Evolution's good. Right?

Today CSI moved into SL, and they certainly make waves. Company CBS (who are of course with the Electric sheep) have bought 440 sims to take the flood of new residents after CSI:NY airs in the states using second life as a plot. Quick side note, I dunno what version of SL they were playing but I ain't seen shit in this place that looks like what they had, and the Venus chick being uber popular? Loitering around some sort of gorean sim, puhlease. Kudos though to ETD and Canimal for getting a forty minute advert.




But I digress, this is all a far cry from the early days of the glorified chat room. My first knowledge of SL came from a four page article in a uk computer magazine, which told of the parties and chatting to be had. Mentions of an in game currency all seemed very cool, a way to finance yourself in the virtual world. I was hooked, Three months later when I got my shiny new PC with broadband I signed up. It was, it has to be said, a simpler time. There were clubs, and shops, the events listing for one day fairly filled a page, and loads of people went to them. My friend was a budding land baron (he actually made the old land holdings top ten list) and once told me in amazement that he was close to owning half a sim of land.

Two years on and Anshe Chung owns half of SL, people approach SL to make money. I get notecards from people who have been in game for 3 weeks, telling me about their business ventures, about the services they wish to provide. Everyone and their mother has a sim (including me YAY!) and the amount of shops makes my head hurt.

But is this evolution a good thing. I set out to find some random people to have a laugh with, so I hit the events. After trawling though the 10 billion yard sales and free sex/lindens adverts I found.. Squat. So I thought I'd hit a few clubs. Every single one was the same. Empty apart from zombified campers. I gave up after the vivid textures began to melt my contacts. In deperation I decided to hit a strip club. Same deal, one guy (who you just know was itching to put on a freebie cock) four or five slider issued blingtards with numbers in their names and a grasp of the english language that my three year old would have sneered at. Oh and gestures..

Bottom line, unless you've got a clique, then you have to stick some disturbing looking sparkles in your eyes (Ewwwwwwwwwww!) and get down with the fucktards.

It's not just the social scene. The tech spec is sneaking the bar up too. My old pooter would play SL quite happily, but with each and every update the poor thing spent more time groaning. My new pooter is happy enough now but for how long, and who is getting left behind?

So yeah, evolve, it's good, 440 CSI islands was a great enhancement to the grid I'm sure. But please, don't forget your roots.