Your Cartoonist is now a SecondLife Addict.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:55 pm

I *AM* still writing, drawing, and uploading comics and there IS still a buffer and I am NOT going back to once a week, so don't panic.

But DAYUM this game is addictive. I've abstained all week in an attempt to normalize my connection to it and it's making my teeth seriously chatter here. The basic design of the game has made it fun for me to hang out with friends online. I have never been able to stand IM because it always keeps me just tuned in enough that I can't concentrate on anything else, but not tuned in enough that I'm absorbed. With SL I'm either looking at the scenery or making something while I talk with friends, so I'm as occupied as I want to be. Also, there's a visual aspect to hanging out that is really lacking in chat; you might be talking to someone, but you feel like you're writing mediocre dialog for a comic nobody will ever see.

Also, I get to show off the modeling skills I built up during all those summers I wasted on a PC port of Quicksilver, the old Amiga rendering software.

http://us.vclart.net/vcl/Artists/Allan- ... -date.html

I am abstaining from logging on until Saturday afternoon. This is downgraded from my original plan of only visiting on monday afternoons and evenings, but I think it still shows enough restraint to keep me from becoming completely pathetic.

I think.

Well, I HOPE.

Andrick · Post by **Andrick** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:09 am

Female avatar? O.o

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:32 am

I'm still working on my avatar, and in fact, making avatars might be my SL "profession". Changing the avatar to female was as simple as clicking a single button, so I was easily goaded into it by my ex girlfriend. In truth, my avatar is likely to change shape a whole LOT over the next few months, and will PROBABLY end up male.

That said, it is kind of fun playing a female character..

Kesh · Post by **Kesh** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:41 pm

It's quite fun to do that on occasion.

I might try SL for a bit this weekend. Slow as can be on this laptop, but it should be fun.

Micro_Fur · Post by **Micro_Fur** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:44 pm

LOL. I got on SL this week too, look for me as Mitch Kipling, Still working on the avatar, not happy with the human limitations of expresion though. I'm kinda cheap so I haven't paid for the premium service so eh, I might find myself joining the paying crowd just so I can buy some of the real neat stuff.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:11 pm

I'm doing it free so far. I'm trying to create objects that ultimately people will want to buy, like avatar stuff, furniture, and scripted stuff so that I can have money in SL without spending any in RL.

*snort*

Also, it's kinda fun to troll around. I found this underground hangout covered with Japanese writing, a penis fountain, a giant octopus, and old woodcut pornography everywhere. Very amusing.

Hat-Kun · Post by **Hat-Kun** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:59 am

I'd look in to it, but for two reasons. First I don't have the money just yet to spend any money on anything. Need to get EMA and a new bank card sorted out first. Second, I'll have my sister bothering me about it wanting to watch me every time I run it, and then bother me with everything she does in it. 'Look, I got a new hat' every five minutes....

For now, my online game stuff is fine staying with just NationStates and Legend of the Green Dragon.

Kesh · Post by **Kesh** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:27 pm

You don't have to pay anything at all to play SL. You get an "allowance" in-game, so you just have to budget the virtual money you get (and you do get a bigger allowance if you're paying the monthly fee).

Hat-Kun · Post by **Hat-Kun** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:20 pm

Really? I thought that you had to pay a set amount to start with and then it was free after that.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 8:00 am

They changed the rules.

I wouldn't be on it if they hadn't. You still have to give them a credit card number for ID purposes, but a game as big as SL has no reason to scam its users so I'm cool with it.

They even give you 250$L, which at the going rate is about a buck in US currency, to spend on stuff in-game and upload files. Items in-game can be pretty pricey compared to this small amount, but you can build primitives all day long for nothing at all, which is why the place is becoming so geometrically impressive. Avatar designs, often containing less than 20$L in texture uploads, sell for upwards of 200$L, so there's lots of talented people building really awesome furry avatars, and a number of them are probably cleaning up.

Also, if you sign up, list one of us as your referrer and I'm sure you'll get some of the "Referrer's Fee".

Also, to my forumites, IM me on there some time. I'm on a lot on the weekends but very little weekdays except monday nights. My SL name is Volair Bakalava.

Randyg · Post by **Randyg** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 8:26 am

I would never use such a game, simply for the emphasis on requiring money to do things, and that there's no way they can be up to any good requiring credit cards.

