"i agree 100% percent,

like i try to search for places to go. and 70% lists as porn, and the other 20% has pornographic material of some kind, and it is all so disgusting! especially those animals or furries w.e they call them"  -- imrodus  10/10/07 5:18:34 PM

I'm furry...and I found that to be offensive

I'm also gay if ya guys wanna rag on me for that

Nope!  Some of my best friends are Furry.

well Second Life a fine game because it's mostly user made but I do hate these facts

1 Money is scarce and seldom to find and when you get it it's not enough to get anything.

2 The poor consist of people who are new or helpless

3 Little is done to help out the community

theres much more but I'm done listing.

Anyway it's a good place to make friends even better then myspace.com.

Originally posted by MikeTH

well Second Life a fine game because it's mostly user made but I do hate these facts

1 Money is scarce and seldom to find and when you get it it's not enough to get anything.

what you are looking for is free money then? lindens are like real UDS$. so like in real life , if you dont work money is scarse and seldom, and when you get some by begging, its not enough to get anything.

2 The poor consist of people who are new or helpless

again if you do not work for the money you wont get any.  and new people can easely put their credit cards in and purchase one billion lindens if they wanted to

3 Little is done to help out the community

i will tend to disagree, there are free workshops on how to build, use second life, use land, get land, manage groups, you can find classes for everything, i give classes on how to build in second life about once a month, but there are groups who offer classes around the clock. the only thing you will not get is free money. there is no such thing as free money.

theres much more but I'm done listing.

Anyway it's a good place to make friends even better then myspace.com.

basically what you want is free money, this is not like any other MMORPG,  where gold is just worth in that game, lindens are actually sold legally for real world currency, and there are talks and debates weather lindens should become an official real world currency.

To add to this, I would like to say that a friend was trying second life, and encountered NAMBLA 10 minutes after creating a character.

Edit: If you get off on dressing up as animals and the like, you have mental problems.

Originally posted by AzurePrower

Do I hate it because I expected there to be actual game play? No.

Do I hate it because you have to role play? No.

Do I hate it because it is one big virtual shopping mall? OH MY GOD YES. IT'S 10% ROLE PLAY. 90% PEOPLE TRYING TO SELL YOU CRAP!

Perhaps you missed the entire point of Second Life. The whole purpose is to build, create and be social. yes, people try to sell you "crap" - but what you don't realize is many of those people had a personal hand in designing the plethora of virtual goods for sale. This is a major aspect of Second Life. The whole point of Second Life is to be CREATIVE and SOCIAL.

If you lack creative skills, Second Life will seem kinda boring unless one can tap into the social side of the game. I was fortunate to be involved with both aspects designing and building art galleries.

There is actual game play in Second Life. There are plenty of scripted game systems within the virtual world. While the game mechanics may not be as sophisticated as a typical game, there are whole RPG systems where people dress up and act out RP.

But, that doesn't mean you "must" RP. My entire time in Second Life was me just being me. No RP involved.

Now, why I hate Second Life is because there is a serious lack of control over content outside of one's own land. What made me leave the game is that SL's virtual world is a complete mess. Much of the building going on in that world is done by amateurs who have poor taste or lack the skill to create anything half way decent. The amount of spam in the form of large, obnoxious rotating ad signs was simply overwhelming. Linden Labs allows its users to break down the land into tiny parcels which are only good enough to stack one of those rotating ads from the ground all the way up into the sky.

After I had invested $200 in some mainland (on the new continent), I was subsequently (as well as my other neighbors) attacked by those ad farmers with their griefing policy of buying up as much land as possible, sectioning it up into the smallest parcels possible and placing dozens of ads. If one doesn't like the ads, the griefers say to buy the land the ads are placed on. Of course, these griefers would massively jack up the price for these tiny parcels. Linden Labs offers no recourse for the legitimate user in protecting themselves from these ads. There I was building my space port for A. a massive art gallery and B. a dance club. When I realized there was nothing I could do about the invasion of those ad griefers, I decided to quit Second Life. Yes, I know I could have rented estate land, but I didn't want to have to follow another land owners rules. I could have also bought a much bigger parcel of land so that the ads on the edges of my property wouldn't have been so effective. But, then, I would have had to make an initial investment of $500 or more and I simply was not prepared to do so at the time. I wouldn't have made the money back except through monthly donations, but, alas, the project never really took off (after I had spent so much time making custom textures too!!).

I love the concept of the non-gaming virtual world like Second Life. Because SL can practically be anything, it can be considered an MMORPG (because there are massive people playing and there are a myriad of RPing going on within SL). While the ad griefing was what made me leave Second Life, I must say that if you are into art and music, Second Life is incredibly amazing for that. Artists of all types have flocked to Second Life. There are hundreds of art galleries, dance clubs, live music venues. There are real people playing real instruments via live streaming at practically all hours of the day. Second Life has a lot to offer the new user and is a great place to meet new people.

One day I will return to a virtual world, but I am personally waiting for a new one. I think LL has too much of a monopolistic control over the virtual world concept and they are too slow to implement features that will help users have more control over the world. They're too busying wooing people with feature after feature but not doing much to clean up their own world. I'm waiting for a new company to come around and offer a more modern virtual world (with high end graphics, etc) who can hopefully offer a better virtual world experience.

