A couple of months ago, my friend Lisa and I were talking and she mentioned how she's been involved with this thing called Second Life. In case you're not familiar with it, it's a virtual world, like World of Warcraft, where you create a digital version of yourself to wonder around with and have adventures--or not. In the case of Second Life (SL) there's no structure beyond the fact that there is "land" and the ability to create objects from nothing using this scripting language that is supposed to be very easy to use. Phillip Rosedale (aka Linden), is the founder of SL and he describes it as a place where anything can happen. You can fly, create things, have real world business meetings and even make a real-life living inside Second Life. That's right--there's an economy inside SL filled with "Linden Dollars" which, Rosedale has said, are linked to US Dollars. Though I have yet to figure out how. So, Lisa was going on and on about how cool this place is. Listening to her talk (and Rosedale) it's like a MySpace for adults who dig 3-D virtual worlds with semi-crappy graphics. Daily Show talked about about how John Edwards had a campaign office inside SL. Lisa even video blogs from inside SL, though I haven't brought myself to check out her clips yet. Something about the whole thing has me thinking it's more for people who are sick of trying to change their "first" lives so they go into Second Life and change things instantly. Then again, if people make their real-life living in there, then, I thought, shouldn't I at least give it a try and see if I can use it to network or maybe even find myself a way to make a real-life living inside Second Life?
Day 1 So, this past Tuesday night, at my favorite Internet cafe, I registered and started downloading the 64MB software package for Mac. Of course, the Winduhs version is only 34MBs. Typical. The other thing was that the download server was soooo sloooow. It was literally taking hours to DL those lousy 64 megs. It wasn't the connection at the cafe, either because I was surfing with no effort at all. Finally, about two hours later, I paused the DL in Firefox, went home and continued DLing it. It still was taking forever to come down, so I opened up Flock (a tweaked version of Firefox) and downloaded the entire 64MB package in about ten minutes (if that). Of course, it was already pretty late at that point, so I didn't get a chance to install it or even try it out.
Day 2 Wednesday night, I get home after spending almost three hours working on a screenplay at the Boba Loca (the aforementioned Internet cafe), and I fire up the Second Life software, login, and get an error message telling me that there's a newer version of Second Life I have to download before I can enter Second Life.
OK. Sheesh, so I start to DL it from inside SL and suddenly my connection flakes! I shut down SL and my wireless card and then unplug my cable modem and wifi router. After thirty seconds or so, I plug everything back in and turn everything back on, pull up SL again and begin DLing the new version of the software. Finally, I'm ready to go. I log in and I get a basic avatar, white guy, white T-shirt, blue jeans, brown hair. Well, I've got blond hair and a brown chin-only beard. I start tweaking my hair--blond is fine, but I can't come close to the buzzcut I actually sport in "First Life". I get as close as I can and end up making myself look like one my neighbors from my days living in West Hollywood. The thing is, there are so many odd settings that it took me twenty minutes to get my hair and clothes right (and most of that was hair--no, I'm not gay or fashion obsessed, it's just damn hard to get the hair even vaguely right). So, almost s soon as I have the hair right, I give myself a red T-shirt, black jeans and red shoes (similar to my standard look in First Life). Then, it's too late and I have to go to bed.
Day 3 It's late Wednesday and I feel like I should be writing more, but I decide to login to SL and see if I can track down Lisa inside of SL. It's then when I see just how un-intuitive the controls are. The world is so complicated, moving around is the only thing you can do easily. Everything else is harder. To "interact" with a billboard (read the smaller print) you have to click on it and download what I imagine is a text file which is then displayed in a special pop-up window. Picking up items is also a bit complicated. I found a freebie place and only some of the articles of clothing were I able to pick up. I got myself a cool pair of black angel wings. I'll have to take some pictures for my next entry. As it was, I was too busy trying to figure out how to make the thing go. Ultimately, I never found out. I'm far from giving up, but I'm far from seeing this as the revolution some people seem to think it is. The interface is overly complicated and cryptic and when I did ask some people for help, they were too busy picking each other up to bother helping me. Check out this paraphrased conversation I witnessed:
Adonis McHandsomy: So, how old are you? Baroness Von Cleavage: 18 Adonis McHandsomy: Sweet. Baroness Von Cleavage: Where are you from? Adonis McHandsomy: Utah.
Those aren't their real names but that is almost what they said and they did definitely blow me off. So, that's my experience with Second Life so far. I'll try to continue this chronicle of my exploration of this "amazing" new "revolution." Anyone care to join me? My screen name is ThePete Writer. Look me up in there if you can work out how to do it. And if you do work it out, can you tell me?
Orignal From:
SECOND LIFE BLOG DAYS 1 3
