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New to SL or want to try it?
jinxxed0
Member UncommonPosts: 841
I've been a SL user/player/whatever for a while now, about 4 years in a few months. I've come across many "newbs" that ask things like "what do i do in this game" or "whats fun in this game" and things like that.
I'll attempt to explain it simply, clearly and without too many words.
Think of SL as a virtual reality type of thing and not a game, somewhat like the matrix from the movies. Imagine that you are walking around in a blank world. Now imagine that about 20 other people are in the virtual reality with you. About 5 of you start making things. One person makes a building, a few people make clothes and one makes dance moves (or animations). Now the rest of you would like some of these things. One of the builders gives his stuff to everyone, another person sells his stuff for the money inside the virtual world. This is basically SL without the reality part and on a much much bigger scale. For a more in depth explaination of SL keep reading.
Thats the simple way to explain it. There are no NPCs (unless someone creates them with building blocks and advanced scripting which has been done) and there are no common goals. When you go into SL you can do literally everything and more that you can in real life. You can log in, go shopping, make yourself look nice (there are plenty of freebie places and ways to earn money wihout spending real money) and you can go look for friends.
If you are creative, you can building things set up a shop and sell stuff yourself, buy and sell land, or even be a hooker (there are player created animatons and items that allow this). Everything in SL is player created, the buildings, the hair, the animations, the sounds, the textures, skin, clothing, everything. Witheverything being player created, theres a ton o adult content (you can even buy private parts!). Thats why you have to be 18 years or older to play SL. But you have to varify you are 18 and up to access adult areas (theres many ways to do, the best way if you are american is probably through the last 4 digits of your SSN) For those under 18, theres teenSL. They don't allow adults in at all. In fact you have to prove you are under 18 just to log in at all. I assume its safe. When it comes to SL though, I wouldnt want my family playing due to all the mature content. But friends and stranger? Why not?
Back to making things, scripting lets you create things like weapons, combat systems, guitars, toilets even, anything you can think of.
If you enjoy pvp people have created combat systems and there millions of weapons out there (i create and sell weapons myself). There are places where you role play as a samurai or ninja and fight others. Theres plenty of Naruto places where you can join the clans and stuff, theres dragon ball Z places that people have made and theres a very popular final fantasy 7 area where you can fight and roleplay. There even completely original sci fi, fantasy, modern, adult, western, etc etc role playing areas.
The most popular things to do in SL from what I've seen:
Watching your avatar dance at clubs and listen to music (notice i didnt say go dancing at clubs 
)
Go to combat sims and fight or even use one of the popular mmo like level up systems
Enter various contests (building contests, costume contests etc)
Find your true love (I think its potentially a good way for older people (30+) to hook up. Most people I come across seem to end up being crazy. But maybe its became of the age barriar (I'm 22 going on 15). Also, everyone on my friend list is a female. Theres more women in SL than there are men believe it or not. Yes, theres voice chat to confirm.Most of them are older women though.
SL suffers from the curse of being called Second Life. So people assume thats whats its used for, a second life. For some people that is very true. I know of a real couple (married) that have a kid. They are partnered in SL and adopt other people to be their SL child (there are adoption agencies). They pay about 35 dollars a month for a house to live in a house they rent from someone (people rent out their land just like in real life.) Some people may say this is sad or funny, but these kind of people keep SL content creaters in business. They buy clothes and random items like furniture and houses and stuff. Its the circle of life.
Making money in second life?
Many people will tell you you can get a job, but its not easy unless you have friends that can hire you. The easiet job to get is a dancer/stripper because theres literally thousands of dance/strip clubs. You just sit there and your avatar dances, people tip you and the club takes a % and you take off your clothes little by little. You have to look decent though, no one will pay to to look at an ugly avatar. (lol)
You can pretty much guess what other type of jobs are,like customer service and manager pretty uch. Anything else is just pretending (security, police, babay sitter, maid, etc)
Theres other ways of making money like selling stuff, but you need a store. You can rent a store or mall spot from other people, or you can buy land and set up a store yourself. You'll need to already have money though. I only know of one hooker (commonly called escorts in SL) to save up money in order to set to up a store. She made the mistake of buying land and settup up a store without having anything to sell. She wasn't too bright...
