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Second Life - fullfilling fantasies...

Discussion in 'Entertainment and Technology' started by Alyss, Jan 14, 2014.

  1. Alyss

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    Hey

    Has anybody ever played this game?

    I used to play SL once. I got female avatar and fullfilled my LGBT crossdresser/trans fantasies without getting noticed in real world :slight_smile:. Generally SL world is friendly to LGBT contrary to RL sometimes...

    Game is somewhat pointless and dumb - you have no real aim there. But as I mentioned it was great to wear skirt and heels without necessity of stealing clothes form your sister or spouse :slight_smile:

    Greets
     
  2. Kasey

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    I used to play playstation home. It's like second life. I got to be female in the game and was able to let out my feminine side.

    I couldn't get into second life because it would be so addictive.
     
  3. An Gentleman

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    I can't say I'm a fan of the art style.
    I've played it. What a wide-open sandbox it is.
    Think I'll stick to GTA and Garry's Mod and stuff like that.
     
  4. Girishbbe

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    I just mud. You can get the same kind of fantasize potential, but it's easier then second life. I tried second life once and the bandwidth requirements where insane.
     
  5. Huma

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    I'm obsessed with Second Life! It's more like a multiplayer sim than a game though. Here's me in SL!

    Edit: The 1st picture is me at an LGBT club called Vogue!
     

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    #5 Huma, Jan 17, 2014
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2014
  6. Kasey

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    Love that outfit Huma
     
  7. Huma

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    Thank you Kasey! :grin:
     
  8. Kasey

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    I did a similar thing in playstation home. Love that look.
     
  9. Euliam

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    I played until my job made it difficult to access the internet quite so intensively as is needed to keep up a presence. My profile picture here is actually my favorite avatar from SL. When I was trying to think through my gender identity, a friend suggested I try to build an avatar to look like my "soul" (his word).

    Since what I came up with was a kid av, I ended up rping as a kid for a while and getting "adopted" by someone who is currently the closest thing I have to a brother in real life. When I pounded the gas pedal to escape my conservative home town and family between seasonal jobs, he was kind enough to let me stay with him for a few weeks. So I guess my overall experience with SL was mostly positive.

    But as you say, the game is fairly meaningless in itself, and it's so open that there's little social context to draw on for how to belong. You try to live out some fantasy version of yourself, which can be good in terms of figuring out who you are, but bad in terms of making authentic, longlasting connections with other people. Illusions of belonging are quickly dispelled, so players fearful of more hurt feelings start playing the game for its superficial tolerance. If you want to find hedonism of any kind you can imagine, that's easy; if you want to find friends and family, you'd probably be better off engaging more deeply with people you are more in proximity to in the real world. There are exceptions, but even in those cases the relationships usually suffer all the problems of being long-distance.

    Even the identity-formation benefit of SL comes with risks: with everyone fervently protecting the right to self-expression, with no real social obligations other than the flimsiest of loyalties, it becomes easy to become so attached to your avatar that you either a) lose sight of who you are by physicality and circumstance rather than pure affect, b) feel the reality vs. affective gap more intensely than you can actually resolve, or c) more likely some fluid combination of the two. SL is a place for exploring, not becoming.

    Another thing to take into account is that while SL may be free to play in theory, in practice it takes a lot of willpower not to eventually get caught up in the consumerism. The greatest strength of SL is its flexibility, but that often comes with a price in Lindens, which have a direct correlation to real-world dollars. Owning land in particular can be a large monthly expense, but even just getting your character to look "perfect" (whatever that would mean for you) is a great temptation to buy things on the SL marketplace.

    Warnings aside, if you are a visual person instead of textual thinker, SL can be a great resource for interacting with a diverse and tolerant lot of people and for exploring some sense of identity outside of proximal real-world pressures. But tread with care.
     
    #9 Euliam, Jan 18, 2014
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2014
  10. Alyss

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    Good post Euliam.

    Huma love your outfit too :wink:

    Second life is a place for me where I can be sexy lady wearing skirt and almost nobody bothers.
    Yes you can buy stuff and be addicted to it. But clothes in this game are just pixels and are virtual so see limitations here.
    also as mentioned before, game is somewhat pointless; you dont take quests, not get xp points and so. Trips around empty worlds (beautiful sometimes) are boring for me.

    The thing that brings me in to SL is connection with aweosme people. You can meet there great people not biased against LGBT or just LGBTpeople who can share experiences with you.
    I dont meet such people in real worls :frowning2: Mainly I am around homophobes or narrow minded...
    I dont say that everybody in SL is great. There are many who just buy or look for sex or are simple ignorants who dont even respond for kind "hello". But I met some great people who I can talk to and share experiences, such as homosexual relations, crossdressings, without being rejected.

    Greets
     
  11. Kalon

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    I use to play years ago when my sims 3 stopped working but not enough good black male skins for me to look remotely anywhere near myself that and not a lot of male clothes. Met a lot of cool people on there though!
     
  12. Kasey

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    Reminds me of how the clothing and customization choices actually went down between saints row 2 and 3.

    Anyways my comment was somewhat random but I totally get wanting to have good character models in something like this.
     
  13. Kalon

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    Random but cool. i agree with the saints row comment too. I love to customize myself in games. if i can't do that then more than likely i won't play it.
     
  14. biggayguy

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    I played Second Life a few years ago. It's nice for live chat. My computer couldn't handle the speed and memory needs back then. Mostly my avatar sat around in pubs listening to music and getting drunk or stoned. I liked collecting free stuff there too.