I've brought it up plenty of times, but I've never really gone into detail what it is. Figure I'd give as much explanation as I can.

Second Life is a social program. In fact, that's the must-have reason to play it. And by that, I mean, if you don't have a social life in Second Life, you're not gonna get enough enjoyment out of it to be worth playing. In fact, if you don't know anybody going in, you're going to have a rough time without anybody to help you get started. Now, you don't necessarily have to go into it wanting a social life. Heck, I only tried it out because I found out that you could be furry. Gaining a social life sorta just happened.

Don't be freaked out by the furry, though. Furs are quite in the minority in Second Life. In fact, you're not very likely to see any outside of furry-focused areas. With that said, this is me.



I'm a rabbit girl named Erika. Why? Well, I at first started out as the male-me raccoon-dragon. But SL allows you to change your avatar's gender at any time. I got curious, tried being a girl for a while, and found that... well, it's a long story. Let's just say that this is pretty much where my gender-confusion began.

With that out of the way, let's bring up the game.

...Okay, I guess I can show you what a human avatar looks like, first.



Sorry, it's the best I've taken of non-furs.

Now then, let me just say that the world of Second Life is HUGE. The world is set up with multiple sims of a decent size, basically the size of a city block. Here's a picture of one in full, where my home is.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v468/ ... ation3.jpg

Now imagine thousands of areas of that size, many of which are connected to each other to form a larger landmass. And no, that's not an exaggeration.

Okay, hopefully I don't get too technical with this. Like I said, it's a social game. You go to many sims. You chat with people, whether through typing or, in some places, over voice. Fairly typical. You can have friends. Is there a limit? None that I'm aware of. There's also a special type of friend called a "Partner". What you consider it is up to you. Could be something as big as internet marriage, could be something simpler like "the bestest of best friends". Typically, though, it represents a relationship of some sort.

Second Life is an open-source world. In other words, it's almost entirely made up of user content. You can build interesting things with a simple (once you get the hang of it) building tool. You can upload textures. You can make your own clothes. You can write your own scripts using SL's own programming language. Because of this, almost everything is stored online, and you'd better have high-speed internet, or else it's going to take several minutes just for everything to load (you'll still be able to move around, but somewhat blind), plus you'd be dealing with a movement delay (imagine it taking two seconds to register that you want to move and another two seconds to register that you've stopped moving). Also, hope you have a decent graphics card. You're not going to get a pretty sky, glowing effects or pristine water with an integrated card, let me assure you.

As for who you are, you can be whoever and whatever you want to be. You have a nifty avatar editor that you can access at any time and change whenever you feel like it, allowing you to change a wide scope of dimensions, like height, weight, arm length, skin color, gender, etc.. The world also has lots of clothes, hairstyles, and other various accessories to choose from. Most importantly, you can attatch objects to various attatchment points on your avatar, which is what allows furries to be furries. The attatchment doesn't have to make sense, either. Case in point: here's someone with a gelatin avatar:



You can also change up how you move. Well, sorta. It requires an outside program of some sort to actually create animations. You'll mostly want to just go out shopping for one. Oh, and everyone in Second Life can fly and breathe underwater.

Second Life has its own currency. Which is a big "duh" as far as MMOs go. But because of all the user-created content, there's a HUGE market in the game world. People are selling everything, from clothes to furniture to avatars to nifty scripted gadgets to working geni-- anyway, yeah. And you know what? Second Life actually allows the buying and selling of in-world currency. In fact, it's probably how the creators are able to provide this world for free. The only monthy fee (from the game creators) is if you want to own land.

Which isn't to say you have to own land to have a home. Some landowners offer their land up for rent, either with pre-fab homes or letting you build your own. I, myself, rent a home for L$2,620/month, which comes to around US $10.38. Which is a middle-range rent, really. I'm partly paying for the beautiful sim I linked to above. (Trust me, it's beautiful. It only looks arid from afar.)

You're probably wondering why one would want to own a home in a virtual world. And honestly, I'm not sure. It's not really necessary, and there are a lot of people who simply wander around or have made their home out of their favorite hangout. Having your own home mostly just allows you to have a place to set out your own furniture and toys.

Actually, you don't have to have money, either. There are plenty of freebies lying around SL, and some places are dedicated towards giving out these freebies. Mind you, the quality of these freebies greatly varies, but sometimes you can find some nice stuff here and there. In fact, SL gives you a fairly decent library of various clothes, avatars, and toys when you sign up (includng a working go-kart and pop-gun). And good news: your inventory has seemingly unlimited space. If there is a limit, I don't know what it is. I've heard people boast inventories in the tens of thousands. (They're probably freebie addicts.)

