It looks interesting and I might just give it a go anyway as it’s free. Anyone else play it and want to share your experiences (positive or negative?).
I’ve played around on it a bit, but I’ve consciously avoided getting too much into it because I can tell it’s the kind of thing that could easily suck away great portions of my life before I realized it.
It’s kind of like WoW and other multiplayer games except it has a more social/building perspective. You’re making things and designing your avatar and creating landscapes and interacting with people rather than fighting or going on missions.
Seeing as it’s free (unless you want land) it’s worth at least taking a look. Create an interesting avatar, fly around looking at cool stuff and make conversation with other folks. Maybe build an object or two. You’ll get a feel for if you like it. If you want to do more, you can buy some land and make a home, and experiment with coding actions and interactivity for your objects.
Also, there’s a bunch of simultaneous RL/VR events that take place in 2nd Life like book readings and political rallies an interviews and so forth that are worth checking out.
I uninstalled it after 20 minutes. Didn’t like the look or the feel of it, and couldn’t find anything to do in it that interested me. WoW is more in line with my interests.
It’s the beginning of a great idea, but it isn’t without its share of problems… It’s great if you’ve got a kink or are into some sort of fantasy roleplay. They have a huge Elf guild as I understand it. But it is entirely social so it is up to you to find your niche and interest.
– IG
I signed up but it’s darn near unworkable on my machine-- loads incredibly slow and gives the processor a work-out. It appears to be, in my couple of days of looking around, much like the internet: 2% really cool and creative stuff and well-done, 8% just sort of weak and badly done or half-assed and stupid, and 90% either vaguely or overtly pornographic. But the 2% is cool if you can find it.
For example, I made the mistake of finding the virtual Amsterdam, hoping it would be like the Amsterdam I know. Imagine if all Amsterdam was was Rokin and the Wallen, minus water. Ech. A bit depressing. “Oh, that must be the Damplein with the Palace and a really decent-looking Nieuwekerk. . . and the entire plaza is covered with naked avatars pretending to have sex. . .” I have no idea who these masses of people are who have no outlet and get their yah yahs out via Sims and avatars. Didn’t we get over making Ken and Barbie hump in 4th grade or so? Can anyone explain this to me? It doesn’t annoy me out of prudishness but out of disappointed expectations of 98% of people, given an environment with such potential. Let’s see. . . I could reconstruct Montreal Habitat '67, or do mock-ups of Bill Viola and Nam June Paik’s installations, or build a Roman colosseum so people could chariot race. . . nah. Wanna cyber?
Here’s a thread I started earlier about my experience with Second Life.
The whole thing was pretty damned funny. I have not gone back.
Second life gets a whole lot of press for a game that barely has any actual players. Not a week goes by that i don’t read some news about second life, what nobody ever mentions is that they have 50k subscribers tops (compare that to wows near 8 million, or around 300k average for other games).
It’s true the subscriber list is sometimes overstated, but it’s not really comparable to WoW or Sims anyway. It’s not really accurate to call the subscribers ‘players’. Unlike WoW and such it’s not a ‘game’ and there are no missions or fighting or specific goals or even an overall theme. And unlike Sims there’s no prefabricated universe or uniform context.
It’s basically just a big VR sandbox where you can design/build whatever you want and interact with other subcribers and their creations/locations. It’s got a pretty easy to use but also powerful interface for doing this. And a lot of the press it gets it because it’s a popular VR venue for real life things such as simulcasts, interviews, rallys, and so forth.
I’m on a imac G4 flat panel with a cable modem and it seems to run at a decent speed. There is some porn sure, but not overly so, and usually in locations specifically designated as for such. If there’s something you feel is missing you can always build it yourself.
I was a heavy There.com user and had an impossible time making the switch to Second Life. The avatars are stuck smack in the middle of the uncanny valley with that cadaverous look that is not real enough to be convincing but too real to be just iconic. All the spots you will hit as a newbie are laggy as all get out. It is one big trailer park full of junk just thrown there (just as There!). I still have it installed and every 3 months or so I try to go in and get sick of it after an hour or so. Consider having an inside friend show you around. That was what made There great for me.
Okay, played it for an hour last night and found it an interesting concept. However, online games fall somewhere no a scale between (at the one end) a theme park where everything is set up for you to do and you choose what to interact with to enjoy a predetermined experience (like WOW, Guild Wars, EQ etc), and at the other a space which allows people to log in and create their own world from scratch through customization and roleplay (like a Tale in the Desert).
Second Life seems to fall heavily towards the latter end of the scale, and as such isn’t really my thing. Think I’ll cross it off my list of things to have tried and leave it at that.
I’ve been reading about Second Life alot as well, I’m glad I found this thread.
Second Life sounds like Active Worlds with porn.
I might still have a look, but I thought Active Worlds was pretty lame.