Difference between revisions of "Second Life"

Revision as of 11:33, 3 April 2006

Second Life is sometimes known as a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, or MMORPG for short. In reality, the answer to the question "is it such a game?" is normally "yes and no". Second Life is technically unable to fit into the MMORPG category, as by itself it is not a roleplaying game. Rather, it is a platform that allows games to be built within its framework, and is a bit better classified as a richly graphical multiple user chat kingdom (MUCK) rather than an MMORPG. Some lean so far as to just call it a metaverse, which isn't that far of a stretch.

• Address: http://www.secondlife.com

Outline

Second Life lets you create your own objects

Second Life has become one of the popular forms of online gaming for members of the furry fandom, as at last count there were at least 500 furries registered as Second Life users. This arose out of the fact that the avatars, a humanoid object representing the user, are very customizable and the game's disposition for allowing users to create anything has made the concept of a virtual "fursuit" possible. There are a variety of fursuits which consist of body parts you attach to your avatar. These parts include tails, wings, legs, and so on. Membership requires a credit card (or SMSable cellphone) for security reasons, and the game world has mixed content ratings from PG to Mature. It is always wise to be aware of this mixed rating as each section of the game is rated as one or the other and people going into the Mature areas should be aware of the risks well beforehand.

The high interactivity is also a plus; there are various furry communities popping up in the game as well. In the October 2005 issue of the magazine Computer Games, "Furries" (used as a proper noun) were noted as a major userbase in Second Life in an article about the use of MMOs for self-actualization.

Although Signup for a new account requires a credit card or an SMS capable cell phone, current members have the option of changing their billing information so their membership fees can be deducted through Paypal. This is done through the user's pages available after logging into the SL website's members area.

History

Second Life was started in 2003 as a project by Linden Lab, now known as Linden Research. The game's primary attraction was the level of customizability from the ground under your feet to the clouds in the sky. This was quite literal since the game's developers intended for the user to be able to create the world to their desire, as is quoted in the Second Life overview on its site: "Second Life is a virtual world - a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create or become just about anything you can imagine. Built-in content creation tools let you make almost anything you can imagine, in real time and in collaboration with others."

Age policy

Even though Second Life requires a credit card (for age verification and security purposes), there is no way to tell inside the game how old someone really is. It is generally assumed that almost all players in the game are over the age of 18, but this is not assured as there is no definite way to know the real ages of the people in your vicinity. However, Second Life rates the individual sections of the game as Mature, or PG, with other possible ratings. These ratings help moderate the behaviour of people that populate the various sections of the game, as they won't tolerate someone breaking the PG rating by doing a Mature rated act in a PG rated zone.

The game's Terms of Service state quite clearly you must be over the age of 18 to enter the "main grid" of Second Life. If anyone is found to be under 18 in the main grid, they will be banned from the game and all money and inventory will be forfeit. The rating system is not in place to keep children out of areas in SL, it is there because many adults don't want to be exposed to adult material during their time in the game or to take a break from it for a time by visiting a PG sim. Luskwood is a prime example of a furry PG sim, safe from displays of naked hermaphrodites with a huge phallus and even bigger breasts parading around as one might see in a mature furry sim like FurNation Worlds (technically they are not supposed to be visable from a casual flyover).

Environment and Economy

Costs

Second Life is now free to sign up if you have never attempted to sign up and play before. Otherwise, a basic account will be a once-off fee of US$9.95, which may be paid with a credit card, or, with the recent addition of PayPal as an acceptable source of funding, a positive balance from said service. It is recommended that you find a friend that is already in-game before completing your signup, as they will earn a referral bonus (see below) for your successful signup.

Premium accounts come at a rate of US$9.95 each month, with options to pay quarterly or annually -- $22.50, and $72, respectively. The premium accounts come with the priviledge to own 512 square meters of land (approximately 1/256 of 1 simulator, or "not much"). The ability to acquire additional amounts of land bring an additional charge, called land tier.

• US$195.00/month: 65,536 square meters - Entire Region
• US$125.00/month: 32,768 square meters - 1/2 Region
• US$75.00/month: 16,384 square meters - 1/4 Region
• US$40.00/month: 8,192 square meters - 1/8 Region
• US$25.00/month: 4,096 square meters - 1/16 Region
• US$15.00/month: 2,048 square meters - 1/32 Region
• US$8.00/month: 1,024 square meters - 1/64 Region
• US$5.00/month: 512 square meters - 1/128 Region

Referrals

Each user who joins Second Life gets an unique referral link. Giving this link to people who have yet to sign up, and getting them to do so used to credit the user with a certain amount of Linden Dollars -- the in-world currency. Since late January 2006, only premium account signups will result in a bonus, of L$2500, staggered over a three month period, where you get L$500 on the spot, another L$500 after one month, another L$500 after two months, and the final L$1000 after three months, to prevent gaming of the premium account referral bonus.

