When Does Life in SecondLife Go to Far?

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Your 2 cents ? Not even worth one my friend.

You admit never having been in Second Life, so you’re not really in a position to judge. Unlike WoW, SL is a social platform, not a game. It is real life socialising, it’s real life social chat, either by text or voice. People meet on there, relate on there, but it’s real life relating, not just pixels on a screen.
True emotions are felt in SL becuase it is real person to real person. Some get married in SL – many go on to meet and marry in real life (and yes, unfortunately divorce).
So, lots of people have a reality – in both SL and real life. Stick to WoW if that’s your escape from reality, but don’t criticise something you don’t know and condone those you’ve never met.

Evad :O)

Sorry, that should have been ‘condemn’ those you’ve never met :-/

And incidentally, you only ever read the ‘newsworthy’ headliners about SL – the sensational, the scandalous, in fact anything bad that can be said. You very rarely hear about the many hundreds (thousands) of happy stories coming from SL. Real people have found true friendship in SL, and gone on to develop great relationships which bring them much happiness in real life. Those kinds of stories don’t interest the media very much unfortunately.

Evad :O)

You apparently think I’m downing the game itself, I can tell you are a fan. I’m not against SL, but if it’s a means of entertainment – game or otherwise – it shouldn’t be taken to far in my opinion.

True it’s more social than other games but it’s still entertainment. Do most people in SecondLife walk around pretending to be someone they are not (this is what I imagined it would be) or does everyone try to mimick their real life persona?

If it is used as an escape from real life, it should remain that … another of my worthless 2 cents. I just can’t see the logic in ruining your real life happiness because of something going on in a game.

Oh and consequently, the woman who divorced her SL husband is now seeing a man she met in WoW…so it’s not just happening in SL. I just see it happening more in SL than in others, mostly because of the media and especially because of SL’s social aspects.

Second Life can’t really be called a ‘game’, because it has no stated goal, or ‘end game’. To some it is just entertainment, true, but to many, it is an extension of their real lives, or and adjunct to it. It means many different things to many people.

Some use as Role Play, and make their avatars to reflect the role they want to play (furries, Goths, etc): others (the majority I think), try to make their avatars as much like themselves as possible (though perhaps a little slimmer, or taller, or muscular … ).

From what I’ve seen, SL is practically a mirror image of real life socially, and the ‘personalities’ that occupy it are just as diverse – from the very genuine, good people, to the very twisted and sick (mentally), so it’s not always an escape from reality, it’s a reflection of it – and along with that goes all joy as well as the baggage.

It’s just as easy to ruin your real life in real life as it is in SL, the main difference is that you can switch SL off …….. possibly

I suggest you actually try it – but try not to take it too seriously … if you can. That may take more than a couple of hours – depends how sociable you are.

Evad :O)

I absolutely intend to give it a go, was talking about it with my wife last night. We’re looking for something we can both do together and this sounds fitting.

I guess I’d have to wait until I was in game, but if I ever found out her avatar was fooling around with another avatar, I just can’t see me getting really upset over it – given it’s just a fantasy world. In real life, that’d be a different story.

Granted – my opinion may change after I see what it’s like.

You’re opinion certainly may change. Real emotions can run high on SL. Beware – but don’t let that stop you enjoying it

Please update us with your experiences.

Good luck to you both

Evad :O)

I didn’t read all the comments, so hopefully I don’t say something already said, but I’m gonna throw my few cents in.

I can’t really say it’s a bad thing that people met on SL, got married IRL, then divorced IRL, because people MEET IRL, Get married IRL, and divorce IRL.

I would be hella pissed if my gf was out cyper-sexing up some dude on WoW, SL, AIM, EMail, WHATEVER.

I wanted to play SL but it won’t run on my comp.

Ya, I wouldn’t be thrilled with my wife cybering someone else. If you look at it that way I can see your point of view. I didn’t look at it as much as social as a game.

I guess I imagined it more like the sims, where it’s not really you but just an avatar you control. Sims get married and have families and I of course wouldn’t get jealous of that – my wife plays that all the time. But being that it’s all real people and more like a game platform bases IM rather than just a game I can see why it would be different.

Definitely more than The Sims Blackwings

Just as an example of the ‘reality’ that is Second Life, try this as starter (I hope the URL shows) …

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/05/the-husband-tha.html#more

How you view it may depend on your take on real life, but if you have any sense of compassion, it’s bound to make you see SL in a different light.

Evad :O)

I’ve been using SecondLife for a short while now and I can say that this is hardly a game in and of itself. It’s more or less an MMO sandbox often used as a 3D chat client. And honestly, when IMVU is your direct competitor in that regards, you don’t really have competition.

Don’t get me wrong, I do things on SL that I would not do in real life, namely hang out at fetish spots purely for lindens, but there are things I do on there that I would like to try in real life, like hanging out in a fetish scene I am actually connected to. Another of my friends plays it more like an open ended RPG, and is thus very flexible as to what he does on the system.

Honestly? I only joined cuz I was able to get the precise first and last name I wanted (Brache Spyker, basically a respelling of an alias I picked up a long time go Brach Speicher.) and my girlfriend apparently used it. Since then, I’ve actually tried to use the same SL camera control commands in my FPS’s!

After playing it more, I can see why people would get more upset over something happening in this ‘game’ than in other mmo’s. Being that this one is more personable and social.

That being said, I still can’t wrap my head around divorce or something else so serious in a game. But different strokes for different folks.

At most, I would give my significant other a good, stern talking to.

the game romance goes to far when your spouse takes communications out of the game( cell phone conversations,messengers,emails.)other than that it is virtual reality…keep it in the game.