Second Life

[Angela Poynton]

I can't believe there hasn't been a thread about this yet?

I discovered Second Life over the holidays and I'm hooked. Is anyone else here living a Second Life?

[fred rosenberger]

I have enough difficulties in my First Life.

[Ryan McGuire]

Originally posted by Angela Poynton:
I can't believe there hasn't been a thread about this yet?

I discovered Second Life over the holidays and I'm hooked. Is anyone else here living a Second Life?

So what's your in-game name?

...if you care to share.

[Angela Poynton]

I kind of like having Second Life and Real Life distinctly seperate. I suppose I was trying to generate more a discussion about the world and people's experience in it than use this as a way to make more SL friends.

From what I've read on SL forums I seem to have kind of skipped a number of stages that most "noobs" go through. I've been on for less than a month I already own a reasonable sized plot of land, I've built my own house, I've got a job which is almost covering the cost of the land and I'm soon to open a store selling other bits and pieces I've already built. I've been very lucky in that the person who owns the SIM that I live on has offered all of her residents free store space on her commerical SIM. I've met some really great people, some incredibly friendly and helpful people along with some really fun people and also of course I've come accross some people who really have nothing better to do than cause trouble, thankfulyl they have been in the minority.

I've been amazed at the world that has primarily been built by other users and some of the incredibly innovative ideas I've come accross. I've yet to take a look at the scripting language used but I guess that's the next step for me once I start building thigns that need to "do" something.

I've yet to expore the educational side of SL but it certainly seems capable of offering something really fun and useful.

[fred rosenberger]

I have not played SL or even looked at it much beyond their home page. Here is what I don't understand...

Aren't there things you've always wanted to do in meatspace, that this is taking you away from?

a game i get... something like City of Heroes or WoW, you get to do something you can't do, like fly or cast spells, or go on an epic quest to save the world.

From the (granted, VERY) little I've read, it looks to me like i have to get a job, make money, pay bills, and so on in this cyber world.

Why is that fun?

[Angela Poynton]

Well you can also fly and do other cool stuff.
Now, I haven't really got into anything close to this before, I'm not really a gamer and perhaps that's why this looks shiney and wonderful to me.
However, I see your point but I like to think of SL as First Life+ ( the + being many things you'd like to do but can't in Real Life).

In RL owning a piece of beach front land on an island and designing and building my own house and furniture is totally possible but it'd cost way more money than I am ever likely to have and take a lot of time. I did it in SL in a week.
Many people go onto SL and they don't bother with the Job / money making side at all and others are in my opinion a little too involved in the money making side, I like to think I can cover my costs, I'm not out to make Millions, if I making a reasonable amount from selling the things that I've made I'll probably give up the job (which is actually very fun, I'm a host in a nightclub and I get to meet lots of great people and it's just a couple of hours a couple of nights a week) mostly I'm just enjoying exploring my creative side, meeting new people and enjoying what other people create.

Also an added personal bonus, as most of you know, my BF of over three years lives 200 miles away from me, and now we have a home that we share ... OK it's a virtual home on vitual land ... but it's certainly a fun new way of keeping in touch, if only I could stop him creating Daleks that blow eachother up and leave pieces of themselves all over my beautfiul house

I wish I had discovered this before it really took off, the technology behind the scenes is stuggling to cope with the sudden very sharp and continuous increase in traffic and sometimes the effects of that can be quite a put-off but I plan of sticking with it for now.
[ January 12, 2007: Message edited by: Angela Poynton ]

[fred rosenberger]

valid points all. maybe i'll check it out.

[Ashok Mash]

I signed to SecondLife after watching an hour long video from the guys behind Second Life. I can't find it now, but its either on Youtube or on Google Videos.

I totally liked the concept, how they add more real estate by adding new physical servers, their plug-n-play architecture, totally thin client unlike Sims and that every one can create their own things, and trade etc! Over all its a very neat idea, and I think it was out way before its time (they have been developing this for nearly five years apparently!!) because I am struggling to get any decent response with my wireless broadband connection! If it wasn't for the sluggishness (which is a limitation at my end, than SecondLife), I would have really explored it a bit more!

[Angela Poynton]

Hmm, I honestly thought this would be more popular than it seems amongst a community of developers. Just goes to show how wrong I can be.

[Mark Spritzler]

I have heard that some of the players are millionaires in real life now because of Second Life, that they sell things and somehow translate the money online to money in the real world.


Mark

[Deepak Bala]

somehow translate the money online to money in the real world.

Well I dont understand how that works. How does the SL money get transfered to real money ? May be I ll check it out tomorrow. I got some time off. The concept does seem interesting but things like the sims have never appealed to me. Lets see

[Angela Poynton]

Yep the Lindon Dollar has it's own Exchange rate against the US Dollar and it goes up and down just like real currencies.

