What do you think of the virtual online game Second Life?

In case if you all don't know what Second Life is ... Second Life pretty much takes online chatting to a whole different level.



You're able to create your own avatar, making him/her look very realistic with all the different shapes and skins you can apply to it. You're able to add breasts, penis', and vagina's to your avatar to make it look even more real as possible.



Instead of going into online chat-rooms, you go into virtual places to where your avatar can interact with other avatars



Second Life has it's own currency. $1 USD = 250 Linden Dollars. So you're able to convert money from your checking account into the online game and buy property, such as homes, cars, and other accessories as well.



People have even fallen in love and gotten married on Second Life. There are sex beds in Second Life that allow your avatars to have sex. Second Life female avatars are able to get pregnant and make Second Life babies, that actually grow up into adults, which are controlled by the Second Life servers.



The title of the game itself pretty much says it all ... you really do live a Second Life.



What are your thoughts on this online phenomenon?What do you think of the virtual online game Second Life?
Sims 2 is easier.What do you think of the virtual online game Second Life?
I honestly didn't know about that game til' you told me what it was.What do you think of the virtual online game Second Life?
It's cool as long as it doesn't take over someone's life completely. That'd be a problem.
While Second Life is a great concept and it provides options that go beyond that of regular chat rooms or instant messaging, it still has some ongoing issues. The first thing that gets me are the unusually old and out of date graphics. The characters are actually not appealing and most of the graphics are quite ugly when compared with any modern on line game. This may not be an issue for people that just want to chat and hang-out but in 2010, we are used to seeing a much more sophisticated level of artwork. Another contributing factor is that game players can actually design content for the game themselves. This is a feature that many users like but the end result is a horrible mishmash of terrible design ideas that looks like a grade 7 science project gone wrong. Design should be left to real, talented designers. It would be much better if they provided users with all the building blocks and the users simply assembled them to create their in-game objects like houses or other structures.



Another issue here is the cumbersome and frustrating tool set given to the users to create content for the software. It's so limited that even the best 3D artist would have a difficult time creating anything they could be proud of. The software should have built in support for major 3D modeling packages such as 3ds max and Maya. This would raise the quality of the in game objects and help with some of the design quality issues.



The software is also somewhat slow to load, especially when moving into a new area. During times when there are many people in the same area at the same time there are often long delays and jarring interruptions in load times and chat. I only notice this because I have played many on-line role playing games that do not suffer from the same issue. I know it can be done better so I wonder why this issue has not been improved or resolved.



Overall I would have to say the second life software is geared toward causal computer users that have not been exposed to many graphics based 3D software programs. Avid gamers are not going to be willing to put up with the primitive interface and graphics just to join a chat session. Chat features are already built into all on-line games and they work a lot soother than those found in second life. It's still a very good idea and hopefully it will continue to improve and be updated but until that time it's like comparing a cheap, made for TV movie to a Film produced for theatrical release. The production values are very low.