Levels of the Game

Most of computer games are organized by levels. You do some things, complete some kind of task then you go to the next level doing something else, or most likely, doing the same thing as you just did but with more enemies, in more complicated surrounding or in a shorter time. What about second life? Is there any levels here?

I’m not into raising a debate if second life is a game or not. That would be an useless waste of blogosphere resources. It is a platform, but that platform is by large used for gaming. There are in-world games like fishing and combats and vehicle racing. They work just as any other computer game beside the fact that they are nested in one huge system that hosts other games and many other things. But, inside their sims, there is no difference between them and other on-line games we know.

What is of interest here is mere second life as a game. Living of second life, that is. Beside the fact that some people are not using the platform as a game but rather as a tool (for education, socializing and what not) there are couple points that can disqualify SL as a game.

• There is no final aim. You drop from Orientation Island and nobody told you what to do or what is the purpose of all this. You are on your own to decide if you’ll count your score by lindens in upper right corner, or in popularity points on your profile page, or number of names in your friend list, or whatever. Or nothing at all.
• Rules are very unlike the rules of other games. Very true. There are almost no rules at all. There are laws of nature of the metaverse, but no rules of the game.
• No levels. Or…?

There are no levels like in other (shooter mostly) games. But let’s try to see a bit clearer.

• Level 1 – Orientation Island :) That one is easy, there is a straight-forward line between rezzing for the first time and leaving the place. One have the aim and the means. Then infohub, getting info and more info and even more info. Getting the picture of the place you just dropped in. There is no line to cross to get onto level two. It is blurred area which leads to…
• Level 2 – Noob life. Avatars with bad hairs and in constant search for freebies. Avatars that bumps around due to lack of practice in walking and flying around. Yes, noobs love to fly. :) Avatars that still don’t get the picture of the world and don’t get the fact that there are levels in the game. Once you get the idea of evolution of each of us in the virtual world, you got your ticket to the next level.
• Level 3 – Very arbitrary, I love to call this one prim hair level. That is some kind of maturity in the world of second life. Once avatar got his first prim hair, and a bit of decent clothes (something not so expensive but flexy combined with couple of good freebies can do a miracle) it is ready to infiltrate into crowd. You can still ask simple questions but you’re not considered a noob. In the meanwhile, human behind the avatar got the idea of the world and maybe even find an idea what to do and where to aspire. He or she got its own aim of the game.
• Level 4 – And there our ways diverge. Each avatar follows its own path through the world of imagination. Each plays its own game with different levels adequate to the game. I don’t know how the general path goes further, so feel free to share a word or two about that down bellow. Maybe we converge again at some point, all the avies from different games. Maybe not.

Related posts:

• The Danger Of Open-endedness (10)
• Why This Babe Goes Clubbing? (8)
• The Tale Of An Old Vampire (6)
• The Game Of Second Life (15)
• Second Life Is Not a TV (7)