Well! I followed the directions and researched Second Life on google.com and was redirected to this website that looked black and chic. It's essentially a game akin to those apps on facebook, the extremely boring yet somehow addictive apps like FarmVille or CafeWorld, where you don't do much besides control a character through mundane endeavors.
I signed up for Second Life, downloaded the program necessary to run it on my computer and entered the world. I spent the first 45 minutes learning how to move and things, discovering that my character can fly and traveling to the different "Sims" they have available. Sim is short for simulation, and they're basically worlds that users have created via programming. This was around 4 in the afternoon and not many people were on. I have some experience in MMORPGs (Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), i play World Of Warcraft (not something i'm super proud to admit to but whatever) and know that people log on for games and such around 6-7pm, so i waited until then to log back on.
I started out in the starting area again and discovered the "Voice Chat" function, and was able to talk to people through a microphone on my sister's laptop. There were people chatting, there was one girl and a number of men talking, and of course from my observations it seemed as if they were all talking to her/flirting with her (essentially she was leading the conversation.) I started out waiting for a lull in the conversation (it was about Mudkips, a Pokemon or something) and i spoke out telling them i was writing a blog and asking if someone could show me what the game was about. Immediately they asked who i was and the focus of conversation switched to me, i assume because i was a new girl and young sounding (this is my experience with these types of things, men over the internet will just about bend over backwards for a young girl who plays video games and has a "cute" ((or so i've been told)) voice) and obviously looking for help.
Right away one friendly individual, who's avatar's name was True Delight called dibs on me so to speak, and proceeded to show me how to play, "teleporting" me multiple different places and explaining basic program mechanics. He explained how the currency system in the game worked and how it could be purchased with credit cards and exchanged in game. He showed me how people can buy new things for their character's appearance, particularly hair and he explained how the hair was designed by a real person who plays the game. So when you buy the hair that that person designed, you are giving them real money. So a living can be made off of this program which i find interesting. Of course there are other things such as clothes, houses, dance moves etc. that you can buy for your character, and real people who play the game design these things, build a world where they can be sold, and market them just in the game. All this is done with programming and such. I'll probably investigate more later.
Aside from the game itself it's an interesting social experiment. It's fascinating to watch how people interact with eachother using the internet as a medium. The internet gaming community is a subculture within our culture, and that subculture itself has even more subcultures.
No comments:
Post a Comment