--Randy

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 9:15 am

In defense of Second Life's monetary systems and policies:

First, as to the credit card information. Second Life started as a pay service. It is useful and effective to put someone's credit card on file to identify them uniquely. If you've already spent the money to set up a secure payment system through them, using it as ID is basically free. Also, users of the system often purchase server "real estate" eventually, whether they start out as paying customers or not. This is not Bait and Switch; users know from the start what they will and will not be able to do for free.

Second, in-game currency. The existence of in-game currency is a necessity. There are 30,000 people on this thing. Media of exchange are vital to any group of people bigger than even a few hundred. I have a marvelous refutation of communism based on big-O notation if anyone cares to hear it. But basically, in-game currency lets artists sell things, to each other and to interested users, often for pennies a sale. The basic system, free to everyone, can be used to make many, many interesting and fun things, many of which people are willing to buy, even if for only a few cents.

Third, the tolls. There are a number of things for which the servers actually charge the users money, whether through in-game currency or real-world money. For example, to upload a texture, you must pay 10$L, or about four cents. This is a good thing. If textures were free to upload, they'd bog down and destroy the servers fairly quickly. The servers also charge for the privelage of owning land. Again, this is a server repair issue; the owners of the service are using this money to maintain servers and keep the thing running.

It's not like this is a collectible card game. You can build your own stuff for free, and have a blast doing it. I could find plenty of things to do and not even use one microcent of my one-dollar allotment as a free player.

Kesh · Post by **Kesh** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 9:43 am

Aside from the initial $10 fee when I signed up, I haven't put one penny into SL. Then again, I hardly ever use it, so I'm not exactly leeching off their servers.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 9:47 am

You probably have a lot of stipend saved up in that case

Zaylas The Bard · Post by **Zaylas The Bard** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:38 am

Have a link so I could check this out? Also, do they recommend a broadband connection, or could I get away with this damnable dial-up connection?

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:48 am

They actually *require* some form of broadband, DSL or cable, because frankly the bandwidth required to basically download the world while u watch is too great for anything but a fast connection.

But you can go to secondlife.com and drool over what would be possible with faster internet if you want.

Zaylas The Bard · Post by **Zaylas The Bard** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:33 am

*chuckles* I'll just add it to the other half-dozen websites and programs to look into the day I get something faster than a 56K that acts like a 28.8 on a good day and a 14.4 on a bad one.

Andrick · Post by **Andrick** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:32 pm

There was a time once when it was thought that a 1200 baud modem was too pricey and too fast a rate of transfer for it to ever serve any practical use in a personal computer. Hard to believe that was only fifteen years ago. *sniff* I miss that old Amiga.

Ah, refreshing to see a purer form of capitalism at work.

Micro_Fur · Post by **Micro_Fur** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 10:00 pm

Yeah, I miss my C=128. That was the first machine I ever went on-line on, of course then it was all just a bunch of bbs's but it was still fun using it to chat with people before the advent of irc, im, and whatnot. Although my parents were none to amused when I ran up the phone bill once because I didn't take note of the long distance number I was using to connect, it was then that I found out about war-dialing the neigborhood looking for other modems. So I join you too Andrick in saying *sigh* those were fun days.

Randyg · Post by **Randyg** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 11:08 pm

Heh, I used to run a bbs... TWO shiny 2400 baud modems! 286! A whopping 2 megabytes of ram on an expension card!

As to the original thread topic... I have no plans on having a credit card nor anything that can be used as one in the near future. I guess this means they'd probably not let me, or anyone else without a credit card, use their game. Gee, that's a good way to get users! (Also note I see no reason for a game to need a real-world ID on me. If it doesn't let me sign up as santa claus with an address in the north pole, it wants way too much information. An online game does not need any real-world information. Especially one with a name like "second life", that somehow wants to know every detail about your first life?)

As to in-game currency... I've never seen a need for it. You make things others can have for free, and since everything else is free, you have everything you need. No "I have to do this if I want to try to get that thing I need!", greed, or other annoyances. Note I'm also a strong open-source software fan, and license all my code under the GPL and all documentation under the GFDL. This model works well for software; it should work well for in-game software objects too.

And the idea of having real-world currency tied to in-game currency is remarkably disgusting, and would itself be more than enough reason to never use it. "I know how we can get rich! Let's make a game where instead of skills and effort being important, we'll make it so players can advance themselves by sending us more money!"

In any case, it looks like one of the most positively disgusting things I've ever seen, both due to the emphasis on currency (real-world and in-game) and orwellian ID requirements.

--Randy