Second Life

Although Eve Online's gameplay is impressive, it doesn't have the more interesting and deeper aspects (like a large social base, content wholly created by players, and persistent economy). That's where Second Life comes in.

I first read about Second Life in a gaming magazine. As a concept it received high marks, but was marked lacking in gameplay. A few years later I think the reviewer was missing the point--or didn't give SL's developers enough credit.

SL isn't your typical MMORPG. It is less of a role playing and character building game and more of a social club. You create an avatar and interact with others in the game. Each week you are given a stipend of game cash to spend however you'd like and can earn cash by selling or bartering with other online SL residents. You can spend money on buying land, objects, textures, etc. The game allows custom content creation on several different levels:

• 3D Objects
• Textures for objects
• Sounds (effects, speech, etc)
• Gestures
• Animations
• Scripts (the backbone of interaction in SL)

Industrial residents will develop ways to earn more cash, like:

• Creating content (see above) for sale to others
• Organizing pay-for events
• Providing other useful services

Of course most money-making endeavors cost money themselves:

• Pay-for events, like raves, incur DJ costs for the music, rental costs for the venue, animation costs for the dance moves, etc
• Content creation (like 3D objects or textures) typically takes place offline--SL charges a small fee to upload the offline created content
• Some other endeavors require materials from other players to enrich the experience. For example, one resident created an award winning video in-game, but had to pay the actors, a seamstress for the costumes, a band for the music, a camera crew, and a land owner for the location.

Interaction within the SL world varies. You can avoid other players and just sightsee. Or you can seek out others for social reasons--“cybering” is commonplace in SL.

The most impressive things about SL are the economy and the fact that all the in-world content is created by the residents--the SL developers simply provide the base environment and the tools to work within it--the residents do the rest.

I've only played a bit with SL, and only with a free account (limited funds and no land ownership) on a graphically inferior laptop. However, I've added a section to the gallery to showcase some of the sights I've seen and will add more when I get a chance to play on a better machine.