Three years ago

Here comes the original text file of my unpublished post about Second Life. (I just removed an "s".)

blog-070324

Honnestly, I haven't done much work for a week because of Second Life. If you don't know yet what it is, in short, this is a virtual world for you to visit thanks to an avatar seen in a third person view. I thought there wouldn't be any so-called client for Linux but when I visited the site, I found that a client existed, although it's an alpha version.

I've always wanted to explore this second world since I learned about it. I found the idea... well... fascinating. So, here I went. I downloaded the archive and registered with a false name but my real email which is needed. That's what I always do when I think that the people "at the other end of the line" don't actually need to know my real name.

The installation went very smoothly. Unpack and you're done. The directory contains all the libraries required by the executable. That's a bit a waste of space but don't worry, the executable knows how to waste much more space.

I registered for free even if to do so imposes you some limitations because you're then more than poor: broke and homeless. If you want to pay, it's $10/month or less if you pay quaterly or annually. The Linux client is IMHO in a too bad shape to make it worth paying for the moment but when you pay you receive a salary --a virtual weekly allowance of L$300 (Linden Dollars)-- and you may own land that you can call "home".

Yes, you need virtual money in Second Life. I find it a little disappointing that all what "they" succeeded in doing was to reproduce the real world --minus some law of physics-- but I even haven't found what else to do despite my vivid imagination.

Whatever. I launched the client, entered my avatar's name and my password.

First step: Orientation Island. It's a tutorial environment where you learn to do the basic things like walking, flying, talking, interacting with the objects, handling your inventory, the camera, getting dressed and undressed, taking and giving objects. It looks like a lot but it can be summed up this way: the arrows are used to walk (plus PageUp, PageDown to fly) and the mouse cursor is your hand.

Once you have completed the tutorial and stopped bumping into walls and other people, you're free to enter the big world. "Beam me up, Scotty!" Well, you will have to teleport yourself. All you will have to do is to click on a "Teleport" button here or there. (This very moment is a bit fuzzy in my memory.)

Unluckily for me, it was the night when I arrived at "Newbie Island". (I don't remember the actual name but it's the first place where all the newbies land and it's considered as your home until you own some land.) I bumped in a few things and didn't quite understand where I was. I left very quickly... to come back later --at a moment when the sun was up. I hadn't undergone the whole tutorial island just to leave so easily. (By the way, if you don't like the night, you can always make the sun rise for you. Open the "World" menu and look at the last line. The sun is at your orders.)

I was still lost despite the day but --at least-- I could see much farther.

At the corner of a street, I found the first word all newbie should know: "Freebies". (I guess it's a contraction of the words "Free stuff for the newbies".) When you register to Second Life, there's only a limited number of possible avatars with an extensive but very common wardrobe. The freebies are here to help the newbies personalize their avatar --even if they are broke-- and more.

My first move was to go to the biggest freebie mall and make my inventory explode. I pick up mostly clothes, a few avatars, gestures and some more useless things like a tubular house in a box and vehicles. I didn't take weapons the first time.

Some explanations, maybe? First, the house in a box. In a virtual world, you can put anything in a box that is small enough to be inserted on a line in your inventory. That includes a whole castle, a car, an airplane, a flying carpet, whatever.

The gestures. Your avatar can do much more than shaking its arms and legs to walk. The standard inventory contain the gestures for a basic body language like raising your shoulders, laughing (with sound), pointing at somebody or yourself, etc... but you can also dance, do some karate moves, play rock-paper-cissors, anything. Some gestures also have accompagning sounds or else are only sounds. So it's easy to let your avatar say a nice "Get lost!".

The clothes are apparently the easiest thing to do. You can find absolutely everything you want and even things you don't want, especially if you unlock your client in order not to hide "mature" content. I'm French and very open-minded, so not very impressed by anything... but I can't tell you all what I have found and seen because you haven't unlock the mature content of this blog.

