My Second Life Experience

            One of the MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing game) that we spent a lot of time in during our Intro to Virtual Worlds class was Second Life. Second Life is an online virtual world that was created by Linden Lab in 2003. In Second Life, players can interact with other users by using custom avatars. Not only can they be social, but they can also explore the world (also known as the “grid”) and have the ability to build almost anything. You also have the option to make real world money by trading in Linen Dollars you gain in game. I actually had played Second Life one time before this class back in 2007.

            The only issue with playing back in 2007 is that I had not played since. So I basically had to learn how to do most basic tasks over again. I was skeptical when our class first played during class because my last experience had not been something to write home about. After playing in world for about an hour in class, I still was not quite convinced that Second Life was all that great. It didn’t help that all the other times I attempted to play on my laptop the game glitched and would not load objects or avatars correctly. At that point, I was nowhere near excited to do really anything related to Second Life.

             A few weeks after our first Second Life introduction, our class was assigned our final blogging assignment. Our task was to write an article based on a given topic that we were to investigate in Second Life using in game participants as informants. Once again, I was slightly skeptical about how much I would learn from this experience but I still tried to be positive about working in Second Life. Our class was going to be writing for a real online newspaper called Alphaville Herald. One of the editors, Pixeleen Mistral, would be giving us our article assignments after we sent her an email. Our professor listed off some possible article topics and one stuck out to me, Bronies. A Brony is a name given to (a usually male) fan/viewer of the new television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I myself am a Brony and knew that this was the topic for me. As soon as class was out, I sent Pix an email asking for an article about the Second Life Bronies. Pix granted my request and gave me a Brony themed article topic. She also gave me a few different ideas of what I could focus my article on, for example Brony politics, Brony businesses or the overlap between Bronies and Furries. I decided it would be the most interesting to go with the third article option.

            Now that I had my article assignment I had to go in world and interview some of the Second Life Bronies. My only issue at this point was making time to log onto Second Life to actually conduct the interviews was slightly difficult. My laptop still did not like the Second Life viewer that I installed. Not only that, but I had to work around the time that the campus computer lab was available for use. Once I finally was able to get into the lab, my Second Life journalist adventure really started to bloom. 

            My first stop was BronyTown. As I found during my travels of the Second Life world, BronyTown is one of the larger and more popular Brony communities. I entered the world in my started German shepherd avatar and began to wander around the sim. I found some ponies and I asked them if they would allow me to ask them a few questions for an article that I was writing. One pony (who was wearing a Rarity avatar) was very nice and answered all of my questions. Another pony was more wary of my intentions, but he stubbornly gave me some answers. For the most part, the ponies I ran into just were role-playing and didn’t take the time to talk. After a slightly disappointing Second Life adventure I had to leave the computer lab at closing time.

            I was back in the computer lab as soon it opened again. This time, instead of going right back to finding ponies to interview, I decided to check out the rest of the sim. While flying above the trees of the EverFree Forest, I had the idea to change my dog avatar into a pony one. I figured people would be more likely to talk to me if I looked like them. I ended up running into a random Brony, who was able to help me create my very own pony avatar (that was dark gray with a blue mane and tail). Donning my new avatar, I went back on the prowl for new Bronies to interview. Yet this time I was very unsuccessful this time around. I got a few words from a couple Bronies but no one would stay to chat. For the most part they kept role-playing or just didn’t respond. Slightly irritated with the lack of willing Bronies, I decided that I needed to take a break and do something else until more Bronies showed up in the sim. I explored almost all of what I think was the entirety of the Brony sim, I had the idea to visit Nope.

Nope is a sim in Second Life that our class was told about by our professor when we were learning about griefers. Griefers are people that can be found in almost any MMO, and who enjoy irritating and harassing other players for fun. In Second Life there is always a place where people who affiliate themselves with or are griefers’ home base. Our class had been granted access to Nope by one of the well-known “griefers” in Second Life, yet no one had bothered to venture there. I didn’t have any thing better to do at the time so I decided to check it out for myself.

I arrived in Nope and the first thing I noticed was how random and slightly chaotic it was. There were random meme references scattered about the land, which I found quite amusing. I wandered about in my pony avatar when suddenly I was surrounded by a very random assortment of people. I was a newcomer in an invite only sim so they were all slightly confused. Many of them began to ask me questions like how did I know about Nope? Was I apart of the JLU? Who invited me? Was I lost? I put on my headset and attempted to explain myself as they bombarded me with questions. I tried to answer their questions as best as I could. I told them about the class I was taking. How I knew about them. I explained that I was not a JLU member. I then told them about the article I was writing and my lack of Bronies willing to participate in my interview. Instead of messing with me like I had expected them to, they actually were interested in what I was telling them. Some thought it was funny that my professor was writing a book about griefers and some wanted to know what it was called so they could check it out when it was finished. After I told the group about my article, a few of them decided to help me. A couple Bronies happened to be in the group, so they told me what they thought about the relationship between the Second Life Bronies and Furries. One went as far as to get in contact with the owner of the EverFree Forest, which is one if not the biggest pony sims in Second Life. That griefer accompanied me in going to meet up with zedmastermind (the owner of the sim). I learned a lot about the Second Life Bronies and about some of their different groups and even some stuff about Second Life itself from talking to Zed and the griefer. The three of us talked about many random things like Woodbury and what we thought of the JLU. They even gave me helpful advice about where to download a better viewer for Second Life so it will actually work on my computer. Our chat was cut short when security was closing up the computer lab. I thanked Zed and the griefer for all of their help and logged off.

In the end, I actually really enjoyed my experience in Second Life. After I fix my game viewer (so I will hopefully be able to play it on my computer) I will probably continue to play it every now and then. I loved how helpful many of the players were and they would take time to explain things to me even though I was new to the game. Even the griefers that I met were both funny and enjoyable people. I was able to learn a lot about Second Life from people who actually witnessed many of the events that we had previously discussed in class. I am glad that I kept an open mind about Second Life because the experience that I had was not only enjoyable but I was able to learn more about Second Life and the people who play it more than I thought I ever would.