One of the more popular sort of hang-outs in Second Life are clubs. Here, people can chat, dance, and oogle at the hired help (yes, there are jobs in SL, but mostly at clubs, working as a dancer, host, or DJ). I like hanging out at 80s clubs, myself. Many clubs also hold contests, generally where there's a vote for the best-dressed to a theme. The prize is usually money, which is probably the easiest way to get money in SL, if you don't want to pay real money and aren't good enough to make your own stuff to sell.

There's also role-play sims in the game. Some are of the typical swords and sorcery sort, some are more futuristic with guns and zombies, some are geared to old west lifestyles, and so forth. I've even seen one very nice role-play sim based entirely around Sonic the Hedgehog:


(Not shown in this image is the part of this sim that looks like it came straight out of the Genesis titles.)

SL also has its own railroad, which is neat. It's free to use for anybody who has their own locamotive, and goes on for somewhere around 6 miles.



I'm willing to bet that every one of those sports cars to the side are driveable. Although SL's driving physics take some getting used to.

Now, as I hinted at ealier, Second Life does have a "dark side". It is basically what happens if you take the internet and made it into a 3D world. So there's some rather sexual and offensive stuff to be seen. They're avoidable once you know how, though. In fact, each sim in SL has their own content rating. There's the PG places. PG doesn't mean "for kids". PG places are meant if you want to represent something professionally and tastefully, or for those who simply want to get away from the nasty stuff and swearing and stuff. Then there's the Mature sims, which are standard. They don't necessarily earn their rating; they're mature "just in case". Recently added were Adult sims, which you guys will probably want to avoid. I'd tell you what's in them, but I haven't been. You have to be age-verified to enter them, anyway.

Actually, you sorta have to be 18 to play, or else you get sent to the "Teen Grid", which I heard isn't that great. It is entirely possible to get away with being on the main grid without being old enough, though, as long as you're not acting like a noob and don't admit to anything that might reveal your age (like saying anything about still being in high school). Just recently I met someone who was 15 in reality. I wouldn't have guessed had she not said anything.

So there's Second Life for you guys. Did I forget anything? Probably. Like there's other types of sims besides hangouts, shops, and clubs. Like there's also movie theaters and virtual fairgrounds. But ultimately, Second Life is pretty much just a glorified chat program. The primary focus of being a social game, along with the "easy but only after you get the hang of it" interface, and the likeliness in you getting lost in a vast, open-source world makes the game hard for me to recommend. I mean, I love it. I get to be a rabbit girl, with lots of friends, and a little family (a sister and her daughter, my niece). At the same time, though, I kinda almost hate it. Because of Second Life, I realized just how hollow my real life was. You certainly don't get the same social interaction in games like MMORPGs as you do in a game like this.

With that said, if anybody actually is interested, I can welcome you there to show you the ropes and help you figure out how things work. The website is here (and there's better pics of humans):

http://secondlife.com/

Just be aware that, if you do wind up with a social life in Second Life, you're going to have a hard time leaving. Thus is the nature of an MMO.

I've got plenty more pictures if you guys are interested (majority furry, of course). They're in this account, here:
http://www.koinup.com/Erika_and_Draygone/works/

I think this one's my favorite:



(Oh, and I love how the Mag's search feature ignores the term "life". )


Edit.

So, if any of you have kept an eye on my YouTube account, you'll have seen that I've been uploading random clips of Second Life here and there. Namely, these: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8772C2C0392BEB01

Now, I've been wanting to do a video series on SL for a long while. Something more in-depth than the little videos above. I've just been waiting for the right opportunity. That opportunity is now.

This'll be a "whatever I feel like doing" series. Sometimes I'll show off the mechanics of SL. Sometimes I'll be exploring random places. Sometimes I'll be showing off various avatars. Sometimes I'll be building things. Basically, I intend to delve into the world of Second Life more than ever before, letting you all see second-hand what makes this world so special to me. In a way, it could probably be considered a "let's play", but I liken it to more a casual documentary. It's not gonna be part of my LP series. Heck, it's not gonna recieve the same level of editing as my LP series. It's something I'm just gonna record if I have the time, sync up the audio, boom, done. Now, during the second video, there's a couple spots that I censor, but thinking on it, that'd probably take too much effort if I wound up having to do that a lot, so I won't bother from here on.

With that said, here it is. The first video is just of the sign-up process... for reasons that I don't know why I recorded the sign-up process... You can skip to the second video if you want. In the second video, I start off at Welcome Island, a tutorial area of SL, before teleporting to someplace random (literally, I had no choice in the matter) and showing off just a few of the basic game mechanics. Bonanza, you might be interested.

