Second Life -

I have to say that I agree with pretty much everything that Neil and Jason had to say about our meeting in Second Life. I found the experience to be mostly confusing and distracting and only slightly fun.

I randomly clicked on the forum thread about the meeting (Wednesday at 8:30 pm) at about 8:27 pm on Wednesday night. Since I had already set up my account and free avatar, and walked through the initial orientation, I thought I would jump right in and do my best to find Catamount Island and join the meeting. When I opened Second Life, I was told that the program couldn't locate my last location, so I was being dropped into a new place. I don't know what this new place was (I was expecting the area in the welcome pavilion) - it was very grey and had a very unfestive air to it. I was surrounded by pretty spooky avatars - at least one was some sort of prowling grey catbeast. Very weird. I was surprised by my reaction - I felt very awkward and nervous and was relieved when I figured out how to teleport.

Catamount Island was pleasant and deserted. I wandered toward a red beam of light. I didn't know how to tell if anyone else was there, so I typed "Hello?" in the chat box. Of course nothing happened. I rounded a corner and there was Neil. As he said, neither of us could figure out the voice chat, so everything was typed. Jason joined in later and was able to provide some background information about the Island.

I explored some houses built by Western students - tried to open a refrigerator, read a note in Spanish left on a kitchen table, and wondered about the purpose of the cemetery on Catamount Island.

My main issues were:
1) Understanding movement, including walking, was difficult for me. I fell off a bridge into a lake twice (once on the way into a classroom, once I figured out how to get out of the lake, and into the class, a film had already begun playing, so I missed the intro). I also continued to somehow enter an invisible portal that took me to the top of a giant tower. So, really, mid-chat with Jason and Neil, I would suddenly be in a completely different place, have to fly back down to where they were and try to pick up again. Frustrating.

2) Second Life has completely crashed my computer twice. Once was during our meeting, so between shutting down completely and restarting, then trying to find Neil and Jason again, I missed about 10 minutes of conversation.

3) I know there are ways to change this kind of stuff, but I wasn't really happy with how the guys had normal looking avatars, but the women were all Boobs McGee. I chose a fairly conservative looking gal, with regular/casual type clothing, but when I changed my camera angle and saw her from the front, I was pretty heavy handed with the bra size. I don't care about this at all if you're using Second Life for social reasons, but if you're using Second Life for educational or professional reasons, I think it stinks that women could potentially spend a lot of time toning down the sex.

All that said, I did find chatting in Second Life to be more interesting than over email or Facebook or even Skype. For me, there was an aura of a mystery to be solved, which I found exciting. And again, I continue to be surprised at the immediacy of my emotional reactions - laughing out loud when I fall into a lake; feeling anxious in the grey, creepy world; or cursing when I ended up in the tower for the third time.

So I'm there if we meet again, but I'd also support the idea of the Google+ hangout. When's that?