I just finally decided to try Second Life and I’m looking for newbie guidance… Wondering if there are any veteran SDBB players on there that might lend a hand.
For those that don’t know, it’s a MMORG, although I don’t know if it’s really a game. You can play for free, or pay different amounts to be allowed to own different size plots of land…
Favorite things to do there, etc?
I have no advice, but I’m bumping this in case anyone else who read the Business Week article shows up with similar questions.
I’m wondering a lot myself. I downloaded the trial and, honestly, I don’t get it. Am I missing something? Maybe it’s just a glorified chat program and I’ve been spoiled by my fancy MMOs? (I’m only playing four different ones at the moment.) It does appear to have lots of potential, but maybe I’d just rather kill monsters, loot the cash off the bodies, and be done with it. That’s fun 
I played for a bit, and it can be fun, but its also complex once you get past the “wow I can fly around” part and actually start doing things.
The way it works is, when you sign up ($9.99 I believe) you get the opportunity to get a small lot. The bigger the lot, the more objects you can put on it and the bigger things you can build so people tend to try to earn money (or pay real life money) for bigger ones. They have a pretty complex building engine thats a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. You’ll see some very talented people who have built some really amazing things.
You earn a set amount of in game money every day. You can also earn money by selling/creating services for others to use. There are people who have built whole amusement parks. The game supports a very robust scripting language which allows you to do all sorts of things if you are good at that kind of stuff.
Mainly, I just flew around and looked at things, talked to a few people (some were nice, some not so much) and eventually ran out of things to do.
I am sure there is more to it than I realized, but it was difficult to figure out and (being honest) I didn’t find it worth the effort.
Still, its a very interesting and novel concept and I am glad I at least took the time to check it out.