Any experiences with Second Life? (long)

Alternate title: My Second Life is as Lame as my First.

Have any Dopers experienced Second Life? I want to hear about it.

After hearing an intriguing story on the radio show “Infinite Mind” on NPR about Second Life, I decided to check it out. (The story was about a virtual concert.)

I signed up for a free account, chose an avatar, and downloaded the software. Now, when you choose an avatar, the site assures you that you can easily change it. None of the choices for women was that great, so I picked one that at least was wearing something more interesting than a rugby shirt and jeans.

Unfortunately, the one I picked was called “Sexy Nightclub Female.” Folks, I’m 48 and, um, on the zaftig side. I spent a little time fiddling around with the appearance, then decided to move on to the orientation “island.”

I had not been there more than a couple of minutes when guys started hitting on me. “Wow, Freckafree, you look really hot. I wish I had a gf that looked like you.” One guy asked me to add him to my friends list, and I spent a little time walking around with him, until I decided I needed to quit and go to bed.

Next evening, I spent a considerable amount of time changing the appearance of my avatar. A little more flesh on the body and not so much of it showing, for starters. Then I went exploring again.

My “friend” was online, so he asked me if I wanted to join him at a beach, and I said sure. He teleported me there. He had neglected to mention it was a nude beach. And he did not comment on the fact that I looked completely different than I did last night.

I was totally overdressed for any beach, much less a nude one, and when he asked me if I’d like to doff some of my clothing, I thought, “Damn! I just spent an hour trying to figure out how to dress myself, and now he wants me to get naked.” Seriously, I was afraid I hadn’t saved my clothes properly and if I took them off, I wouldn’t be able to put them back on. So I kept my duds on.

I was so inept at moving around it was laughable. I couldn’t figure out how to sit, but when I finally did, I ended up on a beach lounge chair, cuddled up in the arms of my “friend.” How’d that happen?!?? I just wanted to sit, for Og’s sake!

He asked me to follow him (I did figure out how to stand back up!), and we walk to a more secluded area, where he asked if he can kiss me. I said yes, although the whole experience was by now starting to freak me out a bit. I had finally gotten the hang of right clicking on things, so I saw a pink dot labled “kiss” and right clicked it. The problem was I wasn’t close enough to my friend, so my avatar is standing there, kissing nothing. After I stopped laughing, I repositioned myself, and the guy and I kissed.

I couldn’t figure out how to stop, though, so I just sat down. That I had mastered, at least. My friend clearly wanted to go beyond kissing, although I did not see any pink dots labeled “fuck,” so I’m not sure how this would have happened. I demured, and he pretty much dumped me, right on the beach, the cad!

I went back to the orientation island, but now that I no longer looked like a hooker Barbi doll, I was ignored totally, which I found pretty funny.

I thought, “I am going about this wrong. I need to find a library or a book store if I want to find someone to talk to.” So I searched, and although I found a couple, they all appeared to be totally devoid of people. Everybody must still have been at the nude beach.

The whole experience was more than a little surreal, although I think I might give it another try…

I didn’t even get that far with it. You’re not going to believe how dorky this is - Second Life is all the new hotness in librarianship. I mean, all the cool library bloggers are talking about it. So I signed up, but didn’t even have the interest level to get off the introductory island. My boyfriend doesn’t get why I prefer to interact with imaginary people (and animals!) like in Nintendogs and Animal Crossing and the Sims, but I tell him imaginary people are much, MUCH less boring than real people. Especially Real Visionary Librarians. (Michael Stephens can suck my ass. Uh, unless he reads this. In that case, I really enjoyed your presentation.)

I’ve heard of it from another message board, where I’ve been told that it’s primarily a haven for furries, perverts and etc. Of course, this is from the standpoint of people who like to go into Second Life all dressed up as Kool-Aid Men with giant cocks so as to lay siege to a make-believe nightclub. I also heard that Second Life had its account info security compromised pretty badly a few months back, so be cautious with your personal information.

I got nothing other than that.

I also recently signed up and tinkered a bit. I chose a fat furry avatar in a sweatshirt and jeans and have gotten no attention from ANYONE so that’s good. I’ve also just been looking for virtual art sites and architecture-- there’s a cool German castle ruins and someone has a bunch of Utamaro prints up and that sort of thing. Some art history educators apparently have bought some land they’re trying to make into a virtual gallery environment, but I haven’t found it yet. Then I made the mistake of checking out the virtual Amsterdam. Oh, that’s right. Not everyone goes there for the Rijksmuseum and the Nieuwekerk. . .what are those people DOING there?!
I think Second Life, like the web, is unfortunately living up to its potential as a microcosm. TOO much like the real world. 50% porn, 48% banal crap that is carried out with little imagination or ability, and 2% cool, competent or thoughtful stuff. Just like the real world. I’m looking for the 2%.

Good, so it’s not just me. I spent five or six hours wandering around, playing with the build interface, and looking for something to do.

I never found it. Chat rooms hold no interest for me, and that’s all this seemed to be. I was impressed by some of the art/objects, but nothing else.

Also, the game ran like a slideshow. NOTHING runs like a slideshow on my system: I spend more on video cards than some people spend on cars. It streams everything, so basically you’re channeled to the net speed (in fairness, speed was a little better during “off hours”).

The world is huge, though, and I keep thinking I’m missing something, so I’ll probably goes back and poke around a bit more. But mostly I just decided it was a MMORPG without the game, and one of the worst interfaces I’ve ever seen.

Yah, there’s a lot of weird crud in Second Life. But there’s a lot of really top-notch stuff, too. Search for “a-life” and you’ll find an island where all the trees, animals and such are designed to interact with each other automatically - it’s quite lovely at night, and not in a pervy nude beach way.

There’s also an “international spaceflight museum” with excellent models of a lot of different spacecraft, as well as a big-screen streaming the NASA TV feed. I can’t say enough good things about this museum, actually - it rivals some real-world places I’ve been to. Make sure to right-click on things.

Concerts are fun - doing a search for them under “events” turns up some pretty decent music.

My friend told me to try it out for a laugh or two, so I signed up and started working on my avatar.

20 minutes later, I was still bald and my face was black while the rest of my body was pink. Every time I tried to click something I would have to wait for five minutes to see whether anything actually happened. The movements were jerky and the controls didn’t respond to me.

I kind of gave up. I suppose at some point when I’m really, really bored in the future, I’ll go back to it and spend an entertaining four hours trying to put on hair.