First day in Second Life

I've seen this site mentioned a couple of times before on the net, though I have to admit I've never really tried it before, maybe I should! :)

It's a time sink. Be prepared.

I would have loved to have a SL modell of Heathrow with real people in there to see where and how I have to move around to get from gate to gate; it would have taken a lot of pressure.

I could get to know the space and get information on the way. Same now with LAX and also SAN and some other places (!=airports).

I would not pay for that probably, but the stores in there could do advertisements in SL as well. ;))

I'm confused by the registration - new users must select their last name from a predefined list of a about 100 last names.

What's the significance of the different choices? Why can't I type my own choice in? Can i change it later?

Or am I not invited to play because my last name isn't in the list?

Dylan> The surnames available to users are really insignificant. Last names only exist in secondlife to allow users a better choice of first names - to avoid the "hotmail effect". Surnames are retired after X number of people register an account with one.

Robert> Are you going to share your SL name with us fellow SL users (I'll understand if you want to play incognito, but seeing as you post your cellphone number on your blog I figure you're not that secretive :)

btw. The SecondLife business model sucks. I've got a lot to write about it, maybe I should get around to it.

I'm rather fond of Second Life as an Idea, but I'm bad at putting aside enough time to actually do much there.

Having heard loads about it, I tried out Second Life but I gave up after about 30 minutes of trying to control my avatar. I couldn't walk in a straight line, I kept bumping into things, walking off cliffs. To control movement you have to use the arrow keys, but it's really jerky and there just didn't seem to be any fine control. I tried to turn left a bit and it wizzed round almost 90 degrees .. the path bends to the left and you find yourself doing pacman style moves to stay on it. I couldn't be arsed with that! I figured that Second Life must be a world full of losers bumping into each other and crashing into walls. Was I missing something, or was the control system designed by a two year old? I get enough excitement and enjoyment out of the real world thank you, plus I can walk straight in it!

Having heard loads about it, I tried out Second Life but I gave up after about 30 minutes of trying to control my avatar. I couldn't walk in a straight line, I kept bumping into things, walking off cliffs. To control movement you have to use the arrow keys, but it's really jerky and there just didn't seem to be any fine control. I tried to turn left a bit and it wizzed round almost 90 degrees .. the path bends to the left and you find yourself doing pacman style moves to stay on it. I couldn't be ar*ed with that! I figured that Second Life must be a world full of losers bumping into each other and crashing into walls. Was I missing something, or was the control system designed by a two year old? I get enough excitement and enjoyment out of the real world thank you, plus I can walk straight in it!

It's interesting, as someone who invested in part of a server (a sim: Slackstreet), I've found that two barriers to entry are system requirements and yes, it's difficult at first to get familiar with the notion that you can walk and fly. Some folks who are gamer-ish can move no probs, others take a few days (like me, I'm not one who would refer to self as 'gamer')... I have found though that, like most things, with friends or acquaintances around to help, it eases the frustration. There's not much difference in virtual or physical life at that point. :-)

I found Second Life to be S-L-O-W and filled with graphics that are on the cutting edge of 1986 CGA technology.
Very Boring.
Try out WoW or EverQuest 2. Yeah you can't do scripting languages in their environment but at least you will have a more entertaining and (in Microsoft-ese) richer end user experience.
I should know. I played the original EQ for six years. Another decade of therapy and I will almost be ok. Well, maybe not, actually.

I've been spending time in SL for a few weeks now. I still bump into thinks while walking, but I love the sailboats. The sailing sims are better than many of the one's sold as dedicated sailing SW.

a friend of mine says she makes $2000 a month on SL. Is that really possible?

It is actually. I'm not quite there yet, but just the fact of owning and operatiing a virtual business is fascinating. I run SL Public Radio and its a blast. Check it out sometime. Yes, SL can be slow, but its limited to your internet connection and computer.

When you have plenty of bandwidth and a nice comp, things work fine.

Check us out!

im running second life on five year old machine and it runs fine, there are a lot of guides to lag out there that tell you what to do in terms of settings, course i got comcast. it take awhile but you get used to it. DON'T GIVE UP SO EARLY!