1 rent some land 50$ per month

2 split the land and rent those little spots as stores

3  balance those prices so at the end of the month you get enough to pay for next month's land fee + a little extra for you to put in your pockets.

there that is the basics of building a ingame mall

While I love everything you've got to say, this bit of advice right here is another thing that killed it for me in Second Life: malls.

Geez, I would say the majority of building types in Second Life are malls. Malls are everywhere. It is disgusting. I would say a good 70% of them are empty and never have much traffic. I had spent countless hours simply flying all over the place and all I ever saw was one stupid mall after another. And, for the most part, they were all selling the same things.

It is misleading to think one can simply create a mall and make money. This is why Second Life is littered with junk buildings like malls because dumb people seem to think all they have to do is buy a "mall in the box" item and set it up and they'll be rich. The end result: The shitty landscape that is the mainland areas of Second Life.

$50 a month for land will get you squat. Yeah, maybe you could put two houses (or more if you want people to live in tiny spaces) on the plot, but again, this is another blight upon the landscape of Second Life. The second most building type in SL are neighborhoods of various sizes. I must say that estate owners get this right by offering people a theme for their neighborhood living. However, on the mainland, there are countless number of "neighborhoods" which are uninhabited because again too many dumb people thought they could throw up a few houses and get rich. Now the landscape is littered with thousands of unused homes.

Oh and another thing I hated about Second Life: BAN LINES. Nothing was more infuriating than flying around and bumping into walls that either LL or users set up barring people from crossing a certain parcel of land. The sense of freedom SL offers is destroyed when happily flying around and constantly bumping into these quasi-invisible walls. Bad bad design move on LL's part. I am hoping a future virtual world does not follow this route. If anything, may the contents on said land invisible to me as I fly over, but don't throw up a wall just because some asshat doesn't want people to see his pron torture chamber in his house.

Originally posted by MChavez

 

1 rent some land 50$ per month

2 split the land and rent those little spots as stores

3  balance those prices so at the end of the month you get enough to pay for next month's land fee + a little extra for you to put in your pockets.

there that is the basics of building a ingame mall

 

While I love everything you've got to say, this bit of advice right here is another thing that killed it for me in Second Life: malls.

Geez, I would say the majority of building types in Second Life are malls. Malls are everywhere. It is disgusting. I would say a good 70% of them are empty and never have much traffic. I had spent countless hours simply flying all over the place and all I ever saw was one stupid mall after another. And, for the most part, they were all selling the same things.

It is misleading to think one can simply create a mall and make money. This is why Second Life is littered with junk buildings like malls because dumb people seem to think all they have to do is buy a "mall in the box" item and set it up and they'll be rich. The end result: The shitty landscape that is the mainland areas of Second Life.

$50 a month for land will get you squat. Yeah, maybe you could put two houses (or more if you want people to live in tiny spaces) on the plot, but again, this is another blight upon the landscape of Second Life. The second most building type in SL are neighborhoods of various sizes. I must say that estate owners get this right by offering people a theme for their neighborhood living. However, on the mainland, there are countless number of "neighborhoods" which are uninhabited because again too many dumb people thought they could throw up a few houses and get rich. Now the landscape is littered with thousands of unused homes.

Oh and another thing I hated about Second Life: BAN LINES. Nothing was more infuriating than flying around and bumping into walls that either LL or users set up barring people from crossing a certain parcel of land. The sense of freedom SL offers is destroyed when happily flying around and constantly bumping into these quasi-invisible walls. Bad bad design move on LL's part. I am hoping a future virtual world does not follow this route. If anything, may the contents on said land invisible to me as I fly over, but don't throw up a wall just because some asshat doesn't want people to see his pron torture chamber in his house.

you have to do a bit of research first and get a target audience.and take advantage of what they need. the example i stated above is the basic start, any stupid person can dish out 50$ and place a "business in a box mall" but it takes some work and research and some basic design/modeling skills to make 100$ profits per month with 50$ investment

Shesh the money in that game should at least be somewhat free, and the rest of your commentary I really do feel like Reading/Commenting on.

See, there's tons of things people can do in this game, some common things are:

Building - 3D modeling of sorts

Animimating - "3D modeling" with characters

Texturing - Putting the cool colors and things on the stuff people build

Clothing design - "Texturing" avatars

Scripting - My specialty, alike programming <==

These things all take time to learn how to do and some require enormous amounts of skill. But to SOME people it's fun to learn these things and blahblahblah.

I think it's fun...I'm addicted ._.

I don't think it's a game, I think it's more of a platform, for social and development. In alot of ways it has pretty powerful development tools, though I think there is plenty of flaws.

Originally posted by ShizzyBoi

See, there's tons of things people can do in this game, some common things are:

Building - 3D modeling of sorts

Animimating - "3D modeling" with characters

Texturing - Putting the cool colors and things on the stuff people build

Clothing design - "Texturing" avatars

Scripting - My specialty, alike programming <==

 

These things all take time to learn how to do and some require enormous amounts of skill. But to SOME people it's fun to learn these things and blahblahblah.

