The Second Life discussion Thread!

[Dr. Doog]

Woah 5 threds? sorry I was not here

No man I'm not complaining that you made the thread I'm complaining that I wish I could play the game. no worries

[Tavis]

Come to think of it, I've probably gotten a buttload of Lindens from the "weekly allowance" in the eight months or so since I played it. I wonder if they cut you off if you stop logging in.

Basic members (except the ones who signed up since this May 6th) get a L$50 stipend, but only for the weeks they sign on. Premium members (those who pay to be able to own land) get L$500 per week, no login needed.

I think this is making a big chasm between the haves and have-nots in the system, but for those earlier basic accounts, I guess they were lucky to get any in-world currency at all.

[Niko123000]

Premium members (those who pay to be able to own land) get L$500 per week, no login needed.

I'm just gonna go check mine now....

[Miles E Traysandor]

I'm on that place every now and then when I want to, you'll find me as Traysandor Gretzky. Generally, I meander about the more 'Adult' places when I'm on though.

[Moddex]

Just so everyone knows, there are freebie packs you can get at Help island. Just ask an SL Mentor and they can give you one. If you already have it, open your inventory window and at the top of the wondow, search "FURRY" and you will find the generic furry avatar. This avatar looks like an eclectic blend of all types of furries. The one problem is that you cannot customize it to your fitting.

[CodeCat]

This avatar looks like an eclectic blend of all types of furries.

[Moddex]

This avatar looks like an eclectic blend of all types of furries.

Basically, it looks like it's got a cat, wolf, fox, raccoon, and some other things in it. A really weird mix.

[Niko123000]

This avatar looks like an eclectic blend of all types of furries.

Basically, it looks like it's got a cat, wolf, fox, raccoon, and some other things in it. A really weird mix.

From the number of diffrent anthro avs I've seen, that's probably a LOT.

[Sakie]

Heh, they have an Av for like EVERY type of animal in that game. You just got to look hard.

[CodeCat]

But couldn't you just make your own? I thought that was possible?

[Niko123000]

But couldn't you just make your own? I thought that was possible?

It is, Just I don't know how to do it.

[Tavis]

Yes, in fact, that's how all those other furry avs were created. To make a complete one by yourself, you need to learn how to build (furry heads/tails/paws/etc need to be assembled with prims) and how to apply furry textures to your skin and parts (download a clothing template, draw the fur pattern for your body, upload it for a L$10 fee, then wear the texture as a cutie mark on a new skin, repeat for attached prims)...

Oh, and of course, for anything fancy like overriding poses, animating your attachments, or letting them respond to commands, you will also need to program in LSL, a scripting language for your attachments.

[Niko123000]

ugh... TSL is a <pottymouth> piece of <censor>. I canceled my account and joined up with the normal second life. under the name...

Jack Kabuki

It's only basic, but once I tell my nana (who paid for my original premium) I'm sure she'll be ok with reentering the info.

Now since this IS the SL disscusion thread, I just thought I'd ask a few questions before I dare move farther then the barren mountain I teleported to.

First:

Basic members (except the ones who signed up since this May 6th) get a L$50 stipend, but only for the weeks they sign on

Ok... so then what happened after may 6th? I'd like to know before I bug my nana for the premium.


Second:

Oh, and of course, for anything fancy like overriding poses, animating your attachments, or letting them respond to commands, you will also need to program in LSL, a scripting language for your attachments.

and here's where I also need help. Before I made the desicion to leave TSL I did happen to find an Arctic Fox av (Crappiest think I've ever seen compared to some of the others I've seen) and I tried doing probably one of the sympolist things, making the tail wag. First of, what exactly does LSL mean?

These are just the general things I need to know that I'd rather not ask out of the blue. And the only reason I'm not asking for a good place to buy an anthro av, is because I already know of three places where I could find one.

[Tavis]

Basic members (except the ones who signed up since this May 6th) get a L$50 stipend, but only for the weeks they sign on

Ok... so then what happened after may 6th? I'd like to know before I bug my nana for the premium.

