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Second Life Opens Public Beta
thehossman writes "A friend of mine works for Linden Lab, and for the past few months he's been hyping their upcoming product: Second Life. I've just been nodding my head, and ignoring him, but last week he logged in and gave me a mini-tour of the VR world (and some things their alpha-testers have helped create) and I was blown away. Now they've announced their public beta, and if you've got a machine that can handle it, I highly advise you to check it out." This is another of the lifestyle-focused massively multiplayer titles that seem to have very big (venture capital?) budgets backing them - can they succeed?
The minimum age for this stage of the Alpha/Beta is 18. This is because the measures to keep under age people out of the Mature areas are not yet in place. And thus.... credit card.
You are not charged, and to my knowledge after signing up your card information is ditched.
Heh, I'm a current member of their beta program (you might say), and if you go to the links section, you'll notice links to both the EFF and Slashdot. You might also notice that Linden Lab just announced that Mitch Kapor, one of the founders of the EFF, was named as Chairman of their Board of Directors...
It really sucks, but there's really no way to do anonymous age verification of users, which is the primary reason for requiring credit card numbers on the beta application. Given the choice between requiring credit card numbers and dealing with COPA(Children's Online Protection Act)... well, you're sort of between a rock and a hard place.
Dude you be playing the wrong game. SL currently does not deal with real money at all.
When it does it will be of the flat montly fee to play type thing other 'standard' MMOGs use.
There is no RL $ -> SL $ thing going on. That's Planet Entropia. Not SL.
The credit card is for age verification and is not charged or, to my knowledge, kept. They have a very nice privacy policy and from the 4+ months I have been beta testing it they have done very well by it.
You don't pay RW $$.
... in game/fake money. Same to upload a sound.
So much misconception. Here is an overview of the economics of SL.
SL is a virtual world where the real limited resource is server sersources (cpu cycles, memory, bandwith etc.). So they create in game money and tie it to those resources.
They use the standard US/Canadian/AU $ sign for their money. You want to upload a texture it costs $
It also costs money to build stuff - in game/fake money. At no point is it Real World money.
There is a set pool of money, some things are taxed and that money goes into the pool. Buying land costs money but you can always sell it to get all your money back. 'Rezing primitives' costs money, but you can get it back by deleting them. AND IN BOTH CASES IT IS LINDEN $, SECOND LIFE $, NOT REAL $.
Real money doesn't enter the equation. The credit card is only for age verification.
Please take the time to learn what you are talking about before spouting to the world absolute nonsense. Thanks