Week 2 - Personal Relations and Products

Hello again! This past week I've spent some more time in Second Life to research a little bit more. Most of my experiences this week have come from the public store [Buried] (as I talked about last week), random meetings with friends at places where they would bring their own friends, and random stores I wanted to check out.

First of what I want to talk about is how people behave, react, and live on SL. Much like in real life, every single person comes with their own special type of personality and behaviors. While I play, I like to act, joke around, and just be my REAL self. Many other people, on the other hand, like to keep their 1st life and their second life completely separate. What I mean by this is that people will create their own character, and only act, think, and speak like the character they are presenting to the world of SL. Lastly, there are many people who like to do a mixture of both, where they have the freedom to change who they are, but still keep some or many core values about themselves.

(A much older picture of me. Showing off how I look in real life versus Second Life. Pretty similar.)

For me, being myself, I find it very easy to talk to new and old players alike, and they all seem to get along with me right away. There have been many times, though, where I decide to change what I look like and sometimes even how I act (maybe more rude, maybe more pushy, maybe even more dumb), and there is definitely a change in how people react and talk to me. When I'm annoying and pushy, most of the time, people will tell me off and ignore me, unless I continue to harass them. In Second Life terms, I would be considered a "Griefer" or "Troll". People do these types of things constantly because they get a kick out of it. It's just a lot easier to harass people online than it is in real life, so they have a reason to try.

(A friend and I going around holding people up at "gunpoint", trying to get a few laughs. Many people igored us and laughed at us and called us dumb. We assumed no one would pay up, but some people played along and gave a few dollars! Good sports.)

(This is someone who came into the area and did an improvised rap talking trash and making fun of everyone he saw. Many people yelled at him, ignored him, or simply blocked him.)

For the reasons above and more, there are so many different ways people are attracted to Second Life. Most people find their true calling or place after adventuring online for a few weeks. What used to be a simple game where you would talk to people and be someone else might have evolved into becoming a store owner, selling the lands most popular shirts, jeans, skins, or hair! This is pretty much how it happened for me. I came to SL one summer because I saw a time-lapse video building of an acoustic guitar, so I assumed it was like a version of The Sims, or something I could mess around in and 3D Model. I had no clue what I was about to jump into at that point. After a few months of playing and getting a few friends involved, we quickly found a community of people and became friends with everyone. This shows exactly how people can change and adjust in SL, much like in real life.

Finally, I want to touch a little bit on shopping. There are many categories that creations can be sorted into. Finding exactly what you want in SL can be VERY EASY to achieve! In-world, there is a search engine that helps you find common tags such as free, newbie, clothing, hair, skins, shapes, furniture, vehicles, weapons, HUDS, etc. Also, there is a Second Life Marketplace, which is all done through your web browser. The SL Marketplace can be found here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/. Other ways include word-of-mouth, or right-clicking the object on the person and "inspecting" it.

When starting off in SL, there are very very many places that are dedicated to new players, allowing all of their creations to be bought free of charge. Granted, most of these things are either old or poorly constructed, but it's still something to get people up off their feet!

(Some Freebie Island merchandise)

Using the Marketplace, I went on and found 5 different items from 5 different categories. For each item, I will go over what it is, what category it comes from, how much it costs, and who would be buying it.

1.)
GunCraft - Custom Weapon Crafting Tool
Category: Weapons - Rifles
Price: L$1,000
Who would use this?: Anyone who is very into military-type things, guns, customization. It's harmless unless you are in a zone where health/damage is turned on.

2.)
Damani MediaViewer - Youtube, Dailymotion, ShoutCast, Music, Movies
Category: Home and Garden - Electronics
Price: L$4,95
Who would use this?: People who have houses or land of their own. It allows the sharing of videos and music from YouTube and such.

3.)
Bike red
Category: Vehicles - Motorcycles & Scooters
Price: L$0
Who would use this?: Anyone who wants a motorcycle! It's drivable in "rez enabledb (able to drop items)", "script enabled" areas only.

4.)
*HB* Kenshin Samurai Full Armor - by Hanzo Blades
Category:  Avatar Accessories - Armor
Price: L$1,200
Who would use this?: People who Role-Play or want to dress up as a samurai.

5.)
aLidas black S-V-E-D
Category: Apparel - Men's Footwear
Price: L$99
Who would use this?: Regular people need some kind of pair of shoes!

As you can see, there is plenty of variety in builds, quality, style, prices, everything else.

Until next week!