Also Myth No.1 debunck… YOU DONT HAVE TO PAY FOR SL!!! Yes, thats right all these people telling you how many dollars a month they pay are either fairly dim or lieing, its a free to play game for heavens sake! You only have to pay for primium if you want, it gives you the ability to own land but most of my friends list do not. My partner does not have a premium account although I do so that I can own land, we have both been on/off it for two and a bit years and I don’t think he’s ever had primium.

For pitys sake, click the wrong link in google and you can see porn or a virus. And I’ve seen more porn by accident on google than EVER in secondlife. It’s amazing, I’ve barely ever accidently seen nakedness in sl. Short of new people who don’t know how to rez skin. (If you can call naked barbie doll’s offensive anyway)
What secondlife helps to illustrate is how narrowminded most people are and how tech savvy they arent. And you dont need to be a tech wiz to play secondlife. I recently helped my friend set up on sl and she is not a tech wiz, she doesent even like games much but she finds secondlife an interesting diversion.

Also if you find adults playing as child av’s disturbing you’ll be happy to know the numbers have shrinked by many since the banning of ‘dubious’ child av interactions, with many of the roleplay sim’s and other places banning them entirely. I’ve not seen a child av in ages.

Don’t dumb down a game just becuase people are being dumb, it’s not reasonable. And for reference, secondlife is no more depraved or otherwise than the world at large. Maybe if you consider for a while that most online demographics do represent people who you know in reality, you may start to look at your fellow populous in new light, chances are when the sun goes down they are strapped up in pony gear and a flume on there head. Or in a fursuit of course …

Also there are certainly more human av’s than other races in sl… though Drow seem to be on the up. (Well if you count in humans with cat ears, demon tails etc then it goes up even more.)

I would like to remind everyone, have a decent firewall, set up right. And anti-virus monitors and the sense not to click yes to every thing that pops up on thier screen. (In fact, if in doubt ctrl-alt-del if you have reason to suspect a window maybe trying to trick you into getting a virus, don’t even trust the window.)
Oh and fo the extra cautious, try to have two systems, avoid using the same computer you use for your bank, online perchaces from amazon etc the same as your gaming/socialising one. (If you really can be botherd with such elaborate means of avoiding virus and hacking) (Still more likely to get a virus off of Sheilasexyboots67@hotmail.co.uk than from secondlife.)

Also economy wise, the buisness that are doing the best trade in sl tend to sell things for less than the ‘income’ of a premium account. Which is about 400L a week at the moment. So if your paying a monthly subscription of however many dollars it is currently (For the lowest subscription) you can buy reasonably two outfits a week from somewhere like barerose, or save it to buy most things. (Unless your getting into land or things that tend to be expensive such as club gear, scripts for resale etc but this is all the buisness end)

I dident blaim the interent when I wasted money on ebay, don’t blaim linden labs when you waste money on that scripted colour change hair that was 1000L when it should have been about 250L.

Enjoy it or don’t

Play it or don’t

But it is what it is

And it’s free to come look at this wonderful freak show that gives an amazing insight into the psyche of the humans populating the net these days. X)

The also deliberately do not permit renaming of avatars (how long since even simple databases allowed changing of prime keys?). This, of course, results in those that are unhappy with their first avatar dumping large amounts of non-transferrable items when they start with their new avatar. Oh, yeah, more real dollars given to Linden Labs for buying duplicate non-items.

Finally, they have back up inventory data bases and can track items purchased by avatars that are later abandoned. Why does the State of California permit them to act as if these items are of no transactional value and don’t require an abandoned property report? Just because their TOS says so? Doesn’t work for other businesses.

LL profiteers on the results of the decisions they make to not support their own users. The users need to wake up from their addiction that makes that possible.

1) I figured, based on the horrible “popular” list and the like, that I might as well look around at some of these sex “hot spots”… I found exactly *1* that was populated with any significant number of people, and most of those where guys. The rest, 95% where human form, 3% where some sort of bot/camper in some lame area, and 2% where just wandering around, but not doing much. I had to really ***look*** to find places that actual SL people did actual SL sex in, and I still only found 3-4 sims that both cater to it, are not a tiny number of Gorian areas, and people actually can be found in. Where ever the image above came from… Its no place I have been. lol

2) Not everyone can design/script well, if at all, so there is “some” legitimate annoyance at how much you have to spend to get good quality items. If you plan to involve yourself in combat systems, RP, etc. you need DCS equipment, or some variation, and its not trivial to get that by making it. However, I am using flexi hair and legs from one furry vender, with a free flexy tail, and a free everything else. So, you can get “free” even for furry stuff. Its just not always going to be exactly perfect for what you want (imho, too much of the designs are almost as plasticky as the stupid furry head and tail you start with).

My real gripes have jack to do with the stuff that people here, who spent 1-2 days wandering around the botted high-profile, garbage heaps of SL, if they bothered spending that long, saw, but that a) you its damn hard to find stuff beyond that initially, b) the stuff you can find is… not that impressive (sorry Linden, your “see this” list of things you hand out stinks, and some of it isn’t even accurate) and c) Too many groups that have some sort of RP are either over restrictive on character types, over bearing in their “theme”, too narrow in that theme for all but very narrow groups of people to have an interest, or too “combat” oriented.

I have yet to find one that fits my vision of things, and I have looked every place from the so called elven empires to CARP (though not seriously in the later case as an RP place). The only one so far I didn’t get told “at the door” that I would have to become something else, besides a fox, or conform to some silly sub-group, because their combat/rule system only allowed X, Y or Z, and if you look even a little like Z, you *are* Z, has ironically been the Arizona Tombstone area. I don’t doubt I will get grumbled at staying as I am if I apply, but I am going to try for a sort of “fox/coyote” persona, complete with script to magically change everything from my clothes to my weapons, while hidden in a dust devil. I mean, they have Indians, I don’t see why I can’t become the local “Indian legend”. lol And, how the heck hard should it be for someone to RP that they can’t “tell” I am a fox until I do something to trick them, or the like?

Its an idea, and the best I can manage so far, in an environment I wouldn’t mind spending time in, instead of under the thumb of some horrible set of rules that don’t just limit what I am, or deny it, but force it to be something else. Until someone comes up with a better option…

In any case, some people here need to get their immature heads out of their tails and ask themselves if maybe their “bad” experience didn’t have more to do with their attitudes and how they “looked” at, for, and around the world, not the world itself.

-Cheers