At right: A bestselling SL security system (on the Marketplace here)
Last week's media event with Linden Lab was mainly about the Second Life mobile app officially launching, and the company's strategy to bring back lapsed SLers with it, and grow the overall user base. But before those details were announced, another challenge to growing the Second Life user base came up:
- To entice new users, they need to see great content and communities in Second Life.
- But many of the best Second Life hangouts and locations have orbiters banning new users (to prevent trolling, non-members, etc), i.e. typically accounts under 30 days old.
- So not only can new users not access these areas, they're unceremoniously booted for even trying.
"My experience is having to explain this to new residents that get sent back to the welcome hub, completely clueless as to why, what they did, or the punishment being so harsh," as longtime blogger/event manager Sasy Scarborough explains. "Some have even thought it will mean they are banned for life, that is also a really bad outcome… one guy I was helping at the hub the other day left and got ejected from three places in a row within minutes."
Sasy brought this up during the media event, but it's really an ongoing paradox of metaverse platforms: User-generated content is what makes them so powerful and unique, but that doesn't necessarily mean specific users want to make their content available to anyone who shows up.
"More people are joining Second Life now with money to spend, because they have come from YouTube etc, and know where they are guided to go, to only be ejected from those locations." Of course, location owners are well within their right to ban anyone for any reason, even if that ultimately hurts overall user growth. "If a person with no real connection in-world is repeatedly ejected from experiences, they will be frustrated, and could just log out permanently."
On the Zoom call, Linden Lab CTO Philip Rosedale acknowledged the problem, but also pointed out how difficult it is to solve on the software/UX side. Saying: "If someone has a precise and complete change order to address the problem, we could address that." In other words, it's a complex fix with no easy solution that'll satisfy everyone.
I do see one solution which turns the 30 day/nooby limit into an aspirational goal: Implement a system similar to that of VRChat's trust ranking system. I.E:
"A user’s Trust feeds into something we’ve called a 'Trust Rank', which is an indicator of how much time a user has spent in VRChat, how much content they’ve contributed, the friends they’ve made, and many other factors."
In this system, spending more time and interacting in the virtual world becomes a goal in itself, since doing that while positively engaging other users gives a nooby access to more content and experiences. It could even become part of the game mechanics being added to the SL mobile experience. If the nooby is booted from one place, it becomes a goal to find another place where they're able to get in. And as I wrote in the book, there's also a positive effect of making "trust" part of the game, so to speak:
Where most game systems mainly reward repeated (if not mechanical activity) the implicit challenge of VRChat’s Trust System “game” is to prove oneself to be a consistently positive person and a valuable member of the community.
“Letting people spend some time hanging around VRChat (and learning all the unspoken social rules that are present here) lets them understand the platform a bit better,” [VRChat's] founders explain, “which means that they could be thinking a bit more of the community when uploading content.”
The system also confers a sense of status to established VRChat community members that first-time visitors can quickly notice.
“[New users] would look out for people that had a little bit more experience that relates to User and above, because it was a good sign that you kind of knew the social customs and VRChat," as Strasz puts it.
The Trust System was an important function for VRChat gaining escape velocity in terms of organic growth. Now that it has, the system has become a kind of leveling mechanism for new players. Where traditional MMOs might have noobies level up by killing various numbers of rodents and such, VRChat rewards new users for spending time exploring the virtual world, expressing themselves, and connecting with others.
Then again, I fully admit that a short book excerpt is not the kind of "precise and complete change order" Philip is asking for, and there's barriers to implementing one. Readers should definitely raise any objections in Comments!
Update, November 20: Nadir Taov, lead developer of the popular mini-MMO Crack Den, has interesting thoughts on X:
As a community builder, our security measures are 100% due to griefing – I’m talking about the handful of persistent trolls that take advantage of archaic reg API portals to create accounts, spoof IPs, and incessantly grief thriving spaces. @philiprosedale and team can address by creating actual crowd sourced auto banning features via abuse reports (if enough people report a fairly new account, should insta ban the IP). It’s a real problem. I don’t mind new players – in fact, we have our own onboarding features in place to help support new players.
— Nadir Taov (@Taov) November 21, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Please support posts like these by buying Making a Metaverse That Matters and joining my Patreon!
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 
Leave a comment