Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
Crash, Bang, Boom: Virtual Reality Collision
I sort of suspected this would happen eventually. Second Life has found me, and my dormant virtual world has collided with my real one. Comments from Second Life residents have been popping up here for the past few days, too, so my virtual life is entering my real one, even though I am officially on Second Life hiatus.
For all intents and purposes, after two years of working in and blogging about the virtual world of Second Life, I basically logged out one day and never really returned. This was not intentional. In fact, at the time this happened, I was mulling over a major decision: whether to pack in all my day jobs and do Second Life full time.
I was making good money in Second Life, although not nearly as much money as the linked magazine excerpt mis-quotes me as saying I made. Looking at the spreadsheets, though, it was pretty easy to see that I could make being a full time SL developer pay reasonably well if I thew all my eggs into a virtual basket. It was an amazingly cool, if slightly scary, prospect.
There were a lot of implications around this decision, however; not just the immediate financial ones, but longer term ones like qualifying for a mortgage when we were ready, and questions around pensions – an issue for me because of my late arrival, in terms of work history and taxation, in Ireland. Additionally, there was a lot of conversation about what to do if Second Life kicked the bucket as a platform – what skills would be translatable, if any, to the real world job market and how one might address that on a resume.
It was not, in short, simply a question of doing what I loved and hoping the money would follow.
Then three things happened that made the decision even harder:
- Second Life introduced something called sculpted prims, which to make a long story short, would have required me to learn proper 3D modeling in something like Blender, preferably very quickly. I have never used a 3D modeling program and this seemed very challenging – and not in a good way.
- The value of the US dollar, which is the currency you convert Second Life earnings into, began to fall against the euro, the currency in which I live my life and pay my bills. The spreadsheet began to look a little less healthy.
- I was hired as a technical editor for a Second Life book from a major publisher about which I was initially very excited but ultimately quite meh about. I struggled, a lot, with whether to withdraw from the project, and my hesitance began making my time in SL uncomfortable.
This all became moot when I became seriously ill. I do not want to get into the details of what happened, because it’s both personal and resolved, but any question of doing anything full time became moot for an extended period. After that, I needed to re-establish my real life client base and projects, and that’s where most of my energy has been focused since November. Which has, to be fair, left questions like the following open:
Salome and the others at Linden Lifestyles have been pretty much silent on when, or if, Sabrina is returning… While she never comes out and says it directly, I get the sinking feeling that Sabrina’s not planning on coming back to SL, at least in the near term.
To set the record straight, Salome, my Linden Lifestyles blogging partner, has been silent on this issue because Salome doesn’t know the answer to the question. But this seems like a good a time as any to say that yes, I am coming back; I never really intended to leave, but I do intend to return. Doing what and to what extent still needs to be sorted out, but hopefully will be clearer soon.
So anyway, if you see comments from people with odd names around this blog, it’s just my Second Life crashing into my first one. No doubt I’ll be returning to the virtual reality zoo shortly, and taking the weirdos with me.
16 Feb 2008
| In: Second Life |
That’s great to hear Sabrina. I’ve only flirted with SL over the last few years but find myself inexorably drawn to virtual worlds as a precursor to the future of computing
16.02.2008, 11:24 amWeird, are we? Well, I never…..ummm well I guess weird IS right. :-) It’s your writing we love, and just knowing that you were writing again(and designing websites), even if it’s not about SL, just made me happy.
As for learning 3D, apparently the hard part is learning Blender’s interface, not the actual 3D stuff. (Blender is notoriously user-unfriendly)
16.02.2008, 4:29 pmlooks round a bit amazed and confused..you’ll be staying here too won’t you dear?? Cos dresses and 3d and such don’t do it for me..scuttles
16.02.2008, 5:57 pmHi Sabrina,
As one of the “weirdos” (a label I shall wear proudly, tyvm), and the one who started this snowball down the hill, I guess I should say hi.
I am glad to hear you are coming back; sorry to hear about the confluence that pushed you away. As someone who has herself been forced by events into an SL hiatus (I had a baby in December, leading to an absence of about a month-and-a-half), I know how difficult it is to leave, but at the same time how difficult it can be to return once you’re away. Even if you know there are friends waiting for you, inertia is a powerful force, and as we both know, it’s very hard to do SL part-time.
Most of all, I wanted to say that I’m glad to hear you’re well, and to echo CC, glad you’re writing again.
On a completely non-SL note, I needed to compliment you on the site design. It’s captivating – one of my favorite blog layouts I’ve run across.
Take care.
16.02.2008, 7:12 pmi’m glad to hear this.
16.02.2008, 7:51 pmi haven’t really had an established second life, but i’m always curious of how it would be like… and if it’s worth my time.
Hi Sabrina – Glad to read that you plan to re-enter the world. Linden Lifestyles was the very first SL blog I began to read, and the one that I always go back to. But it’s not been the same without you. And the fashion content has changed since you left… :( I hope at some point you will post on this blog what your SL plans entail. Best Wishes!
23.02.2008, 2:34 amOh! One more thing: I must say that I agree with Kit Meredith… As a blog junkie, this is my FAVORITE layout. Very cool!
23.02.2008, 2:36 am