Basic Functions Second Life Needs

double-click ground to walk

This is a case of using an already-existing paradigm of navigation. People know what a double-click is from operating system navigation. Other virtual worlds and games use the double-click on the ground as a standard. So, you know the "Go here" function on the right-click pie menu? Why can't that same function be the default double-click action on the land?

Look At

Here's one I stole from other virtual worlds. If Linden Lab has an algorithm that calculates where your avatar is in relationship to an object, and uses that as the default base for "sit", then why can't it use that data for a "Look at" function? Using the camera in Second Life takes time, and it would be a lot easier if it would be automated for some basic operations. While users can program camera controls, it requires text-box confirmation of permission and pretty advanced scripting knowledge to implement.

Further, I'd like to see this option be integrated into an objects "default touch behavior", where I could thus set left-click to default to "Look At" - useful for video screens, pictures on a wall, etc. And then, like the sit functions llSitOffset and llSetSitText, there ought to be a llLookAtOffset(vector eye, vector target) and llSetLookAtText(string text) function. The prior would set a default location and target for the Look At function, and the latter would change the pie menu text for it.

For all of these functions, the Escape (Esc) key or simply moving your avatar would cancel out of Look At mode.

Profiles as web pages / Integration with other social networks

So, since we've long since had in-world browser, why doesn't Linden Lab make a basic social networking application for Second Life, connecting its existing profiles and friend connections? Suddenly we'd see all profiles accessible offline, and - hey - EMBEDDABLE IN OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS. And while we're at it, let's get a Facebook application by Linden Lab that pulls from these profile websites.

Second Life is not an island. The idea that the Metaverse is a separate place is a fallacy imagined by science fiction writers before there even was an Internet, let alone a 3-D Internet. We have this pre-fixed conception that the only way you access a virtual world is by "jacking in" and being fully immersed. Movies and books have reinforced this idea, but the truth is that Second Life and other virtual worlds are all part of the larger Internet, and should recognize themselves as such. The Metaverse isn't a walled garden. The Metaverse IS the Internet, 3-D enabled with social networking.

Handshake

So before Torley was a Linden, Torley made the suggestion in the old, old SL forums, to paraphrase, "What's missing from Second Life: the handshake" and made a great case why such basic behaviors need to be made easy and straightforward. It's this common sense and understanding of users needs that likely played a part in his subsequent employment at Linden Lab. It's something like 3 or 4 years later, and we still have no handshake. We even, in Fall 2006, had the announcement of "Avatar puppeteering" to come, which seems to have atrophied and been forgotten somewhere in the development process.

Something like the handshake is basic. It says, "We developers have thought about the kinds of behaviors that users are likely going to want, and made sure we developed our platform in a way that it enables obvious use cases." What has happened with handshake? I guess no one in the early phases of Linden Lab saw it as something people would do, and now it would take a lot of finagling to make it work.

Cross-fade Music

Here's one from my CEO, Drew Stein. When walking from one parcel to another, often times both parcels have music media streams. And, naturally, they are often *different* streams. Switching from one suddenly to the other can be jarring. Why not build in a cross-fader to the client that automatically fades out the first stream as the second one is faded in?

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Excepting the last suggestion, these are all functions I've suggested before, but this is probably the first time I've blogged about them. So here they are, Linden Lab. Or, better - since Linden Lab has announced that they will become the central hosting point for the Second Life open source initiative, perhaps you - reader - can come up with an open source patch to the client that enables one or more of these features?