Second Life

Anyone interested in building an EvC community at Second Life (Official Site | Second Life - Virtual Worlds, Virtual Reality, VR, Avatars, and Free 3D Chat)?--Percy

I found out about it yesterday and was intrigued. I registered and played for about 30 minutes last night and was INCREDIBLY BORED, but was still incredibly intrigued by the concept - a virtual world where anything is possible.The idea of buying clothes and body parts and building an inventory of random objects makes my eyes glaze over, and neither am I interested in wandering randomly about a virtual world meeting random people ("Hey, how's it going, where ya from?" - "Where are you from," was the question I was asked a couple times, and I answered "EvC Forum" ), but although I can't point to anything specific yet, it seems bursting with potentialities. I thought that perhaps what was missing was a group of like minded people, so I thought I'd check if there was any interest.--Percy

I spent about an hour at Second Life last night. For the first half hour I wandered from one place to another just looking for somebody, anybody. I found no one. It was like I was the only person in the world.Then I realized that on the global map people are indicated by little green dots, so I traveled to where the people were. Most people I encountered were inactive - they didn't respond to my questions. The first person I found who was active I asked, "What do people do for fun here?" He replied, "Buy guitars." I moved on.I finally found someone who responded meaningfully, explained I was a newbie, and asked where everyone was. She said I'd get the hang of it, but that she'd "tp me to a place." I gave my usual "?" response, but she was already gone. It took a while for me to notice a little teleport question box - she was requesting whether I'd accept her teleport, so I said yes.It was a sex club. Crash is right. The primary interest of people at this site, perhaps all sites like this, is sex. I watched for a few minutes and found it incredibly unrealistic and incredibly boring. I quickly lost interest and logged out.It's probably a much better place if you have friends there, but in the short time I was there I didn't see anyone trying to strike up friendships, and there didn't seem much basis for building friendships. In this regard it seems much worse than a chatroom, where as I understand it online friendships are common.If you own an area you can restrict access, and I'm still sort of intrigued by the idea of a sort of chatroom with graphics where people actually have a position in space and where a gathering can split into groups and have independent conversations. You wouldn't need a list of who's there because you can see who's there. And the separate conversations wouldn't get all intertwined into a single chat log. It would be an interesting experiment.--Percy

Second Life uses avatars, ones that you can design and modify yourself, so everyone would have whatever appearance they liked. I'm attempting to build my 2nd life avatar to actually look like me, but that takes money. You can buy money with a credit card, or you can earn money (not sure how that works yet).I spent another hour in 2nd life last night, and though I think I came across as a wet blanket most of the time, I feel like I'm getting the hang of it. Most of the 2nd life avatars have an exotic or outrageous appearance, but I saw one girl whose appearance was shy and demure, and I was of course drawn to her. She said she was working toward a more exotic appearance, that in real life she had been a lap dancer, but had recently became a beautician because she was too old for lap dancing - have to face facts, as she said. I kept peppering her with questions, and she asked if I was a cop in real life. I LOL'd, but thinking about it now with my role here, maybe I am, if this is real life.She said she was looking for work as a lap dancer and that maybe she'd see me again and said goodbye, and there was no one left at my location, so I teleported to a nearby location that on the global map said there was maybe 10 people there. It turned out to be a place where you could get small amounts of money. Sitting in a bean bag chair earns you $1 every 15 minutes. I sat down in one and struck up conversations with nearby people, but most were "away" (haven't figured out how to be "away" myself yet).I quickly became bored with just sitting in the chair and so got up and walked around. The chair area was adjacent to a sex club area. People were walking through and I tried to strike up conversations but was getting no takers when I saw a completely naked women, so I walked up to her and said, "What happened to your clothes?" She said, "I'm playing." I said, "Playing with what," and she jumped on this contraption that held her arms and legs down splayed out wide. I gaped and did nothing."Jeez," she said, "just take your clothes off." "Jesus," I said back, "why should I take my clothes off for someone I don't even know? How do I know you're even a real girl?" She somehow interpreted this as meaning I didn't know how to take my clothes off (which I didn't, but that was beside the point), so she explained how you take your clothes off (right click for a menu). Her avatar name was Vella, she attends art school in Holland, and she was with a friend, Mops. Mops, who was dressed, and Vella, who did eventually put her clothes on, kept breaking into Dutch, which was a little confusing. Mops is married with one child who said she loves her hubby, but she got huffy when I asked her if hubby was in 2nd life, too. "I'm here, what more do you need?"The sex at 2nd life is silly, unrealistic and ridiculous. I don't see the attraction. But meeting people and talking with them is fascinating. That may be a problem, though, because I think most of the people are there for avatar sex, not conversation, and so I might be out of place. I don't want to know people in their 2nd life, I want to know them in their 1st.--Percy

