After playing around for awhile, I noticed that I could "fly" which was really cool, probably the best feature of the whole game. When I tried to change my appearance, I noticed it took a lot of effort to do anything, which for a man with little patience does not have. I will continue to try and correct my frustration with SecondLife, but no promises!
Monday, November 9, 2009
For those who want to be further disconnected from reality...
Ahh, SecondLife. When I first encountered this horribly rendered online game, I first thought of the Office and Dwight building his SecondLife and enjoying every minute of it. However, that was not my experience. When I first entered into the virtual world, I wondered why the graphics were subpar. After I found out it was all server-side, I knew it would never look good.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Entry #1: Where am I?
Tharen Alderton.
My new identity had been set in stone, and I felt a small sense of excitement. I imagined all of the things I would be exploring with my new persona, and who all I would have a chance to meet in this vast virtual world. I had only heard about Second Life on a few occasions, so there wasn't much prior knowledge to help me prepare myself...what is the in-game etiquette? What's the deal with all of this real life money used to buy land and clothing that I keep hearing about? How do I explore this massive world?
When the game booted up for the first time, I found myself on "Help Island," a somewhat open piece of land in the middle of nowhere with billboards and screens standing all over the place with helpful information and free goodies. Multiple people stood in the exact spot where I was; people were joining and spawning in just as I was. Some ran off and disappeared behind the structures, while others stood there lifelessly, merged as one with the other half a dozen characters who were doing the same. Then there were a few that stepped to the side and transformed into a glowing mass of fluff.
'That's cool!'
Then I realized that the person in that luminescent glob was editing their appearance. The small tutorial window sitting toward the top of my screen (which I hadn't noticed until now) kindly let me know that it is always possible to edit one's appearance. This was when I first took a good look at my own character.
And my god, did I look like E.T.'s mother. I had a wide, flat face, with eyes so far forward that they were nearly bugging out. My nose was thin and long, and my chin was as long and pointy. My ears were barely noticeable, and my hair was clipping into the model of my head, giving me several bald spots.
The following hour was spent by me fixing poor Tharen's appearance. I would think that any attempt I made at changing his appearance would look better than the random preset that I got, but there were so many sliders to edit my face with that I didn't really do much better. Eventually, I gave in and accepted what I had. At least I looked more like Sylvester Stalone's little sister on testosterone now than a sad alien.
Then I looked at the side panel and realized that I still had to edit my hair, upper torso, lower torso, and every article of clothing that I was going to wear.
Not caring as much at this point, I ended up with a fairly muscular man in a blue cotton shirt and brown jeans. Yes, I looked like I had just had the worst Christmas of my life.
Now, before I was ready to fly away to far off lands, I was curious about the "build" function in this game. I had heard that players can create anything they want, and I was interested in creating a custom vehicle or something else really fancy. Being the imaginative person that I (thought) I am, I was ready to churn out lots of cool items.
Then I opened the build window.
The massive number of options was more than I could handle. It would take me hours to figure this out! I cowered as I glanced over all of the different text drop-down boxes, asking for all kinds of input that I wasn't ready to give. As this window sat there, I also noticed a small object floating next to my character; a simple shape, a cone, hovered near Tharen, with several colored arrows pointing out of it. I clicked the arrows and pulled on them, but all I did was shift the little cone along the X, Y, and Z axes. Couldn't I even stretch and skew this little shape with nothing more than my mouse?
In my reluctance to dive into this powerful editing tool, I simply clicked on one drop-down box which initially said 'cone,' and selected 'wedge' instead. And a wedge I then had.
I closed the editing window, making the little wedge a permanent object in the world. It sadly dropped down to the ground, making a silent thud as it hit the grass, plopping to one side.
And as I watch this sad little wedge's nonexistant eyes fill with tears as it lay motionless on the ground, another player strolls by behind me in a twenty-foot-tall bipedal robot with turrets for hands.
Yeah, that makes me feel better.
I was done here. I wanted to see what content was already out there, waiting to be explored. I open up the search window and look for "Colorado" (this being something that I was assigned to do for our campus, after all). I don't see my university in the listings, but I do see a "Dream Island," accompanied by an image of a small digital forest area with a little waterfall. This seemed like a cute place to explore, so I warp there. Within seconds, I'm standing in an open field with colorful flowers and trees everywhere. How beautiful this area was!
That's when I noticed several small spheres floating in the air. Many of them seemed to be floating in pairs, and for most pairs, one sphere was blue, and the other was pink.
I clicked on the sphere closest to me. A small message popped up, telling me to right-click it. I did so and chose to interact with the sphere. Suddenly Tharen's arms were flying all over the place. I couldn't tell if the game had glitched out, or if the sphere gave Tharen a seizure, but then I realized that this was a dance.
Taking note that the spheres engage my character in specific types of action, I decided to continue wandering around. I quickly found a little cottage-like structure, filled to the brim with little spheres, all in pairs. I walk to the far end of the building and hit the blue sphere farthest in the back.
Suddenly Tharen's arms jumped up, in what looked like an embracing position...and I notice that his face was bent down and to the side. Tharen was making out with the air.
'Okay,' I thought, 'this place obviously wasn't meant for me.'
That's when I noticed that most of the spheres were hovering over things like large beds, rugs, and large chairs.
'Yep, time to keep moving.'
So, to keep Tharen from feeling the sting of not having a loved one to hang with on Dream Island, I pull up the map and look around for interesting places to go.
Amazingly, I find "Transylvania." 'Cool!,' I thought, 'vampires!'
Little did I know that Dracula wasn't who I'd find there.
This is where I must end my first entry in the Diary of Second Life. Look for the next chapter of Tharen's adventures soon! There's still a lot to be discovered.
