For myself, this is not my first experience in Second Life, I created an avatar nearly a year ago. However, I am still very much a 'newb' as I created the account for myself and never made it very far off of the tutorial island. I had some difficulties at first as I had to experiment with the controls to relearn how to move and interact with the environment around me. My avatar still had the unaltered appearance of when I first made him. I decided that changing the appearance would be the first thing I would attempt to do in Second Life. This task proved to be challenging and tedious and ultimately the results were not personally satisfying. Since Second Life is largely 'residents' interacting with one another, your appearance in the virtual world plays an important role. I decided that I wanted the character to look as close as possible to myself in 'first life' with only one minor alteration. The Second Life version of myself comes with a nicely trimmed beard (that might not be possible in real life, lol). I haven't figured out how to create objects on my own such as the glasses, or at least find a pair of 'freebie' glasses that are similar. The same problems occurred when looking for appropriate clothing for my avatar, and creating your own clothes is difficult without lindor, hopefully in the near future these problems will be solved. After a unsuccessful attempt at creating myself in Second Life I decided to explore around the vast world. I went to a few locations and realized something; this virtual world can not be considered a game in the true essence of the word. There is no goal in Second Life! I do not need to pass a level to continue but rather the entertainment value is gained from socializing. I also find it interesting that it is an application that does not command full attention to play. While playing windowed, you can leave your computer going and do something else while your avatar just sits there (on a camping bench maybe? :P). The picture below is myself hanging out in a location known as 'The Abyss'.
As far as my reaction to the course goes, at this point I am looking forward to it. The class numbers might be a little high though to really communicate our personal findings in virtual worlds, but we'll see how it plays out. I think that blogging about our findings should be very interesting to say the least. It's a giant (virtual) world out there with lots to explore! I want to attempt to post at least one picture a week to see how my avatar develops of the duration of the course.
No comments:
Post a Comment