What is Digg?59 Comments
- joquarky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6BTW, it's an alpha release on Linux -- lots of things are still seriously broken.
Also, SL is technically not a game, as there are no objectives. It's more like a 3D MUSH. Anyone can make content, and nearly all the content is created/sold/shared by other users. - sirmikester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Can't wait to come home and try it out... congrats to the guys at Linden for making the extra effort.
- ckohler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4SL is a metaverse, not a game.
I've been a resident for about two years now and it's really an amazing place. Sure, the graphics aren't mind-blowing and the streaming nature of the world makes it load like a 3D website but eventually you come to realize that everything you see in the world... everything... is user-created. Then you start building your own stuff... and scripting your own stuff... adding to whole of the world. It can be quite addicting. For the less creative types, it also offers the best 3D chat available. - cdgore, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5yeah, i've noticed. I noticed that it will only let you select 16 mb video memory, which is probably the cause of all the performance issuses.
- diggumjonez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The game has a lot of potential in the long-run. In the short-term, there's much potential for world-class pranks. Find dance clubs boring and casinos stupid? Put together a zombie army that moans and screechs and bites necks with sprays of blood, then attack. Or make a few protest signs and picket a furry gathering "Breed Mixing??? Not on MY block!!" Make your character into an old, 30's style hobo, then bum for change from the newbies just joining. Just because everyone else is doing boring stuff doesn't mean you have to.
And there are some AMAZING architectural and design creations to be found. There's a haunted house that's loads of fun, especially if you jump off the car and walk around. The Apollo gardens are incredible, no matter what kind of gaming you're into. The ***** next door to me built a gorgeous structure that no one visits. I wonder if it's cuz of my junky ass shack and the truck up on blocks in the front yard... - cranium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Somebody read 'Snowcrash'...
- YourTechSupport, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Quit your bitching already. It's not a 'game'. It's an alpha version of the Metaverse.
... *reads own line and falls out of chair laughing*
*ahem*. Okay. It's not an MMORPG, or a Multiplayer FPS. You punkasses lacking imagination can go scamper. SecondLife is a collaborative 3-D environment where you can build freely, make your own content, and... for those less willing, go dancing in clubs and become consumer gluttons for the content producer.
Also, once we get a fairly stable Linux client to go along with out fairly stable Windows and Mac clients, we'll be set to take over the world. Gentleman, start your penguins!
- Burke Prefect, lead Stupendous Badass of Secondlife. - jfoust2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've been trying SL for a few weeks now. Haven't tried the Linux version, but the Windows version is smooth on any sort of decent hardware that any 3D gamer has today.
It is clear that it is a new form of crack, at least for some people. For them, instant messaging is to beer as SecondLife is to crystal meth. I was lured by a friend who'd been in it for a while; he was clearly spending addiction-class amounts of time in it.
Compare and contrast to something like The Sims Online, which seems like glorified chat for people who want to gold-farm "skills" all day long.
You can go into SL and watch the hours click by in a social and engaging form. It's not a game. You can do it alone, just wandering in a form of VR tourism. You can do it with a friend. You can make friends quickly and do it in a group.
If you have any programming or graphics skills, it can be a rewarding 3D programming environment. Having watched the field of user interface design for 3D modeling programs for the last 20 years, I can say that SL's done an admirable job in creating a UI for OpenGL and 3D editing. Yes, you read that right.
There's no need to gold-farm or make pizzas or kill grells or whatever. The currency conversion rate is about US $ 1 == L$ 280 and money goes both ways. This means you can buy a new outfit or hair or a house for a buck or two. You can do a lot without even paying the monthly fee. Make a friend who will let you live on their land. And there are people getting US$ income from making and selling those $1 outfits. VR currencies are a form of micropayments.
The users of SL are all over the map. Plenty of room for all sorts of subcultures. Lots of evidence of a wide range of ages in users. After getting to know a few, I see a range from 18 to 60. Ordinary people as well as computer-heads. Real-world ratios of males to females, even accounting for impersonators.
But yes, there are plenty of people who sit there all day in the virtual casinos making fifty cents an hour so they can buy new VR shoes at the rate they crave. They're sitting there IM chatting and/or listening to streaming audio radio stations while they do it. Or maybe their avatar is auto-dancing with a friend. So in many ways, these VR worlds can subsume IM and audio in ordinary user's experience. It's a big pretty interactive picture instead of a lame winking "avatar" thumbnail in YIM. - Chozabu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It says in big red words
** THIS IS ALPHA SOFTWARE, RUN AT YOUR OWN RISK! **
This should make you aware that it is in early stages of development and testing, and would not normaly be released to the public this soon, because people may judge the EARLY DEVELOPMENT VERSION as final, and not come back even to look at the final version
until recently, i thought that was silly - until i read your comment which actauly justifies closed development...
did you ever try one of the alpha versions of scummvm?