As far as I know only one person, Ashne Chung, is believed to be a SL US$ Millionire but it's all tied up, they don't actually HAVE the money they just own virtual land now worth that money. The sad thing is, if they chose to cash in and sell all their land at once the value would depriciate so quickly they probably wouldn't make as much as they think, would still be a pretty buck though.
[ January 15, 2007: Message edited by: Angela Poynton ]

[Jayesh Lalwani]

I was on SL for a while. I was hooked while I was in it, but once I left for a week, I didn't feel like going back.

Pros:- Free-flowing, almost no restrictions. You can build and script anything you want. You can open a business and sell you services. You can always find something to do if you are creative enough. You need to practice building though. There are a lot of creative people who have played around with "prims" (primitives -- the building blocks of everything in SL) for a long long time, and you need to be very creative and patient if you want to compete with them

Cons:- Graphics sucks. If you are used to playing 3D games, you will be dissapointed. Most of the time when something "rezzes" (SL speak for instantiate), it takes sometime before all the graphics are loaded. I think they are doing a good job considering the state of technology, and it will take time for technology to catch up with the concept.
Hackers suck. There were like 5 attacks on their server in the last month I was there. Since, SL allows you to script objects, people can create objects in-world that cause DoS attacks, or act as nusiances. For example, at one point someone could create a self-replicating object. One hacker created one and brought down couple of their servers. Or one can create an object that floods the room with messages, or a transparent object that exploded when you touch it. Or you could script bullets and go around shooting people with them. You won;t die, but it is nasty to get knocked off by a projectile. Most of the things are nuisances that you ignore, but the things that cause the servers to go down suck
Frequent software updates. Between the hacks, performance problems and general upgrades the software is being continiously upgrades. You have to download a patch every week, maybe more.
Scripting is not as flexible as can be. There are limitations to the scripting engine, and you can't do everything that you can imagine. But, you can do most of the things, and it is still a lot of fun. Most of he limitations on scripting are put in so that scripts don't overload the clients, and some limitations are there because not all Graphical features are supported on all platforms (and SL tries to stick to the lowest common denominator)
Sex, Sex, Sex. There's too much sex. Good thing is that you can easily get away from it if you don;t want it, and easily get into it if are interested

That being said. It is way more fun than chatting or IMing. If your main purpose is to keep in touch with friends, it's a great tool. You can have your own avatar that you can customize in countless ways. You can have a house that you can customize in countless ways. You can even do all the adult stuff, if you want to

If your main purpose is to be creative, it's still fun. But, you will have to be patient and learn the ropes

If your main purpose is to make money, be ready to make a big investment, or to face stiff competition. The more money you put in, the more easier it will be for you to make money. If you think you can start with no money and become a millionaire in a year, be ready to be dissapointed. The easiest way to make money is to buy a sim (IOW, lease a server) from SL. That will allow you to create in-game land that you can rent out. You pay SL a fixed monthly fee for the use of that server, regardless of how many people rent from you. The number of people renting from you (and the rent you can charge) depends on how many people visit your land. So, you need to be creative to attract people to your land, and buying a sim takes lot of money

[Gian Franco]

I've been strawling around in SL for a week and it is addictive.

Every now and then I think though, that if 2nd Lifers would spend
that time behind the monitor pimping themselves up instead, people
would look much prettier/glamourous in 1st Life as well

There are a lot of friendly people around, and I've been seeing
interesting places in a couple of days.

Kind regards,

Gian

[Angela Poynton]

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:
I was on SL for a while. I was hooked while I was in it, but once I left for a week, I didn't feel like going back.

Note to self ... don't leave it

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:

Pros:- Free-flowing, almost no restrictions. You can build and script anything you want. You can open a business and sell you services. You can always find something to do if you are creative enough. You need to practice building though. There are a lot of creative people who have played around with "prims" (primitives -- the building blocks of everything in SL) for a long long time, and you need to be very creative and patient if you want to compete with them

Totally agree and I have quite realistic expectations with regards to the items I'm currently making and their value. (i.e. I know they're comparatively rubbish and have set the price accordingly)

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:

Cons:- Graphics sucks. If you are used to playing 3D games, you will be dissapointed. Most of the time when something "rezzes" (SL speak for instantiate), it takes sometime before all the graphics are loaded. I think they are doing a good job considering the state of technology, and it will take time for technology to catch up with the concept.

Also agree, I don't play games so I can't compere the graphics but they're certainly good enough for me, however the issues caused by their being a bit behind with their technology can be a bit tiresome but I tend to accept it as part of the experience. Some people get very frustrated with it, frankly i can think of more important things to get frustrated about.

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:

Hackers suck.

I haven't witnessed any of the hacker type behaviour yet. I have been "caged" by a griefer which was less than pleasant but I just teleported home, no problem.

