Noob Perspective SL - Life Sandbox, Game, Social Experiment, Dev Platform?

So, I am a noob to SL. I just started in it last weekend based on some reading I had done online about having meetings and doing powerpoint in SL. SL looks like it will fit the bill for need I have for a creative outlet.

As a SL Newbie that has been around computing for over three decades, the way I see SL it breaks down into the following kinds of experiences that you can have.

Sandbox to Interact with People and Role Playing - this seems to run the gamut from making friends online like in chat rooms, to flirting, doing things you wouldn't do in-life, playing Barbie (clothes, hair, appearance), etc. It looks like this is what most people see it as. I personally haven't spend much time in chat rooms and the like doing this kind of thing, so I don't know how much of this will interest me. But, I am sure some time will be spent here to at least get a better flavor of the community and try the Second Life experience.

A Game - I have played a fair share of games over the years and using SL as a game appeals to me. The first thing that strikes me is that if you are to play it as a game you need to remember that you are playing a character (i.e. your avatar) and that this isn't you having a Second Life. You are controlling a character that is trying to win a game. Since SL doesn't provide a scripted story line like most MMORPGs this means you have to make your own goals for success of your character. How do you "level up" - making money, owning land, building partnerships, etc? What other ones can you suggest?

A Social Experiment - this seems a great place to have and comment on social experiments. Organize communes, guilds, unions, banks, etc. Explore how people react to different types of planned social situations that you concont (i.e. act in submissive manner, act in a dominating manner, do a Eliza type interaction with people, etc).

A Creative Outlet - being a parttime musician, songwriter and artist this looks like a place for showing this off and finding other people with similar interestes. It looks like there is a lot of this here, but, I wonder how much of it is nothing more than artists/musicians dumping existing content into SL that no one really will looks at or interacts with you on. Is it just another Website to display your contnent or a real community?

A Development Platform - where I am sure I will spend the majority of time. I am interested in playing with LSL and it's capabilities. I am an experienced developer, so, even though I may get some enjoyment of programming effects on objects in SL to make them "cool", I have already done that quite a bit over the last 20 years with C, Java, Web Development, etc. So, I will probably spend more of my time trying to understand the underlying technology and architecture and how to exploit it and integrate it with other technologies (cross scripting, Web 2.0 interaction, XMLRPC, etc). How friendly is this community?

Anyway, I am excited about getting some things done in SL, but, am a little overwhelmed with the options and what to do first besides kind of wander around aimlessly.

Pick one first and go for it.

If there's one thing I've learned about SL in the nearly two weeks I've been exploring, shopping, doing some limited building, and dancing with beautiful female avatars , it's this: SL defies classification. It's any and all of the things you suggest--simultaneously, with no conflict. And more.

I am also a noob to SL. I did originally join in 2005 under a different name,but I made the mistake of leaving Help Island too early and thus having to learn things on the mainland.
This time I remain determined to camp out on the Help Island until I learn enough about building and scripting to make some good stuff,or at least to learn all the advanced controls so I can explore SL later on.

At the moment I'm using Help Island as my first 'game level' to achieve something.
I'd like to stand out on the Help Island without being a SL Helper or Mentor,and I already have some sort of basic building idea in my head to make something seemingly unique; at least on Help Island.
And I like to help out people a bit too on Help Island,in whatever way my new player self can do so.
I'd also like to beat that 5100 high score on Sim Invaders.

SL is what you make of it. And in turn you make SL. There is no 'end-game' or 'grind'; two things I'm glad don't exist because they are essentially the same thing,and both suck.

Under "social" you mentioned banks, but I think business/finance should be in its own category. A lot of people use SL to play around with owning their own businesses, or making investments. There's much less risk than doing it in real life, and the economics are pretty damn close to real life, so doing it in SecondLife is REALLY good practice. Supposedly some business colleges/universities out there even have classes that require you to get a SecondLife account and build your own business, with your grade depending on your level of success/progress. In regards to specific roles SL has in this area, we have bankers, bank owners, small single-person businesses, larger group owned businesses, huge corporations, individual and group investors, loan organizations, and now even day traders. So people do it for practice, to help pay their LL fees, and some even to make a hefty profit (Heck, one of SL's members ended up on the cover of Business Week even).

^$.$^

I'm here to socialize and maybe build a little.

My creative input has always been taken care of by my writing, so I have no need for that here.

The urge to script.... I do that at work....

A game..... I have played competative games for ages, most of those do this better.

So yeah, O socialize, my 11-12 hours a day at work don't always allow me to do it in real life and according to "real life" schedules.

Mojo,

SL is mostly an empty canvas. sSince the users provide the contents, it can be everything you mentioned and about anything else you can imagine. Your world. Your imagination.

I have just celebrated my first anniversary in SL. For me, the bulk of my time has been spent developing and helping to maintain a small community of friends we mostly already knew from other online games (we owned up to half a sim at one point where we used to have regular parties or just to hang out and chat), shopping and playing dress the avatar, exploring the incredibly diverse world and enjoying being surprised in nearly every sim, discovering and getting addicted to games like Tringo.

I also enjoy catching artists performing when I get the chance.

Lately though, I have finally decided that it was time to stop simply consuming and to start learning to build things. Like you, I am a coder so I'm more concerned about what the language can do than its syntax. Not so interesed about developing interfaces with the outside world though. Learning to create cool things in SL would be good enough. I've also started taking lessons on how to torture prims.

That's been SL for me so far and what it is will keep changing. It can really be anything you want it to be.

Have fun...

Wendel

SL is VEGEMITE!!! .

SL is what you make of it. You can play it as a game, a platform, 3d chat, or any combination thereof!