Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Apparently it's my 16th Rez Day in Second Life today, because I just got this nice e-mail from Linden Lab:

Second Life is fun, weird, and always evolving, but the magic ingredient is YOU. The vibrant worlds you build and the sense of community you provide for others is simply priceless. Here's to another year of imagination and experiencing the impossible. -The Second Life Team

Even more notable, however, is the infographic at the bottom of that e-mail — see at upper right, click to embiggenate.

Yes: User achievement scores. Comparing my usage milestones in terms of total log-ins, teleports taken, and days logged in within the last year, to that of the average SL user.

Or to put all that in virtual world terminology: Game mechanics.

Not sure when Linden Lab started sending these e-mails out, but this is something I've been writing about and advocating, for well-over a decade: Game mechanics that subtly nudge players to be more regularly active in the virtual world. I just mentioned this today to Parmy Olson of Bloomberg as a feature that Second Life sorely needed (but didn't yet have) to grow out of its niche.

This is a solid first step, and "Regions visited" and "Teleports" are great metrics to start with, as they'll encourage SLers to explore the world more. (Most long-time users don't even do that much anymore.)

Next updates to this? A couple jump right out at me:

Add these fun and easy metrics — "Distance traveled by foot/flying", "Distance traveled by vehicle" — and see a renaissance of SLers traveling the world, especially the main continents and the surrounding sea lanes.

And just as important: Display these achievements on the officer viewer and on user's in-world profile and user profile on the community forum.

I kinda wonder if this one of the first improvements that Philip Rosedale is making as Second Life's newly-appointed advisor.