I'll admit, that I've wasted some cash in that game that I wish I could get back. But the game doesn't suck for the right people. Of course it will suck for those that expect alot. I think the game still has its ways to go. If, you go in for the right reason, the right focus or the right idea of what you expect of the game, meaning reading info about the game and visinting forums, you would know what the game can offer. Ya 90% is selling. If your interested, you can sell and make some cash. Someone commented that the game is close to reality, and in our life, everywhere you look something is selling. If you expect sex.. you can find it there (unfortunetly). You want to find roleplay buddies, whether modern RP, sci-fi, fantasy/medieval, sports, racing, war games, you can find it, just use the search and you can find it. It won't be anything like World of Warcraft or Couterstrike.
I like it when I spend cash.. and make my avatar look cool and all, but I plan on selling stuff so I can make that money back and more.. so for me it's exciting and fun. But don't take my word for it..
This thing shouldnt be considered MMORPG in the first place... if you are a loser and want to spend lots of money on this, then its the best option for ya
although i agree not being an MMORPG and should not be on this site, i do not think it sucks
well the 100$/month that go in my pockets say it dont suck.
1) i stay away from all that cybersex thing making my little place rated PG
2) i am a 3D animator/modeler so i can actually make decent stuff
3) those decent stuff i sell to Role Playing sims (usually fantasy RP)
4) i get 100$ per month in my pockets for doing a hobby. that i can use to treat my Girlfriend to a very nice dinner. or if she pissed me off i can get myself a new PSP game
5) Others, even if they pay some cash, do actually have a good time in those RP places. but rarely one will spend +15$/month to RP in there.
6) those who spend more than 15$/month are usually the cybersex ones that are willing to pay 15USD$ for 30 minutes of virtual sex... (shivers) but hey thats their business and not mine.
but i have to make it clear.
DO NOT go in Second life to play like any other MMORPG
DO NOT go in Second life to make money
DO go in Second life to experiment a business idea you had, or practice starting a business. you do not have to spend millions to do so
DO go in Second life to RolePlay fantasy starwars scifi stargate postapocalyptic world etc..... (but expect to pay for stuff you will need and try not to go over 15$/month to keep it in levels with other MMOgs)
as for trying out business ideas or practice it here is a basic example that every one knows
1 rent some land 50$ 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
my little business i have in there is a bit more complex than that, but i learned so much from it that i started a Real life business based on that idea and i can tell you its paying for a house a car a computer internet etc....
so you can all go back to paying your 15$/month to spend your saturday nights at home raiding or wtv you do (generally speaking of course since i dont know all your lives) and get nothing in return.
so you can all go back to paying your 15$/month to spend your saturday nights at home raiding or wtv you do (generally speaking of course since i dont know all your lives) and get nothing in return.
Thats the way I see it.
You could spend $180/year on Warcraft. Get nothing but a game in return other than hours & days wasted playing a game.
OR, for FREE basic or $72/year Premium, do something in Second Life.
I have yet to pay ANY money out of my pocket. It's all paid for by stuff I made over a year ago. I roll out some new stuff every so often. On average I get about $300-$500 a month out of it. NO all night grinding sessions, no searching for "stuff", no leveling up (unless you count real world income! )
Odds are though, most people reading these forums are under 18, and would be stuck on the Teen Grid.
so you can all go back to paying your 15$/month to spend your saturday nights at home raiding or wtv you do (generally speaking of course since i dont know all your lives) and get nothing in return.
Thats the way I see it.
You could spend $180/year on Warcraft. Get nothing but a game in return other than hours & days wasted playing a game.
OR, for FREE basic or $72/year Premium, do something in Second Life.
I have yet to pay ANY money out of my pocket. It's all paid for by stuff I made over a year ago. I roll out some new stuff every so often. On average I get about $300-$500 a month out of it. NO all night grinding sessions, no searching for "stuff", no leveling up (unless you count real world income! )
Odds are though, most people reading these forums are under 18, and would be stuck on the Teen Grid.
500$ US /month? what is it that you do?
i just craft stuff for RP Sims (swords mainly) an di get 80-100$/month profit the land preaty much pays for itself.
