Well, I'd say that's accurate insofar as that your typical MMO like WoW is a chat room with avatars and some queued-up combat thrown in."Second Life" is a 'Chat world' with 3d avatars. You can pay money to get more options for your avatar. There are also user generated options to perform variousvirtual activities.
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Second Life; Why Should I Be Playing It?
- Thread starter Duskblade
- Start date
Thanee
First Post
Gunton The Terrible
First Post
My answer was (mostly) serious.
Bye
Thanee
I thought it was accurate. Until I can wage wars or slay beasts I don't see the appeal.
RSKennan
Explorer
The Pros of a free account:
If you enjoy randomly exploring an interactive and constantly changing museum/amusement park, go for it.
If you want to casually create 3d devices with option of adding scripted gamelike behaviors (guns that shoot and do damage in damage-enabled areas), go for it.
If you like the idea of flying or teleporting at will, go for it.
The Cons of a free account:
If you don't know or want to learn how to build it, you're stuck with whatever's free.
Even if you can build, uploading textures and animations costs money. These are microtransactions of a few cents.
If you want things to DO, you either have to get them started, or find someone who already has. Many long-term projects get abandoned, such as my idea for a stand up comedy club that would let people perform over the then new voice feature. I built the club, but never went further.
You can't own land, and if you get money to rent land, you're at the whim of your landlord. That's the big one, and the reason I got my paid accounts.
Griefers suck.
Pros of a paid account:
You get a weekly stipend of Linden Dollars. Over time this allows you to do nothing and acrue enough money to buy cool stuff. I had a jetpack that I bought that let me go higher and faster than the game tried to allow (I could pass through ban lines, which are meant to stop people from flying through. I never used it for griefing, of course.
You can own land. If you have a lot of expendable income, you can pay for a private island to do a project that treats SL as a game engine.
Cons of a paid account:
Linden Labs has serious security issues, in my experience. I've had my account stolen twice and now they're telling me I owe them money. I'm not going back with a paid account until they fix their payment system and I have enough money that I could start a debit card just for SL.
If you don't have any ideas for a project, owning land isn't worth it. Jerks tend to buy up newly opened areas from the newbies they're set up for, and even if you hold out, you might end up with incredibly obnoxious neighbors. I had billboards, random ugliness, and overly....exhibitionist... neighbors (Edit: surrounding) my comedy club. Luckily it was supposed to be a dive, but my neighbor to the south hated it. She was trying to build a quiet cottage. she was actually the worst, however... outwardly friendly but passive aggressive inside. The exhibitionist guys were actually nice people who didn't realize I could see and hear them as I was building.
I put up my club's walls well inside my property, as far underground as SL let me to it wouldn't be a blight. I even textured the wall facing her cottage lot to be more appropriate to her theme. She still had her objects intersecting with my land (bushes passing through my wall, etc) using exploits that I couldn't stop with the tools available.
The above is not meant as a whine or a rant, but rather an honest appraisal as I see it. Sl is fun, and a great concept. It does have drawbacks, but its potential keeps people coming back.
I'd love to see a next generation program with similar functionality.
If you enjoy randomly exploring an interactive and constantly changing museum/amusement park, go for it.
If you want to casually create 3d devices with option of adding scripted gamelike behaviors (guns that shoot and do damage in damage-enabled areas), go for it.
If you like the idea of flying or teleporting at will, go for it.
The Cons of a free account:
If you don't know or want to learn how to build it, you're stuck with whatever's free.
Even if you can build, uploading textures and animations costs money. These are microtransactions of a few cents.
If you want things to DO, you either have to get them started, or find someone who already has. Many long-term projects get abandoned, such as my idea for a stand up comedy club that would let people perform over the then new voice feature. I built the club, but never went further.
You can't own land, and if you get money to rent land, you're at the whim of your landlord. That's the big one, and the reason I got my paid accounts.
Griefers suck.
Pros of a paid account:
You get a weekly stipend of Linden Dollars. Over time this allows you to do nothing and acrue enough money to buy cool stuff. I had a jetpack that I bought that let me go higher and faster than the game tried to allow (I could pass through ban lines, which are meant to stop people from flying through. I never used it for griefing, of course.
You can own land. If you have a lot of expendable income, you can pay for a private island to do a project that treats SL as a game engine.
Cons of a paid account:
Linden Labs has serious security issues, in my experience. I've had my account stolen twice and now they're telling me I owe them money. I'm not going back with a paid account until they fix their payment system and I have enough money that I could start a debit card just for SL.
If you don't have any ideas for a project, owning land isn't worth it. Jerks tend to buy up newly opened areas from the newbies they're set up for, and even if you hold out, you might end up with incredibly obnoxious neighbors. I had billboards, random ugliness, and overly....exhibitionist... neighbors (Edit: surrounding) my comedy club. Luckily it was supposed to be a dive, but my neighbor to the south hated it. She was trying to build a quiet cottage. she was actually the worst, however... outwardly friendly but passive aggressive inside. The exhibitionist guys were actually nice people who didn't realize I could see and hear them as I was building.
I put up my club's walls well inside my property, as far underground as SL let me to it wouldn't be a blight. I even textured the wall facing her cottage lot to be more appropriate to her theme. She still had her objects intersecting with my land (bushes passing through my wall, etc) using exploits that I couldn't stop with the tools available.
The above is not meant as a whine or a rant, but rather an honest appraisal as I see it. Sl is fun, and a great concept. It does have drawbacks, but its potential keeps people coming back.
I'd love to see a next generation program with similar functionality.