The verification data people had to enter prior to 6/6/2006 included credit card information. It has since been removed, as well as given LL an excuse to remove yet another source for L$ to basic users.

Oh, and of course, for anything fancy like overriding poses, animating your attachments, or letting them respond to commands, you will also need to program in LSL, a scripting language for your attachments.

and here's where I also need help. Before I made the desicion to leave TSL I did happen to find an Arctic Fox av (Crappiest think I've ever seen compared to some of the others I've seen) and I tried doing probably one of the sympolist things, making the tail wag. First of, what exactly does LSL mean?

Linden Scripting Language is an event-driven, state-based language that controls how objects behave in-world. To do something like make a tail wag in LSL, you would need to write a program that is triggered at a certain event (touch, listen, linkmessages, etc) and then either

• Program the prims to move around the root prim (harder; allows more control)
• Program the object to pivot around its attachment point (easier; less flexible)
• Program the object to make parts appear and disappear given desired positions (easy to program but wasteful; uses extra prims for each tail position that remain invisible until its state is activated.)

An alternative would be to use flexible prims and let the physics engines of the local computers do all the work. (easy; no LSL, uses prim properties severely limits control)
And finally, one could use textures and animation on the prims to simulate tail movement.

Quite possibly, the most appealing solution would use some combination of these concepts or some other ones I haven't touched upon.

[Loeln]

Interesting enough, CBS evening news just did a story on Second Life-

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/31/eveningnews/main1852600.shtml
(watch the video of it in the player on the right)

Is Virtual Life Better Than Reality?
SAN FRANCISCO, July 31, 2006(CBS) When reality gets hard to take, there's an escape to a parallel universe ? a virtual world without end where real people create online personas called avatars. Anything is possible.

Catherine Smith showed CBS News correspondent Jerry Bowen that her avatar has "red hair" and "big nice cool glasses."

"This is my deck overlooking the beach, and I've got neighbors that have a giant pirate ship," Smith explained.

Smith can't afford a beach house in real life. But in Second Life, the online game created by her employer, Linden Lab, she ? and nearly 100,000 other subscribers who pay $10 a month ? can have that and more.

"You can go skydiving and not be afraid of dying; you could become a wild animal, something that you could never do in real life," she said.

As hard as this may be to believe, there is real money changing hands among the players in these games, Bowen reports. An estimated $1 billion worldwide is spent by users buying and selling virtual goods, such as furniture for virtual houses and clothing for their avatars. But it's paid for with real-world credit cards ? at Second Life alone, $6 million a month.

"I put in 40 hours a week easy," said Shannon Grei, who supports herself in Medford, Ore., by making virtual clothes for avatars in that other world.

"I couldn't believe that it was really, that it was real, that you could even do that, and it just blew my mind, it still blows my mind," Grei laughs.

She's not alone.

"What we have here is a virtual loft of sorts that we created for the artist Regina Spektor," says Ethan Kaplan of Warner Bros. Records, which has set up shop to publicize the pop singer's music.

"Our goal with second life is to make it better than real life in a lot of ways," says Phillip Rosedale, Linden Lab's CEO and founder.

But there are real-life problems. Hackers have tried to shut it down. Who do they call when hackers strike?

"We generally call the FBI," Rosedale said.

But it doesn't stop there. Second Life itself is being sued in the real world over virtual land deals that went bad. And in China, a man was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a friend who sold the prized sword he'd loaned him ? a virtual weapon that existed only in cyberspace.

Meantime, the possibilities are seemingly endless. That's what creators of Second Life and other sites expect will draw the generations that grew up on video games: The chance to create their own alternative identity in a virtual world.

In fact, Bowen says he can't resist.

There's one job he's always wanted ? and before Katie Couric gets on board, he went for it. The beauty is, Bob Schieffer will never know.

"This is the CBS Evening News with Jerry Bowen," a virtual Bowen said from a virtual anchor desk.

And that's the way it is ... in the virtual world.