Second Life

What's hot, what's not. General Video Game discussion
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Second Life

Post by 23Jarden »

An interesting noun. Second Life is a virtual world started by Linden Lab and then created by the users. I searched if a topic like this had been made and didn't find anything. It's basically where you can create an avatar and do just about anything you want. You can even use Second Life to make real money. I haven't played it yet. I don't have a highspeed internet connection. Even so, I decided to tell those of you who haven't heard of it yet. A basic acount is free. additional basic acounts cost $10 per. :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life
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Post by MattSullivan »

NO! NOOO! Run away! Second life will consume you and never spit you out! Everyone I know who gets into Second life is never heard from again! ( Seriously, they seem to spend 100% of their time there )
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Post by 23Jarden »

lol I keep an electric alarm that zaps me everytime I go over the limit.
:bombzom: we need a struck by lightning emoticon...
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Post by Machine-Whisperer »

I registered on SL before,. not half as interesting as I thought it to be unfortunately....

I knew no one, and the modelling program they had on their was cumbersome.
and my net was too slow to load stuff properly.
Bah... Stupid Case sensitive Email. Lets try this again !
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Post by Vuldari »

Great idea...too buggy...as mindless as a chat-room and just as ripe with foul language and lewd behavior...

I messed around with it for a few months...but just got tired of all of the effort I was putting into it not bringing much back, and it never working right so I just uninstalled it and never went back.

If anyone ever makes a more solid and refined game, with an equal (infinate) amount of character customization...and a little more point to it besides a 3D chat-room...I would love to try it again.
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Post by RedEye »

Sorry, Vuldari: It's become worse. If you don't have a high speed connection, you're in trouble, since it's all streaming.
I tried to cancel my membership after they screwed up my LogIn, and guess what; they screwed that up too. :x
Finally, I had the bank just stop the quarterly payments. Now all I get are reminders, and I still can't log in to tell them I quit!
While it's a good idea, their method is not-quite-there yet.
Second life is something that needs another few evolutions in computing to work, but when it does; it'll be hawt!
Imagine a wrap-around set of eyeglasses and stereo headphones. Then people would go in and never come back. As of now-- :P
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Post by MattSullivan »

Second Life....EVIL.

Second Life.....WASTE OF PRECIOUS LIFE....

Second Life....filthy...full of lewdness..

SECOND LIFE...Stay away from it...
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Post by LoboLEO »

I played it for...3 days... I got a funny "werewolf" skin.... that was nothing like I could've liked so :P ...settings-> uninstall. Because if I'm gonna play something that isn't a play -but a chat with funny stuf to look at...well at least I hope for real nice 3d graphics and not another dolls game version like The sims . :lol:
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Post by Machine-Whisperer »

the biggest problem with SL I recon is that you can't import or export 3D models into it,

Hell I'd be making a fortune selling my maya and max models on there. But nooo.
Bah... Stupid Case sensitive Email. Lets try this again !
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Post by Vuldari »

Machine-Whisperer wrote:the biggest problem with SL I recon is that you can't import or export 3D models into it,

Hell I'd be making a fortune selling my maya and max models on there. But nooo.
Yes you can. I don't know how, but I know that you can. I remember reading up on how to make "Advanced" models for character design, etc, and I know there was an entire section about modeling things in other programs first and then instructions on how to put them in...but I didn't have any of the programs it asked for at the time, so I didn't bother to learn any of it.

You can't import "ANYTHING"...whatever it is, it has to conform to the limitations of the SL game engine, but I'm 99.9% positive you can.

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Post by White Paw »

second life is the biggest piece of s*** crap ive ever had on my comp, ive since erased it off and plan to not return. :x :P
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Post by Vuldari »

I don't know if I would quite say that.

The constant lag due to the streaming of Everything made it very frustrating to try to do anything with, and the stupid behavior of many of the games inhabitants made it an undesirable place to hang out in many in-game continents, but the creative freedom it allowed was quite fun.

If you were patient and dedicated enough, you could construct a skyscraper on the spot and then invite people inside, or speed-model a hover board and ride around on it (if you knew what you were doing...which I didn't).


