Why did you start Second Life?

In another thread...

You can think what you like but when a newbie starts SL it not because he/she heard that SL is cool to play in, no he/she only knows it a sex game!!

This led me to wonder: why did you start Second Life? What was it that drew us to this world in the first place?

For myself, I had a couple friends in it who seemed to like it a lot, so I decided to come and check it out. Mostly to explore the 3-D virtual interface, as well as have some new method to talk with them. Plus it was free.

Is the allure of sexual gratification really such a draw with Second Life, and I'm an anomaly?

Mari

I started because the lindex was fubar'd. Wanted to purchase some L$ for the missus, and the only way to do it was ingame. I didn't however want to link my paypal account to her SL account.

So, I started because something was broken

I started second life because I was borred with the usual computer games where I kill things and get experience points. I went and peeked at sims online for a month or so and found it to be somewhat well deserted and some guy was mentioning he would rather play second life but his hardware could not support it. I had heard of second life awhile back but kinda ignored it. Since I was looking for something new and different I decided to download it. I've been here ever since

I have not had any "sex" but have had a few female avatar escorts try to get me to have some and been called "not a gentleman" when I turned them down (okay? ). This was at christmas time I just had to laugh.

Peer pressure from fellow NIN fans.

Ive been chatting online since 1998

Someone I knew from somewhere else told me about this new place, Second Life.

I came here to socialize.

I read last September that Reuters, the RL news agency was opening an agency in SecondLife, a virtual world.
I had no preconceptions. I had read no other publication except an isolated snippet some while earlier that someone had bought a 'virtual island'.
I merely 'looked in' to see why a real life news agency was bothering with what seemed to be a computer game.

I came to SL because a friend showed me the most awesome fashion pictures.... clothes are a RL (expensive) "addiction/fetish/whatever" of me. Fashion in SL endless and lot cheaper as RL.

Later there came more reasons why I like SL so much... but fashion is still one.

Morwen.

i was skimming through a BBC article about a Radio One festival and when i came across words like 'virtual world', and 'sign up here', i did so like your average sheep.

i fired up the client, and found myself getting irritated by appearance sliders while lots of 'people' materialized around me. i then said a few things to a parrot before ending up in a welcome area where peanuts (the snoopy character) was dancing ("how did he do that with appearance sliders?" i thought), and people laughed at me for asking whether the place was run by the BBC.

i walked to the outside section of the welcome area, and there was so little to do and nobody telling me what i was supposed to that i thought a spaceship would come along and pick me up or something. (stop laughing at the back please).

i thought, "this is boring", logged out and figured i'd uninstall the program the next time i logged into my computer as administrator.

but i logged in again. that's the classic crack addict's mistake. i met fun people, went to the BBC festival, obtained fun things and began to appreciate why SL could appeal. i discovered the sex side of things very quickly, but got bored
with that (and everybody wanting to do that) just as fast. within a week, i started introducing people to SL from my RL..and ultimately, they are the reason i'm still here. virtual play beats messenger anyday.

oops, i started typing and lost myself. i think i answered your question somehwere tho

I came here as I saw one of the Lindens (don't remember which) on Richard and Judy advertising this place you could have a second life and build your own world. A few bits were shown like Suzanne Vega and it sounded very much like an interactive Sims. I used to play Sims and make downloadable content for it, so sounded just my cup of tea, logged on to check it out, and here I am

I knew nothing of the sexual content until I got here, the European advertising didn't push that side lol.

Rubbish. I've never thought of it as either a game to play or a sex thing.

I started after I heard about it on the radio or read a magazine story--I forget which. The software wouldn't work on my laptop so I just let it go for a while. Ran into a geekfriend at a party and somehow the subject came up. I was encouraged to try again since I now knew someone so I installed it on my main machine. Started looking for people--learned the green dots on the map were people--started going where green dots were--turned out it was sex--who knew? Stopped using the map. Slowly bumbled around with a few LMs from my friend. Managed to get trapped in Hades and had to pay Ls to get out. At that point I was finally enjoying it so I went premium to get some money.

Wow. Someone actually said that? What a bizarre belief.

I started in SL because I was watching some Google TechTalk videos (I'm a Google fanboi, lol), and one of them was about how you can build and script things in Second Life. It looked pretty decent, and I needed a new hobby at the time (I was getting really burned out on a hobby that had turned into my day job), so I thought I'd try it out.

I got hooked pretty fast SL is severely limited, but even for all of the limitations it was pretty easy to see that it had tremendous potential.

So my primary motivation then, as now, is to build stuff and script stuff and make whatever stuff that I find interesting on any given day.


.

saw a short doc on tv about a architect build a building for his client to review

grabbed the client and logged on, trying to get out of nub islands and landed in the wa.
first day just figuring out how stuff works here, met my best and only real friend there.

dig the tutorials for building and tetxuring and ended up buying 1/4th a sim to play on lol

socializing i gave a 10minute try and nothing but griefers and oversexed nubs so gave that up

A friend told me to come and 'check it out'. I didn't know anything about the sex stuff till I'd been here a day or two.

I don't even remember now if I was told anything specific, other than it was fun and you could build things etc. I'd never heard it described as a 'game' till I found these forums, and even then, not a 'sex game' in particular.

-Atashi

I heard of SL a couple years before I joined. Read about it in a newspaper. The first time around, my computer couldn't handle SL, and there were no free accounts. I looked at it and said to myself "Even if my computer could handle SL, it costs more than I am willing to spend per month to play a game, and I can easily see it becoming a black hole that could suck up all my free time and cost me a bunch of money." I didn't care to spend the money on a new computer just to play SL, or to pay the monthly fees. The press info I had read in my local newspaper didn't really mention sex at all. Just building and virtual land and virtual business oppourtunities - the fact that you could buy and sell L$ for real money...