(btw, never used SL or SVM, but i did play DOT back in the day, and yeah, that game rocks XD) - zeth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I would definitely register and try this game if it wasn't for the mandatory credit card registration. Why on earth would they want ones credit card information for the free account?
For "identification purposes"? Bad idea.. - jhub908, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3while playing the other day, I accidentally teleported into a group meeting of furry's and my head almost exploded
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I logged on and it's nothing but casinos and donation boxes. Everything there is about the in-game currency (and not in a good way)... because the company encourages selling their currency for real world money. So virtually EVERYONE is out to gold farm...
The most fun I had was playing BINGO... then I realized that after 10 hours, the most fun I'd had in the game was bingo, and never played the game again. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It amazes me how everyone disses the metaverse idea, yet most spend hours on Myspace every day. It's to the point where most people communicate solely through Myspace and never in person. Now explain to me whats so different about the inhabitants of SecondLife and those of Myspace?
SecondLife is ahead of its time, but inevitably -- technology permitting -- it or its successor will be home to millions. Most people are perfectly happy living in a fantasy world. Why do you think there are so many religious people on Earth? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So watching television is a "game"?
- etruscan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Oddly, I downloaded the game a day before this article appeared on the front page to try it out. I had known of it's existence before, but a colleague of mine started discussing it out of the blue, so I figured I'd give it a go.
It's got some interesting concepts but due to a lack of cohesion and, quite frankly, poor graphics (I know why they're poor, but knowing why doesn't make them any LESS poor), the game (or "experience") is pretty dull. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2SL is known as a metaverse, it has no real goal except that everyone builds to conform their creativity. Unfortunately, there is some groups that interact inappropriately (cyber-sex) in the world, but most of population just engage in ordinary conversation. In fact, many people have a full time job playing SL. I just made 150 USD last week, and I am at 100 USD this week. Some have made on average 2 - 3k USD a week. Anshe Chung, makes around a six-digit salary playing the game, and she was a cyber-prostitute at one time. (She sells virtual land now.)
Second Life is limited to 18+ (for reasons like that,) but now they house a "Teen grid," which allows 13-18 year olds play away from the adults. More information can be found at teen.secondlife.com - YourTechSupport, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The present problem with SL is that it's completely dynamic, and streamed from the servers. Meaning that unlike other games with fixed content that has time to optimize everything, you're creating the BSD tree (?) from scratch right there at that exact moment. It's not Unreal 2k7, but it's the first to offer such a truely open system. It'll get faster and prettier down the road. For now it's going to be 'less pretty'.
But I can't stand fixed content games for too long anymore. - Chupatumama, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4The foul mouthed lads a Lugradio.org interviewed a guy from SL for waaaaaaay too long about 2 months ago and just listening to them talking about it I was bored to tears.
A friend at work showed it to us in detail and the first comment was "Who the hell has the time for another life? All I hope for is just 20 mins a day so I can frag something."
Personally, Im in awe of anybody who has enough free time in their day for SL or to have a mistress. - omegaworks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Furries can be avoided if you don't like them. Just don't grief (physically toss) them, spam them, or lag their meetings with explosions. All they ask for is common courtesy - something that should already be the norm.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2amusing post which illuminates the creative potential that metaverses provide. The sad thing is that most people are not creative enough to make good use of the universe.
- ckohler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think requiring a credit card or phone number for identification helps more than hurts. For one, it keeps teens of the main grid (there's a separate grid just for teenagers only). Second, it cuts down on the amount of riff-raff who's only goal is to cause havoc for an hour and then leave. Requiring they provide some real life personal identification makes it harder for them to justify the effort.
None the less, it is still a hot topic among the residents. I joined SL back before they offered free accounts so I've never really gave it much thought. - doubledoh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What the hell is a furry?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"What the hell is a furry?"
They're people who like to dress up in animal costumes and *****. I'm not sure if that puts them a step *above* or below the people who like to wear diapers and ***** themselves in some sexual way. - mailman-zero, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6Quoth piznut:
> This "game" is boring, out of date and buggy.
> Given that, its the perfect game for people who enjoy linux.
Hey! Linux isn't boring! - spektre1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It isn't a game. I'm a game designer, I should know. :)
What it is is a virtual world built using the technology that games pioneered, so the fact is that it may *appear* to be a game, yet by the strict definition, it isn't a game.
Now, that aside, I still call it a game when I explain what Second Life is to people. :D - DanThe1Man, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They don't like you to use the "g word" while in Second Life.
- xawen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thank you! I was thinking the same thing. Just need a set of those ugly VR glasses...
- jhowe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I downloaded and installed this for Linux last night I tried the "p-nightly-sub-delta" script which is supposed to wake you up at a certain time. I can't say that it woke me up and made me feel really awake, but one of the frequencies that it played as I was falling asleep made me feel extremely relaxed.
- serra, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is the type of game that I've always liked and wanted to be a part of, but SL just falls flat for some reason. I think that it's the fact that there aren't enough people there or something, or perhaps that there are too many cliques. And the fact that the graphics aren't quite as awesome as I'd think they should be. It is a bit boring, I must agree with that point.
