A lot of people are unhappy with their current situations and turn to the Internet to create a new one, often times, as someone completely different than themselves. As people turn to chat rooms, personal ads or online gaming the line between reality and the Internet become increasingly blurry.
I decided recently to take a trip into the seedy underbelly of this phenomenon and quickly realized how easily one can fall to the vices of an online community.
For this experiment, I decided to check out Second Life (mostly because it was free), an online “game” where the objective is to buy land and build things on it. The developers behind the game simply give users the tools to create and alter the game world into anything they want. There are no missions, bad guys or objectives, just a seemingly endless world to shape and mold.
Entering the game simply required a quick download and a free user account. As soon as you boot Second Life up, you’re immediately “playing” the game. Your first task is creating your in game person or avatar. Most people create avatars in the likeness of the person they wish they were, I went with the person I think I am on the inside–a 7′ bald, green-skinned, red-eyed, freckled-freak (yes, that’s me, or should I say Lucifer, dancing with the ladies above).
Once you’ve decided what your avatar should look like, you’re on your own to explore the massive world of Second Life. Just like the real world, you can expect to find the good and bad of society. Clubs, casinos, shops, restaurants, battle domes, etc are littered through out and Lucifer was seriously overwhelmed when he first entered the world. He flew around (literally, the only way to travel) for a while, not really “Getting it” until he wandered into a shop with a nice girl in it. They got to talking and she told him that he really needed to buy some land. Unfortunately, the game started Lucifer out with just $250 Linden bucks which isn’t nearly enough for his own place so he decided he would his luck at the casinos.
After blowing through $50 in a few seconds on slot machines, Lucifer thought he would be better off hitting the roulette table. After blowing through another $180 he started to realise that his second life was no better than my real-life.
After flying around for a while and stealing (I think) a car, Lucifer found another nice person. Half-human, half-fox-thing (and glowing), he asked how to make money in this world. Dismissing the selling of goods because you need land, Fox-guy also told Lucifer that some places actually paid you to dance! “Hell”, Lucifer thought, “I can dance with the best of them” and took off for the club.
Lucifer found a great place to dance that payed $1 for every 5 minutes of dancing. I got bored quick and thought I could go do some real-life tasks while Lucifer scored some much needed cash. I came back an hour later and he had managed to earn just $12 while dancing his little green heart out. I decided that Lucifer wasn’t cut out for this line of work and moved on.
Unfortunately, my avatar disagreed and kept on dancing and somehow ended up with some roulette chips on his head. Completely lost and a victim of an obvious game glitch I had no idea what to do. Lucifer wouldn’t stop dancing and those chips were plastered to his head no matter how much he shook it. After searching for a bit, I found an area for “newbies” (new dumb-ass players like myself) and some friendly veterans were able to cure Lucifer’s dancing shoes and remove the unlucky chips from his head.
All in all, my experience with Second Life wasn’t all bad and I’m intrigued enough to give it some more time. There’s a lot I haven’t seen and the people are pretty friendly for the most part (sort of like going to Toronto). Hopefully, I’ll be removing chips from some other poor shmoe’s head before long.