Oh, and one more thing. You might want to watch it at full-screen level. I don't record at HD (it'll cause horrid de-sync if I try), but it'll make the text easier to read.

Interesting. Most things I read about SL are highly polarized. It seems like either the person says it's nothing but a depraved filth-pit, or that it is the most wonderful thing ever invented and should be the one and only future of social interaction - or both .

I'd been lead to believe that furries had larger representation in SL, though. Then again, I'd also been lead to believe that there were a lot of people walking around whose avatars are as well endowed as Priapus. So this is enlightening.

I wish everything on the internet was as fair, balanced, and to the point. You should do a whole series of posts about SL, your thoughts, philosophical ruminations, observations, etc. Write a few poignant observations, interview people with non-human avatars, do a little speculation about the future of human interaction & identity, and you could have a book. Really, you've already got your title - "Second Life: A Furry's Views on a Non-Furry World". It'd be a best seller. You'd be decried by the religious-right, praised by people who adopt a "non-traditional" lifestyle, and become a figure in pop-culture - all while increasing awareness of the furry community and helping to open people's minds.

Naturally I'm biased by my affection for reading, but I can honestly say that it's a book I'd love to read.

Don Tapscott's "Growing Up digital," while out-dated, was a good introduction to how someone from an older generation views these paradigm shifts in education and human social development. It was written before the .Com Crash of 2000, so the author has a very optimistic outlook that's untempered by the realities of business and social mores.

"Learning by Doing," "Failure to Connect," "The Flickering Mind," "Got Game," "Educating the Net Generation" (written by Dr. Bob Pletka; I worked on one of his projects six or so years ago, as a student), and "Don't Bother Me Mom - I'm Learning" all present different perspectives on growing up and developing as a human being in a world where everything is ruled by high-technology and the internet. Though, these books primarily focus on the educational implications of technology rather that the social ones, but are still relevant.

Sure, there have been other books that look at social aspects of modern technology, but as far as I am aware, this book would be unique. I'm not immersed in furry culture, however, so it is possible that I've overlooked something - my wish-list of books is 3000+ and growing, which makes it unlikely that I have overlooked something, but there are quite a few books out there. There's furry fiction, but furry non-fiction may be a new genre.

Even if you were unable to find a publisher, you could easily self-publish - it's easier to do now than ever. LuLu, for example, offers a suite of publishing options, and you can get your ISBN through them, the last time I checked. Some self-published titles have been so successful that they were picked up by an actual publisher (like "My Stroke of Insight"). So there are a lot of options available to you. I can just see the graphic-novel adaptation now.

I realize that this is a lot coming at you quickly from someone you don't know. That happens with me frequently. Sorry. Just the thought of reading a new and interesting book gets my heart beating faster, and I kind of lose control of myself - nothing else quite has the same effect on me as books do. They're like cat-nip for me.

Obviously I am prone to being overly enthusiastic and way too verbose as well. So I'll quit now before I embarrass myself further.

But, if I may say so, your avatar is pretty damn sexy.

"I'm a rabbit girl named Erika."

...Disturbing.

How do you decide to have family. Do you need to find someone to agree to be your sister and then inherit a niece (i.e. someone who previously agreed to be this person's daughter)?

I've always wondered what the hell this Second Life game is that people seem to comment on in this forum, and now I finally know what it is. Thank you Dray.

As for me actually joining, I'd have to politely decline. For the simple reason that MMO's are insanely addicting. I know I'd be playing this sort of thing for years on end if I started, which is why I'm staying far away from anything World of Warcraft or otherwise.

My connection has been acting kind of funny and has been logging me out of SL every 5 minutes
I'm trying to get the hang of it, at least I know how to reequip my starting clothes instead of the dafaut textures.

I don't think it's really right to call it a game. Just a 3D social networking program. It's lacking any real game elements. But I usually steer clear of social networking (IE Myspace, Facebooks, ect) I just don't see the need for them.

Though I did find your post very interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah, I don't really expect to gain anybody's interest who wasn't already.

Mostly my intent is just to make it so you guys aren't as confused what I'm talking about when I bring up Second Life.


I can't say I know who Priapus is, nor do I want to know. There are some folks with some freakish endowments, but they tend to hang out at those "stay clear away from here" places.


Naturally, the thought that you just called an animal sexy was the last thing on my mind. But I get that a lot, actually. Which is funny, because my intent is "cuteness" rather than "sexiness". Guess it's all a matter of perspective.



