So I'm trying out Second Life - NSFW

[Boogahed]

The interface is not so smooth but they have a lot of really interesting ideas. If the engine continues to improve this will be very similar to a MMOG idea I had in the past. It's completely open-ended, you can add pretty much whatever you want to the world and use their scripting language to program your own games and content. The whole economy thing is pretty unique too. It just runs really shitty.
Anyways, I'm cruising around checking out stuff tonight and come along on two other players, doing this:



Complete with sound effects and all, I was pretty surprised. Then this happened:



Dude's erection proceeded to go down after that. I'm not sure what to think at this point really.

[Geandily]

hahahah

[SirLubson]

hohoho! can you kill someone?

[3rectus]

hahahahaha, GREAT.

[Boogahed]

The more time I spend with it the more I like. It's not like a typical RPG, in fact I wouldn't even call it a game. There are games within the virtual world that are like other RPGs, players just have to choose to participate.
The real trick behind it all is that everything, player models, walls, buildings, sounds, music, video, aspects of gameplay, are all customizable and creatable. On top of that you have a currency called linden dollars that have a varying exchange rate with real US dollars, so you can do all sorts of investing and such. They openly support exchange of currency from the virtual world to the real world. There are people making 100k+ incomes just playing it.
Another interesting thing is that one account is free, then additional accounts cost like 10 bucks a month. I'm not sure what the advantage of having a second account is though.
The whole thing is pretty ideal for me because the things I really like to do - programming, 3D modelling, and music all work perfectly into the plan of the thing. I can get paid for doing that type of work for other people, or do my own designs, songs, or scripting or scripted objects and sell them from my own land.
There's this one person that makes a ton of cash buying up property, custom designing it and then reselling it.

The site is http://www.anshechung.com/

Another thing I noticed is that they seem to be interested in improving the gameplay elements because they use a physics engine and are upgrading it, as well as adding in HDR lighting on the next version which is pretty advanced.

I'm not AS upset with the choppyness now that I've learned the controls a little better. It appears to me that the game just uses a ton of bandwidth. Everything is streamed to you from the servers, including live music and even live video that play on peoples TV sets inside their houses. I was watching some old cartoons in someone's living room last night. A lot of this stuff represents the future direction of virtual worlds and MMOGs.

One last thing, all the customizations are done from in-game. In other words, you build your 3D models on the ground and write your scripts in an editor right there inside the game. You may have to alt-tab over to Photoshop if you're editing textures.

[Geandily]

This game frightens me, I will never download it.

Booga, custom design that guy a bigger dick.


DEEEEEEEYUM

[Boogahed]

Another neat thing is that you can place links on a webpage that start like this :

secondlife://(location here)

and it'll automatically launch the game and take you to that place.

I just changed some settings on my laptop, kicked down the graphics stuff quite a bit and the game runs super smooth now and still looks pretty good. Apparently it overdoes it when it first auto detects your hardware. I'll post the settings later if anyone needs them. The whole game download is like less than 30 megs.

I keep calling it a game but it's not really a game at all. More like a big crazy experiment. Once you forget the idea of it being a game and comparing it to Everquest or something it really becomes super interesting. You just have to spend a little time with it. The more you do the more you'll like it.

When you first design your character there's a place in the legs section that lets you adjust your "package". It ranges from "coin purse" to "duffle bag".

[3rectus]

you should become a virtual porno star and sell your vids; has amusing meta possibilities.

[Boogahed]

I started working with the scripting language today. I'm really starting to like this thing a lot. I'll be quitting my day job in a short time

[Geandily]

Don't you understand? This 'abomination' is the end of the line.

STOP PLAYING IT RIGHT NOW

[WeEatDeadPeople]

Pretty similar to MUSHES of yore. You could script your own area and create anything pretty much. I made some preeety interesting carp widdat stuff

[Boogahed]

Don't you understand? This 'abomination' is the end of the line.

STOP PLAYING IT RIGHT NOW

So did you download it yet?

[Nallian]

I read about this game and the prostitutes in red light district can make a fair amount

BUT

its the bordello's that make the real money.

i forget where the magazine is but it gave exchanges rates from linden to US dollars.

poeple definitely supplement their income whoring themselves out in redlight

[Boogahed]

I've been hanging out at the Blood Pit. It's kind of a vampire type club with metal music and it appears that all the members are furries. Very nice people.

[Chairman Kaga]

FREAK

[lobnob]

FREAK

[Boogahed]

Man this thing is absolutely sick (in a good way). Here's me in the process of building my first object:

[Dayse]

rawr

[Nysh!]

Can this thing be enjoyable without any real knowledge of programming/3d modelling?

[Frybread]

Booga that even looks like you, did you do the modeling yourself?

[Beastro]

I demand a nude pic of Boogahed spooging on a beach with that glorious red hair!

[Geandily]

I LIKE YOUR BLACK FINGERNAIL POLISH

Im guessing you have to wear that to fit in with your vampire buddies rite

[Boogahed]

The characters physical attributes are customizable at any time just by moving sliders around. I slid them around until it looked similar to me. I also have eyeliner on but its hard to see.

I really didn't intend on the goth/vampire thing on purpose, I just ended up there because I went to a place where they played metal music. The owner was very cool so I've been hanging out there while I learn.

