I remember checking out There and it seems Second Life (referral) arrived to the graphical 3D social chat and interaction virtual world scene about the same time as There. Unfortunately, There didn’t have much staying power with me even though I beta tested and purchased a lifetime account.

Some of my disappointment in There was fueled that I didn’t have enough “event host skill” to host any events. I still think that’s lame that if you pay for something that you should need to spend a bunch of time building up skill just to be able to host an event and invite others onto the service. This is part of the problem with any Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). I haven’t loggeed into There in months (over a year?). In fact, it’s not even installed any more on any of our machines.

I was curious how Second Life dealt with some of these issues anf intriguted that Second Life had adult areas that There seemed to lack (casinos, for example). Is event skill, or some time or level based variation, required to host events at Second Life? This was one of many questions I was curious to learn about.

Second Life Registration
When first registering for Second Life, you’ll need a mobile phone number or credit card. This helps keep bogus accounts from being generated. There are four subscription options as of this writing:

Basic Access - the first Basic Account is free. Additional basic accounts require a one time fee of $9.95. Basic accounts get 50 Linden Dollars each week the user logs in.
Premium Monthly - $9.95 per month. This gives the user 500 Linden Dollars each week, no login required. Also this allows the user to become a resident and own a small area of land. A larger amount of land requires fees starting at $5/month going up to $195/month for an entire server.

There are also additional premium options which give the same features as Premium Monthly, but give a better price break. Premium Quarterly is $7.50 / month, billed quarterly ($22.50). Premium Annual is $6.00 a month, billed annually ($72.00). That’s annual option is a nice savings (40%) over the monthly option for those who really want to dig in and carve out a space in Second Life.

After choosing the registration option and registering it is time to download the software. One of the first things I like about Second Life was it had a Mac version. I don’t have many Mac games (and though SL is much more than a game, it makes sense to talk about it in those terms), so I downloaded and tried out the Mac version first.

The screenshots above are all from the Mac version of Second Life, below are ones from my Tablet PC. The minimum requirements say 512 MB RAM and my trusty little eMac would still run Second Life, albeit a bit pokey. On the Tablet I have 1GB of RAM

What can be done inside Second Life (incomplete)
- Chat. Find other people, make friends and talk either out in the open or privately via in-game Instant Messages.
- Locate, rent or buy land and start building your SL home. It’s divided by prims and each object is made up of an amount of prims. 234 prims = 1024 meters. 117 prims = 512 meters.
- Buy and sell items in L$
- Create your own items for buying and selling in SL. Items can use scripting so they can interact with the Linden Residents.
- Play games. In the main area (age 18+) you can play at casinos (woo-hoo!). Some of the casinos run free slot games where Linden dollars ($L) can be won.

- Camping Chairs. Instead of logging out when taking breaks or leaving, find a camping chair and kick back. Some of these chairs pay you $L for sitting in them. Be sure to keep your computer alive every 30 minutes or SL will kick you out for idling.

Developer scripting notes
- no arrays, uses lists instead.
- lists can only contain 72 items in code, but programatically can include more

What can be done outside of Second Life (incomplete)
Creating your own blog or fan site. SL provides a Fansite Toolkit (zip) contains banners and templates.

Overall impression
I’ve only spent a few days looking around and interacting and even whipped up my first script and still feel like I have seen maybe 10% of what Second Life offers. This is an expansive world with lots to see and do. It has that familiar Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) attraction and yet isn’t only constrained to going out and fighting bad guys and leveling. There is also a danger aspect to Second Life which I haven’t even explored yet (and don’t have much interest in doing).

I’d rather explore new areas, buy, sell and create items and start building and developing my own land. As I write this I’m still researching what First Land to buy, which is when you buy your first land in Second Life at below market value ($1L per meter, as opposed to $3-5L+ per meter) . Perhaps I’ll even start my own business in there someday and then I can write a follow-up on that experience. I already have a few game ideas that I’d like to play around with someday.

With the mature areas and the economic structure there is a place online which allows adults to be adults in a virtual 3D space. This means that SL is appropriate for virtual parties and events of all kinds. I don’t have my original question answered completely about whether specific skill or leveling like There is required for hosting an event yet although it seems like that doesn’t apply here (good), so I’ll have to update this piece later or write a new one on that experience later. There is a page on the SL website which explains renting land for events with a three day minimum period for around $12,000L.

And I just learned today that there might even be a prison where rule breaking avatars are sent:

Nimrod Yaffle, a resident of the virtual world Second Life, has revealed details of a bizarre and dark prison Second Life’s maker Linden Lab is now using to lock up criminal avatars. Dubbed the “The Corn Field,” the moonlit environment contains only rows of corn, two television sets, an aging tractor and a one-way teleport terminal allowing no escape. It exists as an alternative to standard disciplinary measures, which traditionally prevent access to Second Life completely.

There is a separate area in SL that is teen-safe which according to the Wikipedia is running at a loss. Jowl, our teenage son, is checking out the teen area, so I’ll see if he is willing to write a separate review for that area.

Second Life impressed me enough to invite and refer a few friends and whenever anything does that, it has promise. This review experience reminds me of how I felt about the Opera browser and a familiar cliche: better late than … yes, I was impressed. Nice work Linden Labs! Grade: A

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• MLB pitcher to mix it up with Everquest II players in charity drive
• Second Life to Real Life business intersections
• When will the Second Life gambling ban enforcement begin?