilhelmese think they are different and better with little to learn from the MMO traditions. Why not, and more to the point, how can one prove that they are not indeed something startling and unique in spite of all the well-trodden points (starting with circa 1993 VGA graphics and 32 point font).
To a casual observer, puffins and penguins as aquatic birds must have a shared evolution. Yet in fact, they are examples of two species separated by a hemisphere whose evolution converged. In other words, sometimes things that are alike develop separately (more or less) from their own distinct elements. Insist to the penguin, the puffin might, but a penguin it is still unlike.
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