A few years later, a friend of mine that I loved to roleplay with all but vanished from the PG-13-rated RP forum that we played in together. I asked her where she went, and she told me she was playing SL most of the time now... She didn't mention the sexy stuff. I checked, and now I had a computer that was marginally good enough to play SL, and I could get in with a free account. I was still worried it would be a black hole for my free time, (AND IT IS!), but I really wanted to continue roleplay with my friend. So I created this account and came to SL.

It was only after I arrived here that I found out about how much sex there was in SL. My friend and I had done some sexy RP by private messages and ICQ chat before, so that didn't really pose a problem. Though I liked some aspects of the sexy stuff, I am married and have a kid in RL, so I couldn't, and still don't, spend a lot of my on-line time doing sexy stuff. Fortunately, my friend (now my SL Partner) understands and respects my limits in that area, and that for me, it's only on-screen fun between the characters. We enjoy each other's company, sex or no sex...

I bought some L$ to get started, right off the bat, so I could get a good-quality Furry avatar. (My friend and I both had furry personnas in the other RP venue). But I rapidly decided that I would only keep playing if I could make enough in-world to cover my expenses. So I started making t-shirts, then other clothes, then textures, then started building and making sims... After 4 or 5 months of playing in SL I had cashed out enough to repay myself all I had initially spent on SL, and was making a small monthly profit that covered my expenses in SL. I still cover all my expenses with in-world sales, over a year since that point.

I spend 90% or more of my time building, creating, or socializing in a G-rated to PG-13 rated manner. I spend less than 10% of my time doing anything x-rated. When I do choose to do sexy stuff, it can get pretty heavy. But it's also a rare thing. Sort of like splurging on a fancy restaurant dinner once a month or so, and eating frugally most of the rest of the time. I enjoy the sexy side of SL, but I don't spend much time doing that. I'd rather create a beautiful island sim or do other creative stuff.

Read about it pretty much by accident while browsing online (somehow the hype only became apparent to me after I joined ) and then did some research. I was drawn to the idea that SL is what you make it: social forum, game, business you name it, if you put the effort into it then its possible. Once I got in I was lucky to meet nice peeps quickly and find some good places to "hang out" inbetween expeditions otherwise I may have lost interest quickly and become one of the millions of phantom users (hehe). The international flavour was also appealing, getting to meet people with different viewpoints and ideas, the spirit of co-operation that can exist if you look hard enough. Now I'm exploring the possibilities of building objects and making clothes so for me SL just gets more involving all the time.

The sex part of SL was a subculture when I joined. Didn't even consider it.

I joined because it looked like a fun 3D world that was marketed as a social experiment.

i remember that. i don't think it was a Linden, but i'veforgothisname Baskerville from Rivers Run Red.

Here is the episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udmmKixJwHQ

This is the BBC news article that resulted in my registration. Dated 12th May. My avatar's birthdate is 13th.

ah, nostalgia.

I came to build.

I was googling to see what had happened to things like 'Worlds Chat' (not sure if that's an accurate name ) which was a rather primitive 3D environment and came across Second Life and I just signed up .

Initially I couldn't log on, so I started reading some blogs, stumbled on the fashion blogs and was addicted to virtual shopping before I ever logged on the very first time .

Purely by accident. I saw a passing reference to it on another non gamimg forum, was bored and decided to check it out. A couple of hours on orientatin island, and went in world. I had way too much fun creating my avatar, then discovered shopping, and being able to change outfits on a whim. After a week I went premium. It's purely a social thing for me. Before SL I had never been in any Chat Room/Online social environment.

I first checked out Second Life years ago and didn't like it because of the sex. I am a Myst series fan and was waiting to see if Uru Live would come back online.

Then I heard Reuters had an office and I figured that maybe the xxx aspect had been cleaned up; by the time I found out how wrong I was I was addicted to building, learning, exploring and socializing. First Land really helped me stay in game though because it gave me a safe and cheap place to explore from. However it was a shock when a very noisy Gay BSDM club opened next door to my little Japanese garden!

One thing I have to say, I'm a lot less shockable than I was when I started and a lot more tolerant about what people need/want to do to be happy.

I joined because my significant other was already here He recently quit So now it's just me

I read an early article on SL that ran in the Los Angeles times back in the fall of 2004. I'm not a gamer but the idea of a virtual world where all the content was user created, rather than a product of a few people's imaginations, really intrigued me. The idea of people building anything they wanted, from Mayan Temples to Space Stations was so appealing that I signed up so that I could wander around and look at what creativity the "guy in the street" would come up with. Needless to say, I was not disappointed Yes, depending on which way you look at it, it can appear to be just a clusterf*ck of content dominated by casinos and sex, but if you peel that stuff away SL is still a rich and fascinating environment. One thing I always wished LL would do was to expand the "popular places" idea into categories so that a new user could see the popular places that had nothing to with gambling or sex, I've always thought this would greatly encourage new users that there was more to SL....

I had read about it in Wired or something....and I thought my boyfriend would like it because one of his favorite things about video games are the customizable characters. I didn't think I would be into it because I am not into video games.
My boyfriend started doing stuff on here and I would help him out with his events from time to time. I started dabbling in building and really enjoyed the edugames building games. I started designing a few clothes but lost interest. Then Xio suggested that I make art to sell in there...but art based on a comic book that I used to do a long time ago....so I did that and it has been a very interesting way to network with people about art. I've decided that I probably won't ever make money selling virtual art...but I do make enough to rent land on an island and have a gallery. So I am staying to see if I can use SL to market my real life art.

I came across a reference to it in a completely unrelated website and thought hey that sounds cool - never been into games really...

Still here though