Currency

Speaking of the currency, one can buy or sell their Linden Dollars (L$) from within the game using the Lindex™ money market run by Linden Research™. There are also third-party exchange services, with links available on SecondLife.com to their home pages, but this section will focus solely on Lindex.

Exchanges can be done with any amount of Linden Dollars, and their calculator will give you an idea of what you'll be receiving as a result of your sale. The amount that you receive as a result of your sale gets placed into your account, where you may have it applied to anything you owe for your account if you are a premium user, or may have it sent to you via PayPal for a US$1 charge. For larger amounts, you may also have a check mailed to you for a fee - US$5 if you're inside the United States, or a whopping US$15 for locations outside of the United States.

There are some furs who do this with the earnings from their businesses (Custom avatar creation, Generic avatar vending, etc), turning it into profit that allows them to do whatever they want to pay for, up to, and including starting their own Island(s).

Collecting donations for Island upkeep fees is a popular activity on islands, furry or otherwise.

Islands

Islands are user-owned simulators within Second Life. You can buy your own island but the price to play is pretty steep. $1250 for start up costs and a server (you don't own the server itself though and due to multiple CPU servers, you are effectively buying space on a single CPU for your island), as well as $190 a month tier. As of this edit, there are a number of furry-owned or themed Islands in Second Life:

• Taco
  • Currently owned and run by Arito Cotton of Luskwood fame.
  • This sim currently has a Mature rating label, though it is asked that you keep the blatantly mature items far, far away from ground level.
  • This sim has a slightly cartoony feel to it, and is the home of Dwellget, a department store that parodies heavily on Target.

• FurNation Worlds
  • This is a group of six simulators (Prime, Alpha, Vista, Tria, Reia and Omega) run by the crew at Furnation.
  • Each of their simulators seems to serve a particular purpose.
    • Alpha appears to be the residential area;
    • Vista appears to be the sandbox area;
    • Tria has a very watery theme, perhaps a Sci-Fi theme.
    • Prime is the welcome area and hub for everything in the area.

• The Forest, Tiger Creek
  • The Forest was the first Furry oriented island in Second Life. (More info on (former?) owners, please. Spade Richlieu?)
  • This sim had an abundance of trees, but towards the end of Spade Richlieu's management, trees were a bit too bare in many spots, to really own up to its name.
  • This sim suffered from severe lag issues in the beginning, as it was a prime hangout to many furs, which led to the island being full at peak times. This position was taken by the recently opened FurNation Worlds.
  • Sibe was banned from this simulator for reasons unknown to this author; However, it made big news within the furry "circles" of Second Life, and it wasn't long before many wanted to know. This ban has long since been repealed, probably during Anshe's aquisition.
  • In its first months, it earned at least one dwell award (money given to people who rake in the most dwell (butt hours) each month by Linden Research -- The entire island earned one of the awards for January 2005, which offset the first month's island fee by about half in this case).
  • The Forest eventually came under Anshe Chung's ownership. Anshe added Tiger Creek to the south of The Forest as a residential area for furs to purchase or rent land. Revenues from Tiger Creek go towards paying for The Forest's tier.
  • The Forest and Tiger Creek are now part of what many call AnsheLand (Mostly out of dislike for its owner. Its proper name is actually Dreamland), a chunk of 55 linked islands located west-north-west of the North Continent of the main Grid..

• Fox Valley
  • A furry residential sim run by RedFox Costello as an alternative to The Forest and Tiger Creek.
  • The single island is located in the island cloud, southwest of Anshe Chung's Dreamland, northwest of Furnation Worlds.
  • Fox Valley was founded in November, 2005, making it the youngest of the furry islands. Since then it has grown, with additionals islands named Wolf Valley, Tiger Valley (run by Kithylin Perth) and Tiger Valley (ran by Alynna Vixen). Nine valley sims in total are expected by May, 2006.

• Rainbow Tiger
  • Originally a simple club and mall owned by SpikeTxTyger in the Cleary region, Rainbow Tiger is now a full island.