I tried the virtual capitalism simulator known as second life for a couple of weeks. It has no game, dreadful tools, and sheds any illusion of paradigm shifting within the minutes.

Second Life has succeded in bringing a neo-fascist politically correct dystopia into the metaverse, and evengelically selling the concept to the gullible and vacuous like a pyramidal selling scheme.

Its some trick to make an open-source creative space feel less free than our real imperfect world.

Get into the game modification community, this is so pony it feels like I died and went to Virtual Mac-Heaven.

Scoot D

"a neo-fascist politically correct dystopia into the metaverse, and evengelically selling the concept to the gullible and vacuous like a pyramidal selling scheme"

That's a whole lot of vitriol that doesn't make a lick of sense to me. I've only played around with SL a bit (with paying a dime), but I don't see how it is "neo-fascist". Since you also rage against the Politically-Correct machine I'm guessing you're some kind of Objecto-Individualist vigilantly watching out for slavemind-collectivist memes or whatever shit you think you do. Then again maybe you were just spouting a bunch of vacuous BS.

yknow, if anything is neo-fascist about SL, it's the huge emphasis on commerce and accessorizing. Fashion has always been the new fascism. Those Nazis yknow, they looked pretty cool. I mean, don't me wrong, the capatalist narrative of going out into world, creating things, and being elevated by such activity IS thrilling and all, but it has become the dominant real life narrative of our time. Hence, it shows up in the meta-verse. I'm not really sure what precisely you think is "P.C." about it either.

CZaphodb42@aol.com

for further discussion

I have been on SL for a year now. It is a form of 3-D chat, but I have had allot of fun, met allot of people, and learned about scripting. New ppl always run into walls, but after about a day, they "learn" how to walk. Don't give up so fast, it gets better when you have "friends". =)

Today is day 3 for me at SL and im TOTALLY hooked lol....Its great to pass a boring day. Look me up if your ever on always looking for someone to talk to :) my nic is Sweetheart Fairymeadow

It is amazing the take up rate on SL the past few months. It was around about march that I decide to take a look at it. Having read about it for years, and being a gamer it did not (at the time) seem to make sense.

Now however I understand its a 3d Wiki/Situational Application. Yes games happen, but its more like contributing to wikipedia.

It also represents what the web was linke back in 97.
People see dodgy goings on, and maybe get a little scared of it AND it looks like a game. But I rememebr people looking over my shoulder when i started surfing the wide world interweb back in the day. Oh no graphics, sound, content. Howver its turned into a pretty serious business now!

I think things have really come on, all the elements have come together, user created content, broadband connections, a generation brought up on games consoles, digital photography, open source communities. Its all there. With Linden Labs riding a significant wave.

All that deep stuff, it is also actually fun.

Yours, epredator potato

second life is so stupid its scary too

I refer to Second Life as the Devils Tool. Everything thing he has is fun. I need a RL... seems I've quit mine.

Lil Carducci,

Holla at an av!!!!!

if someone can make me an account i will be grateful cause i dont have a credit card or paypal so if you do any name is fine and thx

You don't need a credit card to join.
It's free now.

I've played EQ, EQ2 and UO, Final Fantasy, and some free MMORPGS and such. This isn't really in that critera, but I began playing this two days ago, and it completely blows anything else I've played out of the water. If you're having bad problems moving, its usually your system.

i dont s'pose SL is for everyone. i've tried it & maybe its just me, but i couldn't see the attraction. again, maybe its just me but i've got too much going on in the real world to devote my time to replicating those exact same events online. i can't criticise those who enjoy it but as a concept, its main focus seems to be nothing more than a series of contrived commercial exchanges. as the saying goes, a fool and his money...........

perhaps we would be better off as a species if we collectively took the time otherwise spent in pursuit of virtual exchanges & devoted it to focusing our attention on the people in our 'real' environs? maybe im alone in thinking that its cheaper to strike up a conversation in a pub than to subscribe to a SL account.

"Then again maybe you were just spouting a bunch of vacuous BS." And maybe you've got a dictionary next to your toilet. Who knows. I know exactly what he meant; to condense it for dilettantes like yourself is quite easy: a sandbox.