Sunday, November 04, 2007

Introduction: Virtual World of the Second Life



Virtual World of the Second Life
Second Life (SL) is a realistic (but also fantastic) three dimensional online digital virtual world. All of the shapes and the constructions are imagined and created by its residents called avatars.

The constructions can be animated as the waves move in the seashore and the trees drops their leaves, or snow falls down on the ground. The doors and windows of the buildings can be opened and also the avatars itself can be animated when dancing, riding, flying...or scuba diving among many other activities. Usually every corner of the SL is free for wandering. Although some areas or buildings can be locked preventing most of avatars to get in.

The land or even islands can be bought and modify by its residents who can build what so ever in their own land or plant trees and flowers. Only the imagination will prevent users to do what ever they would want to do.

Money and getting some of it in SL
There is an own currency in SL world for buying items and services allthough one can sign in for free. There are special stores for new avatars with items for free, so you can start your modern new life with no money at all.

Moving from place to place (included teleportation system) is for free and you can access inside most of the buildings without any payment also. Some of the products have been made with lots of efforts from their creators for example animations and scripted tools for several purposes. The creators of thes items might not give them for free. So you might neet to get money for buying them. If you just need any.

After some days of living you might notice that some avatars have really sophisticated style of clothing, beautiful flexible hair and skin with nice make-up. They have found some neaty stores that sell those items for avatars that can afford of their luxurous living style. Or they can buy their own land or even an island and build there a nice villa or buy it as ready made. They might have some hobbies like scuba diving or skating or sky diving and need all the tools for their hobbies. Maybe they have produced some items and need to sell them but do not have time enough to sell, so they might hire another avatar to do the hard job. They might tip a good musician who sings or plays intstruments in the live concerts in SL. These were examples where money is needed. If you do not need those items or that kind of living then you just do not need money.


The rate of currency: 270 Linden dollars (L$) = 1 US dollar. Linden dollars can be bought by credit card (of course: SL is originally american sytem). Or you can get hired as a dancer in a club, as a teacher in a school, as a guard in a zoo, or a pimp in the alleys of a place called Amsterdam (yes, that business one can also do...aren't there real people behind every avatar), or a photographer (you can take snapshots by SL tools or even buy a studio for in world photo editing), or a translator (there are over 200 nationalities as users in SL).

As you see Second Life reflects quite much the first life's possibilities as its professions. Actually in SL one can do almost anything that might be done also in real world...and lots of more. Of course you cannot use your every real senses, but you can write and use audio chat and watch multimedia presentations with real world impacts also.

Avatars & Roleplaying in SL
SL:n asukkaita (roolihahmoja) kutsutaan avatareiksi (avatar). Jokaista avataria ohjaa reaalimaailmassa ihminen, joka voi muuttaa avatarin visuaalista muotoa ja ulkonäköä hyvin yksityiskohtaisesti. Avatar voidaan muotoilla esim. mieheksi tai naiseksi, lapseksi tai vanhukseksi tai joksikin eläimeksi tai fantasiahahmoksi. Avatarit voivat kommunikoida keskenään ja tehdä yhteistyötä. Heidän kesken voi jakaa myös oikeuksia toisten omistamiin alueisiin ja esineisiin.


Rules in SL

There are some rules in SL that are basicly same as rules in real life also. SL reflects ethical and moral living and behaving in the real societies: SL is as good or bad as its users. SL is just a realistic tool where one must behave respecting other users. Harrasment and other missbehaving can be reported to the moderators and avatars can be banned from the partiicular areas where missbehaving conducted or totally from SL world in some period. If someone has several accounts (prepaid avatars) all of them will be banned if needed.

Among the basic rules and service conditions that need to be agreed before starting to use SL, there are many areas where can be rules that can be modified by the avatars using the areas, ie. groups with different goals. There are lots of areas where avatars can have a role (role playing) and act as his/her role should act depending on his/her rank or status of profession in the role playing area. An avatar can wear clothes typical of the time (for example medieval or space) and can behave and chat as it is told in the rules or agreed with other roleplayers. Again: there is only a limit in our imagination.

Communication & other interaction in SL
Avatars can communicate with each others using the real time chat tool and the texts can be seen by other avatars nearby. If you need to chat in privacy you can always use SL Instant Messaging tool. Or you can start a private conference chat with several avatars. In the recent versions of SL client they have added the possibility to use real voice also as a communicating tool.


Chatting with text only is not so fat way to have a conversation but you can think before write. For speeding up changing the ideas users usually make short words or do not use capitalized letters inthe names or nationalities at all. For example lol = laugh on loud, brb = I will be right back, afk = away from keyboard, idk = I don't know, lm = landmark, tp = teleport, im = instant message, im me = send an instant message to me. These are the same shortened words that are used in similar real time chat forums all over the internet although there might be some diferencies and specialities depending onthe nationality.

Groups can be created also for contacting avatars and sending them notecards and of course for collaborative purposes.

Moving around in SL
Avatar can be moved with arrow keys of the keyboard or with a mouse. It can walk, run and fly. With special items attached an avatar can also swim, dive, skate, ski etc. There is also a special way to be transported from a place to another in a second. It is called teleport > teleporting (TP). There are also vehicles if you want to make some fun driving a formula one car or helicopter or just the ordinary ancient horce wagons. If you do not afford on an UFO, you can build one by yourself and add scripts into it so it can really move.

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