Nice to know where you stand on the idea of people playing the opposite gender online. You and Thutmose are going to get along great.

To answer your question, my niece had previously asked her mother to be, and later on, after we got to know each other, she asked me to be her aunt. She's actually got several aunts and uncles. But there are also adoption agencies where child roleplayers and parent roleplayers can meet up.


Hey Guar, if you'd like, we can meet up and I can help you figure stuff out. We've got another Spanish-speaker that sometimes hangs out with us, though I'm not sure how willing you'd be to spend time in a furry place. My full name is Erika Wemyss, if you're interested.

Priapus is an ancient Greek god. Suffice to say that he would have trouble walking through a double-wide door sideways. The Egyptian god Min would also have been a fair comparison, but he's largely depicted as only being ithyphallic, not necessarily abnormally large (for a god, at least).


I guess I'm just a sucker for people who wear glasses, fur or not.


Everyone should just be themselves. Why should it matter if you want your avatar to be a rabbit of the opposite gender, or a dragon, or even a gelatinous blob? Everyone is different, so you might as well be yourself and be happy. Do you realize how boring life would be if everyone were "normal"? That's how I look at it, anyway.

Not directed at anyone in particular, just saying it out loud for posterity.

I'll give it a shot just because you clearly put a lot of effort into this.

Will report back later.

Thanks for the offer Dray! I don't think I'd mind to be surrounded by cyber furries.
Now if my internet connection could go back to it's reliable self...

Draygone: "Nice to know where you stand on the idea of people playing the opposite gender online."

It is not disturbing you playing as a girl, nor is it even disturbing you playing as a rabbit. It is disturbing you playing as a rabbit girl.

And for the record I am just kidding.

I really like the customization part. It's what really got my interest. After spending hours toying with it, hanging around a bunch of talking bunnies and raiding and inspecting tons of free clothes, skin, hairs and accessories, I think I can safely say I'll be entering my second life on a constant basis.
Funnily enough, the social aspect isn't what draws me the most, but the many places you can go. I think I'll just take some time and sight see. I already collected a series of pictures from my first trip to the Lost World. It was... an interesting trip for a n00b like me.
I'm also easily impressed.




My stupiddly impressed face


Me pretending to be a winged warrior in a "preview poses" stand

Don't worry, I won't post them all here. All I say is I learned not to sit on torture devices.

Erika pulled me into Second life a few weeks ago, here is my avatar:



I have like 2 other Avatars I use, I just like this one more than most right now. Btw, im in no sense a furry . Its just all fun.

What a furry.

One of his other avatars is the best skunk avatar in SL.

I approve. :3

Edit.
Lantis, this was the best of the Chrono Trigger stuff I could find:





Just those two rooms, in what was part of a larger sim dedicated to Nintendo games. Other rooms dedicated in the sim were from Super Mario 64, Metroid, Ocarina of Time, Link to the Past (Chris Houlihan room), Phoenix Write (I think), Pokémon, and Mario Kart (a raceable track, but there weren't any items laying around ). Was pretty neat, so I landmarked it.


Also, whataface 2 is on.

Which one is her? The animal or the chick with four feet and only one pair of shoes...

Btw, those CT scenes are freaking epic.

I think she's wearing freebie shoes, so they aren't attatched as properly as most boots in SL would be.
(Also, it should be noted that I am never human in Second Life. )

Oh right, I also recorded a couple random videos.

This is actually randomly intriguing.

I'll give it a try, though i can almost guarantee I won't stick with it (not because I won't enjoy it, simply because I have a very constrained schedule.)

And great job on the informative post (even though it's months old and I'm just now getting to it.)

Be sure to post your names so we can all friend each other.

For those wondering why it took me so long to finish editing Zelda: The Wand of Magonians, here's the primary reason:



I know it doesn't look like much, but it was rather difficult to create. Here's just one of the several hand-typed scripts that make it work:



I could've taken a break on it to work on the Zelda video, but those who know me know how easily distracted I can get on another project. Had I gotten back to the Zelda video before this was finished, it would've likely never been finished. So I set aside all of my other projects to work exclusively on this. And not being fluent in LSL, a good chunk of it was created blindly. The result is an actual finished project that I can be proud of.

The most complicated tasks were programming the seats to let up to four people sit on them, and creating a reset button that re-rezzes the wheel and seats in their proper positioning if the wheel ever broke down (which is entirely possible, given SL's physics engine is used for this thing). The script above was probably the easiest of the scripts to write. Although it took me a long time before I figured out how to make it so the wheel could physically interact with the seats.

Maybe sometime I'll upload a video of this, too.