Elle in Blue Mars: New Venice, Static Worlds & Content Creation

Finally able to get into Blue Mars again and explore some more. OK...I'm not sure if the sky's supposed to be neon pink or the water dayglo turquoise, but this is how my piece o'crap computer with its piece o'crap card renders it. In my case, I'm laggy as hell due to my computer being a POC, but I'm in here. Today I visited New Venice, which actually is really beautiful. Blue Mars in general right now reminds me of the excitement I feel when a new sim lands in SL--that feeling of "Ooo...what now?!" For now, I see it as a complement to SL. It's like apples and oranges in a way though.

Phin and I recently had a discussion about how Blue M is developer-centric as compared to SL and its user-created content. "Will that create a static world?" he asked me. My answer was that it was too early to tell anything. To me, a virtual world's only as static as the communities within it. There are plenty of folks who are more than happy to not build/create a thing and buy from others and socialize with friends. A part of me feels like Blue M might have a lot in common with Sony's Playstation "Home"? Anyone out there who has visited both?

For many of us used to console games and other MMOs, that is the norm anyway. You're not creating. It's already there and you are free to just be a participant. I'd like to imagine that it also creates more of a sense of a control within a region, but I think about the fact that SL griefers didn't create flying freenises. They just figured out how to use already available content in...unusual ways.

As a content creator myself, it brings up other questions. For those who are successful in SL as content creators, Blue M could be somewhat daunting in a way. You'd have to set up shop under a current developer (if you can), it might be a totally different skill set for you to learn content creation-wise, and would your popularity in one world transfer to the other? Many things to think about, especially if SL was my RL living.

In another post, I'll talk about something else that I thought about while tempted to kick my computer: basic usability. And oh, I think I'll refer to this world as Blue M instead of its acronym. Sorry...but expect cracks along the lines of SL's whole "Get a first life" in the future...