Journal #4: A Virtual Second Life

When I first started to play Second Life, it felt a bit strange. First off, the developers did not have many selections of avatars from which to choose. I’m guessing if you pay for the membership, the developers offer you more avatars. The way that I came up with my avatar’s name, Kalib, was based on a movie about warlocks. The other feature I did not like about Second Life was it gives you a list of last names from which to choose. The most sensible last name that I chose from their list was “Shelman.” I did not want to have an unusual name such as “Danceswithcows” or “OMGWTFBBQ” because they are too childish. The avatar that I chose was a guy who was wearing jeans and, what looked to be, black converse shoes. The feeling that I felt about this avatar was he looked normal. And to think about it, my avatar almost looks like Clark Kent from Superman when Clark was on his parent’s farm. I do not feel that my avatar has made an impression on the virtual world of Second Life. I have been playing Second Life for two days now and I do not feel any different about MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online). My view on MMOs has not been drastically changed since playing Second Life.

The developers did not do a good job of explaining how the world works. It is a bit confusing because they do not tell you how your avatar is suppose to earn money, clothes, and a house. Due to my lack of knowledge as to how to make money for my avatar, I had to ask other people how do I make money. The controls are pretty standard in the way that you walk around a virtual world. For the majority of the time, you use the directional pad to walk in a general direction. However it does become a little sketchy at times to turn and position yourself. The coolest feature about the avatar was that he could fly. The idea that all you have to do is click the word fly and, whoosh, you are hovering in the air. Another neat attribute to flying is that you can zoom in enough to see through the avatar’s eyes. And since you can do that you can experience what it would be like to fly through the eyes of Superman for just a moment. The controls become quite hard when you choose to fly through the eye of an avatar. Since there is an option to fly, it makes exploring the entire world possible. As a side note, if you do not feel like flying there, you could teleport just the same, and save your finger the stress of holding down the key. The only limitation that I had was when an avatar could only go to certain islands. The reason for this is because certain avatars have the capability to only allow certain other avatars on their private islands. This is due to the host’s discretion in determining that some islands have explicit content that underage virtual users cannot be exposed to.

To be honest, I believe that there is an absence of a narrative story in this game. The only other way that I could express my character’s viewpoint is by saying that the world is extremely colossal and intricate in its own notable way. And seeing objects through my avatar’s eyes makes me want to touch everything and see what certain objects can do. It makes me feel like I have been born again and have the mind of a child. In the same way that kids see things for the first time and the way in which they are naturally inquisitive, that’s how I feel looking through my avatar’s eyes. Kids try to explore their environment and ask as many questions as possible. I believe Second Life’s main goal is to basically help you and your avatar build a social network. I think of Second Life as a virtual blind dating game. I am open for new experiences whether it be a virtual world or reality. But I do not feel as though that I need to escape to a virtual world to help me cope with the real one.