The best thing to do is find something you're good at and can sell, make some products and then invest about 30 to 50 dollars to getting a store set up and advertising. With some effort and some luck and decent products, you'll make your money back and profit. I've put in about 40 dollars into SL. 4 years later I've made over 5,000 in profit. Its nothing to live off of, but it makes great pocket change. Its helped me pay my real life rent, got me a PS3 and nice gaming PC. I think I spent most of it on SL exspenses. But I'm at the point where I'll never need to put money into SL again. Some people are able to make a living with just SL. I can see myself doing it, but it would require way more motivation and effort than I have in me.
In summary:
SL can be a game if thats what you want it to be
SL can be a good tool for creativity
SL can be good way to earn money
SL can be used to make friends or find love
SL can be used to live out a new life
SL can be used in place pr0n
The only reason a lot of people quit is because when you first play, its not that fun unless you get past the learning curve. ITs not fun when you have no idea what to do. So hopefully this will help some people see potential SL has. Theres plenty of things people havent created so who knows how many people could have potially been the next big thing but they gave up too early.
Comments
I've always felt that second life was ahead of its time and thus not as appreciated for what it is. This is going to be the fore runner of many things to come, especially in the creative sense. Many people are able to create in SL compared to what people are generally capable of creating from scratch. Perhaps that's not the clearest way to say it, but what my point is that when we try to figure out why MMOG's take so many years to develope its the complexity of creation with today's tools. The future will hold complex tools of course, but some will simplify as technology has become more accessible the tools to program it will also become more accessible thus making games easier and cheaper to create. I think of Second Life as a grand experiment... but its definitly not my kind of entertainment /shudder, I prefer my games a little more structured.
Well Yeah I agree Second Life is a fun Simulator, Unlike other MMO games, which dont have much player interaction, Second Life is different. You can chat with people, fully customize your character,Roleplay, Porn/Cyber, and many other things.
If you can find a really good group, and community in Second Life like some of them that I have found, then you can actually enjoy the game, but while I have been on the Main Grid of Second Life for 2 Years, There are many Evil groups out there, who do a lot of bad things, Grief people, have Copybotters,Cheaters,and hackers in their group, and allow them to destroy our community in Second Life, because they do nothing to eject such people, or abuse report them, and remove them, and some of the Roleplay groups, and communities in Second Life, have Alliances, which have Copybotters in them as well, and the main problem is that Second Life Users, and Communities do not have good responsible people to over see that this does not go on in their group, and the people I have found do absoultely nothing, and will actually ban you if you contact them about it.
The Roleplay Systems Sucks.
Worst Meter.
Gorean Meter, and the other meter forgot the name, but it is just like it sucks, There are constant Cheaters who cheat this roleplay in gor, and nothing happens to them, Plus you can just shoot at peoples feet with an arrow and it does 5% Damage. Not too long ago in Early 09, or 2010, the system was hacked where many people lost their resources by a group of people lead by (Smiggles Decuir), and all her friends, which has control over like a Large portion of panther tribies in gor, and their members do many illegal things. (Alika Sao) The Goraen Meter Creator did not update it properly to prevent more abuse from the gorean meter yet.
MCM Combat Systems
This is mech Combat, based on Mech Warrior, it is a good meter, and I like it, but the only thing that sucks is having to type to reset every time you die, instead of it being automatic spawn and ready to go, and it does glitch if you accidently turn on your weapons too fast at spawn.
Blood Lines.
This system I would say Scams people with money, but it is one of the most secure systems I have seen, There are very few exploits anyone could do now to the system, it is constantly updated, I dont like it much, but for the social, and meeting other people is really what it to me is meant to do, and that is fun.
There are other Roleplay systems out there, Properly Managed by a Team of people, who knows what they are doing, doesn't allow cheating, hacking, copybotting on their Simulators, or such, it is all good. Such as BNWCS as well.
BNWCS is a combat system which is free, and given the option to use on simulators like (New Jessie) A free combat shooting simulator, but there are rules to the combat you have to understand.
