Matt
Banned via Administration
Link to original post: [drupal=1389]Life: Take Two[/drupal]
I'm a sucker for detailed character customizations. Back in the '90s, I enjoyed renting games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater and wrestling games solely for the fact that I could make zany characters with considerable detail. I could spend hours creating careful renditions of me and my friends, and just plain novelty characters with no practical purpose other than to amuse me. To hell with actually playing the games; I just love to create.
Even though I never bought a Wii and don't intend to, I keep up with the wonderful variety of creative Miis via the Internet, marveling at the multitude of Darth Vaders and celebrities and cartoon characters. I would sample many an MMORPG just to create a character. There's something endlessly satisfying in molding and tweaking something to be aesthetically sound--at least to this nerd.
But not unlike a drug addiction, I needed something stronger. I'd been going through withdrawals, and the Xbox's Avatars just weren't doing it for me anymore. I went to my supplier (Google) and pleaded for harder drugs. With some (sexual) coaxing, my supplier gave me the hookup. In a sordid back alley behind a strip club, I made a deal with the devil himself: I downloaded Second Life straight into my veins.
Well, no, that's not the proper metaphor. Let's say that I put Second Life in my mouth, but I didn't inhale. And thank God, because the "game" (if it can be called that) is truly astoundingly awful. I knew little about what I was getting myself into, but screen shots informed me that the character creation tools were exceptionally detailed, if not the best out there. Oh, how eager was I to create! And how foolish.
Strangely, the game requires almost no installation. The sign-up process is easy, and whenever you register a first name, you have to choose from a select list of family names. Hmm. I wasn't sure yet if I wanted to create a guy or girl character, so I chose a gender neutral name: Riley. From the list of available last names, I chose Wonder. Alright! Look out SLiens, here comes Riley Wonder, the gender confused marvel.
Aaaaaand action.
When you boot into the game world, you quickly discover why it is that there's no installation; everything in the game world loads as fast as your internet connection allows (in my case, the worst DSL internet money can buy). Allow me to emphasize "everything." The game is littered with crap, and even the starting tutorial island makes it pretty clear that load times will be a constant hindrance to, say, walking.
I spy my very first resident: He is a man of sumo proportions (and attire) and has a gigantic erection. Allow me to explain. This man appears to have an accessory of some sort affixed to his crotch area, and it looks as phallic as can be. Also, it's aimed right at my face. Before the environment even fully loads, this man is moving back and forth, thrusting his gigantic accessory into my face. Neat. I see a giant beacon pouring down from the sky to highlight a teleporter to the main island. I beeline for it, thinking that maybe the loading (and the populace) will become more bearable.
Silly me. On the new island, the insertion point for Second Life, everything is blank. There is just grass as far as the eye can--oh wait, there's a sidewalk. Oh, and there're are flowers loading. Ah, and there are store fronts. And look, billboards! The process takes almost five minutes for everything to not only materialize, but to render in a higher resolution. Everything is a blur straight ahead, no matter which direction I turn. I feel like I'm in a giant shopping mall, as the luminous storefronts are everywhere I turn.
I can hear talking in the distance. What sounds like a man from Denmark asks famously, "How do I marry woman?"
A man with a British accent laughs, "It's not quite that simple, my friend."
As entertaining as the conversation is, my instinct is to find the "mute voice" button. I can't find it. I do, however find a button that says "Fly." Oh yeah? I press it, and my character jumps into the sky like some kind of poorly animated Superman. Slowly, an island takes shape in the distance. There's a lighthouse straight ahead over the water, and I decide that this will be a good place to tinker with the character customization tools.
Alone atop the lighthouse, I take a close look at what I'm working with: I've selected the basic template for a male character who happens to be dressed like an emo twelve year-old, with girl pants and a Fallout Boy haircut to match. My first order of business is changing his wardrobe. Right away I notice in my inventory that there are no other options for clothes. Huh. So then I attempt to change my hairstyle, but fail in this department as well, as I can't seem to find a way to remove this awful scenester toupee. I return to my supplier for directions: "How do I change my hair?"