I had an hour to kill earlier this afternoon while a build completed, so I visited yet again. Everyone I ran into was either French or wouldn't talk to me. I guess Americans don't come on line in any significant numbers until later in the day, though the English were conspiculously absent. No conversations today, I didn't get beyond "Hi".Like I've been saying, and as Crash confirms, avatar sex is super boring, but surprisingly, no one seems that interested in talking.--Percy

Well, I've spent about an hour each day at 2nd Life since I last wrote, and I've learned a lot. Current impression is that the place is not the big sex party I originally thought it was. After visiting maybe 40 regions (squares on the global map) I've found only two sex clubs. I'm sure there's more, I've been purposefully random instead of methodical in order to build up a reliable overall impression.I've met a few really nice people: a senior in high school from the Pacific northwest, a pharamacy manager, and a personal trainer from Germany. They share my inability to comprehend the attraction of avatar sex, and so we were able to talk about other things.People actually live in 2nd life. Last night I spoke to the builder/manager of a small village. She built all the cottages herself and rents them out. I asked her lots of questions about building and she said it wasn't too hard.And so last night I took a stab at building. I definitely don't have the hang of it yet, but looking at the work of other people who were playing at building nearby me you can create some amazing things. Not just buildings, but cars, fountains, helicopters, roads, clothes and food. I visited a house on an island with waves crashing on the beach.I still think it has some great potential as a chatroom. We could have our own restricted region with a meeting hall, and of course anyone interested could build houses or whatever nearby. You'd be able to see people (imagine my avatar in 3 dimensions!) instead of just read a list of names. People could split into groups that you could see. Private IM'ing is possible, too.I'm hoping I can interest someone in joining me there. Let me know!--Percy

Yeah, that's the way I see much of it. As the personal trainer put it, probably the only people interested in avatar sex are those not getting any real sex. It's really bad and ridiculous. One woman I met had never been to a sex club and wanted to see, so I took her to one. There was a guy, a newbie I presume, buying sex for 500 Lindens (about $2). I said to my friend, "Geez, not even if it were free...", and she agreed. There's nothing sexy about it at all.But it isn't just sex that attracts people - the sex is just a small though visible component. Gambling clubs seem far more popular. They often have a bar, but why anyone would buy their avatar a drink or a smoke is beyond me.But apparently people also actually live plain old normal lives in 2nd life, and I have no idea why. The real estate agent for that village I mentioned said people live there, and when I asked why, she said she provides privacy and protection from interference. I still don't get it, and I've got enough keeping me busy in my real life, I have no interest in a second.But the discussion possibility seems intriguing to me. Probably needs a fast connection, too. Well, start planning for an upgrade - the requirements get higher every year. --Percy

Rough as in primitive? Or rough as in you dropped into the middle of a gunfight?I offered you friendship, accept it next time you're on and I'll teleport you to a building area.--Percy

I'm in Lippert, but it says you're now offline. Did you crash?--Percy

Ah, come on, where's your sense of adventure? Besides, do you really think personal trainers, beauticians and high school girls have better hardware than you? I've had SL die a couple times, but it's rare for me. However, if you look at their problem log there do seem to be a few problems.--Percy

I haven't visited in a while. There was no interest here. WoundedKing looked around a bit, but I guess he wasn't impressed. I thought it might be great as a chatroom with visuals if we built a clubhouse on our own land with restricted access. My name is Percy Planer.--Percy