DCS, and XRPS, are some of the worst designed combat systems I have ever seen in my own eyes, The skills on these systems are not properly managed, and done right, although a lot of people use these systems it is really up to them, and it can be fun in melee combat only, but when it comes to the skills part, I think it really sucks, it could be a lot better.
You Can join a military once your account is 3 months old, and it can be fun.
Your Real Life Privacy is not protected
Often when you go into a region like (N00b Island), or( Alady Island), you will have your RL IP Logged without consent or knowledge, reguardless of the Second Life agreement you accepted, this is by systems like (CDS), and (ZF RedZone), which are controlled by 3rd Parties, and get your Geological Location, Detect all your alternate accounts, and disclose this info to admins, and other people who play Second Life, without consent. There are many other Simulators that use this stuff, like (Insilico), and many other stores in Second Life, you are really not safe when it comes to privacy in this game it doesn't exist, and (Linden Lab) does nothing about it.
Besides the Griefing, the Copybotting, and the groups who do, and allow illegal TOS, and Real Life Intellectual Property rights to be violated in this game, Second Life is fun, and you can enjoy it, however I caution those who wish to play this game, as I have spent over $5,000 USD in this game over 3 Years Total, and I have lost a lot, because of Griefers like (Skills Hak) Who abuses the community by Logging IP Addresses, Banning people from Hundreds of stores saying users Cheat/Copybot, with no proof, and these systems have Drove many people out of Second Life Lately, I have seen the numbers drop from 40k+ to 35-37 Thousand people online, which is a big drop. No one wants to shop, or spend money in Second Life. Also Given the Methods that Linden Lab will Ban an account, or suspend an account for investergation, if someone Prank Calls Linden Lab, and gives them your user name, and says a bunch of crap, and even if someone, or a group of people just Send in false abuse reports with a bunch of Lies, and such, who would want to take that chance.
Also Second Life currently, the Second Life 2.0 Sucks, and their software was designed over 3 years ago, and does not support Multi GPU, or Multi Core Processors, which is insane, because they could have given people this already, and made many improvements but they have not. So for those whow ant to use Max Graphics on this game with your top of the line Computers in a main land region, or such it would be really hard to because of the way Second Life is programmed, and do not even think about using a Custom Viewer, because (Skills Hak) CDS system will ban you, for no reason, and he restricts Viewers, and Hounds Residents as if he were a Linden Lab Employee.
These Privacy Violations are Commited using (Skills Hak's) CDS System, and other Systems Like ZF Redzone, and such, but other Creators, Owners buy them, thinking it will offer them a big protection over there store, when it just makes a bunch of people angry, so over all there are Thousands of stores using them, you do not know which ones to avoid, which places to go that wont log your RL Information and such without consent, because they dont give you a privacy policty to accept or decline. Also the Admins of CDS have abused, and manually banned other residents alts including my own because they hate me, and others for not supporting their system, because we believe that privacy violations are not right.
So Really other than meeting people, I dont know who would want to waste money in Second Life, unless they wanted a virtual meeting spot for clan members, or Guild Members from other games, wanted to meet privately, Roleplay, or such, there is really no point in my view, as Second Life Simulators renting a full region is very Expensive, and costs way more money than even owning a full Main Land Region $100 a more a month, and just because they give you more privacy, when it should be the same costs.
As a new person to Second Life, I would Search for New Player Regions, and Freebie Stores.
There are also Welcome Hubs, where you can meet people, and help Isalnds that you can go to to learn from other players.
The Sandboxes actually help people learn, and are a place where you can meet people as well who will help sometimes, Dont listen to griefers, who want you to do bad things, as if you accept an object and rez it in world, it could do bad things like spam stuff all over the region, and Linden Lab could suspend/ban your account even though it was their fault.
So the question is how many people want to actually Play Second Life today, I believe World OF Warcraft, or the average MMO has more players than even Second Life?
Second LIfe/Linden Lab also has many Lawsuit against them, and There are other worlds being Developed Like Second Life, that offers way better protection, and such, like Blue Mars in Alpha Developement, and other virtual games using 2010 Technology, and such.
http://alphavilleherald.com/ On this like you can find a lot of the News in Second Life, and what is going on including the Griefer attacks, and almost every major in world happening.