Alright, half of what I've seen on this thread is really good input on the game and the other half is just people trying to spew out their anger on a forum thread (shame on you! ). But anyways, I know this may be a bias opinion but I've been on Second Life for a little over two years now and I see everybody doesn't really have the same view towards the game as I do. I believe Second Life is what you make it some of you were saying how "It's just one big porn fest" well once again, it is what you make it. You can actually disable the Mature rated sims and avoid all porn areas and never set eyes on porn if you want. Some people get on Second Life just to talk to friends (like me) and others use it as a 2nd income. For you see most of you are giving one dimensional views at Second Life basing your whole opinions on the game off of one thing that could have completely been avoided. I'm not telling you that you should just automatically love this game and take back everything you've said just because of what I've said, I just want you to understand that different people have different views at the game, and it's the same for all MMORPGS and games in general, there are mixed opinions on everything and I just think that sometimes it's better to keep your opinion to yourself, especially when it doesn't benefit anybody's understanding of Second Life. Thanks.
like i try to search for places to go. and 70% lists as porn, and the other 20% has pornographic material of some kind, and it is all so disgusting! especially those animals or furries w.e they call them" -- imrodus 10/10/07 5:18:34 PM
well Second Life a fine game because it's mostly user made but I do hate these facts 1 Money is scarce and seldom to find and when you get it it's not enough to get anything. what you are looking for is free money then? lindens are like real UDS$. 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.
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.
$50 a month for land will get you squat. Yeah, maybe you could put two houses (or more if you want people to live in tiny spaces) on the plot, but again, this is another blight upon the landscape of Second Life. The second most building type in SL are neighborhoods of various sizes. I must say that estate owners get this right by offering people a theme for their neighborhood living. However, on the mainland, there are countless number of "neighborhoods" which are uninhabited because again too many dumb people thought they could throw up a few houses and get rich. Now the landscape is littered with thousands of unused homes.
Oh and another thing I hated about Second Life: BAN LINES. Nothing was more infuriating than flying around and bumping into walls that either LL or users set up barring people from crossing a certain parcel of land. The sense of freedom SL offers is destroyed when happily flying around and constantly bumping into these quasi-invisible walls. Bad bad design move on LL's part. I am hoping a future virtual world does not follow this route. If anything, may the contents on said land invisible to me as I fly over, but don't throw up a wall just because some asshat doesn't want people to see his pron torture chamber in his house.
1 rent some land 50$ 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.
yes you are correct in there, 70% of second life are litter filled malls with "business in a box" freebies that people expec tthey can sell. but you have to be smarter than that, specialize your mall and make it into a speciality store. a 4000m^2 land is enough to place a decent sized structure and display your creations. in my case i specialized in making swords of different combat systems DCS Spellfire safezone GCS LCK... etc.... and went around to fantasy rp sim owners and told them i make standard legitimate swords and they can be found at the tower of 1000 swords. i have a good portion of custumers that come into my store JUST to buy swords. they are looking for swords, what better place to go to find one than a specialized store that makes only swords.
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
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 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.
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 ._.
its also a great tool for business
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.
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.
And you have just stated what I've said all along:
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.
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
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.
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.
Comments
I'll admit, that I've wasted some cash in that game that I wish I could get back. But the game doesn't suck for the right people. Of course it will suck for those that expect alot. I think the game still has its ways to go. If, you go in for the right reason, the right focus or the right idea of what you expect of the game, meaning reading info about the game and visinting forums, you would know what the game can offer. Ya 90% is selling. If your interested, you can sell and make some cash. Someone commented that the game is close to reality, and in our life, everywhere you look something is selling. If you expect sex.. you can find it there (unfortunetly). You want to find roleplay buddies, whether modern RP, sci-fi, fantasy/medieval, sports, racing, war games, you can find it, just use the search and you can find it. It won't be anything like World of Warcraft or Couterstrike.
I like it when I spend cash.. and make my avatar look cool and all, but I plan on selling stuff so I can make that money back and more.. so for me it's exciting and fun. But don't take my word for it..
This thing shouldnt be considered MMORPG in the first place... if you are a loser and want to spend lots of money on this, then its the best option for ya
although i agree not being an MMORPG and should not be on this site, i do not think it sucks
well the 100$/month that go in my pockets say it dont suck.
1) i stay away from all that cybersex thing making my little place rated PG
2) i am a 3D animator/modeler so i can actually make decent stuff
3) those decent stuff i sell to Role Playing sims (usually fantasy RP)
4) i get 100$ per month in my pockets for doing a hobby. that i can use to treat my Girlfriend to a very nice dinner. or if she pissed me off i can get myself a new PSP game
5) Others, even if they pay some cash, do actually have a good time in those RP places. but rarely one will spend +15$/month to RP in there.
