Cubey Terra recently wrote a bittersweet short story called “The Oldbie.” If you’ve ever used Second Life, you should read it.
It inspired me. So I’ve written a similar story. A story about virtual worlds and the future.
It’s called “Jetpack.” This one’s for you, Cubey.
I’ve decided to start something.
It’s an open club for anyone interested in group explorations of virtual worlds on the Hypergrid and sharing their experiences with others.
Want to join us?
We all want to look marvelous.
And in virtual worlds, we want our avatars to look marvelous.
In both form and motion, we want them to possess beauty and grace. We want people to gasp at their originality and for virtual heads to turn when we walk into a virtual room.
And we want them to look as lifelike as possible.
But there’s a catch. As our avatars march forward into a bright future of ever-increasing realism, we’re going to face a major obstacle.
Most people deeply involved in Virtual Worlds, from researchers to developers to enthusiastic users, have read Neal Stephenson’s novel “Snow Crash.”
In it, Stephenson coins the term “Metaverse.” He describes it as a perceptually immersive successor to the Internet, populated by avatars interacting with each other in a collaboratively created virtual space.
If you’ve read it, you probably remember the Metaverse with its cool motorcycles, thrilling swordfights between avatars in The Black Sun, and the endless glittering stretch of The Street.
Seductive stuff, yes?
But I bet most of you don’t remember something mentioned in the novel. And I can sum it up in a simple question:
Be Cunning and Full of Tricks 