Second Life is one of the stuff I have always installed on my computer. I log in from time to time and have some fun. What I usually do is building stuff, I build houses stuff. You go to places called sandbox and you can build there or wacht what other people are building. Is fun.
Don't forget outside of cyber there is voice sex in SL. People actually hop on voice and play with themselves. I was once tped by a stripper to a party and everyone was on open mic flippin the flaps and spanking the monkey. lol Craziest experiance I have ever had. I still laugh about that crazy mess. SL is without a shadow of a doubt a game filled with whores and all kinds of wild crap. It should be called Sexual Life as much sex as they have in it. lmao :P
Torment1982
I agree, SL is still in some ways ahead of its time. Like Phil Linden has said as a bussness man he waits no one else to *get it* but as an engineer he wishes people would so that it could be advanced. All the virtual worlds popping up left and right just don't get it. They require you to use 3D modeling programs which cost 400-1000+ so they wont get new players learning any kind of trade, you'd have to be willing to spend a long tome climbing a steep learning curve. SL allows anyone to come in and have the potential to build or do some other type of creations. SL makes over 100 million a year in profits. I think the SL clone HiPiHi or something is a direct SL clone. Its chinese, but I have no idea how thats doing.
Renoaku
Yeah, theres a lot of bad people in SL which is what I learned within a week of playing. Most of the griefing takes place in the same spots. I noticed once me and my friend got an island and expanded and we just spent time on the island building stuff and only going to places for resources (buildings and stuf for decorations or scripts or whatever) griefers didnt seem to exist. Some griefers would come to our island, but they couldn't really do anything. Griefer are really annoying, but I see them as a neccessary evil. They do it for fun to get a laugh or whatever. But suppose someone else becomes made at you personally and decides to do a lot more damage. I'll use an example. My friend bought some main land, we were going to build a dance club in a space station in the sky (yep, I've tried running a club in SL too. Just about everything else too). About 2 days later the sim was super laggy. We looked at the ground and there were hundereds of beach balls with physics enabled on them in our neighbor's land. We had build on, but had a 1 minute return. However, our neighbor had no build on and zero return, but he had the setting to let prims enter his land. So the griefer built stuff on our land and placed it in on anothers. So since it was on his land we couldnt do anything but message him. But he could get into the sim, I guess because it was laggy, and we couldnt get out unles we logged out and back in somewhere else. So we had to report it. And if you've played SL for 2 years you know how slow LL can be The point of that story was that maybe if something smaller had happened, like if another griefer had come into our space station and maybe shot guns at us, we would have made the land more secure. So the annoying griefers, wheter they release it or not, help to make places more secure from from big time griefers.
I think A lot of people put money into SL. I'll never understand the people that put money into the game without the intention of making it back. I guess SL is a social life for some peolple. I've met a lot of people like that, mainly women ages 28 and up. I myself have no social life other than my close friends from school, but we've all been computer people since we were 12 (22-23 now). I guess its just people that desire a social life but can't get one for whatever reason, which happens to be a lot of people. A lot of adult's lives are just working, eating, and sleeping. Its a crappy exsistance. When I worked at a grocery store part time, I realised how much life would suck with a regular job. You work all day, go home, eat and sleep all week, and for what? Just to survive and live, but you don't have any fun. When you get a break or a day of, you just rest. So SL provides a social type of fun that people too busy can't have. Thats just speculation though.
I agree that combat systems arent that great in SL, but there are people that are out there trying to push LL to add things to scripting to further advance them. SL combat will never be as great as an action game, but it can be better.
As for security, any website can log your IP info, infact most sites do. Theres a lot of misinformation out there about what people want to do and can do with IP addressed. I can't speak for anyone in SL logging them, but I imagine they do it to prevent certain peole from getting into their place with alts if needed aka, alt abuse. A lot of IP addresses are dynamic so they change constantly. In a lot of countries people share the same IP address like in Maylasia and many smallish countries. People like to say and quote misinformation without actually looking into it. There are many games like Blue Mars popping up, but they don't offer the same level of creative fredom. In SL you can be anything and do anything. In blue mars you can be a skinny person and play mini games and shop. In IMVU you can be a childlike avatar and just stand there in rooms with nothing but chatting and shopping to dress up your avatar. I think Kaneva is going in the right direction with "Apps" that you build things and even creatures and it lets you create functions for the purpose of making games or something. I havent looked into much but before that, all you could do was shop fo clothes and go to dance clubs. This goes back to developers not getting it. They see something like SL and just create a game where you dress your avatar up and go dancing. Theres a game called Twinity where thats pretty much all you do. Its like a watered down SL where you just shop and watch your avatar dance.
