h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Second Life - A87818395
Author: RandomKid - U14999924

Email sent for pictures to be added

This looks good. Im

I'm embarrassed that I hit the wrong button. I'm also surprised that we haven't already got an Entry on Second Life. Can you explain the difference between Second Life and The Sims?

Thanks for your comment, I've updated the entry to answer that very question.

We once had an Entry in PR with the title 'Cyberculture' or something like that. It was 95% about Second Life, so I advised on just making it an Entry about this simulation. Unfortunately it never got done.

I've never 'played' Second Life myself.
Is it still as popular as it once was? I must say I haven't heard anything about it for a long time.

I'll just start commenting at the top...

Your introduction is good. I just think you should mention right at the start that it's a complete 3d environment.

The 'About' section can in my opinion be deleted. You already say in the first paragraph that there are different viewers. You could add their names in a footnote.

The 'What you can do' section...
I think you are stsrting with too detailed information there. It would be good to first tell us some more general things. Like how this world is built up and what people generally do there. Probably put the 'Overview' part here before the 'What you can do' part and expand it a little. (for instance: what is Prelude Island?)

You should also make the 'Where can I go' section part of a different section of this Entry, because it's very short. Or try to expand it.

I enjoyed this Entry, and learned a lot. I tried to play Second Life about 5 years ago - I created an avatar of sorts (although the avatar I wanted would have cost actual money, so the result wasn't all that good) but I could not find out how to enter the world after that. I didn't realise there were separate viewers that were needed to access the world...

On second thoughts, I'm glad I didn't as I can be myself on h2g2 instead rather than having to be a massive unattractive person (to my taste, although some may have thought the avatar was hunky, or whatever).

However, I did play a Sims game on Facebook that sounds a bit similar - it was played over the internet, I only had one character to play with, and the character interacted with characters of facebook 'friends', went to work and built and decorated houses. I don't think it makes too much difference to what you wrote, as the Sims game was deleted from Facebook in summmer, but there is now a Disney game which is quite similar (although much more cutesy - no romantic relationships in that...). Is it that Second Life can be much more realistic than the Sims? - I logged on to Second Life in the first place because I found out that there was a replica of a real life concert hall in there, and we could go and hear a free concert if we wanted (and if we could get in to the world and find it...).

When are playing a game and when are you entering cyberspace? Is there a difference? Is Second Life actually cyberspace as was claimed at the time it was released, or is it just as much a game as say Farmville?

From what I know I'd say Second Life is like the part of an MMO which isn't about fighting and solving puzzles. Part of every MMO is making a pretty (or ugly) avatar, showing off your armour and weapons, chatting to friends, role play and listening to all the stupid things many people who mostly don't know each other can say in a large 'chatroom' with 3d graphics. Sometimes there's even housing, so decorating your own house and inviting friends to it is an option. All this is an MMO if you completely remove all of the actual 'content'.

Because of this I don't think Second Life could give me much that an MMO can't give me. There certainly are many more customisation options in Second Life, but I see it as definitely some kind of a game.

Ah, good point Gnomon - yes, the Sims game had various targets to complete, and levels to progress through, so it was definitely a game rather than pure cyberspace (I guess it could be played freestyle to a certain extent, but the 'energy' would run out after a while).

Also, the interactions with friends' characters were not live (both people did not need to be online at the same time) and were restricted to set moves (not chats via message typing).

Glossing over the entry, I notice that many sentences start with "you can". Without wanting to sound too much like your English teacher I think that a little variation in this would make for less "bumpy" reading.

How's this getting on, RandomKid?

I think this could be an excellent addition to the Guide, but it needs some work doing on it first - please don't give up...

Randomkid's not posted for 5 weeks - I'm hoping he's not ed.

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I'm also hoping that he's not vanished. This is a good entry and we'd like to see it in the Edited Guide. There's a few unanswered questions that have been posed by reviewers here in Peer Review, and without anyone who'd actually played it to the extent that RandomKid has done, I don't think we can take this further. Which is a shame.

TC's point about sentence structure is a sub editor issue, but the unanswered queries need really to be dealt with by the author himself.

Perhaps we should consider sending this back to RKs personal space, and hope that he comes back and resubmits it with a bit more work made to it?

It's definitely a good start on an entry. I'd like to see it expanded and added to the Guide.

TRiG.

Do you have any knowledge of Second Life, Trig? (asking hopefully) If we did have someone, we could take this further. The Entry doesn't have to be long. Concise with the loose ends tied up suits me. I believe we even have some screen shots to illustrate it.

I have some knowledge of Second Life. I wouldn't say I know much, and what I do know is from about 7 years ago, and so could be completely irrelevant now.

I don't even know if I can still log in. I'll see if I can find out.


Geggs

As this is generating interest and both TRiG and Geggs seem to find it a useful starting point, perhaps the Flea Market would be more appropriate?

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