Accounts are completely free, I haven't paid anything yet and I verified with my cell phone. You can have a lot of fun just running around and stuff, if you can deal with the fact that there's no actual defined purpose to it. All I can say is to at least give it a little time and if you have any complaints let me know. I fixed a lot of my initial problems by tweaking stuff in the settings and learning how to use the camera better.

You don't need to know anything about modelling or programming really. You can figure everything out by just playing around with it. That's what most people do. You can also look at scripts and pretty much figure that stuff out without reading about it also. Real world experience probably helps but I don't think its necessary at all. In fact this would be an excellent way to get started in it.

[alucian]

I might play a little on the side...Is there any way to get in contact with you in game? Whats your in-game name?

EDIT: I also remember reading something about a gangster of some sort extorting money and getting kicked for it (Or something along those lines) Howabouts would that work?

[Boogahed]

My name is Chaduke Sismondi.

The extortion thing would work usually by people buying up land near high traffic sites that make a lot of money, like casinos for instance, and then creating a very unpopular scene or events there. The casino owner will no longer want them there because they drive the customers away just by being next door and then the land owner sells the land to the casino owner for way more than its worth.

That's one example that I heard about. The nature of it all seems like you could cause severe disruptions if you wanted to. I've heard of people writing "object viruses" where they create a small object that replicates itself until it covers everything and overwhelms the servers.

A great description of Second Life can be found on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

The idea was started by this guy Phillip Rosedale who used to be the Chief Technical Officer of RealNetworks. It makes sense that the game is designed the way it is. The client is like a 30 meg install, and never really grows beyond that. All the game content is streamed thru your internet connection and rendered right there on the spot. It helps to keep that in mind while you play because it explains why some things happen the way they do. Its already a pretty cool experience but its nice to know that its being built on a platform that has much room for improvement, and will improve as hardware gets better and bandwidth becomes cheaper and more abundant.

One other thing I found interesting is that the owner stated recently that the game is still not profitable.

[lobnob]

So I'm trying out Second Page - NSFW

[alucian]

Yeah I just remembered what it was about...Some guy was making bombs and stuff if people didn't give him money so he would blow everyone like 50000 miles away from where they were or something...Pretty interesting imoimoimo I'll try it out a bit

[alucian]

Dear Alucian Barbecue,

Your Second Life Account has been placed on hold pending an
administrative review, you will not be able to access your
Second Life account until this process has been completed.
If you receive this message after business hours during the
week, or during a weekend, the review will take place on the
next working day.

Please contact support@secondlife.com if you feel that the
administrative review has not been completed in an
expedient manner.

Linden Lab and the Second Life Team
http://www.secondlife.com

EDIT:I couldn't even figure out how to chat...I wonder what I did to get bant already?

[Boogahed]

Yeah there's a teen Second Life. There's some pretty horrid stuff in the normal one that some parents wouldn't want to have to explain to their kids.

Anyways, I'll be on later this eve and I can give you some info on what I know so far.

[alucian]

I was wondering about the extreme lack of porn stars and the surplus of people with angel wings and goth makeup complaining about their lives

EDIT:That ban was actually just them carrying my account over to 18+ grid haha
EDIT2:Name is Alucian Barbeque and I should be over on 18+ grid either tonight or tommorow night depending on whenever they get to it....From what I saw of the teen grid its a pretty interesting thing that has a lot of potential (I'm sure the 18+ grid is MUCH more interesting) a furry came up to me on a jetpack and bounced me halfway around the world which I thought was pretty funny actually.

[Nallian]

i might have to look at this

god what about eq tho


i can't give up eq atm

[alucian]

Yeah I can't see this consuming much of my EQ2 time really...Just a fun sidething when I get sicktodeath of grinding stupid FPs

[Chairman Kaga]

I played but ended up a 9 foot tall naked guy flying around saying "HOW DO I PALY THIS GAME"

[alucian]

Signed up again using a different method as "Tukoliosis Barbecue
UPDATE:Went in found Booga we talked for a while was fun he showed me some cool stuff he made and I turned into an obese black woman.
Then I searched for some stuff and ended up in a furry lobby debating whether or not I should buy the newest issue of "Playpony"
EDIT2: Cannot find the PvP areas...I've heard they exist and I have tons of guns and cars and stuff just can't figure out where they are

[juju]

kiss UNT THEY REJECTED ME kiss AMERICA

[alucian]

I look like a fat tinkerbell except I have a giant dog penis
found a ton of stuff including weapons...
was so funny because me and booga were talking in say and there was NOONE in sight...Then I mentioned maybe "Throwing a bomb into a house full of furries" and like 15 furries appeared out of NOWHERE saying it was a bad thing to say... THEY HAVE EYES EVERYWHERE! BE CAREFUL!

[Boogahed]

Wow Alucian went shopping and came back with all kinds of silly shit. Then we were sitting there chatting alone and he said something about a bomb and all of a sudden there were like 15 furries around us giving us warnings and stuff.

[alucian]

Haha we were in a porno theartre watching killer sex but didn't get past the credits before the random disconnect I'm gonna try the bondage club after I get back on then a weapons testing area for a while

[Boogahed]

I was watching "killer sex" and it kept playing but chat stopped working. Logging back in now.

[juju]

this game sounds like mad fun but i'm swamped this weekend i will play with you gusy though my name will be cthulhu