Please give me an insight into your world...

[Hazey2012]

Hello!

 

Let me first introduce myself, I am a 22yr old student studying at Nottingham Trent University, England.

 

I am currently writing my dissertation and I have come across the world of  Second Life.

 

I am hoping that some true Second life users will be willing to offer me an insight into this world by answering some questions that would then be used to contribute to my university work.

 

If you are interested please contact me on here with any further queries. In the mean time I will be personally exploring the world!

 

Thank you 

Hazey2012

[Thinkerer Melville]

I will be happy to answer your questions.   Please contact me (Thinkerer Melville) inworld.  Send me a friend request if you like.  Meanwhile, you may want to look over  my blog: 

http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/

TKR

[Ziggy21 Slade]

Normally I find these constant requests for survey participants a bit annoying.

However as this one is very polite and from someone in my very own city I would be happy to take part : ) 

[Orca Flotta]

Hazey, how about you stop asking questions in forum and log into SL instead? Experience it and write from 1st hand experience. You must know everyone here in the forum has different background, different interests, different amount of knowledge ... and this forum represents only a very small fraction of SL residents. Still you'll get a lot of different answers, which might still be totally untypical for a fair description of SL.

[Syo Emerald]

Why don't you not just go inworld yourself?

You want an insight so look into the thing you are interested in. Its quite strange that every person who comes to the forum for surveys and questions never sets a foot into Second Life itself.

Also you may need to define who is a "true Second Life user". The people in the forum? The people not even knowing about this forum? The people who only take a look into the forum when they have a technical issue?

Even inworld thats a difficult question, cause there is a huge number of different resident-types.

[Hazey2012]

Hello,

 

Thankyou for all your comments and advice, as put at the bottom of my post I will definitly be exploring the world of Second Life in order to get a personal experience of it.

 

However, I also need to gain other peoples experiences and views on it in order to gain a clearer understanding of how others use the game. I understand that this forum exemplifies a  small fraction of its users but hopefully 'in a fragment you can see a whole'.

 

Ziggy21 Slade and Thinkerer Melville thankyou very much for agreeing to participate. Once I have got to grips with the program I will be in contact shortly

 

Many Thanks

 

[Phil Deakins]

S/he said in the OP that s/he's going inworld, which is different to most students who are looking for information.

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Hazey2012 wrote:

Hello,

 

Thankyou for all your comments and advice, as put at the bottom of my post I will definitly be exploring the world of Second Life in order to get a personal experience of it.

 

However, I also need to gain other peoples experiences and views on it in order to gain a clearer understanding of how others use the

game

virtual world. I understand that this forum exemplifies a  small fraction of its users but hopefully 'in a fragment you can see a whole'.

 

---

Fixed it for you.   Get an idea of how extremely varied your responses might be?  I do not consider SL a game at all - there are no levels, monsters to kill, etc. and I am certainly not playing a game when I log into Second Life.

[Hazey2012]

Thank you! 

 

If you do not mind me asking the question, if not gaming what do you define yourself as doing when you are on Virtual Life? 

 

I will understand if you opt out of replying as this is personal.

 

Many Thanks

 

[Dillon Levenque]

 

---

Hazey2012 wrote:

Thank you! 

 

If you do not mind me asking the question, if not gaming what do you define yourself as doing when you are on Virtual Life? 

 

I will understand if you opt out of replying as this is personal.

 

Many Thanks

 

---

 

I know you asked that question of Czari, but I thought about it a little. It was in my opinion a pretty good question and one which I don't recall seeing anyone in your position (we DO get a lot of 'survey taker' here) ask before. I'll just blurt the things that came immediately to mind.

A lot of what I do, especially when I'm alone, can be called either exploration or learning. Exploration not in the sense of wandering and journeying (although I do plenty of that too) but in the sense of exploring the way things work and interact. I'm sure the number of different things to see and do and discover in Second Life is not infinite, but it's large enough that in my case it might as well be.

When I'm not alone, I'm socializing. I've met and become close to a lot of people here (which is just about the last thing I expected to happen when I came to SL) and it's hard to overstate how much pleasure I get from being 'with' them. They enrich my life in a far from virtual way.

 

[Thinkerer Melville]

Re Games and what we do:

Why few people in virtual worlds are gamers

What do we do in Virtual Worlds? 2012

 

TKR

[Phil Deakins]

It's not a game. It's a passtime. It's a system in whcih people pass time away doing all sorts of things, but it's not a game because there is no gameplay. Except for very tiny thing that Linden Lab recently introduced, Second Life does not have any way to 'play' it - no gameplay..

[Pussycat Catnap]

 

[Porky Gorky]

I am happy to share a brief insight into SL. It contains Humans who pretend to be fox's who have coitus with other Humans who pretend to be hamsters. It contains adults who pretend they are children and children who pretend they are adults. It contains a labour force of workers who, on average earn less per hour than an employee in a 3rd world sweatshop and the whole thing is ruled by a corporate dictatorshop that just takes our money and mainly ignores us the rest of the time.

 

ETA oh yeah and 95% of the female avatars here have knockers so big they will take your eye out if you are not careful. I thought that was important enough to warrant an amendment to my post :matte-motes-asleep-2:

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Pussycat Catnap wrote:

 

 

---

- one of my good friends was a ummm...troll I think - anyway it looks like it's from WoW.

(Loved how the trolls have a Jamaican accent!)

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Hazey2012 wrote:

If you do not mind me asking the question, if not gaming what do you define yourself as doing when you are on Virtual Life? 