Oh, turns out you just right-click it and press "remove." But there's something else I discover in my inquiry that really surprises me. The advice I'm given is that in order to look remotely human or aesthetically pleasing, I have to BUY items such as hairstyles and clothes and textures with a currency known only as L. Interesting. So I wonder: How many wolf cubs or shiny blobs do I have to kill before I get some in-game currency? I put those thoughts on hold for now, and decide to work on my newly bald character.
If you're looking for something positive about the game, this paragraph is it. The degree of customization is fantastic in Second Life. You can adjust everything from cheekbone height to face sheer to hip width to hundreds of other little adjustments that make a person unique. I give myself some rudimentary hair, selecting a texture that almost doesn't make me look like a GI Joe. Now, how do I go about changing my wardrobe?
Wondering about my surroundings, I look down from the lighthouse. Below me is a rooftop with a huge label in red letters: XXX. Let's just say that my curiosity was piqued. I descend into the store, and (minutes and minutes later) my screen fills with pornographic images of female genitalia. Curiously, there are price tags affiliated with them, and it seems that you can buy the genitalia to make your character appear more realistic. Y'know, in case you have the urge to run around naked.
Next door there's a store filled with sexy lingerie. We're getting warmer! Perhaps I'm on my way to some legitimate clothing stores. I've pretty much decided on a one way path, per the slow-loading nature of the game, and I eventually arrive at the end of a pier. There are teleport spots that claim to go to a mega-mall of sorts with all kinds of stylish options. I reason that I'll be out of Porn Island once I reach this new location.
Through the teleporter, I find myself surrounded by gigantic billboards of realistic hair add-ons for women, all with hefty price tags. I must have clicked the wrong teleporter. It takes me ages to wade through the field of load times, but I eventually find the exit. I take my chance on the next store over.
Oh, wonderful! Another sex store. This one, however, caters to the kinky side of SLiens. The store contains the following items for sale, plus many more: a St. Andrews Cross, Dominatrix Fetish Thrones, Latex Catsuits, Locking Catheters with Pee Control, a pack of 50 submissive action poses, a spanking stand ("Finally, a realistic spanking apparatus!"), Bondage hooks, a Discipline Bench, Slave Posts, and Blow-Up dolls. Ahuh.
Next door to this is a store filled with Halloween costumes. it has all of the classics. For men, there are costumes such as lumber jack, fireman, doctor, jester, gigantic pizza, and so forth. For women, there are slutty versions of all the men's outfits. In fact, I see female characters (all dressed like prostitutes) walking around the mall, and they're all inhumanly tall and freakishly thin with permanently etched smiles and long blond hair. I'm surrounded by barbie dolls in a gigantic shopping mall. This is getting too eerie.
I finally locate a clothing store with somewhat socially acceptable options (read: the panties actually have crotches here). There are many different clothing options for men that capture my eye, but I still don't know how to acquire this mysterious L currency. Again, I return to my dealer and find out exactly what I have to do to buy things in SL.
Evidently, L is only attainable using real life money, and it turns out that everything (even uploading your own designs) costs money. Think about this for a moment. This is a world in which your end goal is to shop and eventually buy and design a virtual house that's prettier than your neighbors's, all the while making secret purchases at the realistic genitalia shops and kink stores. This is virtual Americana at its finest. Look, I don't want to shop. I'd rather kill goblins and shoot lasers from my eyes--and I certainly don't want to pay real life money for every laser I shoot. What kind of moron pays to play something like this?
The answer becomes quite clear as I think about the type of people I've encountered so far. There's gigantic erection man, who paid real life money to create a giant phallus for him to prod people with. There're the European gents who want to get virtual-married. The "women" in the world all want to look like a toy doll. But there's another type of person I'd yet to encounter, until I fled from the clothing stores and tried to find my way off of this Island of Misfit Boys. On the beach, I spy someone wearing a dog fursuit. This just completes the picture.
As I attempt to fly away from the island, the loading times are finally too much and the game crashes. And not a moment too soon, as I swear to God there's someone chasing me with cat ears, a horse tail, twin swords crossing behind his back--and a cookie in his mouth. What a wonderful way to remember my final moment of Second Life.