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As I understand it, there are mods you can get (allowed by SecondLife), that add on "life meters" and weapon systems compatible with interacting with the life meter.
So you can do role-playing with a combat aspect.
Then apparently you can't accept that not everyone's definition of fun revolves around violent adolescent power fantasies.
Speaking of which, now that it's been explained that violence is possible within certain areas of SL, I wonder if there are "snuff" joints? You know, virtual Hostels where people engage in truly violent power fantasies.
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frankthedm
First Post
Well, this may be of interest to somebody here...
Redwood Rhiadra
Explorer
The biggest difficulty for people who try Second Life is finding something to do. SL is *huge*, and even with over half a million active users, much of it is very empty most of the time. Just wandering around is rather boring, and you're unlikely to meet anyone.
The trick to Second Life is finding a community of people to interact with. It's basically a truism of SL that if you find a group of people you like there in your first 24 hours, you will stay with SL. Otherwise, you'll probably abandon it, like some of the posters above.
There are lots of communities - roleplaying communities (with and without combat), social groups, sports/competitive groups, etc. It really helps if you've already heard of a group before you join - I joined because there was a group of bloggers I liked who had organized a social club.
If you are part of an active community, SL is much more than a chat room. For instance, the social club I spoke of above holds dances pretty much every night of the week, with almost a dozen regular DJs and on occasion live performers. Yes, live music - there are a number of communities and venues dedicated to various types of live music, with performances 24/7. One of my favorite musicians has 5-10 performances a week in Second Life. You won't find that in a chat room.
And then there's Dungeons and Dragons. There is not an active D&D community that I'm aware of. Most of the "roleplaying" communities are essentially online LARP with scripted weapons (if that makes any sense).
But there are individual groups who use SL as a way to play tabletop games. I run such a group that plays 4th Edition. My players live everywhere from Maine to New Zealand. We have dice, tappable power cards, miniatures that keep track of hit points and initative and even display line of sight beams, ammo/healing surge/action point counters, and maps - both flat maps scanned from the original module and, when I have the time to build them, full 3d maps. The players even dress up their avatars as the characters they're playing. (and we use pictures of those avatars to personalize their miniatures).
I've tried other programs for playing D&D online (GameTable and so forth). None of them replicate the feeling of sitting down at a table and playing with friends nearly as well as Second Life does.
(And if anyone's interested in the tools and scripts I made for playing, send me an IM inworld and I'll give you a copy - my Second Life name is Redwood Rhiadra.)
The trick to Second Life is finding a community of people to interact with. It's basically a truism of SL that if you find a group of people you like there in your first 24 hours, you will stay with SL. Otherwise, you'll probably abandon it, like some of the posters above.
There are lots of communities - roleplaying communities (with and without combat), social groups, sports/competitive groups, etc. It really helps if you've already heard of a group before you join - I joined because there was a group of bloggers I liked who had organized a social club.
If you are part of an active community, SL is much more than a chat room. For instance, the social club I spoke of above holds dances pretty much every night of the week, with almost a dozen regular DJs and on occasion live performers. Yes, live music - there are a number of communities and venues dedicated to various types of live music, with performances 24/7. One of my favorite musicians has 5-10 performances a week in Second Life. You won't find that in a chat room.
And then there's Dungeons and Dragons. There is not an active D&D community that I'm aware of. Most of the "roleplaying" communities are essentially online LARP with scripted weapons (if that makes any sense).
But there are individual groups who use SL as a way to play tabletop games. I run such a group that plays 4th Edition. My players live everywhere from Maine to New Zealand. We have dice, tappable power cards, miniatures that keep track of hit points and initative and even display line of sight beams, ammo/healing surge/action point counters, and maps - both flat maps scanned from the original module and, when I have the time to build them, full 3d maps. The players even dress up their avatars as the characters they're playing. (and we use pictures of those avatars to personalize their miniatures).
I've tried other programs for playing D&D online (GameTable and so forth). None of them replicate the feeling of sitting down at a table and playing with friends nearly as well as Second Life does.
(And if anyone's interested in the tools and scripts I made for playing, send me an IM inworld and I'll give you a copy - my Second Life name is Redwood Rhiadra.)
Yeah, screw those dumb kids who don't play more sophisticated games where the whole point is murdering others and taking their stuff.Felon said:
Oh wait.
LunarCrystal
Villager
Hi there,
I realize the post is a bit outdated now, and for all I know, you've learned all you wanted about Second Life. I just hated most of the answers you got, because in my experience SL has been very good to me. Then again, I managed to find a niche pretty quickly.
Most people may log into SL and not have anything to do, and they get "bored" and drop it. They didn't look for other people to talk to, or search for events going on (of which hundreds are being hosted every day), or bother exploring . . .
I also don't like it when people make a point to tell you that the stuff you can buy through Second Life is NOT free, like the account and basic avatar is. What they fail to mention is that whatever you usually buy through SL goes to a private individual - a small business, if you will.
By singing, as I'm a singer, I've been able to make a little income performing around SL and earning tips. Others make clothes, or furniture, or just do scripting, or texturing, and it pays for things they may need in Real Life.
I came across your post when I did a random search on Google for Dungeons and Dragons and Second Life. I thought it would be a great use of the tool that is Second Life to host D&D games, since there's voice chatting, costumes for characters, even magical abilities one can use... streaming music, fantasy settings, could be virtual LARPing or just pen and paper style at someone's virtual house.
If you ever pop into Second Life, you can look me up. I've got a venue and house and things. ^.^
Selene Audion is me . . . but also known as Carol Belle in real life.
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