Jonathan Beckett

Instead of doing something constructive for the last half an hour, I’ve been looking for new Tumblrs to follow. I think I found some good ones (if you’re wondering, my only real criteria is that people write interesting stuff, don’t reblog too much, and aren’t too self obsessed).

Anyway… here they are;

• http://vapidheart.tumblr.com/
• http://ruthmakers.tumblr.com/
• http://pensorlens.tumblr.com/
• http://lildthatsme.tumblr.com/
• http://pixiebellz.tumblr.com/
• http://feelingjennerous.tumblr.com/

I’m also becoming more and more aware that the list of people I’m following is very lop sided towards the ladies. I need to go off in search of the men-folk of Tumblr at some point, and bring some balance to the force.

This evening I installed Second Life, and World of Warcraft - finally taking a look at the virtual worlds I have heard so much about over the last few years.

Second Life

I’ve never been so disappointed in a piece of software before. The idea was great, but it was slow, laggy, and threw me out of the system every two or three minutes. I couldn’t design the look of my avatar beyond a few pre-built examples. After perhaps half an hour struggling with it, I looked online to see if I was the only person experiencing the instability and flakiness. No. Thousands of people have complained of the same issues. Fail.

World of Warcraft

I have kept well away from “World of Warcraft” for years - on purpose. I know what I’m like, and I know I don’t really have the time to play it. I’ve also heard stories of people’s social life vanishing when they got sucked into it.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a software developer, or because of my innate make-up, but I wasn’t impressed. I played it for perhaps an hour - thunking through the various training / levelling-up exercises. While I could appreciate the quality of the software (it’s miles ahead of Second Life), I could immediately see the inherent restrictions. The heavy reliance on quests, and experience, and objects doesn’t appeal to me. Without the blue-sky creativity of something like Second Life, it’s tremendously restricting.

I guess I’ve been spoiled by reading “Ready Player One”. The book describes a future social network / virtual world mash-up called “The OASIS” - where all areas of society are represented within the network. Children go to school in the network, and people have virtual homes (escapism from a real world that’s gone to hell) in the network. It’s a strange dystopian view of the future, but is strangely attractive. The avatars still have role playing game facets (magic, weapons, etc), but their reason for existence within the Oasis is not specific to a quest.

I’ve already uninstalled Second Life, and at this point in time I can’t see World of Warcraft staying around for very long either.

I’ve installed “Second Life” too - although I’m not sure how useful it will be until World of Warcraft finishes installing… at the moment the download is murdering the internet connection.

I might have just set the installer running for “World of Warcraft”. I guess the book I’ve been reading has inspired me to have a look at some of the virtual worlds out there, and see what all the fuss is about (five years late, but better late than never, right?)