Before looking forward to Second Life’s twelfth birthday celebrations, I think it’s an opportune time to look back. Play funky music, close your eyes, and come with me on a journey back in time ….

Ever want to build a cathedral? Underwater? Change your clothes, your face, your whole body? Fly? You can’t do any of that stuff in real life, but you can do it all and more in Second Life, a startlingly lifelike 3-D virtual world now evolving on the Internet. Unlike other shared online adventures, Second Life isn’t about slaying monsters or zapping aliens. It’s about building things, meeting people and expressing yourself. Even if you already have a life, you may want to get a second one.

The above comes from Time back in 2002 regarding what they considered to be one of that year’s best inventions.

Meanwhile, back in 2004, The Houston Chronicle were telling us :

In the hands of the futurist, the virtual world’s combination of social anonymity and endless digital possibility becomes a conduit for mankind’s basest desires, the triumph of machine over man and a stern warning about technology run amok.

Well, the future is now, and it’s considerably more urbane than anyone expected.

Second Life, a massively multiplayer online PC game, brings us one step closer to a true virtual existence. Even calling it a game is a stretch: Games require an object — a purpose — and Second Life’s purpose is as enigmatic as that of real life.

It’s hard to overstate how genre-busting Second Life is.

That article makes for a fascinating read by the way. Articles such as the above can be found by typing a URL such as :

https://secondlife.com/news/archive/?year=2002

Changing the year at the end will give you news for a different year. Alas a lot of the old articles lead to dead ends, although with a bit of jiggery pokery on The Wayback Machine, you may be able to retrieve them.

Another good source for Second Life history is the old old forum archive. There we can find that in 2004, Robin Linden was informing people that Second Life was up for an award :

Second Life has been nominated as a finalist for Online Game of the Year by Gaming Industry News. Full voting is now open, and GIN readers will be choosing the winners over the next month.

If you want to vote for Second Life, just visit Game Industry News. You have to be subscriber, but subscriptions are free. Every subscriber gets one vote.

That’s interesting not just because Second Life was up for an award, it’s also interesting because Game Industry News had a subscription model back then, albeit a free one.

Meanwhile back in 2003, Peter Linden was announcing a change to the community standards :

Dear Lifers,

Linden Lab will be making the following addition to the community standards:

——————-
Object Creations:
Above all, Second Life is a world of creation. Creators and builders of Second Life add to the world, and define its ever-changing landscape. Creators of original work will have the ability to determine how their object is initially used. Object primitives cannot have the creator name changed. Objects with several primitives that are linked CAN have the creator name changed. Linking an object with the intent of changing the creator or disguising its ownership will be considered object theft, and a community standards violation.
——————-

This addition will be applicable as of Monday, September 22, thus giving people a 1-week amnesty to de-link objects.

On September 22, all cases of object theft will fall under this new standard.

-Peter Linden

Yes, in the early days residents were known as Lifers. There’s a hell of a lot more in those forum archives, the town hall transcripts are fascinating to read …. maybe it’s just me! Look, I love this sort of stuff.

Another good place to find out about Second Life History is via the origins section of The Destination Guide. From there I went to the Second Life Historical Museum, where I was able to purchase, at no cost, Primitar 1.0, an early avatar. Compared to today’s avatars it’s somewhat convoluted, it has all sorts of setup options. However thanks to the wonders of modern technology, Primitar 1.0 is a lot easier to wear than it would have been when it was originally released. Now you can just right click the folder and replace your current outfit.

The Second Life Historical Museum is in Second Life thanks to a lot of hard work from Oz Spade and it’s a really interesting place for Second Life history buffs. For example I discovered today that in the old days, teleportation was not free, you were charged depending upon how far you teleported. However this also meant other modes of transport were available and one such mode came in the shape and form of the James Miller Taxi company.

The displays often contain notecards, although sometimes you need to buy for L$0 instead of touching the object, but that’s no great hardship.

Personally, I find the history of Second Life fascinating, watching the early dreams, seeing how some of the issues raised many years ago are eerily similar today and most of all, appreciating just how much Second Life has progressed over the years.

SLURL To Second Life Historical Museum : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Phobos/229/151/33/

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