The lesson here is pretty obvious, kids: Don't do drugs.
I'm a sucker for detailed character customizations. Back in the '90s, I enjoyed renting games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater and wrestling games solely for the fact that I could make zany characters with considerable detail. I could spend hours creating careful renditions of me and my friends, and just plain novelty characters with no practical purpose other than to amuse me. To hell with actually playing the games; I just love to create.
Even though I never bought a Wii and don't intend to, I keep up with the wonderful variety of creative Miis via the Internet, marveling at the multitude of Darth Vaders and celebrities and cartoon characters. I would sample many an MMORPG just to create a character. There's something endlessly satisfying in molding and tweaking something to be aesthetically sound--at least to this nerd.
But not unlike a drug addiction, I needed something stronger. I'd been going through withdrawals, and the Xbox's Avatars just weren't doing it for me anymore. I went to my supplier (Google) and pleaded for harder drugs. With some (sexual) coaxing, my supplier gave me the hookup. In a sordid back alley behind a strip club, I made a deal with the devil himself: I downloaded Second Life straight into my veins.
Well, no, that's not the proper metaphor. Let's say that I put Second Life in my mouth, but I didn't inhale. And thank God, because the "game" (if it can be called that) is truly astoundingly awful. I knew little about what I was getting myself into, but screen shots informed me that the character creation tools were exceptionally detailed, if not the best out there. Oh, how eager was I to create! And how foolish.
Strangely, the game requires almost no installation. The sign-up process is easy, and whenever you register a first name, you have to choose from a select list of family names. Hmm. I wasn't sure yet if I wanted to create a guy or girl character, so I chose a gender neutral name: Riley. From the list of available last names, I chose Wonder. Alright! Look out SLiens, here comes Riley Wonder, the gender confused marvel.
Aaaaaand action.
When you boot into the game world, you quickly discover why it is that there's no installation; everything in the game world loads as fast as your internet connection allows (in my case, the worst DSL internet money can buy). Allow me to emphasize "everything." The game is littered with crap, and even the starting tutorial island makes it pretty clear that load times will be a constant hindrance to, say, walking.
I spy my very first resident: He is a man of sumo proportions (and attire) and has a gigantic erection. Allow me to explain. This man appears to have an accessory of some sort affixed to his crotch area, and it looks as phallic as can be. Also, it's aimed right at my face. Before the environment even fully loads, this man is moving back and forth, thrusting his gigantic accessory into my face. Neat. I see a giant beacon pouring down from the sky to highlight a teleporter to the main island. I beeline for it, thinking that maybe the loading (and the populace) will become more bearable.
Silly me. On the new island, the insertion point for Second Life, everything is blank. There is just grass as far as the eye can--oh wait, there's a sidewalk. Oh, and there're are flowers loading. Ah, and there are store fronts. And look, billboards! The process takes almost five minutes for everything to not only materialize, but to render in a higher resolution. Everything is a blur straight ahead, no matter which direction I turn. I feel like I'm in a giant shopping mall, as the luminous storefronts are everywhere I turn.
I can hear talking in the distance. What sounds like a man from Denmark asks famously, "How do I marry woman?"
A man with a British accent laughs, "It's not quite that simple, my friend."
As entertaining as the conversation is, my instinct is to find the "mute voice" button. I can't find it. I do, however find a button that says "Fly." Oh yeah? I press it, and my character jumps into the sky like some kind of poorly animated Superman. Slowly, an island takes shape in the distance. There's a lighthouse straight ahead over the water, and I decide that this will be a good place to tinker with the character customization tools.
Alone atop the lighthouse, I take a close look at what I'm working with: I've selected the basic template for a male character who happens to be dressed like an emo twelve year-old, with girl pants and a Fallout Boy haircut to match. My first order of business is changing his wardrobe. Right away I notice in my inventory that there are no other options for clothes. Huh. So then I attempt to change my hairstyle, but fail in this department as well, as I can't seem to find a way to remove this awful scenester toupee. I return to my supplier for directions: "How do I change my hair?"
