Get A SecondLife Dude

For those of you(us) without a life, there’s still hope. For those of you(us) who are appalled at the idea of paying a monthly fee just to play a game we already spent $60 on, there’s hope. And finally, for those of you who have longed to fly around in a world composed of mid-90s era graphic capabilities all while building and selling your way to an early retirement, there’s yet more hope to be had. I’m, of course, talking about the free MMORPG game, SecondLife.

I had a friend(keyword: HAD!) who was a Starwars fan. He wasn’t a freak nutjob fanboy. He was simply a fan. One day years back he had me build him a modest PC for which I knew the only reason he wanted it was to get online and look at porn. So, long story short, a few years of internetting bliss later he stumbles acrossed Star Wars Galaxies. And once more, to make a longer story almost as short, I haven’t seen him more than 5 minutes in the past 3 years. The point to my ramblings is that this game sucked the lifeforce out of him and removed him from every social interaction that he ever partook in. Not only was he never out and about, but I’ve got good reason to believe Galaxies emptied wallet as well as his little black book. Soon enough he discovered World of Warcraft, and I’m sure there’s another MMORPG in the works that’ll abduct him will into his 30s….and maybe even his 40s.

He’s not alone. I’ve got multiple friends that spend every spare moment online in these MMORGs battling and scraping their way to the next level…and the next…and the next…and so on until the sun goes supernova and the earth is destroyed. The sole reason these guys get sucked in, I believe, is because they feel like they’re wasting their time/money if they don’t. They pay $40-60 for a game, so they feel compelled to play it and get their moneys worth. But then you add in that they have to plunk down another $10-$20 a month just to join the servers and the fact that said servers(worlds) never stop spinning, and you’ve got the recipe for a constant time crunch induced panic attack.

Joe Blow pays all this money and then goes to work. While at work he just can’t stop thinking about what’s going on in the online world he’s paid to belong to. His enemies and opponents who are skipping work that day have been slowly but surely pulling ahead in the game. He can’t stand the temptation, and the second he gets home, he has to get online and furiously go about his online business of building plasma shields or ray guns or whatever the hell weird stuff they trade in these qausi-economies. It demands 100% attention because the other guy(the competition) is giving it 100% of his attention. The way to win is to play ALL THE FRIGGIN TIME!! And who spends all that money to play a game they know they’re gonna lose?

So you’re never gonna get a MMORPG where the world stops when you’re not playing. That’s just not possible. That’s the essence of the games genre. That’s the appeal. But what if you had a game where you didn’t have to feel guilty for spending all this money to sit around not playing it? That’s where SecondLife comes in. I will tell you now that this isn’t a review of the game, as I have only played it a grand total of 40 minutes. The point of this post is that I DID play it, when there’s no chance in hell that I would ever touch Galaxies or World of Warcraft or any of the other MMORPGs.

SecondLife has gotten it right. Here’s how it works. You download the game for free. You install it for free. You join the servers for free. You walk, talk, fly, and communicate…ALL FOR FREE! The only time you have to pay is when/if you decide you want to own land in the game. You pay $10 a month and an additional fee based on the amount of land you own. This is your virtual crossroads where you can decide that you just wanna cruise around and play it cool and have a relaxing time meeting people and seeing attractions, or if you want to draw up virtual business plans and invest in 40 square acres destined to become a museum dedicated to the historical importance that was the 2400 baud modem. You finally have the option to taste the MMORPG world, albeit in a docile nonviolent and pretty bland way, but it’s free. If you so choose the path that some of my friends have, and disappear from the real world and start up your own virtual venture, then so be it. Best of luck. I personally enjoy the absence of pressure when I’m partaking in something that is suppose to be a leisure activity. I enjoy that it mirrors the real world. You can be the virtual Walt Disney or you can be the real life you. It’s all about the choices.