6) those who spend more than 15$/month are usually the cybersex ones that are willing to pay 15USD$ for 30 minutes of virtual sex... (shivers) but hey thats their business and not mine.
but i have to make it clear.
DO NOT go in Second life to play like any other MMORPG
DO NOT go in Second life to make money
DO go in Second life to experiment a business idea you had, or practice starting a business. you do not have to spend millions to do so
DO go in Second life to RolePlay fantasy starwars scifi stargate postapocalyptic world etc..... (but expect to pay for stuff you will need and try not to go over 15$/month to keep it in levels with other MMOgs)
as for trying out business ideas or practice it here is a basic example that every one knows
1 rent some land 50$ 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
my little business i have in there is a bit more complex than that, but i learned so much from it that i started a Real life business based on that idea and i can tell you its paying for a house a car a computer internet etc....
so you can all go back to paying your 15$/month to spend your saturday nights at home raiding or wtv you do (generally speaking of course since i dont know all your lives) and get nothing in return.
Thats the way I see it.
You could spend $180/year on Warcraft. Get nothing but a game in return other than hours & days wasted playing a game.
OR, for FREE basic or $72/year Premium, do something in Second Life.
I have yet to pay ANY money out of my pocket. It's all paid for by stuff I made over a year ago. I roll out some new stuff every so often. On average I get about $300-$500 a month out of it. NO all night grinding sessions, no searching for "stuff", no leveling up (unless you count real world income!
)
Odds are though, most people reading these forums are under 18, and would be stuck on the Teen Grid.
Thats the way I see it.
You could spend $180/year on Warcraft. Get nothing but a game in return other than hours & days wasted playing a game.
OR, for FREE basic or $72/year Premium, do something in Second Life.
I have yet to pay ANY money out of my pocket. It's all paid for by stuff I made over a year ago. I roll out some new stuff every so often. On average I get about $300-$500 a month out of it. NO all night grinding sessions, no searching for "stuff", no leveling up (unless you count real world income!
)
Odds are though, most people reading these forums are under 18, and would be stuck on the Teen Grid.
500$ US /month? what is it that you do?i just craft stuff for RP Sims (swords mainly) an di get 80-100$/month profit the land preaty much pays for itself.
Skins. Giant sized avatars (godzilla, etc). Odds N ends.
Got 'em on SLExchange too.
Alright, half of what I've seen on this thread is really good input on the game and the other half is just people trying to spew out their anger on a forum thread (shame on you!
). But anyways, I know this may be a bias opinion but I've been on Second Life for a little over two years now and I see everybody doesn't really have the same view towards the game as I do. I believe Second Life is what you make it some of you were saying how "It's just one big porn fest" well once again, it is what you make it. You can actually disable the Mature rated sims and avoid all porn areas and never set eyes on porn if you want. Some people get on Second Life just to talk to friends (like me) and others use it as a 2nd income. For you see most of you are giving one dimensional views at Second Life basing your whole opinions on the game off of one thing that could have completely been avoided. I'm not telling you that you should just automatically love this game and take back everything you've said just because of what I've said, I just want you to understand that different people have different views at the game, and it's the same for all MMORPGS and games in general, there are mixed opinions on everything and I just think that sometimes it's better to keep your opinion to yourself, especially when it doesn't benefit anybody's understanding of Second Life. Thanks. 
I think it's such kind of style,never mind.
"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.
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.
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.
Currently playing: No MMOs. They all suck.
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.
Currently playing: No MMOs. They all suck.
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.
yes you are correct in there, 70% of second life are litter filled malls with "business in a box" freebies that people expec tthey can sell. but you have to be smarter than that, specialize your mall and make it into a speciality store. a 4000m^2 land is enough to place a decent sized structure and display your creations. in my case i specialized in making swords of different combat systems DCS Spellfire safezone GCS LCK... etc.... and went around to fantasy rp sim owners and told them i make standard legitimate swords and they can be found at the tower of 1000 swords. i have a good portion of custumers that come into my store JUST to buy swords. they are looking for swords, what better place to go to find one than a specialized store that makes only swords.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.
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.
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...
Anatawa Hon-Jibiki Desu.
=
You are a Dictionary.
Quick! Whats the definition of life?!
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.
Couldn't agree more. They're making a platform for users to create. You make and experience what you want. That's the draw.
http://www.QuickQuests.com - The Minutes-A-Day MMORPG that won't consume your life