KOOLLAYD
Yeah, lol. SL can be very gross. Hwever, now that they took out adult content from mature and placed it in the adult category, SL is much cleaner. You'll still find a few places that may not be aware or slipped through, but its rare now days. If you go to adult places though, its still pretty gross. Its easily aoided now though, but 4 years ago it was everywhere. You couldn't go a week without seeing something shocking and eventually just get used to it.
Over all though, I think the best time I've had in SL is when it was new and exciting to see new things and all the possibilties, now SL isnt fun for me anymore, I just use it as a toll to create things and sell them for some extra cash. It comes in handy for topping off my RL rent money and buying games and such. With LL making new crappy rules instead of actually improving SL though. So its a love/hate relationship. I stay logged off though and can reply to IMs through my email. Once you're set up in SL, you dont have to log in again pretty much. My friend went about a full year without logging in.
Best way to think of Second Life and avoid oversimplifying it one way or another, is to think of the text web, HTML served over HTTP. Second Life attempts to be the same except it exchanges HTML for presentation with 3D rendering.
Differences in presentation aside, the underneath is analagously the same.
Instead of web sites, you have regions, and just as a web site can be purposed for any purpose from porn to education to gaming, Second Life regions can and are purposed all the exact same ways.
Just as you find different websites via Google, you find different regions in Second Life via Linden Lab's search.
Just as you have developers and designers that create websites, you have developers and designers that create regions.
So on and so forth.
Obviously Second Life isn't as big as the text web, but its big enough that its varied enough to fulfill most analagous situations. So its not really fair to typecast it as say, a porn simulation, no more than you do the web. It's used for too many reasons to niche it as just one thing, and all too often Second Life is seen as just a place for porn, or is a "game". It's not; 12 million USD in user-to-user transactions occur a month and it does for reasons much more than adult and gaming related content.
So with that in mind, don't go into Second Life expecting to find it as predominantly one thing. Most definitely don't go into it expecting it to be a MMORPG or game; it isn't anymore than Firefox is a game. Certainly you can find a browser-based game in Firefox if you find a website, and just the same with Second Life's viewer if you go to a region that has built game mechanics.
What are you interested in on the text web? Take that and pop it into Second Life's search box and more than likely you'll find groups to join, events to attend, places to visit that are themed on the topic.
I dont think anyone is saying you should expect one thing, we're saying you should expect ALL of these things. SL can be what you make of it. It can be everything to one person, a game to another, a porn simulation for another, and a creative outlet for someone else. And back before there was the adult sim if you flew around SL on the main land you would indeed find adult content in nearly every sim. Today, its not that often, but some people arent aware of the rules/ignore them and you can still run into it, but not that much. I still see casino machines from time to time.
But I get your point. In my opinion SL is mostly used as a social platform by people, which would include the porn(prostitution, stripclubs which there are thousands of, an roleplay sims), but porn isnt the majority most likely.
So there is an age limit on this Game I had tried to sign up for second life teen a while back...But I never finished getting it on my computer what Kinda game is it and Is it a Free to play MMO I kinda like Games without fighting alot and Sony's freerealms isnt as realistic.
Some Questions
What are the emotes like?
What can you build?
How does this all work?
Is it a simple to install game?
How much memory Etc. Does it take up?
And can you go broke and die?
And how do you get the game?
And can you personal message me about this If its above 18 I'll get it when I'm older I love creating things with ingame content but programing is something i can't do.
If I make a second life teen account can I upgrade to adult hood with the same account when i reach 18?
Is there an age limit to this game(as I do have a child with me while in front of my computer)?
and what are the type things that can be done?