 

I think it's fun...I'm addicted ._.

advertizing (like lego and apple)

business presentations

business meetings - i think its less cheaper to make buy a sim and build it instead of sending 10 people to china all expenses hotel food and what not pay for a 2 day meeting than just get a sim and build a virtual meeting room where your clients/employees can get an avatar for free and teleport in sit down and listen to the big boss talk about how the company is getting saving money.

also is good for socialization meeting people online.

hell there are even some university professors that use second life as means to teach a class long distance.

and many more ways to use it.

Originally posted by tillamook

I don't think it's a game, I think it's more of a platform, for social and development. In alot of ways it has pretty powerful development tools, though I think there is plenty of flaws.

It's NOT a game.  It's a Platform.

         Never wanted to post a comment until now.

Whoo, how to start this...

Okay, I see where some of you people are coming from. My first experience with SL was bad. I thought the game was terrible! Nobody cared to pay attention to me, they had ugly free clothes, and if i remember, I started out naked! Honestly! (btw, this was a few years back haha)

I had no idea about 'freebies'. And I was pretty much dumping SL. I had no intention of staying in a place like that!

Finally, I tried again. A decent (yet boring) tutorial came up, and I wasnt naked this time. And the free clothes werent too bad, either. After I got out, i immediately met Kai Paine, who offered me a wonderful 'welcome gift'. Someone else even gave me a pack of skins and hair 'for helpness noobs'. xD

And for those complaining about clothes...come on! Just search for freebies. Sure, it takes a lot of clawing and searching, but if you look hard enough, you can find a few gems. Ive found free animation overriders, free lovely clothing (check out free dove for high quality freebies ;) ), HUDs that enable stuff like kissing and hugging, so many things.

And freebies arent even the half of it!Just find a good blog (like Natalia Zelmanov's SL Adventures) to find interesting places. She has supplied me with some of the best places I have ever gone in SL. She found a recreation of Slient Hill (way cool ;D), many RolePlay areas (nonsexual!), sports like skydiving/surfing/skiing, etc.

Really, just look for it. If you have a steady start, you can get into it. I don't even buy Linden Dollars, and I have a good job and a wonderful skybox. Ive been playing...what, 3 months?

Speaking of look for it...those who find sexual stuff, you must be acually looking for it. Just like the internet, you search for what you want. Are you typing in 'club'? be more specific to avoid sexual clubs. Type in 'porn' what do you get? BE SPECIFIC. And dont compalin if you are ovviously looking for it int he first place.

Acually try it before judgement. Ooy...

I like the concept but good grief couldnt they have made better graphics ? And the crafting could have been made more familiar like star wars galaxies.

I would expect graphics to be superior to most MMO's considering there is no combat in this game. Instead it looks like something we'd see 10 yrs ago

Originally posted by admriker4

I like the concept but good grief couldnt they have made better graphics ? And the crafting could have been made more familiar like star wars galaxies.

I would expect graphics to be superior to most MMO's considering there is no combat in this game. Instead it looks like something we'd see 10 yrs ago

Because it's all player created, I've seen some pretty decent 3-D modeling in SL though. And  crafting is not really crafting in SL, it's actually modeling, and you could never script in SWG. There are some Universities in SL that have done some superb scripting and modeling in SL.

Originally posted by tillamook

I don't think it's a game, I think it's more of a platform, for social and development. In alot of ways it has pretty powerful development tools, though I think there is plenty of flaws.

Couldn't agree more.  They're making a platform for users to create.  You make and experience what you want.  That's the draw.

Originally posted by admriker4

I like the concept but good grief couldnt they have made better graphics ? And the crafting could have been made more familiar like star wars galaxies.

I would expect graphics to be superior to most MMO's considering there is no combat in this game. Instead it looks like something we'd see 10 yrs ago

Agreed. There needs to be a massive graphics overhaul.

Originally posted by selbie

Originally posted by admriker4

I would expect graphics to be superior to most MMO's considering there is no combat in this game. Instead it looks like something we'd see 10 yrs ago

Agreed. There needs to be a massive graphics overhaul.

Try the Windlight Client.

I was always complaining about SL looking like WoW with its dated graphics.  Then they came out with the Windlight Client.  MUCH better!! 

http://release-candidate-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/Second_Life_1-20-8-88152_ReleaseCandidate_Setup.exe

It's no "Crysis", but pretty damn good for something that has to stream everything.

I must admit that its not for everyone.  Those with older systems may not benefit much.

But hey!  I pull in 30-60+ FPS most places, so I'm not complaining!! 

 **EDIT**

For the post about someone's friend encountering "NAMBLA"? 

I say "Bull".  Been there 4 yrs and have yet to see any sign of them being there.  Even if they were there, groups like that are quickly banned and the FBI notified of them.

Why would your friend go looking for NAMBLA anyways?

I hate second life because it doesn't give me the escapism I want.  If I wanted to check out girls in short skirts or signs saying "Obama 08" I can do that by taking a walk down the street.