Oh, turns out you just right-click it and press "remove." But there's something else I discover in my inquiry that really surprises me. The advice I'm given is that in order to look remotely human or aesthetically pleasing, I have to BUY items such as hairstyles and clothes and textures with a currency known only as L. Interesting. So I wonder: How many wolf cubs or shiny blobs do I have to kill before I get some in-game currency? I put those thoughts on hold for now, and decide to work on my newly bald character.
If you're looking for something positive about the game, this paragraph is it. The degree of customization is fantastic in Second Life. You can adjust everything from cheekbone height to face sheer to hip width to hundreds of other little adjustments that make a person unique. I give myself some rudimentary hair, selecting a texture that almost doesn't make me look like a GI Joe. Now, how do I go about changing my wardrobe?
Wondering about my surroundings, I look down from the lighthouse. Below me is a rooftop with a huge label in red letters: XXX. Let's just say that my curiosity was piqued. I descend into the store, and (minutes and minutes later) my screen fills with pornographic images of female genitalia. Curiously, there are price tags affiliated with them, and it seems that you can buy the genitalia to make your character appear more realistic. Y'know, in case you have the urge to run around naked.
Next door there's a store filled with sexy lingerie. We're getting warmer! Perhaps I'm on my way to some legitimate clothing stores. I've pretty much decided on a one way path, per the slow-loading nature of the game, and I eventually arrive at the end of a pier. There are teleport spots that claim to go to a mega-mall of sorts with all kinds of stylish options. I reason that I'll be out of Porn Island once I reach this new location.
Through the teleporter, I find myself surrounded by gigantic billboards of realistic hair add-ons for women, all with hefty price tags. I must have clicked the wrong teleporter. It takes me ages to wade through the field of load times, but I eventually find the exit. I take my chance on the next store over.
Oh, wonderful! Another sex store. This one, however, caters to the kinky side of SLiens. The store contains the following items for sale, plus many more: a St. Andrews Cross, Dominatrix Fetish Thrones, Latex Catsuits, Locking Catheters with Pee Control, a pack of 50 submissive action poses, a spanking stand ("Finally, a realistic spanking apparatus!"), Bondage hooks, a Discipline Bench, Slave Posts, and Blow-Up dolls. Ahuh.
Next door to this is a store filled with Halloween costumes. it has all of the classics. For men, there are costumes such as lumber jack, fireman, doctor, jester, gigantic pizza, and so forth. For women, there are slutty versions of all the men's outfits. In fact, I see female characters (all dressed like prostitutes) walking around the mall, and they're all inhumanly tall and freakishly thin with permanently etched smiles and long blond hair. I'm surrounded by barbie dolls in a gigantic shopping mall. This is getting too eerie.
I finally locate a clothing store with somewhat socially acceptable options (read: the panties actually have crotches here). There are many different clothing options for men that capture my eye, but I still don't know how to acquire this mysterious L currency. Again, I return to my dealer and find out exactly what I have to do to buy things in SL.
Evidently, L is only attainable using real life money, and it turns out that everything (even uploading your own designs) costs money. Think about this for a moment. This is a world in which your end goal is to shop and eventually buy and design a virtual house that's prettier than your neighbors's, all the while making secret purchases at the realistic genitalia shops and kink stores. This is virtual Americana at its finest. Look, I don't want to shop. I'd rather kill goblins and shoot lasers from my eyes--and I certainly don't want to pay real life money for every laser I shoot. What kind of moron pays to play something like this?
The answer becomes quite clear as I think about the type of people I've encountered so far. There's gigantic erection man, who paid real life money to create a giant phallus for him to prod people with. There're the European gents who want to get virtual-married. The "women" in the world all want to look like a toy doll. But there's another type of person I'd yet to encounter, until I fled from the clothing stores and tried to find my way off of this Island of Misfit Boys. On the beach, I spy someone wearing a dog fursuit. This just completes the picture.
As I attempt to fly away from the island, the loading times are finally too much and the game crashes. And not a moment too soon, as I swear to God there's someone chasing me with cat ears, a horse tail, twin swords crossing behind his back--and a cookie in his mouth. What a wonderful way to remember my final moment of Second Life.
The lesson here is pretty obvious, kids: Don't do drugs.
