http://secondlife.com/

does anybody know anything about the above website?

I've been invited to join by a member.  He and the site  says it is a big time 3D

site with lots of members, but I've never heard of it before, and

at first glance there doesn't seem to be a whole lot there?!

Can anybody fill me in before I go deaper with these cats?

http://secondlife.com/

It's a role playing site with 3D avatars and environments - sort of like an enormous on-line SIMS game. I haven't tried it, but people I know who are even sadder than I am spend an awful lot of time in there... ;)

It's my daughter's second home.

You can get a basic account for free, so you might as well do that and take a look for yourself.

Second Life is a really neat experience. I've been involved it for nearly a year and met a lot of great friends through it.

And yes, there's a lot of 3D there.  People pay actual cash for textures, models, characters, etc.  Just like Poser.  Some people make thousands of dollars a month.  Prices tend to be very low, but they make it up in volume, there being a heck of a lot more gamers than Poser users out htere.

In fact, Poser models being ripped off and sold in Second Life is apparently pretty common. We had at least one person post here who admitted that she bought Poser solely and wholly in order to use to it to convert Poser content to Second Life, so she could sell it.

And at least one merchant found his products being ripped off for Second Life. 

Attached Link: http://secondlife.com/newsletter/2006_05/html/police_blotter.html

there was an article in one of the local newspapers last week about stalking incidents connected with "second life" and other popular sites (myspace, facebook). apparently the creeps get one's address/phone number somehow, then the real harassment begins. but, as we've recently seen, that sort of behaviour can occur on any popular site, even this one, unfortunately.

How can you import a poser character to SL?

You can't import an actual figure, but people "adapt" Poser skin textures to SL figures.

second life is nothing but a cesspit of copyright infringements. i am still awaiting their copyright teams response on 2 separate cases.. but since they conveniently only allow reporting via fax and snail mail (no doubt to cut down their workload, wtf uses snail mail or fax anymore?) i doubt i will get much of a response anytime soon.

the sheer @%#$ing audacity of some of the people in that game sickens me. it would be one thing if they were just stealing merchants and artists work for 'playing a game', but another entirely when they sell these items ingame for real world profit. im not familiar with the item sale function ingame, but i suspect the reason the company turns such a blind eye towards the rampant copyright infringements is because it is making a percentage off of each sale.

Quote - In fact, Poser models being ripped off and sold in Second Life is apparently pretty common. We had at least one person post here who admitted that she bought Poser solely and wholly in order to use to it to convert Poser content to Second Life, so she could sell it.

wow, nice. has she been banned yet?

wow, nice. has she been banned yet?

I have no clue.  I don't think she'd bother hanging around anyway.  She was asking really goofy questions - not the kind of questions newbies ordinarily ask - and eventually, she admitted she didn't really want to learn Poser.  She just wanted to use it to rip off Poser stuff to sell in Second Life.  She was whining that buying Poser was a waste of money, because it was too hard for her. Apparently, she expected to earn back the purchase price by selling Poser content for SL.

Personally I have always avoided SecondLife. The client seems a bit too much intrusive, and I don't like the idea of "mixing" fake money and real money. Plus, the concept of "it's completely free, except for some small details" seems somehow confusing when you realize how many things are included into those small details. It seems too easy to lose the count of the REAL money you can spend in the game.

In my personal opinion there are a lot of online games with much clearer rules and boundaries.

Giorgio

 

Quote - She was whining that buying Poser was a waste of money, because it was too hard for her. Apparently, she expected to earn back the purchase price by selling Poser content for SL.

somehow i doubt someone like that even purchased poser.

as a former MMORPG addict [started way back with the first MMO - UO - and then star wars galaxies (SWG), and more recently world of warcraft (WoW)], i am especially wary of MMORPGs. i refuse to play them anymore, but for some reason i actually find 'second life' especially insulting.

its not a 'second life' - but rather 'a complete waste of time while your precious and pitifully short real life ticks away'. while i can even somewhat understand budgeting a few hours for a fantasy based MMO like WoW or SWG to 'escape from reality', i find playing a cheap copy of real life while your precious actual life ticks away is absurd.
if you spend the time you spend in-game improving your virtual avatar on improving yourself, instead, you will be far better off. if you spend the time you spend hoarding completely useless wealth and property in the game on real world items instead you and your family will be much better off. same goes for learning worthless 'skills' in these games -- why not learn a skill in the real world that will actually improve your life? some skills in some MMORPGs take weeks or even months to master - even if you spend many hours a day grinding away at them. if you spend this same time learning a new skill you will improve yourself (and could be better off financially rather than have a few hundred worthless 'credits' or 'gold').

i still play video games (like BF2, etc). but the problem with MMORPGs is that they are designed from the ground up to hook you and get as many subscription months/hours from you as they possibly can. every design element in the game focuses on this. skill advancement, the persistent world, decay, ranks/status and - in cases like SWG - randomly daily spawning resources and creatures, the jedi skill tree, etc - make it so its hard to take lengthy breaks from the game or you will be at a heavy disadvantage.

if you are one of the rare breed of people that can truly budget, say, 1 hour of time a night to a game and at the end of that hour you walk away, then by all means do anything. but if you are wasting your life - especially your youthful years - staying up every night advancing your characters and hoarding wealth in an MMORPG then you will end up regretting it and there will be no way you can get that time back.
if id have spent the time i spent in SWG just casually working instead, id have a house half paid for by now. 'second life'? just the title alone is insulting to me. you only have one life: all second life does is waste it.

Quote - if you spend this same time learning a new skill you will improve yourself (and could be better off financially rather than have a few hundred worthless 'credits' or 'gold').

that should read "if you spend this time learning a new real world skill...". for some reason when i try to edit the post, everything turns to italics.

Blackhearted, maybe you could try Guild Wars. It IS an online MMORPG, but very different from the others I know. It does not have a monthly fee but just the initial cost of the client, it can be played even alone, it does not force you to advance through skills. It seems just like an old-fashioned offline Ultima fantasy game, but played online. I like it very much.

Giorgio