-Marcus/Tharen
My new identity had been set in stone, and I felt a small sense of excitement. I imagined all of the things I would be exploring with my new persona, and who all I would have a chance to meet in this vast virtual world. I had only heard about Second Life on a few occasions, so there wasn't much prior knowledge to help me prepare myself...what is the in-game etiquette? What's the deal with all of this real life money used to buy land and clothing that I keep hearing about? How do I explore this massive world?
When the game booted up for the first time, I found myself on "Help Island," a somewhat open piece of land in the middle of nowhere with billboards and screens standing all over the place with helpful information and free goodies. Multiple people stood in the exact spot where I was; people were joining and spawning in just as I was. Some ran off and disappeared behind the structures, while others stood there lifelessly, merged as one with the other half a dozen characters who were doing the same. Then there were a few that stepped to the side and transformed into a glowing mass of fluff.
'That's cool!'
Then I realized that the person in that luminescent glob was editing their appearance. The small tutorial window sitting toward the top of my screen (which I hadn't noticed until now) kindly let me know that it is always possible to edit one's appearance. This was when I first took a good look at my own character.
And my god, did I look like E.T.'s mother. I had a wide, flat face, with eyes so far forward that they were nearly bugging out. My nose was thin and long, and my chin was as long and pointy. My ears were barely noticeable, and my hair was clipping into the model of my head, giving me several bald spots.
The following hour was spent by me fixing poor Tharen's appearance. I would think that any attempt I made at changing his appearance would look better than the random preset that I got, but there were so many sliders to edit my face with that I didn't really do much better. Eventually, I gave in and accepted what I had. At least I looked more like Sylvester Stalone's little sister on testosterone now than a sad alien.
Then I looked at the side panel and realized that I still had to edit my hair, upper torso, lower torso, and every article of clothing that I was going to wear.
Not caring as much at this point, I ended up with a fairly muscular man in a blue cotton shirt and brown jeans. Yes, I looked like I had just had the worst Christmas of my life.
Now, before I was ready to fly away to far off lands, I was curious about the "build" function in this game. I had heard that players can create anything they want, and I was interested in creating a custom vehicle or something else really fancy. Being the imaginative person that I (thought) I am, I was ready to churn out lots of cool items.
Then I opened the build window.
The massive number of options was more than I could handle. It would take me hours to figure this out! I cowered as I glanced over all of the different text drop-down boxes, asking for all kinds of input that I wasn't ready to give. As this window sat there, I also noticed a small object floating next to my character; a simple shape, a cone, hovered near Tharen, with several colored arrows pointing out of it. I clicked the arrows and pulled on them, but all I did was shift the little cone along the X, Y, and Z axes. Couldn't I even stretch and skew this little shape with nothing more than my mouse?
In my reluctance to dive into this powerful editing tool, I simply clicked on one drop-down box which initially said 'cone,' and selected 'wedge' instead. And a wedge I then had.
I closed the editing window, making the little wedge a permanent object in the world. It sadly dropped down to the ground, making a silent thud as it hit the grass, plopping to one side.
And as I watch this sad little wedge's nonexistant eyes fill with tears as it lay motionless on the ground, another player strolls by behind me in a twenty-foot-tall bipedal robot with turrets for hands.
Yeah, that makes me feel better.
I was done here. I wanted to see what content was already out there, waiting to be explored. I open up the search window and look for "Colorado" (this being something that I was assigned to do for our campus, after all). I don't see my university in the listings, but I do see a "Dream Island," accompanied by an image of a small digital forest area with a little waterfall. This seemed like a cute place to explore, so I warp there. Within seconds, I'm standing in an open field with colorful flowers and trees everywhere. How beautiful this area was!
That's when I noticed several small spheres floating in the air. Many of them seemed to be floating in pairs, and for most pairs, one sphere was blue, and the other was pink.
I clicked on the sphere closest to me. A small message popped up, telling me to right-click it. I did so and chose to interact with the sphere. Suddenly Tharen's arms were flying all over the place. I couldn't tell if the game had glitched out, or if the sphere gave Tharen a seizure, but then I realized that this was a dance.
Taking note that the spheres engage my character in specific types of action, I decided to continue wandering around. I quickly found a little cottage-like structure, filled to the brim with little spheres, all in pairs. I walk to the far end of the building and hit the blue sphere farthest in the back.
Suddenly Tharen's arms jumped up, in what looked like an embracing position...and I notice that his face was bent down and to the side. Tharen was making out with the air.
'Okay,' I thought, 'this place obviously wasn't meant for me.'
That's when I noticed that most of the spheres were hovering over things like large beds, rugs, and large chairs.
'Yep, time to keep moving.'
So, to keep Tharen from feeling the sting of not having a loved one to hang with on Dream Island, I pull up the map and look around for interesting places to go.
Amazingly, I find "Transylvania." 'Cool!,' I thought, 'vampires!'
Little did I know that Dracula wasn't who I'd find there.
This is where I must end my first entry in the Diary of Second Life. Look for the next chapter of Tharen's adventures soon! There's still a lot to be discovered.
-Marcus/Tharen
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Welcome, Part II
Marcus here!
I'm the second TTA that has been enlisted to explore the depths of Second Life. This is like diving head first into the unknown. What will I find? Who knows! Susan and I will be here, keeping a diary of sorts for you curious folk out there. Stay tuned to see what we learn from this virtual world.
I'm the second TTA that has been enlisted to explore the depths of Second Life. This is like diving head first into the unknown. What will I find? Who knows! Susan and I will be here, keeping a diary of sorts for you curious folk out there. Stay tuned to see what we learn from this virtual world.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Welcome
Hey there and welcome! I'm Susan, one of the two ASSETT TTAs who'll be posting to this place as we explore the wild and wacky world of Second Life.
Watch this space for something more interesting!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)