seanbonner: Sucknd Life

April 17, 2006

Sucknd Life

OK, what am I missing about Second Life? I know I'm missing something because I keep hearing how awesome it is and have friends who are spending a lot of time and money on it, and the most asked question when we launched Metroblogging Azeroth was "yeah, WoW, whatever, when are you doing a Second Life Blog?" but man, every time I try to check it out I want to eat a bullet. Here's my usual Second Life experience - Log in. wait for everything around me to load. Keep waiting. Finally loads, Try to move, no luck. Keep trying. Keep having no luck. Finally every move I've made happens at once and I end up stuck in some corner of a house or something that I can't get out of. Finally get moving down and look around, find no one. check my friends list, everyone is offline. check the map to try and find some people. Ok, there's some. Teleport there. Oh, that's a private zone that I can't get to, so instead I've been teleported off to this other place where no one is. Check map again, there's some other people there, try to teleport. Private. Repeat this 4 or 5 times. Finally get some place where there are other people. They are all Away or talking about scripts. I try to talk to several of them. No one ever responds. I try to walk away but can't because nothing responds to my movements. Oh wait, now everything responded and I'm stuck in some corner. I quit. So, yeah, clearly I'm missing the awesome. What the crap?

UPDATE: Looks like I'm not the only one.

Posted by sean on April 17, 2006 07:40 PM | View blog reactions
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Comments

There's no one around cause everyone's getting virtua-laid.

Posted by: Jason D- on April 17, 2006 07:47 PM

i hear you can make billions selling clothes IN GAME.

Posted by: posh on April 17, 2006 07:56 PM

oh shit, wait. not only is everyone getting virtua-laid, they are also buying genital upgrades.

because you can do that.

for some very odd reason.

Posted by: posh on April 17, 2006 07:58 PM

Nice interview... :)

Posted by: Erde on April 18, 2006 10:53 AM

The main reason you keep hearing about how awesome Second life is comes down to one thing, The have the BEST PR DEPT EVAR! Everyone I know has had the exact same experience with SL as you but still it's on the news once a week. Too bad there wasn't anyone in the well game? Is it a game? What is the point of it? I mean other than to make millions.....

Posted by: Sabocat on April 18, 2006 01:29 PM

Amazing how different it is for some people. I log on, get buried in IMs, have a million things to do and places to be, people looking for deliverables, websites that hook into the site, and otherworldly meetings I have to do.

Today, I gave some Creative Commons staffers a tutorial in media creation and Powerpoint delivery before I had to dash off to check some code someone had written for me... and then check in on two massive events taking place in SL and also outside of SL.

I even had time to joyride with my 2008 Dodge Challenger.

Maybe it's me but no different from the *-ospheres. Too much information, too much to do.

SL has crappy PR and need just a little, and also- a better introductory experience. Developers are working hard to put some semblance of organization of it. But then, you get out of anything what you put into it.

Look me up. I'm Spin Martin. I'll show you the sights worth seeing (just like you might tell me the blogs worth reading). ;-)

Posted by: Eric Rice on April 18, 2006 08:37 PM

Awww. Sowwy to hear you had such a awesome-less experience. :(

If ya can, come... stand near me... things happen! :)

Posted by: Torley Linden on April 19, 2006 03:17 AM

This seems just like final fantasy or everquest...except without the necromancer spells, the warrior's blade of splitting, the druid boots of sow, the dark knight's artifact armor or any of the cool stuff. Yea, so where is the awesome?

Posted by: bill on April 19, 2006 06:57 PM

Just adding my voice to the peanut gallery, but I cast a vote for "sucks" as well. I've tried to check it out a bunch of times and have had the same kind of lame experience.

Posted by: 5000! on April 20, 2006 06:21 PM

Heya Bill, come to Jessie and don't wear a shield? K, thx.

All hail the open sourcing of shield-ripping-to-pieces bullet technology.

Oops, I said Open Source. Ideals and all. Heh.

Posted by: Eric Rice on April 21, 2006 05:05 PM

I think the problem is your expectations -- you think of SL as being a role-playing game, and of course are disappointed that you can't dress up as a troll and reenact your D&D fantasies as excitingly as some other softwares.

In actuality, SL is a communication tool, sort of like a very evolved IRC channel. If you haven't taken the time to meet anybody in SL, then I can see how it wouldn't be any fun. (In particular, people react negatively to the noobie who shows up in the Welcome Area asking dumb questions and who clearly hasn't invested any time trying to understand the culture.)

I like SL because it's a context to go out to clubs or parties, go shopping with friends, or just sit around at someone's house chatting about stuff. And of course there's SL dating and other relationshippy drama. This would explain why women gamers are unusually common in Second Life. If you're social constipated and prefer to hack at things with a sword, well that's fine, but it certainly doesn't invalidate other peoples' experience.

Posted by: Reasonably Slatisfied on April 25, 2006 03:04 AM

Um you have meetings? Like I do at work with Powerpoint? You have to network, like I do at work? And you have to make money, like I do at work? Hmm sounds like work. And hanging out and talking sounds like chat rooms... With WoW, I, as a Female player, can chat while Questing, get free gear, park at any Inn. And my husband plays so we do things together. All i ahve seen in the news is SL this and SL that. Sorry 6 million gamers can't be wrong.

Posted by: Edi on April 28, 2006 12:07 PM

Ooops one more comment, Um people react negatively to noobies in the "welcome area" how are you supposed to learn without asking questions? Particuarly in an area named... Welcome. In WoW... well we help more.. except BB, but everywhere else it is an open society. Maybe thats it.. elitists go to SL to open private areas so they can feel more Elite and the rest of the world plays WoW, so we can network with real executives, movie stars, and other common folk just like us.

Posted by: Edi on April 28, 2006 12:19 PM

Heh, my wife came into SL and now I get tp'd to the places she shops. Oy.

And come on you two, that kinda bag on the newbies isn't exclusive to either platform and neither are accusations of elitism.

Crikey, you don't even need a computer to think your kind is better than their kind. Oh wait, there's a word for that. /smirk.

For every negative, there's a positive. For every person that says it rocks, someone will say it sucks. And both sides think their own side is gospel.

Hey did you hear of the other MMORPG, it's called *Blogosphere*

Posted by: Eric Rice on April 28, 2006 03:07 PM