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The Wired Guide to Second Life

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the alternate-reality-journalism dept.

With the announcement that Wired and other news organizations will now be reporting from Second Life, they've put up an article on the Wired property and have created a Guide to the larger Second Life world. From the guide: "Today, Second Life is second home to half a million people, and everyone from Duran Duran and Wells Fargo Bank to the Department of Homeland Security has funded real estate here. The national currency of Linden dollars is freely convertible to US dollars (and the exchange rate is quite favorable at the moment!), and an increasing number of residents are ditching their jobs back on Earth to make their living entirely within Second Life's economy. But this exotic realm can seem bewildering and strange to first-time visitors (affectionately known as "noobs" in the native parlance). Let Wired be your guide."

10 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Seriously? by tekkguy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    People are leaving their real-life jobs for Second Life?

    Wasn't that article earlier about WoW screwing up lives? Did I mis-read it?

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    1. Re:Seriously? by hoggoth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If spending all day on WoW results in you losing your job, with the bad consequences of having no job then that is a PROBLEM.
      If spending all day on Second Life *IS* your job, with the good consequences of a paying job then that is *NOT* a problem.

      Well, it isn't any more of a problem than being a workaholic in any other career. If you never 'come home' you may lose your wife/girlfriend.

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      - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  2. Easy guide to Second Life by eison · · Score: 4, Funny

    1. Don't bother

    There, you're all set now.

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    is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
  3. Whats going on? by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 2, Informative

    Whats going on with Secondlife lately? They seem to be all over the news. Has "web 2.0" (cough hack) really got the news outlets buzzing this bad?

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    I like muppets.
  4. What's the deal with SL? by JordanL · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seriously... there's been at least five SL articles in the alst three days... all over a virtual world?

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    FanFictionRecs.net
  5. Sad by tont0r · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So let me get this straight. I'm supposed to play this 'game' where i do shit i would normally do in the real world? bah.

  6. And what happens... by tarun713 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And what happens when the game stops being supported, or they change the game in ways where you can't make your living anymore? Suddenly all those skills you have in game mean nothing, and you're stuck. Do people actually have long term plans, or what?

    1. Re:And what happens... by Bieeanda · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The average SL businessman's long-term plan involves screaming a lot and threatening class-action suits, if their reactions to server crashes, 'grey goo' attacks or spam are any indication. The ones that are actually making serious money probably have a good chunk of their profits sitting in a real-world bank or investments that aren't tied to the fate of a single small company.

  7. The Game of Second Life? by Jonah+Hex · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In all these articles I've never seen anything about an actual "Game" within Second Life. Even the SL site vaguely mentions users creating games for other users. What the hell is there to do besides build and trade stuff? Are there any RPG areas? Can I work with my daughter on developing a graphical MUD like mini game within SL? I want the functionality of the old BBS Door game Cyberspace, for a buggy piece of crap it was open ended and fun.

    Jonah HEX

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  8. Not yet there by Belgand · · Score: 2, Informative

    I honestly wanted to like Second Life. As a sci-fi fan who's been interested in an alternate reality like this for some time I decided that if people are putting the Matrix together, well, better to get in on the ground floor (which is no longer possible of course... that ship sailed a long time ago). Sadly I found it a bit clunky and awkward. Far moreso than I've experienced with any online games. Over a cable modem I found it incredibly laggy and largely futile to try going anywhere. When you do... well, there's not a lot to do unless you've got cash to spend. In this case that cash comes either from giving Linden cash or making something popular enough that you can sell it. So largely unless you have solid graphics talent or plenty of cash it seems pretty easy to get stuck very early on as prices are well above what you can reasonably hope to afford on the miniscule stipend they give you for free. Sure you can get a crap job there, but honestly it never really seemed to be worth it at this stage of development.

    Maybe in the future it'll be worthwhile, but at present I'm staying away until they deliver an experience where I can actually walk down the street without it taking 45 minutes to go half a block because of lag and tons and tons of textures taking forever to load.