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Author
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Topic: Do you all hate Second Life?
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Lark84
My skeleton is made of creamy nougat.
Member # 1186
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posted 02-04-2007 10:44 AM
http://www.secondlife.com/
For those not familiar with Second Life, it's (depending on who you ask) a groundbreaking virtual world, or a place where furry porn abounds and disgusting nerds run free.
It runs like shit on my crappy laptop, but the concept still intrigues me. It's just like the virtual reality pictured in various cyberpunk works: an interactive 3D environment which can be used for a variety of things - meetings, sightseeing, hanging out (and underage furry cybersex). As a Second Life inhabitant, you can create and script your own objects to do pretty much anything. It's not hard to imagine a future where physical location matters less, since I can just always log in to Second Life and interact with my friends there.
Of course, this is just nerdspeak and normal people would prefer to meet their friends for real, which is why I predict most of you will hate it.
[edit: fixed link]
[ 02-04-2007, 10:48 AM: Message edited by: Lark84 ]
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Mr. K
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posted 02-04-2007 11:04 AM
We looked at it and thought it might be too much work to grief, but it's still on the list to check out.
It looks awfully stupid to me, but I suppose it has its uses. It mostly looks like a way to build all the annoyances of real life back into an environment that strips them all away.
I sort of hate it in principle, given that my friend knows a guy who makes thousands of real life US dollars every month making virtual knickknacks for people too lazy to design their own, so they can show off to other nerds what they are spending their money on.
That said, we'll probably all be doing it in a few years.
From: Cinnabar Island | Registered: Feb 2000
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Wintermute
My custom title sucks.
Member # 5
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posted 02-04-2007 12:08 PM
The concept is cool, just like it was cool 17 years ago when LambdaMOO was founded.
The only difference is that it replaces literacy and the infinite resolution of your imagination with shitty 3D graphics.
I'm old.
From: Winnipeg, Manitoba | Registered: Feb 2000
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gruco
I am Ian Garvey's lovechild.
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posted 02-04-2007 04:43 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Wintermute:
The concept is cool
way, WAY too generous
From: Clock Town | Registered: Mar 2001
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PikachuThunder
Farting Nudist
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posted 02-04-2007 05:21 PM
I've never played it before, but yes.
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Rolken
Vulcan
Member # 7
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posted 02-04-2007 05:32 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Lark84:
a place where furry porn abounds and disgusting nerds run free.
Don't forget flying penises and BDSM.
Overrated beyond belief.
From: Provo, UT | Registered: Feb 2000
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Mr. K
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posted 02-05-2007 02:18 AM
mute: The concept is cool
gruco: way, WAY too generous
It's the same cyberspace/metaverse concept that's been around for a long time. It sounds cool in books, but somehow it's hopelessly lame in real life.
Maybe it needs VR goggles or a Vietnam for nerds to thin out the herd or something. Something just sucks about the interface.
And it really shouldn't make things more difficult than they would be in real life.
From: Cinnabar Island | Registered: Feb 2000
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Wintermute
My custom title sucks.
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posted 02-05-2007 09:54 AM
It's the same cyberspace/metaverse concept that's been around for a long time.
I was going to say: we should probably stipulate what we think the concept is before we debate its coolness.
The virtual world thing is part of it, and a pretty cool idea even if it no longer has the slightest wow-factor to our generation. If that's all we're talking about we can lump the metaverse in with cyberspace and everything else.
But you can have virtual worlds that aren't MOOs, which I'm using as shorthand for a place where the entire environment grows fractally from the contributions of its users - Stephenson's metaverse being the ultimate expression of this. Maybe you have to grow up playing Colossal Cave Adventure, but MOOs might have been the first deeply weird internet idea that ever blew my mind.
In practice, yeah, most of the users end up being grassfuckers, or simply boring, so it doesn't turn out that cool.
From: Winnipeg, Manitoba | Registered: Feb 2000
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Donald
Bob the Builder
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posted 02-06-2007 02:04 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Lark84:
a place where furry porn abounds
DO NOT WANT
From: In your girl's panties | Registered: Feb 2001
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Anthrax
Ultimate Authoritative Power in the Universe
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posted 02-08-2007 11:24 AM
from what i understand its basically a haven for furries, pedophiles, and pedophile furries who write sonic the hedgehog slash
it also looks to be more trouble than its worth to figure out how to do anything worthwhile
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She told The Associated Press she first realized her son was mentally ill in 1996 when he killed her oldest child, a 25-year-old woman who suffered from cerebral palsy, by beating her with a dumbbell.
