so i had an extra hour to kill today and figured i'd give second life a try. just like world of warcraft, i didnt get the alure at all. i'm trying to come up with a word other than *gay* but that's my take on second life and world of warcraft. just like the sims, they're for people who want to be *cool* within online communities. it takes enough time and effort to be *cool* in the offline world. i couldnt give a shit whether i have the coolest virtual outfit and it's not worth the time to learn how to navigate these worlds.
now what i'd really like...is a virtual version of the real world where i can *play* at life in ways i cant in the offline world. that's why i was addicted to risk growing up and recently to pc war strategy games like 'rise of nations'. now these would be super fun to play online *except* you run into the same type of phenomena of the geeky kids who know all the tricks. for me that means i find myself fighting some cocky 20 year old with spears against tanks after 5 minutes.
ok. here's my dream game...a virtual earth that combines risk - world domination - with grand theft auto - ability to drive cool fast cars and beat people up and steal their money (the fantasy part that we cant do for real) with the rise of nations ability to manage resources, research, tech, taxes and government and wage wars.
what i'd really like is a virtual version of the real earth. none of these goofy made up worlds. i want to go buy up buildings on park avenue for virtual real. all the real laws of nature should apply. that means our characters can get killed. that means we may want to be careful to hire a lot of protection.
in my game, the early part will rely heavily on the rule of guns and firepower until we get to some order on a world level and then an urban level too. this is pretty much how the real world works. so at first strong countries may invade weak ones. and cities that lack a strong armed police force will have huge crime and murder. people will happily pay lots of taxes and personal payoffs to make sure their characters and properties dont get robbed, killed and blown up.
also other physical laws will apply. you will need transportation to get around. none of this teleporting or flying. you can have your character walk slowly or pay to get on a plane or bus or buy a car.
public officials will be able to take bribes just like in the real world but maybe justice can be doled out more swiftly here.
in terms of the economic model, i'd let anyone join and be *peasant* for free. you'd have to pay $10 per month to be a *citizen* . peasants can still accumulate money by taking jobs in production or protection/armies and police (which are dangerous but high paying). citizens get some armor so they wont die from the first bullet as well as money and land/property. citizens can get rich and powerful much faster but that doesnt mean a peasant cant rise up to fame and fortune (like they do here in our world).
people could build businesses as arms dealers, airline operators , casino kings, powerful politicians or captains of pvt armies or creators of weapons exchanges.
this world would have to be way more *open* than second life too. that is, anyone could add a server and expand or host part of the game. ideally, there might be a new domain extension (.earth) that would let any web browswer find this world and any server host part (eg. vegas.earth or markscasino.vegas.earth).
if anyone knows of projects like this in our world, i'd love to hear about it. and to those who just love second life, no offense intended. get on wit yo bad fantasy self and all your swanky cloths:)
