Second Life - What is it?

ParaDOX Posted: 05-21-2007 2:39 PM | Locked

Well that depends on you. I mean that seriously, you make this place, your friends, enemy's and total strangers make this place. Whatever you want or they want to make is possible. All the content of the game was made by players, all the cities, towns, houses, everthing!

It is a strange an wondrous place where all kinds of creatures and places can exist. It's kind of like the World Wide Web in 3D. You can show off your artwork, buildings, avatars, clothes, your music or videos, to mention a few things.

You can customize yourself to look like anything you want. It has the most flexible Avatar customization I have seen anywhere. You can also save your customizations and share with others as "Outfits" which are a collection of clothing and body parts that can be changed into at will.

After you sign up to become a "Resident" (Basic account is free) You start off in a tutorial section that even I found to be a little annoying at times until I realized I could leave at anytime! However it is a good idea to spend a little time here to master the basics: (listed in order of importance)

• Moving around
• You know how to walk already, now learn to fly and drive vehicles, any vehicle you can imagine is in here somewhere. If you can't find a vehicle that meets your requirements, make your own. Some vehicles I have seen so far:
• Segway - That platform youstand on and lean to move around
• Cars.. Everthing from Police cars to Insane racing cars, to flying Bubble cars.
• Motorcycles - Insane shiny sleek bikes, I have seen at least 10 different Cycles so far.
• Planes - Fighters, and a few others.
• Space ships - Flying saucers, Motherships, Fighters.
• Air bus - Ask Mayhem for a ride, he can seat at least 12 in that thing, it's cool!
•  Other than flying, most long distance travel is accomplished by teleporting anywhere you want to go.
• Communication
• The standard MMO style chat - Whisper, Shout, and normal (vicinity) Chat. There is also a Chat window with Chant history that can be saved to a log file (Recommended!) There are also Chat bubbles that can be enabled so you see the chat in a bubble over the persons head when they talk.
• IM Chat - Instant messenger style private chat and group chat (I think you need to be in a group). This as a nice feature, when you are offline you get an email (optional) for missed IM's.
• Trade - You can give someone an item from your inventory just by dragging it from your inventory onto their Avatar. They get a prompt asking if they want to Keep or Discard the object. You can also drag items into their Profile window as well as pay them this way. You can package multiple items in an object like a box and give them the box or let them pick it up.
• Searching
• People - You can search for anyone in SL by part of their name. Once you find someone you can view their profile or IM them, etc...
• Groups -  A Group is a collection of people who share a similar interest. You can be a member of up to 25 groups at a time. There are three types of groups:
• Invite only, like ours
• Public anyone can join.
• Pay to join, this has the option of temporary membership as well, so someone could pay 2 L$ (Linden Dollars) to join a group for 2 hours or a month, it's to the groups creator.
•  Land - You can "Own" land here. You can only build on Land that you Own or a Public Sandbox area or any land where the owner allows everyone to build. You can also build on land owned by a group your a member of as well as
• Events
• There are all kinds of events everyday, in various places. Including "how to" classes on Second Life, while in Second Life! I sat in on a class for five minutes but it was too basic for me even though I am a newbie here... If your interested see me in game and I'll give you a landmark to get there.
• There are converts, movies, games (within a game...), lectures, art shows, balloon rides, etc....
• This place is so big and contains so much that in order to find things you need to use search (or just Expolre randomly!) Type just about anything in the search and something will pop up. Do a search for Counter-Strike, you'll see what I mean.

That cover the basics and then some, I got a little carried away! sorry... Once you're done there you can go anywhere in the world that is not Locked to you. Yes, there are areas that you cannot go, Private property that the owner wants to keep to him or herself or members of a Group. Most people just lock the doors to their house and let wander around the rest of the property. Unlike MMORPGS that have separate Realms, Instances or dimensions that are duplicates of the same world but with different characters, Everyone is in the same huge world! There are currently over 6.5 Million Subscribers and 1.7 Million of them have logged in during the last 60 days and I usually see approximately 35,000 to 40,000 Residents Logged in at any given time of the day.

Some more stuff:

The User interface is quite different from most games. It is more flexible because it has to be. This allows you to do more with less keys. There are a few annoyances that you need to learn to live with (or not, like Troop ) For instance the running, it's annoying and awkward, I just don't do it very often. Flying is so much better anyway. Going up stairs can be a pain, your avatar tends to want to slide along them sideways. The trick to stairs is to go up them in FP mode so you can see exactly where you are walking. Or Fly up them!

The part where this game shines is in its ability to let you make ANYTHING you want! The in game editing tools are better than most 3D games standalone editors Valve Hammer editor included! I am only talking about object creation, VHE is better at texturing. You can Texture in SL including your own custom textures which you have to pay L$10 to upload. There are however thousands of free custom texures already in SL for you to use. Keep in mind you can also upload a custom picture and sell it for Linden Dollars... You can also sell anything you make. You set the price and the permissions (Whether you want the next owner to be able to modify or resell or copy the item) So you can make a house, car, clothing, artwork and sell it. Linden dollars in the game can be converted back to US $.... Oh, I didn't mention that before?

I have already created the Building which will house our clubhouse in SL on property I am renting on a small island. This building is a small version of a House I designed when I was in Junior High school quite some time ago.... Members of our community can be a member of our group called "Our Foundation" which will let you create on our land, which is appropriately called "Paradises Garage" We have an area 550 Meters above ground for building anything we are not ready to show the public yet. We will have another floating meeting space at 410 Meters or so... Still thinking about that one.

Here is a link to our land, you can open this link in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sudden%20Valley/103/91/27

Sorry for the long read! This really doesn't cover everything...

You can Download it here: http://secondlife.com/community/downloads.php?u=54ee203fbd264214b10677df9d6e7ccd

You will need to register to Play, it is free for a basic account. Register Here: http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=54ee203fbd264214b10677df9d6e7ccd

Watch Videos made in SL here: http://secondlife.com/community/media.php?u=54ee203fbd264214b10677df9d6e7ccd

Hope to see you in SL...

One more thing... Warning, Second Life contains Explicit material. Must be 18 Years or older to play!

ParaDOX Munro

Reply

Rush Retrospective replied on 05-23-2007 7:58 AM

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stickied due to importance