LM @ SL

Note: Like I said last time, I'm writing this a bit after having experienced it.  Also, the below represents about two and a half weeks of my SL life (Second Life life?). I fumbled about Social Island until I went through a portal to Portal Park.   From there, I just picked the closest portal that led to Linden Realms. Linden Realms is a fun adventure which primarily involves running around (double-click to run, or hit Ctrl-R to set yourself to always run), following the instructions given in your HUD.   It’s a basic beginner’s quest.   The goal is to collect up four pieces of an amulet – just watch the videos in the village you first walk into for the back story and general instructions. Your main challenge are rock monsters, which look perfectly innocent and friendly until all of a sudden you’re being chased at by an angry rock that’s on fire (and then being eaten).   I can’t count the number of times I walked through a bush and was ambushed by one o...

First I should note that I didn't start writing down anything until I was about three weeks in. To begin: Just go to SecondLife.com and create an account.  It's pretty simple - click on 'Sign Up' and follow the directions.  Download the viewer, open it and login. What is important is picking your avatar's name.  Apparently you can change it later on, but the previous name (names? No clue) will show up as a legacy name.  For me, I chose the name of a Dungeons and Dragon character I'd created some years ago and have always liked - Liadan Mikaella. You'll also pick your avatar.  I forget the number of choices you have, but it's something like ten, all human-shaped.  This can be easily changed later, or you can purchase a custom-avatar later on.  (If you're inclined towards that, you could create your own, but you'll have to look elsewhere online for tutorials on that.) They have a short tutorial after creating your avatar in which you learn ...

I’d thought about trying out Second Life (or SL, for short) for awhile, and while I was at it, I decided to go ahead and start a blog about my efforts. It’s really interesting.   For one, not all of the avatars running around are human shaped – I’ve seen one that looked like a bunch of glowing orbs and one that looked like pikachu.   I’ve spoken to someone in Argentina.   I’ve seen avatars in all sorts of clothes and with all sorts of different animations for how they move.   The graphics are amazingly realistic. There’s a huge variety of tasks you can do to earn money, or, if that’s not your thing, there are a lot of fun things to spend your money on!   As I don’t have the money (in real life) to spend on this sort of fun, I’m trying it out to see how earning money through Second Life works – or doesn’t work. Most of what I’ve learned about how to play was gathered off the internet and trial and error.   It helps that I’m very comfortable wit...