Metaverse Dreams Re-Write

            “The Metaverse needs to be built differently,” are the wise words of Cory Ondrejka, a man who studies the possibilities of this alternate universe and teaches us about the arts of crafting and creation. The Metaverse would have to be so enormous that every single player should be able to build his or her own world. “It must expand through viral growth and produce an increasing supply of active creators who create wealth within a generalized virtual world” (Ondrejka, 176). The residents, or players, of this world attract an audience who would later become a customer by showing off their ownership of creations and rights. Thus, the Metaverse would have to be so vast that it could hold millions of millions of objects without crashing. This virtual universe would change both the online and offline worlds forever. Second Life takes the first steps towards the construction of the Metaverse. These steps are to be taken on a tightrope because if this universe is rushed, then it is predicted to fail to maximize its potential to the consumer.

            With Second Life taking the first steps towards perfecting the ultimate gaming world, I find the problem lying in the hands of the gamers instead of with the developers. If Second Life was launched back in 2003, I cannot even begin to imagine see how advanced the next installment would be nearly a decade later. If my 2011 laptop is struggling to keep this “old” program running smoothly, I do not want to jump into the next world yet. It has to be up to the players to spend thousands of dollars on futuristic computer models to play or the developers have to find a way to make an enormous Metaversal environment compatible for the recreational gamer’s technology. If I have to spend large sums of money to enter into a second life, then I am very uninterested in what the MMORPG world holds in the near future.

After creating an account in Second Life, I now see how huge of a project this would be if it were done flawlessly. The world of Second Life is so large that even on an up-to-date computer such as mine was running the program slowly. Simply by wandering around a small amount of land, I ran into tens of players show casing their newest creations: a tiny percentage of what to expect in the creative boundaries of this world. With a fellow classmate constructing a basketball court, I started to build my hockey ice rink with dreams of The Second Life Winter Olympic Games nearing. While experiencing the most lag possible, I was unable to pull off my architectural greatness. Next time I fire up the program, I have to make sure to do so on an even faster computer that is more able to hold the capacity of such an immense universe.

A few days later…

            Now firing up Second Life on a better computer, I began to expand my creative architectural horizons. Constructing a cannon that shoots multi-colored half-spheres and other geometrical shapes was my creation. This time, Second Life was very enjoyable. If the Metaverse has to be created differently, then I see no reason to not follow the footsteps of Second Life’s developers. There is definitely room for improvement since Second Life launched, but it is up to the developers to either build on what they have started or take it in a different direction to create the flawless universe every gamer is craving.