 

 

---

Having been in SL quite awhile, this could cover a lot of territory so I will stick to the present:

*My Second Life is an extension of my real life in that I am not playing a role, being a fantasy character, etc.  If you met me in SL and then in RL you would see I am the same in my manner of speech, emotions, thoughts, reactions, etc.  My avatar has many of my RL physical characteristis: tall, fair skin, red hair and, depending on the outfit, I switch between blue eyes (my RL color) and green.

*Second Life provides the opportunity for me to meet people from all over the world and "virtually" travel the world via the amazing sims others have created.

*Education is huge with me both in teaching and learning.  Some classes I have taken are:

-A Spanish language course taught via voice by an instructor from Spain. 

-A 10-week course in learning to use the Gimp image software program. (Took this course 3 times to really get a handle on Gimp...lol.)

-A LOT of classes to learn how to build.

*Learning to build led to my opening a small business in SL.

*I attend a church in SL of the same denomination of my RL church.

*I do enjoy dancing - ballroom or in vintage jazz clubs primarily - but have not done much of that lately.  I was partnered for three years when I first began SL and we went to a LOT of dance venues.  Without a dance partner I don't find it quite as interesting.

What I mainly do with most of my time in SL now is either participating in a church event (we are currently enjoying the tradition of Posada), building and/or working on my business, attending an occasional class, and sitting in my house while IMing a few close friends.

Although social in that I'm not shy and can strike up a conversation most anywhere, I tend to be a bit of a loner, preferring to hang in my home or shop and venture out only for specific reasons. When I first began SL I explored a LOT.

Hope that helps a bit.

[Hazey2012]

Hello,

 

Thank you for everybodies contributions, this is really useful in understanding how Second Life is used.

 

Czari Zenovka your post is particularly interesting, thank you for your openess. Would you be willing to elaborate on your sentence..

"virtually" travel the world via the amazing sims others have created' ?

 

As I have said before, please do not reply if you feel like I am prying. I am on here to learn and not to cause offense.

 

Many Thanks

[Jennifer Boyle]

I'll be happy to chat and show you around.  IM me or send a friend request.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

A partial list of what I do in SL

• I run three businesses working full time in SL
• Build entire sims and create content of all kinds from RL looking things to pure fantasy.  One of the buildings I designed and built for a university in SL ended up being built in RL on their campus.
• I script, create textures, make sound files, a few animations etc,  i.e.: things needed t o make my builds come alive
• Manage private islands for others
• Teach, Consult, Advise and Learn
• Mentor new residents and builders
• I hang out with friends from all over the world that I am as close to as RL friends
• Ride my motorcycles, sail my sailboats, skydive, swim, and other sports from time to time
• Help my partner manage a live performance club and do custom paint jobs things for his motorcycle business
• Explore all the amazing sims in SL
• Have serious conversations about science, philosophy, politics and such and also down right silly ones just for grins
• In the past, I owned and managed a large residential estate and two large very popular clubs at different times (a rock club and a jazz ballroom)

In short I don't play SL, I live in it, even though I also have a RL too.  So SL really is my second life and not a game at all.

[Orca Flotta]

A full list of what I do in SL:

 

• I'm a professionally trained stunt avie
• I'm a total **bleep**
• I'm a mediocre race sailor
• I'm a yacht club manager
• I'm a blogger
• I'm never satisfied
• after almost 6 years in here I'm still considering myself a n00b on so many levels
• I was a land manager
• I was a stripper
• I'm dreaming about the socialist revolution I'm going to start ... some day maybe
• my personality, physique, gender and race are the same RL and SL ... just a bit enhanced
• I'm never bored
• I'm slow and always tired

[Clarissa Lowell]

Which course is this for?

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Hazey2012 wrote:

Hello,

 

Thank you for everybodies contributions, this is really useful in understanding how Second Life is used.

 

Czari Zenovka

 your post is particularly interesting, thank you for your openess. 

Would you be willing to elaborate on your sentence..

"virtually" travel the world via the amazing sims others have created' ?

 

As I have said before, please do not reply if you feel like I am prying. I am on here to learn and not to cause offense.

 

Many Thanks

---

My reference to virtually traveling the world is the ability to visit, within Second LIfe, either places that I will likely never have an opportunity to visit in RL or to return to some favorite locations to which I *have* traveled RL.

Examples of places I'll likely never visit RL:

*India

*Japan

*Africa

*France (and the Eiffel Tower)

Many, many, others.

Examples of places I have visited and can return to "virtually" while sitting in my chair:

*Ireland

*England

*Key West

*New Orleans

Then there is the whole realm of fantasy locations that do not exist in RL but are fun to visit as a jumping off point from just watching movies to *being* there via virtual travel:

*Lord of the Rings type locales

*Star Wars/Star Trek

*I once visited a recreation of the main areas shown in the movie "Moulin Rouge"

 

*Alice in Wonderland

Again the list could be quite lengthy on all of these - just using a few examples.

A sidenote of virtual travel is the method.  In SL most people just teleport (tp) from one area to another but there are roads, oceans, and the sky which lends itself to all manner of travel from horses, horse-drawn carriages, cars of all types, motorcycles, yachts, sailboats, planes (I was recently treated to a ride in a vintage WWII fighter plane on a sim that role plays this area, complete with aerial dogfights, hot air balloons, etc.  I once discovered a modern passenger jet that I must have obtained via freebie items.  I didn't know what it was until I rezzed it (placed it from inventory to its physical state in world).  I was fascinated with this.  I'm not sure if I still have it as I archive anything I don't anticipate using regularly.

 

 

[Pamela Galli]

---

Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

 

In short I don't

play

SL, I live in it, even though I also have a RL too.  So SL really is my second life and not a game at all.

---

Exactly my thoughts.  I live here part of the time. This is where I make a living and run a business. I would not even call it my second life; I have one life and SL is my workplace and where I have some lovely friends.