From: Somebody put shit in my pants! | Registered: Apr 2000
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Mr. K
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posted 02-09-2007 08:04 AM
I think it's in a place where USENET was for years. The first 25 years of the Internet can be summed up by examining a weeks-long argument over the exact square-footage of the Enterprise a friend showed me in the late 80s.
This thing is probably the Pokemon generation's first taste of Grumpy Old Man Syndrome...where they look at some new tech used almost exclusively by dreadful nerds and (probably) will grudgingly accept it a few years from now when absolutely everyone is doing it.
Kids will grow up thinking these MOO things are the norm and you guys can regale them tales of the Ye Olden Tymes when everything wasn't voice comm and people were judged on the content of the words they wrote more than the design of their avatar.
All that said, Second Life does look awful. Not sure what technological leap needs to be made to make it suck less, but I think as long a 19th century qwerty keyboard is involved and we're passively looking at images on a static 2D rectangular surface, this is all going to be pretty weak.
From: Cinnabar Island | Registered: Feb 2000
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Rolken
Vulcan
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posted 02-10-2007 09:18 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Mr. K:
This thing is probably the Pokemon generation's first taste of Grumpy Old Man Syndrome...where they look at some new tech used almost exclusively by dreadful nerds and (probably) will grudgingly accept it a few years from now when absolutely everyone is doing it.
I'm not so sure this is the case. It seems to me a situation more akin to the current status of Blu-Ray - the concept is interesting, but the current implementation isn't worth the effort. The "grumpy old men" I've known have an aversion to new technology regardless of actual merit simply because it's new (and often "unnecessary"), and the actual old men ultimately usually end up assimilated when somebody buys them something for a birthday or Christmas.
I mean, Second Life really is inane beyond belief. It doesn't even have camera clipping on walls, so people end up constructing cubes a mile in the air and hoping nobody cares enough to come eavesdrop.
From: Provo, UT | Registered: Feb 2000
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Lark84
My skeleton is made of creamy nougat.
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posted 02-11-2007 05:09 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Mr. K:
The first 25 years of the Internet can be summed up by examining a weeks-long argument over the exact square-footage of the Enterprise a friend showed me in the late 80s.
That exact same argument is probably being held, right now, in Second Life, by a couple of Klingon and Romulan avatars.
It's like the Internet is reinventing the same stuff over and over again, but with better graphics.
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Mr. K
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posted 04-06-2007 11:33 AM
So, seriously, we should grief this thing.
From what I understand, it doesn't take any money to play, unless you want to buy virtual stuff, which is stupid.
Apparently no one will take you seriously if you don't spend money to buy expensive "clothes", but that shouldn't prevent us from creating our own stuff and using it to annoy others.
Maybe we could hook up with those guys who fucked up John Edwards' virtual HQ and learn some tips. There's got to be some fun that can be squeezed out of fucking with these jackasses.
Lark, you've actually "played" it, right? If we got a bunch of us together, was it obvious what we could accomplish in terms of vandalizing stuff and creating giant butts or whatever?
[ 04-06-2007, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: Mr. K ]
From: Cinnabar Island | Registered: Feb 2000
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Lark84
My skeleton is made of creamy nougat.
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posted 04-07-2007 07:38 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Mr. K:
Lark, you've actually "played" it, right? If we got a bunch of us together, was it obvious what we could accomplish in terms of vandalizing stuff and creating giant butts or whatever?
I have played it; it is free to create a character, visit the world, and build things.
If we got a bunch of us together, especially people with programming skills, we could be (with minimal effort) an annoyance to some, or (if we dedicated our lives to it) wreak serios havoc for many. Creating a giant butt is extremely easy.
Out of curiosity, to which degree are you proposing that Azurians should grief Second Life? Take down the servers, steal people's money, destroy their property, causing real grief? Or just be an annoyance, parading giant butts and deploying karate crickets in public places?
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Mr. K
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posted 04-07-2007 10:16 AM
Lark84: I have played it; it is free to create a character, visit the world, and build things.
OK, I'm definitely going to have to check this thing out. I'm always looking for new griefing opportunities.
If we got a bunch of us together, especially people with programming skills...
What do you need programming skills for? I guess you can control the operation of the objects you create?
Out of curiosity, to which degree are you proposing that Azurians should grief Second Life?
I just want to find the most annoying, self-important, and/or hypocritical assholes and fuck with them mercilessly.
Furries are stupid, but they don't outrage me on principle. If they want to pursue their fucked up perversions, that's fine with me.