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:
Sex, Sex, Sex. There's too much sex. Good thing is that you can easily get away from it if you don;t want it, and easily get into it if are interested

Oh it's not really THAT bad, there are whole sections of the world that are PG rated and even in the Mature sections there's lots of other things to do.

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:

That being said. It is way more fun than chatting or IMing. If your main purpose is to keep in touch with friends, it's a great tool. You can have your own avatar that you can customize in countless ways. You can have a house that you can customize in countless ways. You can even do all the adult stuff, if you want to

Exactly my BF and I are really enjoying it .... the keeping in touch and house customisation bits obviously

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:

If your main purpose is to be creative, it's still fun. But, you will have to be patient and learn the ropes

Yeah my BF suffers a bit because of his pack of patience. He skipped the orientation section in his hurry to get to the main world and now finds himself a bit stuck now and then but he's getting there.

Originally posted by Jayesh Lalwani:

If your main purpose is to make money, be ready to make a big investment, or to face stiff competition. The more money you put in, the more easier it will be for you to make money. If you think you can start with no money and become a millionaire in a year, be ready to be dissapointed. The easiest way to make money is to buy a sim (IOW, lease a server) from SL. That will allow you to create in-game land that you can rent out. You pay SL a fixed monthly fee for the use of that server, regardless of how many people rent from you. The number of people renting from you (and the rent you can charge) depends on how many people visit your land. So, you need to be creative to attract people to your land, and buying a sim takes lot of money

Good advice, I'd like to own a sim or two one day but that's way in the future, I'm not right now THAT interested in making tonnes of money, just enough so I can buy cool stuff other people have made.
[ January 16, 2007: Message edited by: Angela Poynton ]

[Jayesh Lalwani]

Angela,

If you want catch up on your building skills, drop in to Teazers university. They have excellent classes through out the day. The classes take a project, and go step by step. For example, they will demonstrate how to make a table, or a Japanese vase. That will give you a good introduction on how to play around with prims. They also have classes that teach you how to make jewlerry and customize your avatar. The best thing is that they give you stuff for free

Once you take the classes, search the classifieds for jobs. Once you get a job, you will not only get a chance to update your skills while earning money, you will get in touch with people who are more experienced. Most of my learning was through friends I made in-world. SL'ers tend to be very generous with Lindens, espescially if the build is scripted and interactive. If you can learn the script, you can earn enough Lindens in a couple of hours, to last you a week or so. YMMV, because everyone has differrent shopping needs. Scripts go for 1000L or so, and I had found a guy who draws UML diagrams and pays around 1000L to scripters who can implement the script based on the UML diagram.

[Angela Poynton]

Cool Jeyesh, thanks for the tips
I'm kind of Ok with basic building. Have even built my own house, I may pop infor some more lessons though

I plan to get to grips with the scripting eventually, I've had a look at a few scripts and it loosk like it'll be fairly easy to pick up.

[Jayesh Lalwani]

Scripting is much easier than Java. Since you know Java, it won't take long to pick up scripting. You have to be aware of their limitations. There is a group called Open source scripters or something. It's free to join, and you can ask questions

When you build houses, you have to be careful of the prim count. Lands have prim limitations, and generally your landlord will put a prim limitation on your parcel. If your house uses up a lot of prims, you can't put too much of other stuff on your parcel. Search for "low prim furniture" or "low prim house" or something like that to see how other people do it.

[Zoe Boston]

I tried Second Life to see what it was all about and I just could not get into it. I am just standing there watching everyone line dance.

[A. Levi]

You need second life on your system for these links to work. copy and paste it in your browser it will launch SL.

DELL -> secondlife://Dell Island/2/88/24
Sears -> secondlife://IBM 10/75/29/23
IBM -> secondlife://IBM/106/6/23
American Apparel -> secondlife://Lerappa/140/134/33


Dell actually lets you configure some selected systems and buy online.
SL is still a baby, A lot of things need to be ironed out such as graphics, security etc. possibilities are limitless.
[ January 24, 2007: Message edited by: A. Levi ]

[Jayesh Lalwani]

Originally posted by Zoe Boston:
I tried Second Life to see what it was all about and I just could not get into it. I am just standing there watching everyone line dance.

Dancing for money is just stupid. It pays a pittance and more often than not the dance pods are oriented so you are looking at gambling machines. The land owners are betting that you will eventually get bored dancing and lose money on gambling

[Angela Poynton]

Indeed, "Camping" in all forms, even using Dancepads is rather pointless. If you're going to dance for money get a job at a club as a dancer and earn tips

Before anyone asks, my Av does not dance for tips, she hosts events at a club.

