Second Life's Interface

Last post I talked very briefly about how much I disliked Second Life in general from a technical aspect so let's bash it some more there. The interface from Second Life is like World of Warcarft, Blender 3D modeling software, and Microsoft Excel had a baby. To start off the sheer number of options is staggering to the point of overloading new players. One could say this is a good thing and that it shows everything the game has to offer at once. In reality this is the root of the problem, some people don't want to build complex structures or have to dig though menu after menu to find an object. This is need is very apparent in the build menu. The options include 13 "basic" shapes and 2 plants but form there you have options to manipulate the object, edit it's features, change textures, and connect it with scripts. While this may be very similar to other 3D modeling programs it is all shoved into a single small box rather then spread out intuitively. To make things worse there are no snapping options and having mouse only controls while also lacking X Y and Z 2D screens just exacerbates the issue. This means the user is pushed to go and buy 3rd Party Modeling software just to make a simple object.

The issue of the interface also extends to the organization of items. Menus after menu all up to the player to keep clean with no system to auto sort items. In a weird twist all of these frustrations are relics of the past. When second life came out the iPod was just been revealed to the world and Windows XP was still king with its now ancient file structure and interface. But today things have changed, Windows 7 uses a smooth interface that puts everything at the user's finger tips without being overly complex while the iPod has moved on with iOS to show that smoothing and streamlining can make an interface great. Second Life could have been the next big thing like the iPod became but instead it got stuck in 2003.