The avatars, also called "avies" or even simply "AV" are not limited to a human form. There are a lot of bipedic human-sized cartoonish foxes in SL... but I've already seen a miniature cat, a big alien queen, some more unidentified aliens, cartoon characters, some more bipedic animals. Even a centaur. No bird but you can have wings. Angel, devil, butterfly, fairy, technoid wings. Some are even scripted to flap. And the most controversial avatars in SL: children. There aren't even (real) teens in SL but you can find children avatars. Most are used for some totally innocent role-playing. For example, in a mall, I've seen a mother and "her son" buying clothes. I stayed out of their sight and listen to a bit of their (written) conversation. It looked amazingly real. Nothing more than what you could witness in a real mall. The rest has been banned by the Linden Lab (the owner/maintainer of SL) which is rather embarassed and don't know if one can call this virtual cat "a cat" or not, since there's no cat but only dogs. (If you don't see what I mean, don't worry, you're just not ready to read in between the lines.)

The avatars aren't anatomically correct... but that can be fixed. I'm always dressed so I don't care but I nevertheless have freebie male organs... that I keep in my inventory. They won't stay concealed in my pants and the only time I put them out of their box, somebody came and asked me to pick up "that thing". Apart from this obvious thing, with some (a lot) of money, you can buy a new skin with body hair, remote controlled male organs or female details. Don't ask for more, all I know is that it exists. I haven't seen the... virtual things in action.

Hair. That's a problem in SL. The default hair is horrible. Period. You can try whatever you want, it stays ugly. To have a decent hair, you must pay an excessive price --excessive when you're broke like a newbie. Women are a bit more lucky than men since they can find one of these new flexi hairs that are acceptable in a freebie box. Men who care must pay because men's hair are rarer... like any men's stuff in general.

By the way, pay attention when you pick up freebies. Some people seem not to know the exact meaning of "free" as in "free beer" and it may cost you one Linden Dollar (L$)... or more. And since you "buy" freebies, (You do the same actions than to buy things with a real price.) you may discover that somebody stole the few L$ you found or earned.

As you should understand now, it's possible to earn money easily --although not quickly. For that, you need to expand your newbie vocabulary. Besides the freebies, you should also know the words "money tree", "camping" and "sandbox".

The sandbox won't bring you L$ neither cost you anything. It is important to know the word because since all land is own by somebody, you can't do what you want everywhere. Sandboxes are free spaces (as in "free speech") where you can unpack your boxed freebies, test your new avatars, clothes, skins, gesture, party effects and weapons. Things that you would do in your home --if you had one. You can also build things but that's another whole story to tell. And don't worry if you are very modest, you don't actually need to remove your clothes to change them. You just drag them on your avatar and what you wear transforms itself. Any way, underwears are provided. Keep your panties on... and avoid the menu entry "Remove all clothes" or you may get ejected if the sandbox rules don't allow nudity. Well, nudity is a relative thing when you don't have anything to hide.

Money trees. That's the first place where I found Linden Dollars. Call me lucky but I found L$17 on a tree. That's very rare to find that much money at once. Usually, there is a bill of L$1, a L$5 fruit (I've only seen one.) or nothing at all. Any way, you won't get very far with that and all money trees have a warning saying "Don't abuse me".

So, let's go "camping". Camp spots are usually chairs or dancing stands. You click them and your avatar sits or dance. You can still chat and look around but you can't do anything else until you get tired of it. Some camp spots detect your inactivity and push you away but there are also spots where you can stay all day long... even if your avatar looks like dead alive. This way, you can gain something like L$2 every 10 minutes, L$5 for the generous spots but the more a spot pays, the more you have to stay to earn it. This can be quite boring but that gives you time to go to the (real) bathroom, pour some beverage or eat something. Just don't forget to come often to check that your avatar isn't sleeping while standing. Camping spots don't stay cold very long. I even saw two women fighting for a spot... until one got ejected for bad language. There are also more discreet camping spots that propose you to clean the floor in a mall, re-paint the wall of a shop, wash its large window while standing on a ladder. That's the same thing than a dancing spot plus an accessory to look more realistic.



That's all. Since that day, the camping spots and the money trees have gone the way of the dodo. The Linux client isn't called "alpha" any more, I'm a paying customer, and I know what it means "to make one's inventory explode".