Week Eight Entry: Second Life exploration

Second Life is an Online virtual world developed by Linden Lab in 2003. in this program created it allows second life users to interact with each other through avatars, users can walk and fly in the environment, this would give the user the option to socialize and participate in individual and group activities, having a feature like this online will give users all around the world to share information and knowledge in many different forms, whether the individual or group is having fun or even holding out serious Business meetings to discuss furthermore plans in details. By now (2011) there is approximately 20 million users registered accounts.


Locations/Experience:


1) The Pot Healers Adventure:
entry time was morning, the place seemed fresh, while going through the Virtual world i found out that it is quite huge, and have never been in such an environment, i lost track a couple of times because there was not much sense of direction through the stage, i was walking through a vegetation area which looked very much like a forest, the place was kind of dead, there wasn't people walking around the scene, and there were riddles and clues for items to find all over the island, like a Treasure hunt.
i really liked the feel and essence of the place, there were structures that looked like small huts in certain areas with different elevations, i just did not understand where and what was i supposed to do next which made me end up going in swirls.



2) Kowloon
In this Virtual World it was more of stuff that i have already seen, it was like the China town in Second life, the entry time was at night, so we get to see all the neon sign boards glowing at night of the shops around, the ambient sounds around was not as great as they claimed, The area is much more alive in the sense that there are more interactions around, from buying accessories and items from the shop or even teleporting to other shops to cut time. one of the main things that i found confusing was the layout of the environment, there were so many alleys between buildings that i found nearly impossible to know where i was going too, i was just guessing my way through.
One last point that made the experience quite hard to grasp and understand, was the fact that all the information texts provided within the virtual world was in Chinese which was not helping at all.



3) SS Galaxy Cruise Ship
What was special about this environment is that there was constantly sound playing , the ambient music playing in the background really helped in setting the mood and theme, there were some interactions at the front of the cruise which gave the user the feeling of being in the sea, i could have rode a boat or even went fishing. But once you have entered the cruise that is when you would notice that this environment differs from the rest, at the reception there would be a receptionist there that is willing to provide you with different kind of services. While walking through the cruise i came to notice that between the classical soundtracks playing they would sometimes squeeze in advertisements of shops and items for sale within the Cruise. The shops are everywhere which was easy to find and navigate, plus the place felt much more alive because there were people walking around the scene.
Last but not least was the Cinema section which was very interesting, where the user can walk in the cinema sit down and play a movie or video from personal selection, whether its playing from the DVD or even live streaming, its a nice feature for entertainment.



4) International Spaceflight Museum
In this Virtual world the experience was different, it was very clean and tidy and most importantly straight forward, very organized and well put together in the sense that its is simple and intuitive, This virtual world is a virtual museum about space in space, and this is what makes it special. Like a real museum once you have approached a certain item, a pop-up text would appear to present the information, but at some points there were parts where the texts would over lap each other, but if the user stands in the right position then they shouldn't have any problems in reading the information. What was nice about the museum is that the virtual world was divided to more than one scene, and this allowed the user to teleport from the moon to earth to mars , etc.. without having all of the planets in one scene, this method kept the place very informative tidy and clean.



5) The Beach Lounge
As for this last Virtual world, it is a much more smaller compared to the rest, and the reason for that is because the purpose behind it is quite simple, users coming to Beach Lounge have one thing in mind, socializing and listening to Minimal House music.The way the virtual world is constructed is like a small island with a big party in it, music is everywhere and people are there to mingle and have fun. But one of the things i liked the most about the beach lounge was the graphics and the 3dmodels quality, comparing it to the other worlds they were not as good as this one.

In conclusion i came to understand that while experiencing these different worlds there are people out there with different tastes and interests, but some way some how they find what is appropriate for them in second life and that keeps them occupied, its like mirc or these public Chat rooms, depending on the persons interest the group is picked and joined, but what second life overs what no other software offers is that it immerses you fully in that virtual world that you do not only need to use text to communicate, u can use visuals and audio and other types of media to get a message through. Basically it gives the user a second chance to live a second life online with similar elements creating a reality, whether its for serious people or not, for kids or for elderly people, it is made for everybody.