My Thoughts

12-23-2007

I was in an online world called Second Life. A great place. If you are careful.

A friend in the world asked me a question. If I thought that having sex in Second Life was cheating on your partner. A good question. To me its both yes and no. Here is my reasons:

  • While this is just cyber sex, and it does not have any feeling for you, that is good. To my thinking its not cheating. You don't really love your partner, your just going through the motions of having sex.
  • But, as with all things and nobody can help this its just human nature, you will in time (provided you are with the same person long enough) get real feelings for the other person. And these feelings are going to be just as strong and real as you would get for somebody down the road.
  • When those feelings turn to love, that is when you're cheating on your partner. Up to this point its just role playing.

Romance in online worlds is risky for a relationship and should not be done without the knowledge that you are not going to know the exact time you are cheating on your real life partner. And when that time comes what will you do?  To me, if you are married in real life its best to NOT HAVE VIRTUAL SEX in any online world. Is it worth the risk of your marriage? You may think that you are not harming your relationship with your real life partner, and that may be the case...at the beginning. But at some point you are going to hide your screen when your RL partner walks by, why? Are you ashamed of what's going on? If so you better break off the online relationship.

I have another friend in Second Life that is a real ladies man. He has lots of women wanting to be with him. He is also married in real life. He makes this known. I think that the reason his marriage is still working is that he is not with any one woman long enough for him to develope any type of feelings close to love. I think that this is a way for him to have online sex and not hurt his marriage.

What ever works for you is good. Please be careful of your real life relationships. They are breakable.

12-25-2007

How do you get lindens in Second Life?

I hang out at a sim (simulator) named Morris a lot. Its a cool sandbox. Its also a newbie sandbox. I like to go there and help out the people just starting SL. The world is not an easy place to start out. You do first go throgh an orientation in the Welcome Area. Thats a one time only stop when you first get the SL account. They give you the basics on how to communicate and wear clothes. Believe me, its needed.
But the one thing that is not covered is how to get more lindens (SL Money). And that is something I get asked a lot, among other things, but I'll get to that later on.

There are a few ways to get money in SL, Here is a list of some of them.

  • Go Camping: Yes, go camping. Some places will pay you around 2L to 4L every 10 to 15 minutes just for hanging out at their place. The things that I have seen people do when camping are just sitting, swiming, dancing and cleaning floors.
    Some places have made it so that you are kicked off their camping chair after an hour or so. Just so you are not parked there.
    Other places may not have their camping chair turned on. Word of warning: Before you leave yourself for hours on end camping, its best to test the chair first. Sit on it, wait for the time to pass to get some money from it then stand up. If you don't get your money find another place to go camping.
  • Dancer/Escort: Being a dancer is not bad, if you can engage the people there enough to take notice of you then you will get a lot of tips. Some dancers get more than 1000L a night. But there are some things that are needed for a dancer and escort (hooker). You need a good shape, good skin and sexy dances. Some clubs will let you slide on the dances, they figure that if you are good then you will earn enough to get yourself some.
    The escort, they will need a bit more than just that. They will need body parts (normally XCite), a sex bed and toys. Not to mention sexy clothing. And they need to be real good at cyber sex. A good escort will earn quite a bit every time they have a client. I've seen some make 5000L to 10,000L a night. But those normally have lots of return clients. I won't list the normal rates for their services. If you are curious you can go into SL and look for yourself.
    These 2 jobs, I really feel you need to invest up front money to make them work. I think you would need for a dancer at least 5000L to get going, and for the escort at least that to maybe 10,000L. That covers a good skin, a good shape, hair, clothes and shoes, and XCite body parts. The full starter set, and a couple dancees.
  • Build Something to Sell: This is tricky and takes time. Well normally it does. I've seen some come into SL making some incredible builds. Most though, don't. A good place to learn to build is the Ivory Tower of Prims. Its a self paced learning center. You start out making a box and when you have finished all the lessons in the tower you have made some wonderful things and learned some great building skills for SL.
    With every great build, you need great textures. The Harbingers Sandbox has a vendor that sells for 0L a huge collection of catagorized Textures. Applying a texture is both easy and hard. Something that I've seen done a lot is that people only apply a texture to just the faces of the prim that they see, but in doing it that way, you will see white plywood seams. To me its best to apply a neutral texture to all faces of the prim, then apply the texture you want on the faces you see. that way if done right you won't notice the seams.
    A great looking build will look bad if textured badly, and a bad build will look good if textured well.
    The Particle Lab is a great place to learn to make particles. Well worth going there.
    Some hot items right now are clothing (photoshop experience is good here), weapons (programming experience needed), houses, furniture. So, now that you have made something, how do you sell it? I like http://www.slexchange.com, its a website but buying and selling things made in Second Life. Its free to have your item listed and they take a 10% take on everyting that is sold. You can also find for free some vendor scripts to make your own vendor for selling things, or you can just put it in a prim and sell copies of the prim.
  • Pressing the blue L$ on the top right of your screen: This is the easiest way to get money right away. The rate is about $4 us dollars for 1000L. Its the price of a Hamburger meal and you get it right away. The thing I get most is I'm Not Going To Spend Money On A Game! OK fine, don't. But stop whinning to me about not having any Lindens. LOL. Think of it. You go to a movie and spend I don't know, maybe $8 to see one. You don't have anything left over after but a ticket stub. How is that any different than spending $4 us dollars for shopping fun. I admit this is all virtual, but its just as real as the movie you just watched, and less fattening than the hamburger.

What you need to make money in Second Life is imagination. If you like landscaping, try to make a landscaping business. People do that in SL. Body Guards. Bartenders. DJ. Musicians. Heck, if you can play a guitar or keyboard and can sing like Bob Dylan or somebody go for it. They make up to 25,000L an hour per performance. Normally its closer to 3000L an hour. If all else fails use your imagination. There is no guarentee that you are going to make a lot of money in here. None At All. So just have fun. Myself, if I like what I make then I'm happy. I build for my own enjoyment. If somebody else likes what I made Great!, If not I gave it my best and I'm happy.