Second Life is not a game where you solo. As there are no developer created quests, NPCs or item drops, the ever-boring staples of standard MMORPGs, the emphasis lies heavily on social intercourse. While exploration is indeed a solo enterprise, the moment you start creating things (and you will want to) you become enmeshed in SL's socio-economic model. Anyone remember that line from the Matrix, where Agent Smith mentions how the first ever Matrix let everyone have what they wanted - and it failed. Likewise, Second Life lets you do whatever you want - but to constrain and focus your creative powers, there are certain charges associated with Second Life, expressed in SL dollars. How do you earn these?
Same way you do in your first life - you do some work. Build something cool and try to sell it. If it's not selling, try to improve it or promote it better. Buy some land and rent condos. Create custom clothing or even body or face shapes. Vehicle creation is a huge aspect of the game (and with the Havok 2 physics engine currently being added onto the game, it should get even bigger) - make one and try to sell it (there are even multiple car salons with models by different creators, under one roof). Or you can join contests; anything from trivia or lottery to Sexiest Avatar in The City can yield instant cash awards. So yes, a pool party is entirely possible - not only that, but the participants probably arrived by boat, car, motorcycle, hoverboard, wings, jetpack or yoga levitation and are of every shape, size and color imaginable - although most still tend to the anthropomorphic. You may even meet a few cyborgs.
If more visceral competition is your thing, you can hop into one of SL's Mature levels, where more objectionable material (like y'know, guns) can be created and indeed used. Death is only an inconvenience (you get reset to your Home location upon death), but it adds that little extra thrill to know you can get knocked off the game board. You can use anything already created, or make your own; guns shoot, swords swing, and some items will even give you special moves. One event I saw involved little else except whacking other parties with SL equivalents of giant nerf bats - the person whacked would then go off sailing into the horizon. Homerun! No monetary prizes were involved in this one, but that's not to say there couldn't have been.
After some heavy combat you can relax in a night club, drop by for that aforementioned pool party or attend a poetry recital. New global events are scheduled daily, and dropping by is as easy as clicking the Events menu and choosing to Teleport there. Simply having your creations voted on will give you some cash, so create well.
Communications
Since so much of Second Life focuses on communications, it is a good thing that all of those facets are taken care of with much obvious forethought. A few of the features include:
- color coded text, shading based on distance away from speaker (you can Shout to get your voice carried further)
- private conversations without the possibility of anyone overhearing
- calling cards, where not only personal info is stored, but also waypoints can be shared or objects passed around - invite a friend to a party, set them a waypoint, and give them an evening suit to wear to it, all at once.
You can of course send an Instant Message to anyone in the Second World at any point. Finally, anyone can schedule an "Event", which gets added to everyone's Event list (along with waypoint), and announcements are made at regular intervals regarding Linden-sponsored events.
Economy
In the virtual world, you should have an inexhaustible supply of everything, right? Well, not exactly. All those textures or sounds you upload, pictures you take, shapes you make or terrain you deform has to be stored somewhere - and that is at Linden Lab's servers; in addition, if you claim some land, that land cannot be used by anyone else (well, unless you sell it, of course). In order to make the game more dynamic and the world cleaner, Second Life has a tax structure. In short, it boils down to this: the more you create, the more tax you pay. This simple concept is the driving force behind SL's more prolific creators, as they must profit in order for their creations to survive. That is why the best creations are the most expensive - their creators simply want to be able to continue creating.
The costs are subtle in some ways - for example, to create a primitive shape you are charged SL 10 - but you get it back the moment you destroy that shape (so keep your workspace tidy). To upload a texture and store it in your personal space you are charged SL 10 as well - but it's there permanently and you can reuse it at anytime. Land has a price that fluctuates based on supply and demand (each sector of SL is a separate server, and there is only so much space on it available for development), and is taxed weekly based on your usage. In fact, all of your properties that exist in-world (and not in your inventory) get taxed weekly - so if you're not using that motorcycle, simply put it into your inventory, where it is not draining server resources by its sheer existence.
Here are a couple of economy examples I have seen recently:
Busy Ben's Car Dealership, Oak Grove is an on-consignment vehicle dealership. Simply bring your creation in and talk to Ben about setting it up as one of the showcases, then set your price. If you make a sale, Ben gets a cut of the purchase price to cover the costs of his land, the dealership he created, and the work he put into spreading the word around. Of course your vehicle is taxed as long as it sits in the lot.
Dark Life Dungeon is a medieval castle, filled with traps and monsters. Drop by and pick up an adventurer's backpack (for a fee) and go adventuring in a classic AD&D environment. Earn loot, experience and explore the dungeon - the makers profit from the initial equipment that you purchase, covering the costs of keeping the dungeon running (land + structure + textures).
A housewarming party, with door prizes. The more folks show up, the more chances you have of getting votes on your new house, and each vote is a few bucks. A simple yet profitable setup - oh, and of course you have to know how to build a house!
Appeal
Second Life is not a traditional sort of game. There are no specifically created goals, nor a storyline to move the participant along. While the removal of artificial constraints is tremendously refreshing for someone like me (I've always found the unending talk of "mobs", "going overt", "soloing", "pharming" or "item drops" hideously sterile, as if an enjoyable gaming experience was reduced to a set of tightly controlled behaviors and actions), it does force the player to create their own entertainment - something many gamers would rather have already presented.
Then there is the fact that creation takes a lot of time; the relative complexity of the creation process (the tutorial is new and woefully inadequate - it barely covers moving around) won't help the casual gamer either, and many people who just want to roleplay in a digital world might be daunted by talks of modelling, prims, scripting, clipping, texture misalignment or any other jargon that a geek like myself takes for granted. However, someone who really does want to have a Second Life, to be able to create and explore at will, and meet a lot of interesting and creative people (not to mention friendly, something the online world seems to be lacking lately) should look no further - with enough time, anything can be learned. The free 7-day trial should help that player decide as well.
- - - Seems kinda scary to me, i s=dont understand the mentality of living a second life on the internet. Personaly i feel that nothing can come close to real relationships and feelings of friendship and all the other jazz. I see why some people feel that sites like this are contributing to the breakdown of the art of convosation and i feel the people who frequent these sites need to get out more....What do you think?
Ciao for now...