Some games allow a fair amount of character customization...but all of them look painfully limited compared to SL.

Second Life was the first game in which I was able to truly make my character Whatever I wanted. I could be a crawling baby, or a Robotic Pikachu, or a 20-foot tall Optimus Prime, or just a plain old human, or whatever I could come up with, (or chose to buy from someone else).

True to myself, I wasted little time custom modeling ( my first interactive 3D modeling experience) an avatar that suited me...

Image


...true, I uninstalled and deleted it as well, since the bugs and frustrations ultimately outweighed the positives for me...but it was still a good Idea, and I'm glad I at least tried it.
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Post by White Paw »

well i unfortunately got turned on to it for all the wrong reasons (i.e. Yiff) and since then ive been coming to an realization that doing that with people you dont know can lead to lonliness and sorrow especially if (like me) i have a loving mate here for me :(
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Post by MattSullivan »

Run! Run screaming from the pointlessness of second life!
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Post by 23Jarden »

Oh, Dammit. Why did you have to say pointless? I love pointless things. :P
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Post by Figarou »

MattSullivan wrote:Run! Run screaming from the pointlessness of second life!

I "second" that.

(Pun intended) :jester:
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Post by Fang »

so........ in a way Second life becomes your whole life

*Runs screaming from the combined terror of Second Life and the bad puns*
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Post by Kaebora »

I like your character Vuldari. I was thinking of downloading the game for the mere chance of testing models with it in conjuction with Lightwave. Still, I think the community of that game sounds like something to avoid, and I will avoid them. That effectively keeps me from wasting too much time talking with strange perverts online.
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Second Life

Post by RedEye »

All in all, Second Life is a good attempt, and Linden Labs are to be congratulated for their attempt.
Having said that; Second Life is an idea well ahead of it's time and decidedly ahead of the support infrastructure available to it. It depends entirely on streamed data from Linden's computers (I sneaked a peek at it as I uninstalled it) AND if it were on a dedicated system, it'd be great.
It isn't, so it isn't.
The change from a literal Second LIfe to a chatroom with hard to use CG Characters is due (IMHO) to Linden's not policing things well enough. It was supposed to literally be a Second Life, where you could be who and what you are, under your skin; where you could become a Millionaire, or an explorer, or whatever...but Linden had to pay the bills and buy up more servers and more Mainframe time, and thus, Second Life has become what it is today.
The silly-sad thing is- it works this way! People don't buy up land, build their perfect home, and live a Second-more rewarding-Life. They stagger around and chat. That Island was supposed to be an electronic Disneyland, a place of fantasy and magic. Instead, it's hardly used as the inhabitants just talk, talk, talk and do nothing, for the most part. That "Fly" option in the movement pack wasn't supposed to be there; it was put in to try to get people to move around the island and see what was available...and even that didn't work.
Perhaps a new version, more to the original ides could be floated, but it would be expensive, moreso than the current version is, and too much talk winds you up in the BAR, with no money and a hangover...that would work.
Imagine WoW without the constant violence; where you could settle and have a family and live your Second Life your way...alas, the system just won't handle it. You'd have a Huge HomeLoad on your computer that was your gateway, and instead of streaming, you'd update as needed at speeds that wouldn't max out your systems.
Perhaps, someday, the concept behind Second Life will get a new chance...in a few years...under someone else. Linden is now wedded to the current dull difficult system because it's profitable...not necessarily fun.
But then fun is what the customer wants, isn't it? I guess these customers want to wear a bad GC and talk, talk, talk.
I used to get fussed at because I moved around, rather than talk. Too bad. :cry:
BTW, Vuldari: That Fox is good work. It shows what the game was capable of. Once.
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Post by Vuldari »

Hey, thanks for the compliments. 90% of the time I spent in that game before I gave up on it was spent creating that guy. This was my third version (I didn't save any snapshots of the first two...not that there was anything to see...they sucked) and I was planning to add alot more detail to it, like adding a "fluffy" effect to the tail and parts of the body, fixing the mouth and adding teeth, removing the spike heel from my digitigrade feet, etc, etc. ...but the game just seemed to get slower and buggier every time I played, and I had to update the game every other time I logged on, so I just got tired of it and deleted it.