- dserfaty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would just like to add to my previous comment - The idea is very neat and I think that technically they have accomplished something very challenging given the fact that most of the data seem to be loaded as you discover it.
BUT: why make the basic graphics so ugly and make it so difficult to move around your character? Anybody who has in in any other MMORPG/Virtual world game nowadays will be turned off very quickly by this. - cosmo7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You mean BSP (binary spatial partition), but I don't think SL uses a BSP. I think it's just raw openGL content.
- nitsuj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The reason the graphics generally suck is because they're all pretty much user created. That's the whole point of it. So it's good for virtual world cyber-wannabe's but lousy for digg grifters expecting World of Warcraft quality content.
- prkchpsndwiches, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I tried it out after reading articles about people making a living off of creating and selling items on SL. The controls were pretty bad, and I constantly experiecend lag throughout the game. I play WC3, Day of Defeat, Counterstrike, and Guild Wars on my connection, all with no problem. This ran choppy from the moment I started it. Also it's a little out of date graphically. I think the idea is promising though. It's fun to go and act like someone completely different for a little while. I think a good overhaul is needed before they start porting to other OS's.
- theratdotus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the weird thing is, quake4 runs fine on my system but SL runs chop chop chippity choppy.
- aonaran, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2prkchpsndwiches, try it again but turn off the local lighting and set your network connection speed properly I think you'll be much happier. network bandwidth setting should not be higher than 300 unless you are on Linden's LAN.
- dotpage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1CC? yeah right..
- lepton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They've also just released a universal binary (test) version for those of you with Intel Macs.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Second Life is just an AOL chatroom in 3d.
- Chozabu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Quoth piznut:
> IMO This "game" is boring, out of date and buggy.
> Given that, its the perfect game for people who enjoy Windows.
There! i fixed that for you =D - x3n1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1More games for linux! Thank you!
(disclaimer: i never will play SL) - chippoutine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've been in Second Life for about 8 months now. There are some great graphics to be seen in the game by those users who employ texture baking and other techniques common to game engines. A lot of the fancy stuff either missing or *cough* planned for future releases, like normal mapping and dynamic lighting, but if we know anything from the world of gaming technology its not what you've got but what you do with it. My personal interest is in Architecture, and there are some amazing buildings in Second Life, you just have to look for them.
- Weakling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Recently there was a doc on TV about this game about a dutch guy who played it and had virtual sex with a girl in the states. His real life girlfriend didn't mind. She didn't even mind that he went to visit the girl he had virtual sex with in Second Life and meet her in real life. Sad stuff, but now at least he can have safe(r) sex with the Linux version of the "game" ...
- everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1it's a neat idea but poorly executed. maybe if the graphics were better or something. i donno.
- atomx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Umm... played it for a day or two.
Simply put, the most boring thing on the planet. There's nothing to do, no challenge... except, I suppose, to make money. Newsflash -- I have a job for that. I don't need a Second Job.
The other thing it seems to be is a giant pickup slash IM slash netsex portal. That's fine and all, but I've graduated to REAL sex long ago. Netsex is just for the 15 year olds who haven't yet figured out how to sneak out at night. Pr0n is just for the 'dry spells,' not for my Second Life. I've found that, frankly, the people who are most enamored of things like this (and, to be honest, MySpace and all the rest) are the folks who haven't managed to master real life human interactions. They seem to think that having 9000 virtual friends is somehow better or even equivalent to having one good real one. It's not.
Add to that the limitations: incredibly blocky and slow, even on my top-end machine with a fast cable internet connection. Weird glitches...
But you know, I'd put up with the bugs and maybe even clunky connection issues if the game were any fun. At all. Whatsoever. In any way.
But it's not. It's just selling things and netsex.
..yawn.. - hypersniper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0OMFG, I havent thought about DOT in ages but I had a dream last night! freaky
- vstarre, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Why would I give my credit card or phone number to some random site in order to TRY a game?
- doubledoh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Game: "An activity providing entertainment or amusement." (source: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=game).
If the english dictionary is anything to go by, It seems to me that if the players of the "game" are entertained or amused, then it IS a game. The fact that you are a "game designer" does not mean you get to redefine words. Good luck. - equusdc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Oh joy... now I can get the same cheesy graphics and puerile behavior on Linux. Whee.
"for those less willing, go dancing in clubs and become consumer gluttons for the content producer."
I think the rest of us refer to that as "having a life," you know, a real one, not a "second" one. - pHr34kY, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I installed this game because there wasn't much else to play.
It sucked. I then installed scummvm and went nuts on Day of the Tentacle - now THAT'S gaming!
I couldn't believe how slow and buggy it was. I've got a Geforce Ti and Cable internet - and it just ran like crap. Looked buggy as hell too! - dserfaty, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2SL has two big problems:
1) it's ugly
2) its UI sucks
I ran away after 30 minutes. -
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