On the other hand, I do tend to hate role-players with the burning passion of a thousand supernovae, so I'd love to fuck with those people...I'm sure we can find an appropriate target that we all can agree on hating. Neo Nazis are generally easy prey, but that's a tall order and we'd have lots of griefer competition.
Also maybe I'll start hating furries if I actually interact with one.
From: Cinnabar Island | Registered: Feb 2000
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Lark84
My skeleton is made of creamy nougat.
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posted 04-07-2007 10:52 AM
Mr. K: What do you need programming skills for? I guess you can control the operation of the objects you create?
Exactly. Just modeling a bunch of stuff is fairly easy and can be done without any programming knowledge - it's done through the GUI with your mouse - but in order to make those objects do things you need to script them with the Second Life scripting language.
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White Cat
Nobody knows why I'm an admin.
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posted 04-11-2007 11:49 AM
K: I'm always looking for new griefing opportunities.
On that note, are you still doing the NS thing? I basically lost interest and let my nations die a couple years back; has the place changed at all?
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"Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?"
-- Barack Obama, campaigning in Iowa
From: Calgary | Registered: Feb 2000
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Mr. K
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posted 04-12-2007 08:13 AM
My nations are pinged automatically, so they all still exist, although you know a game sucks when you'd rather have a machine play it for you.
The game is still controlled by moderators who punish anyone who does anything interesting, intelligent or skillful.
So, yeah, basically the same.
From: Cinnabar Island | Registered: Feb 2000
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JohtoMaster
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posted 04-12-2007 12:56 PM
Ah, The Heights of Azure. I'm still pretty active in NS, consistently making it in the Top 20 in the World for economic reports. It's pretty much the only online game where I actually have a competitive presence, and I owe it all to MK for getting me started, may he rest in peace. Wish most of the other people hadn't let their nations die off...
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Oh, and it's not "newbies", it's "proles". Nothing wrong with being new to the game if you're not stuck in the working classes. Hey, if we're going to be elitist, may as well go the whole hog and refer to the idiots as a lower social rank... - CatGonk at SoaG
From: Valparaiso, IN, USA | Registered: Oct 2000
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Lark84
My skeleton is made of creamy nougat.
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posted 04-12-2007 03:10 PM
NS = NationStates?
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JohtoMaster
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posted 04-12-2007 10:28 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Lark84:
NS = NationStates?
Indeed , it isss.
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Oh, and it's not "newbies", it's "proles". Nothing wrong with being new to the game if you're not stuck in the working classes. Hey, if we're going to be elitist, may as well go the whole hog and refer to the idiots as a lower social rank... - CatGonk at SoaG
From: Valparaiso, IN, USA | Registered: Oct 2000
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Mr. K
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posted 04-13-2007 01:07 PM
Just one question...what the hell are you guys doing in NS, other than playing along with mentally deficient self-important role-playing idiots?
It's only just barely a game...
From: Cinnabar Island | Registered: Feb 2000
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Dragonite21
Farting Nudist
Member # 475
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posted 04-13-2007 07:00 PM
It's just inertia for me. Only takes a minute to deal with the couple of daily issues, so why not? I've never taken part in any role-playing or whatever it is the hardcore players do.
From: London, United Kingdom | Registered: May 2000
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Mr. K
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posted 04-13-2007 10:02 PM
But...but...but...after a month of play, you've seen all the questions already. I don't understand...
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JohtoMaster
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posted 04-14-2007 11:15 PM
It's the only "game" (which I admit, is a very loose term in this case) where I was able to get in on the ground floor and "compete" at the elite levels. Like Dragonite21 said, it takes a few minutes a day, and it makes me feel good when I can come in and see that I am in the top 0.01% of the "players" of it. I'm not about to let go of my "Highest Crime Rates in the World" title just yet.
However, I can easily see why this wouldn't be enough for some people, and henceforth why they let their nations die. To each his own.
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Oh, and it's not "newbies", it's "proles". Nothing wrong with being new to the game if you're not stuck in the working classes. Hey, if we're going to be elitist, may as well go the whole hog and refer to the idiots as a lower social rank... - CatGonk at SoaG
From: Valparaiso, IN, USA | Registered: Oct 2000
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Mr. K
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posted 04-15-2007 04:20 PM
JohtoMaster: I'm not about to let go of my "Highest Crime Rates in the World" title just yet.
Ah, I see. I didn't realize it was the rankings thing that keeps you playing. At least there's a logical answer. Thanks for the explanation.
[ 04-15-2007, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: Mr. K ]
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Dragonite21
Farting Nudist
Member # 475
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posted 04-16-2007 08:23 AM
Also, being able to leave abusive messages on the region bulletin board.
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