Also, as RedEye said, most of what everyone does in SL is just talk, and talk and talk, (and show off weird animations and sound clips...many of which I wished I had not seen or heard, though some were genuinely really funny or entertaining too), and I'm just not a chatty person like that, so I felt like a constant outsider while I was there, just wandering around aimlessly.


In spite of the numerous technical and organizational faults, I REALLY REALLY like the ideas behind it, and hope very much to see someone else try something like this again in the near future. There is alot of potential there.


While I was playing it, sometimes I wished there was an option to run a dedicated "Home Base" version of the game where you could model your own continent on your own home computer, do most of your creative stuff there where there is ZERO LAG, and maybe Import completed , and compiled models back into the MMO world, or just invite a dozen online friends into your own little world, and then go visit theirs.


...ugh...the STREAMING LAG! The more I think about it, the more I remember how much a HATED it. Sometimes I would be playing for a full 20-minutes and my own avatars ears have not even loaded onto my character yet, and the textures are still default. ...invisible walls everywhere from buildings that are physically there, but you will not be able to see even 20% of for at least another 5-minutes. I could click on an interactive object for a full hour and nothing would happen. ...then 20 minutes after I walk away, a message will pop up 10 times asking me what I want to do with the object that is now a mile away from me.


Again, I love the idea behind it. I think "FreeForm" RPG's like SecondLife should become an entire genre. That would be sweet. Sooner or later, Someone would get it "Right".
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Post by White Paw »

Fang wrote:so........ in a way Second life becomes your whole life

*Runs screaming from the combined terror of Second Life and the bad puns*

second life drains all the life out of you and leaves you lying on the ground a skinny corpse of wasted life... :P


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Post by 23Jarden »

Vuldari wrote:While I was playing it, sometimes I wished there was an option to run a dedicated "Home Base" version of the game where you could your own continent on your own home computer, do most of your creative stuff there where there is ZERO LAG, and maybe Import completed , and compiled s back into the MMO world, or just invite a dozen online friends into your own little world, and then go visit theirs.
Have you sent that to them? That sounds like a good idea. (That would cash out pretty well, too.)
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Second Life as a "Home Base" system

Post by RedEye »

While the idea is very tempting, most home PC's just don't have the RAM to make it work. Think at least 1.5 Gig for a reliable game system: that's what makes the gaming consoles so good: they have a huge RAM.
Vuldari has the right idea, though; Second life as a Home Computer based game with plug-in modules from the provider, that load online.
Vuldari mentioned the pain he had creating his Fox character: That is due to the priority placed on non-standard Character generation-Low. It isn't any easier "buying" a character at one of the "shops" unless you want to keep it exactly as-is: once you go into the special character generator, you go to the end of the line, priority wise.
Linden is in business to make money. They have a huge number of servers and are renting space on a Mainframe as well. The slowness and buggyness of the game is due to exactly one thing: conversations. Since the game has gone world-wide, although English is the language of choice, there is a lot of computer time spent on routing messages from one blabbermouth to another yackeytongue.
The way I'd do it, is to put conversations on a separate channel, which would free up computer power for movement. Charater creation would have its own separate domain, with processing time devoted solely to character creation and stabilization (sometimes a created character would default to the standard nebbish for as long as two hours because the system was under load).
The main problem is that people seem to like the system, buggy as it is, because they can talk to others. SL should set up a chatroom, and leave the game to the gamers. I've been cussed at becauser I was busy and didn't respond to a message fast enough- or at all- which made me decide that SL wasn't for me. Complaining was fruitless.
Perhaps if we were to keep annoying the people at Linden enough, they might consider seting up a second second life, for people who want to do what the game was originally for-Have a Second, Fun and Enjoyable, Life.
Considering the co$t involved, though...I'd counsel waiting for a new version with blabber controls.
I was serious about the idea of automatically dumping the yackers in the BAR and letting them talk there if that was all they wanted to do.
Even saying that excessive talking was bad would help, but Linden wants the money and so...Au Revoir, Second Life. You were fun, once...
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Post by Vuldari »

Hmmm...that's interesting...

