I've been a Second Life (SL) subscriber for barely two weeks. It's been a hell of a ride, mostly due to the mind-shattering volume of material to sift through, and the nearly-unfathomable level of complexity behind the scenes. Second Life still seems impossible to define as a whole, but easy to analogize. Second Life is an Olympic-sized swimming pool filled with fantastic Sea Monkeys. More than mindless brine shrimp, these critters dance and play together, build castles, and ride around in cars. Left unchecked, the Sea Monkeys will fill the pool with suburban homes, cocktails, torture chambers, slot machines, motorcycles, stuffed animals and ray-guns. How long will it be before these genius Sea Monkeys escape the bounds of their pool and take over the rest of the world one puddle at a time?

Following are my continuing reflections, discoveries, and commentary on the massively-multiplayer world of Second Life. For earlier editions, please see the complete list of "My Second Life" articles.

Goon Invasion

On Friday, April 23, I was doing a little building in a public sandbox, when out of the blue an unprecedented number of visitors appeared, heralded by a fat, bald man driving a sports car. The tiny posse, numbering six or seven in total, began engaging in locker-room-style banter. I overheard "SA" and "goons" in the same sentence and knew a terrifying horror had been unleashed on the placid world of Second Life.

"SA" stands for Something Awful, a wickedly-comedic web site located at SomethingAwful.com. "Goons" stands for "goons," also known as hooligans, thugs, or in this case the followers of SA founder Rich ''Lowtax'' Kyanka. Lowtax runs a tidy little empire over at SA, and while he is intelligent and witty, his 20,000-strong Goon squad is often like a legion of drunken Imperial Stormtroopers: Fanatic, self-important, oafish, and although susceptible to being knocked out by a rock-wielding Ewok, capable of inflicting massive damage--often deliberately.

I spent some time goofing off with Lowtax's evil minions in the sandbox, and have to admit that sucking back a 40-ouncer of Absolut, puffing a doobie, and bashing my head into primitive 3D objects to a 10-second hip-hop loop has been one of the more fun things I've done in Second Life so far. Needless to say, it wasn't long before the Goons got bored, and they all went off in a sexually-frustrated mob looking for SL citizens to harass.

According to the Second Life forums, the SA Goons rushed through a couple of neighbourhoods like a filth-tornado. The PG-rated region of Cordova was reportedly vandalized with particularly hardcore porn images, cleverly placed inside the primitive objects of a Second Life resident to appear as though the resident himself was responsible. In Magenta, a gay resident's new house was overshadowed by bizarre and hateful billboards: one featured a penis with bees on it; another, an icon of a hand grenade (SA's trademark symbol) with the motto "SA is watching"; the third displaying the message "if you can read this you must be a fucking faggot..." Attacks of varying degrees continued over the following days, including a report of "200 large prims that were covered with pictures of rotting dead bodies and some disgusting fat man exposing his rectal area." I personally witnessed a provocative September 11 "tribute" under construction by one of the goons, featuring a burning 3D WTC tower and huge, rotating American flag--obviously a stunt to attract attention, and several witnesses were in a muted tizzy over the whole affair. While complaints about these incidents are raised and discussed in the Second Life forums, in-game reaction may be muted. One SL forum poster wrote: "do not negative rate them. for one thing, they don't care. for another, if you neg rate them, it's for certain thet [sic] they'll get 20 of their friends to neg rate YOU. it's better to ignore them than prove they are bothering you. unless you can get a linden there."

Something Awful's army of goons is by no means Second Life's first invasion by aliens. "Griefer rushes" have occurred in the past, including an onslaught by World War II Online players (a number of whom now subscribe to SL); citizens of competing online worlds There and The Sims Online; and readers of geek news site Slashdot. Typically, Second Lifers get harassed until the griefers run out of steam or are dealt with by SL developer/maintainer Linden Labs. Veteran SL residents have learned to weather the storm, much like Old West townsfolk locking their doors when a posse of gangsters gallops up to the saloon.

There are plenty of in-game mechanisms to curb harassment in Second Life, including Abuse Reports, negative ratings, allowing only specified residents access to your land, or even banning residents from your land. There are passing references to dealing with troublemakers in SL's Help documentation, i.e. "Vote with your feet -- if someone is not your cup of tea, just walk (or fly) away," but in light of the recent, malicious SA incursion, a public information campaign containing more practical advice might be warranted. If mobs rule in Second Life, then a concerted effort by SL citizens should be able to combat invasions fairly effectively.


Constraint Demands Creativity

I was afforded my first parcel of land recently. It's in Janus, at coordinates 214,245. As a Premium subscriber I am entitled to 512 square meters of Second Life at no real-world cost. If I want any more turf, I'll be paying five bucks and over (monthly), up to $200 monthly for an entire SL region.

Each plot of land can support a limited number of primitive 3D objects--these are the basic building blocks of all Second Life items and architecture. Not only is the object-count restrictive, but the number of primitive types available are limited (although not greatly) as well. Primitives can intersect each other, and can be individually modified to some degree, but cannot be arbitrarily cut. This all adds up to constraint-based design, something I am intimately familiar with as an experienced Web designer. Web-based design, particularly in the "old days" was terribly limited, in terms of bandwidth and in technology choices. As a result, most veteran Web designers have mastered the art of doing a lot with a little bit--Would my experience be applicable to Second Life building?

I started with a basic, pre-built car known as the Mini Moke, intending to chop it up and rebuild. After some initial fiddling around with critical parts (ones that had attached scripts allowing the car to actually be driven) I figured out which items could be thrown out. I proceeded to design a Jalopy-like clunker. Unfortunately, I learned that the driving scripts won't function on an object containing 31 or more primitives. Fortunately, my Jalopy was just over the limit. I sacrificed one of the headlamps and moved the other one to the center of the hood, making a cyclopean beast. This new vehicle was drivable, but lacked panache. Time for some texturing. Jumping between Photoshop and Second Life, I whipped together a rivet-and-oxidizing-copper steampunk/gothic scheme, complete with bat wing insignia. From start to finish about five hours, but I had myself a cute little horrormobile at the end. The weathered license plate read "Zero-G," a play on my SL name Zero Grace.

After having completed a car, I figured a house couldn't be all that hard. My land supported 117 primitives, after all, which is plenty of leeway. Not. I desired to create a sort of comedic-gothic abode reminiscent of the Munsters' mansion, but I soon realized I had envisioned too grand a plan. After only a couple of gargoyle-lights and walls were placed around the outside, my prim-count was nearly 50% of my allowance. Drat! I knew I had to rethink what I was doing, and actually made some sketches on paper in an attempt to squeeze the most shape out of the least amount of object. Alternating between primitives and sketches for the better part of two hours, I managed to get the same surrounding walls in half as many primitives, as well as a (rather austere) two-level gothic house. With only 12 primitives left, I won't be having much else, particularly if I want to put up some kind of interactive information or vending machine. I've now begun the task of texturing the house. Given that there are no limits (other than uploading costs) to the number of textures, I'll have to compensate for the lack of object detail with a clever "paint job." So far it's coming along pretty well. If you're a Second Lifer and would like to drop by, please put on your hard-hat and safety-shoes before stepping into Janus 214,245.