Second Life

Microsoft to buy Second Life?

DarkAstraea — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:03:12 GMT

Jamie noticed a rumor making the rounds- Microsoft buying Second Life. Nobody is confirming or denying anything, much less announcing anything sounding like a price. Or a reason why this makes any sense to anyone.

(Clickeh)

Second Life's Economy (2009)

DarkAstraea — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:11:06 GMT

Massively:

Linden Lab's Tom Hale has published the Quarterly report for Second Life for Q2 2009: "Economy grows 94% year to year, hits new all time high in Q2; World expands and voice usage hits all time high; Bot policy affects user hours and logins"

(Click Meaz!)

Can Second Life help teach doctors to treat patients?

ParaDOX — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:25:57 GMT

(CNN) -- At Imperial College London, medical students navigate a full-service hospital where they see patients, order X-rays, consult with colleagues and make diagnoses.

It's an interactive, hands-on learning experience -- and none of it is real.

These prospective doctors are treating virtual patients in Second Life, the Internet world where users interact through online alter egos called avatars. The third-year med students are taking part in a pilot program for game-based learning, which educators believe can be a stimulating change from lectures and textbooks.

"The aim is to develop a more engaging learning environment, rather than just replicate what you have in real life," said Maria Toro-Troconis, a senior learning technologist at Imperial College London. "Game-based learning plays a very important role."

From a real-life classroom, students sit at computers and enter a virtual Second Life hospital whose detailed grounds are designed to resemble Imperial College London. There's a 3D replica of the landmark Queen's Tower and signs pointing students toward the respiratory ward.

The students pair up for the study, but they are allowed to collaborate only through their avatars. "Don't talk to each other in the physical world," Toro-Troconis told them.

After the avatars enter the computer-generated hospital, they check in at a reception desk, put on an access badge, and then stop by professor Martyn Partridge's office to get their assignment. Partridge's online likeness bears an eerie resemblance to his real-life appearance.

If students forget to wash their hands before visiting a patient, their investigation is halted.

Then students enter a patient's room and their work begins. Because their assignment takes place in a respiratory ward, they can access recordings of real-life patients' breathing to help with their diagnoses. And if students decide that X-rays are needed, they can stroll down to the radiology department and order them.

All these steps are designed to reinforce lessons about responsibility and hospital protocol.

"This sort of research is vital if we're going to make sure tomorrow's doctors are as well-trained as you and I want them to be," said Partridge, professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London.

Created by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life is a free, 3D virtual world where digital personas travel, work, play and socialize through chat rooms and other online gathering places.

Millions of users enter Second Life daily to meet friends, play music and even buy and sell property, while many companies, universities and organizations have an online presence in Second Life.

Medical students at Imperial College London began their Second Life training without knowing what to expect. Most of them had heard of Second Life, but none were current members.

The students unanimously agreed they preferred walking the wards of real hospitals and interacting with real patients. But the novelty of this new way of learning wasn't lost on them.

"I've had two years of just lectures and books," said third-year medical student Khayam Sheikh. "I think this is a nice way to break it up."

"It's a bit like playing a game and less like learning," agreed fellow student Jiexin Zheng.

Such game-based education is not intended to replace traditional face-to-face training. In fact, it's not part of Imperial College London's official curriculum. But educators see the program -- which is available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- as a way of connecting to today's wired, computer-savvy students.

"You'd like to say this makes learning fun and easy," says Jenny Higham, Imperial College London's head of undergraduate medicine, "[but] at the end of the day, there's still a basic requirement to learn the facts."

Toro-Troconis is looking into possible partnerships with other universities around the world. She envisions a day when nursing students from Australia use Second Life to collaborate with physical therapists from Japan and medical students from the U.S. -- all of them playing, and learning, together in a virtual environment.

"We have to recognize our students come equipped with incredible computer skills," Higham said. "It's a new way of learning for them."

Original Article on CNN

Second Life - Voice is here! - Update

ParaDOX — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:24:04 GMT

Ok well it's not in the main client yet, but you can try out the Firstlook viewer for voice on the live Grid now.

Get it here: http://secure-web2.secondlife.com/community/firstlook.php

I'm going to start using it now, If there are any issues I'll post back here.

Talk to you in Second Life :)

PS, this doesn't mean I won't be in vent...

Second Life Viewer Update - Downtime and new version required!

ParaDOX — Wed, 23 May 2007 05:53:02 GMT

They are releasing a new version of SL tomorrow (Wednesday, May 22)

This release includes a few bug fixes and a few new features. The most exciting one is "Scuplted Prims" Read more about Sculpties Here

Basically this lets you do a few cool things like Curved Corners on Boxes! <-- Try that in Hammer.... lol

Check out this video:

Ok, that is just awesome... Or insane, you take your pick... All I can say is it opens the doors to all kinds of design possibilities!

Second Life Screenshots

Rush Retrospective — Wed, 23 May 2007 11:42:42 GMT

Ok, this thread is for secondlife screenshots. Hopefully, people will also place the pictures in their photo gallery. Just place images in this thread from secondlife and give a brief explanation of it.

First day of Second Life (for me) and me and para are in newbie Island. We enter this house to check it out and para sits on this bed. All of a sudden someone comes and sits on his lap. it was quite funny even though the picture may not be.

I hope para puts up pictures of my lightsaber battle

Second Life

Troop — Sun, 20 May 2007 03:09:09 GMT

Well, a few days ago {MC}ParaDOX got into the game "Second Life". I finally gave in and opened my mind to the game, and downloaded it. What a waste of a game. You start out in a sucky introduction tutorial zone, where you're supposed to learn how to play the game. It attempts to tell you how to do things. Somewhere during that you edit your appearance to make it look how you want. Eventually, you give up. After you give up, you end up in the real world, where you..walk...and fly..and stuff...

The interface for this game is really amazing. I've never seen anything worse, and I'm surprised they pulled that off. The people who play it take it too seriously, and a lot of them have no lives- it's meant for rping. Of course we play it for the purpose of having fun constructing things. In fact, the game creators suck so bad they want US to make the content. I mean, if they have a UI that I could actually manage to get around without thinking of how to get to something or find something, I would give them some credit. They can't even get the zoom feature right- it's annoying. I like how you can custom create your character to be anything though, but it's hard to make it actually become what you want, and it's glitchy.

The controls and interface as I have mentioned are dreaful and make the game almost impossible to "play". The graphics are pretty horrible, and I still don't see any point to the game except to fly around hitting walls and "YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER THIS PROPERTY" signs. Something about the game makes me come back to it. It's like I want to see how much they can't create a game and how horrible a game it is. It's like I want to master the terrible interface. I'm not sure what it is, but it's annoying too.

Second Life - What is it?

ParaDOX — Mon, 21 May 2007 18:39:38 GMT

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

Second Life - Cleaning Up!

ParaDOX — Wed, 23 May 2007 04:19:46 GMT

When you are done with objects it's a good idea to clean up. It's just good manners.

Either, right click on the object and select TAKE from the menu, to move it to your inventory, or right click and select MORE > then DELETE to delete the object from Second Life.

Avoid prim wastage today! Make your fellow residents happy residents!
Help reduce prim litter!