Out of pure curiosity, I tried to log in on the SL site and was suprised to find that my account it still considered "ACTIVE". I assumed that after never logging on for over a year, they would have just deleted it.

...weird...



[[ Edit: Well, out of further curiosity I re-installed it and sure enough, everything was just as I left it. The game is virtually exactly the same as it was a year ago, except that I'm getting a smoother framerate now than before, (due to me having a faster connection...not to SL running any smoother. The Streaming lag is still almost as bad.) ...and just as it was a year ago, there really doesn't seem to be any point for me to be there. I don't chat, and I don't have 5-hours to help build a Star Destroyer, so...well, that's it. I logged off.

SL is maybe a little TOO open ended. There is nothing to do besides just EXIST there.

If it played a little more like a "Game", it might be more fun. Someone really needs to OUT DO this game. It would be an enormous project, but there are just so many arias where it could be easily done better. Less or No streaming would be a good place to start. Character models should be solid and compiled, (after customization) in gameplay. Same with the environments and everything in them. That would essentially require you to "download" someones entire character before you can see them, but I think it would be worth it if it meant actual "playable" interaction.

Having separated game worlds for different kinds of gameplay (and variant, game-specific physics/rules) such as 'Driving Simulation' Environments (where user created vehicles could race on user created race tracks with real/arcade driving physics), FPS evironments (custom maps, Deathmatch/Capture the Flag/etc. matches, all with everyone playing with game-specific FPS Avatars that conform to the game rules, size/shape limitations, etc.), Platfomer environments (MMO Psudo Super Mario 64 anyone?), and likewise for all other gameplay genres, plus a generic overworld connecting them all where you could just hang out as your unique, un-environment-restricted Self (SL style), and chat and do all that sort of stuff...would be the way to go, I think.

It would basically be a whole bunch of basic, bare-bones game engines tied together by a core "User Created" based community world where people could create simple games, upload them to the community servers (or run private games off their own private servers) and challenge others to play with them, or just spectate from a safe distance.

A "Second Life" Killer with a POINT... OMG!!! Image


...Too bad it doesn't exist... ...yet... ]]
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The Fox's idea...

Post by RedEye »

Good points, Vuldari. You might check your bank account to see if SL is still deducting from your bank account (if that's the method you chose).
SL gave me the feeling that they are still running on the ragged edge, and they may well be, since their membership has steadily grown, while their system performance is basically unchanged.

Perhaps this format would work:
The HUB: where your character is stored (as well as on your computer) as a .gif file. Also in the HUB is the Creche; where new players get a body or make their own with customizable base forms, the Bank; where your character's money and owned assets are stored, and finally the Gateways; to the various worlds available.
The WORLDS: using a good, non-flakey game engine with, say, six basic worlds: Combat, Homestead, I-Spy, ActionAdventure Land, Explorer, and Alien World. Combat is self explanatory, Homestead lets the player build a Homestead in "the newer world", I-spy is espionage against "The Bad Guys" , ActionAdventure is just that and most like the usual run of Computer and Console games, Explorer is exploring "the Newer world" without building anything (Tomb Robber), and Alien World drops you into an Alien world, complete with gainable rayguns and floatercraft.
Note: This is really three games, with different scenery to differ them...
Your base character (in your case, an Anthro-Fox) has challenges to meet, valueables to gain, romance (either CG-AI or another player), and a chance to really die if you mess up.
Since this is ALL off-the-shelf stuff, it shouldn't be that hard to do.
I'd play my Werewolf character, first hiding from the Smooths; then trying (after the Equality order) to mix in...just like in my eventually to be published book.
There are plenty of Story lines, heck; there might be a "Freeborn" track; and enough depth to give the player a good time without bankrupting people with license fees...
And Conversation would be limited to, say, fifty characters per speech opportunity...no blabbermouths here!
It'd be what Second Life was supposed to be...Fun.
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