Zoe, you need to explore. Fly around and see what else you find, look at the map to see where people are gathered or search for things which interest you. TALK to people. If I gave up because not much was happening when I first appeared in world I would have missed out on so much fun.
[ January 29, 2007: Message edited by: Angela Poynton ]

[Alan Wanwierd]

I spent 45 minutes or so looking at this over the weekend - but could not work out how to go anywhere interesting. the only places I could teleport to were suspiciously labeled as seedy pick-up joints and had nothing to do. (Other than watch people dancing, or watch people fail to initiate sensible conversations...)

[Angela Poynton]

My goodness some people have attention span of an 3 year old with ADHD!

A whole 45 minutes! In those 45 minutes could you not at least admire the work some people had put into it. Did you to to the forum on the website and see which places people were talking about there? Did you investigate the education opportunities? Did you check out the shopping? Did you look into building? Did you SPEAK to anyone and ask if they might point you in the direction of any cool stuff they've found? I don't know how you could have really experienced it in 45 minutes, it took me longer than that to get out of Orientation Island ... I bet you skipped all the tutorials there!


EDIT - I was a little harsh above and I apologise. However my point stands that 45 minutes isn't a fair amount of time to give it before passing judgement and you're not the first person who has done so. My BF refused to go through any of the orientation stuff and got me to get him off Orientation Island and onto the mainland asap, he thought it was like one of his games and he would pick it up or I would show him stuff, but it doesn't work like that you need some PATIENCE and also some entrepidness I think, explore, take the rough with the smooth, read, learn, socialise... I LOVE it. I wish I had enough money to buy my own SIM I have so many ideas.
[ January 30, 2007: Message edited by: Angela Poynton ]

[fred rosenberger]

I think there might be a mind-set problem. If you are a gamer, you don't expect to spend 45 SECONDS figuring out how to do anything. Install->run->kill things.

45 minutes is an ETERNITY.

I don't think SL is a game, but i can easily see how many people would go in expecting one, and then being disappointed.

[Ryan McGuire]

I've been on SL since Angela posted her first message way up above. So far, my biggest complaint is performance. Appreantly I tend to play only at very popular times, so my the response time of the system for me ranges anywhere from "annoying" to "unusable".

Getting into making and selling things does look attractive, but not until they solve their performance issue. (Or maybe I just need a better internet connection.)


DIFFERENT SUBJECT
You people on SL, does your avatar look like you? I did what I could with mine. I got the height and weight basically correct, but I couldn't get the receding hairline quite right. I also can't seem to get my nose right either. My avatar does wear basically what I wear, except my avatar's sweater is just a plain knit while I tend to wear more cable knits in "meatspace".

Ryan

[Angela Poynton]

My Avatar is a petite skinny thing with long Plantinum Blonde hair.

So no... nothing like me. But then she doesn't behave like me either

Agree with the point about the preconceptions Gamers may have. Also agree with the points on performance. It can get really bad. Apparently the next release ahs something which will improve that .. we'll see.

[Deepak Bala]

BBC ran a story on this yesterday. Some people from IBM held online meetings through second life. Sweden has a virtual embassy I hear. Wierd.

[Gian Franco]

45 minutes are peanuts indeed...there are some virtual tours
for example (e.g. Svarga) that are worth-while to see if you
went through the trouble of installing SL

But the most interesting thing are the 'people'...some have
fun in their facade...others have been really bitten by
what is called...drama.

At the very least SL is definitely interesting, it needs
time...of course.

Gian
[ January 31, 2007: Message edited by: Gian Franco Casula ]

[Jayesh Lalwani]

Originally posted by Ryan McGuire:



DIFFERENT SUBJECT
You people on SL, does your avatar look like you? I did what I could with mine. I got the height and weight basically correct, but I couldn't get the receding hairline quite right. I also can't seem to get my nose right either. My avatar does wear basically what I wear, except my avatar's sweater is just a plain knit while I tend to wear more cable knits in "meatspace".

Ryan

I tried to make him look like me, but I gave up. Finally, I made him look like Shiva. I even made a cobra for my arm, a trident, a tall wig, a cobra tattoo on the stomach and a tilak tattoo for the forehead.

I tried to make a penance pose for him, but I'm not too good with animation overrides.

[Russell Peters]

Originally posted by Fred Rosenberger:
I think there might be a mind-set problem. If you are a gamer, you don't expect to spend 45 SECONDS figuring out how to do anything. Install->run->kill things.

45 minutes is an ETERNITY.

I don't think SL is a game, but i can easily see how many people would go in expecting one, and then being disappointed.

On the Money !!!

I am a gamer...and so I hate simulations stuff including Sim City. Even Age Of Empires to a degree is boring since you spend so much time on building a palace/village/city just to see that before you complete one wall, its already in the process of being broken into by your opponent or the computer
Makes me mad !!

On the other hand....give me Commandos or some other strategy/war game like that and I shall play the whole day !!

[Mark Fletcher]

My level 11 Blood Elf Mage would totally pwn your Second Life nerds.