• Tartarus Island
  • The new home of The Fur Dungeon, a club that once existed on the mainland. A heavily-themed sim, with ancient temple ruins, a ruined resort complex from the 1980s (built for tourists visiting the temples) and mysterious space-age constructions, including geodesic balls, that house, amongst other things, The Fur Dungeon club itself. Created and owned by Musuko Massiel.

• The Wild
  • Furry Myst themed island owned by Shaun Wallaby.

• The Cub Conclave
  • An island for babyfurs. Features a castle, a mini mall, a marina, a bathhouse, a spaceship and Club Softpaws among other things. Founded and owned by Raven Welesa

Help expand this stub.

Video

Furs watching the Funday PawPet Show in Second Life

As of version 1.6.0, Second Life now hooks Quicktime, if it is installed on the user's system, to provide an interface that allows one to watch movies within the client itself. A very fast connection is suggested in this case, as you will be streaming world data and a video at the same time.

If Quicktime is not installed, the first time you touch a parcel with video, you will be reminded that Quicktime is needed to watch video within the client.

A number of furs use the video feature to watch the Funday PawPet Show on their land.

Of note, some users have taken advantage of this new feature to bring forward a new business: Movie Rentals. One may rent adult movies from a couple of the businesses in Second Life, for the express purpose of being able to watch pornography on their land for a couple of hours.

Preview Grid

As Linden Lab draws closer to a potential release, be it a subversion, or a full on version jump, they will release preview versions of the client, to allow all interested parties to test the new client and its features. This is extremely important to builders, scripters, and texturers, as knowing how the new software will handle their works is very important.

The Preview client is run on a separate grid from the current client, which means there are less people to interact with. Most of the people available test their wares, making sure they won't have to do a full rebuild or rescript for the next version, as well as reporting bugs.

Teen Version

Very recently, Second Life has created a seperate version of its game designed with teens in mind. This seperate version is still new and has little information to go with it. However, it is known that this teen version uses modified software to differentiate teen users from adult users, sending them to a different server grid, and not allowing normal SL users to interact with the teen world users (and vice versa). This version has different rating policies than the normal version; being made for teenagers, the world ratings are typically and may not exceed the general PG14 to PG17 rating spans.

• Website: http://teen.secondlife.com/

Technical advice

Due to the amount of data that is sent between the client (you) and the servers, SL requires broadband internet of 1Mbps or better, at least 512MB of computer RAM, and a CPU faster than 800MHz, though the bare minimum will not be as pleasant an experience. Linden Lab suggests that you invest in hardware that will exceed the minimum specs. There are also specific graphics card requirements due to the game making use of a certain OpenGL standard. The system requirements for interested people is listed at the Second Life website partially, and more exact requirements can be found inside its technical support area.

Although it is not impossible to use Dialup with SL, nearly every option of the game would require serious cutting back to bare minimum or close to bare minimum. This would make the experience flatter and not as pleasant, with lag so heavy that movement would be difficult and awkward with occasional stop-frame style "clipping" animation. Walking forward one step for example would occasionally result in "sliding" forward more then a yard or two before being "snapped" back to your intended position ni a rather sudden "jerk" or scenery change. Sometimes, said movement could make you "sink" through the ground before the snap-back occurs. There aren't many users on SL who use dialup connections, but such users are present on the grid.

Of note: For quite a while, Second Life has been dealing with issues over ATi's video card drivers. It had become practice on the forums to suggest to ATi users to pick up Omega Drivers, a set of user-modified drivers recognized by ATi as "the best modded drivers in the Internet", according to their author. These Omega Drivers enabled things that Second Life wants, and that aren't enabled without difficulty in the default drivers.

References

• Liu, Johnny. "Waking Dreams." Computer Games, October 2005; pp. 58-59.

See also

• Second Life on Wikipedia
• Second Lifers on WikiFur
• Second Life Promotional Video -- This file is directly available on the Second Life Home page. The video is linked to an image titled "watch the video" that will alternate with the free trial promotional image link. There is also a Quicktime version of the video.

External links

• If Furries Ruled The World.... — An article at Nothingkat.com which voices a dislike of Second Life from an Anti-Fur point of view. (contains graphic nudity)
• Second Life Furry Community at LiveJournal
• The Second Life Herald: Miravoir Meets The Furries — Article about furries on Second Life.
• New World Notes: Furry Like Me — Another article about furries on Second Life.

A piece of this article has been copied directly from the Second Life website and no challenge is being issued in regards to the material of the quote taken in any way, shape, or form.