Second Life FAQ

[BluMiuDue]

Have you ever heard of Second Life? Me neither, until somebody told me about it. Now, as I try out this program myself, I will be helping you out by writing up a FAQ of how to get started wasting more space on your computer.

SecondLife.com FAQ
When you visit this website, you will be visually assaulted by an array of mindless things to click on. Ignore every single one of them. Instead, click on the "Join" link in the top-right corner of the browser.

This is standard sign-up stuff. Choose a screenname that hasn't been taken. Try to guess what wouldn't have been taken by 6.4 billion other people (in three years, 9.8 billion, five years after that, 12.4 billion, and so on into infinity). Choose any Last Name you like, based on your favorite letter perhaps. Nobody will tell you what this is for, hiding the fact they just have no flipping clue.

Put in a date where the year is more than 18 years ago for all the good stuff. Make sure the month and day exist. Then, choose a real e-mail address, and type it in not once, but TWICE! Isn't that exciting? Make sure to use an e-mail address you can check. These days, even ToiletPaper.com sends out an annoying spam e-mail to confirm registration. Go to the next page.

On this page, choose a bland stereotype that people will devise insults against you for. They're all ugly conglomerations of 3D polygonal mess. Go to the next page.

On the next page, you will be asked to enter your real name. Do not enter your real name. The last idiot to put in her real name ended up dead, or worse, pregnant. Choose the female gender so that the SL administrators will tend to give you more benefits. Choose any country you can spell, or whose delicious cuisine you last ate.

Choose a password that you don't think you'll tell the entire world about. Just remember what happened the last time some idiot let someone else know the password to the nuclear missile launch codes.

Next, choose a security question that will never be asked or used in any way for password retrieval. Don't give out whatever you say because it either may identify you or revealing the information, however interesting, might let people fiddly-diddle with your account. Maybe not.

To receive lots of fun spam mail flooding your inbox, check any box under the Second Life Newsletter section. Promotion codes probably require some sort of money transaction, so unless someone's told you one, don't bother. The same for Who Reffered You. If somebody referred to, only play the game if they tell you their SL screenname. Otherwise, they're not a very helpful friend.

Next you must play the trendy "make your eyes bleed to read the distorted text" game. Every site uses this now, despite how irksome it is, especially on websites whose text-images are particularly impossible to read, much like experiencing the event horizon of a black hole. Try your best, hope you get lucky, curse the l/I ignorance, and make sure to remain case-sensitive, just in case.

Do not be confused by the question: "Is this your first Second Life account?" Remember, if this is your first, choose that this is your first Second Life account, and not that this is your second Second Life Account. If you already have a second Second Life account, what do you need another one for?

Check the box that says "I agree to the Terms of Service". This can always be ignored. They won't let you play if you don't check the box, so nobody on earth pays attention to these anymore.

Click "Submit". If you fail, you can always try again. You will then be given an automatic e-mail, and the next page.

Please please please please ignore the offer for "free" "Linden Dollars". They ask for your credit card or Pay Pal account. This does not constitute "free". Never ever ever ever give your money to anyone on the internet ever ever unless they are a trusted retailer, not some dorky webmasters with the code to keep you from reading letters and looking at assorted colors on a website. Just click "Skip this step".

Again, skip the step trying to milk your money for B.S. "Premium Accounts". Instead, stuff money into your mouth and make obscene chewing noises.

Click on the Download button corresponding to whichever arbitrary and irrelevant Operating System you use, which prevents you from using any file you like on your computer machine. Remember to save the installation files to a place you'll remember by the time you use the "Uninstall" function, to clear up space on your computer (even though the G-men will find out about it and laugh at us anyay.)

Remember: It's generally suspicious when people ask for YOUR money to put THEIR junk on YOUR computer.

[BluMiuDue]

Second Life Installation FAQ (Windows)

Open the Second Life Setup program.

Click Next.

Don't choose an obscure location on your computer to install Second Life. Make sure that Uninstall program will be nice and handy when the time comes. Click Install.

The program will ask if you want to start Second Life now or not. Better close all the other programs, since programs these days are real weenies when it comes to multitasking. What the heck's a computer for, otherwise?

Second Life will now start. Pray your computer doesn't crash.

[Leon M.]

Hey if anyone from ToM comes on, just look for a Black Wolf named Evan Heron

[Antantaru]

LOL Ok I have been on Secondlife for years now =P

My name is Ark Gullwing

And the last name thing is generational, you can tell by a persons last name what generation they are, for instance you can NOT choose Gullwing. Its from a much older generation...

Putting your payment information etc in there is worry free. In fact I recommend it. I do NOT however, recommend getting a premium account which costs money. No no, if you have payment information on file, you are "Verified" as who you say you are and therefore can not be filtered from certain area's by your "anonymity"... griefers for example will never put payment info on file, so us land owners can make it so you CANT come to our land unless you have payment information on file. Linden Labs is a highly trusted company and your information is totally secure with them.

When you choose an avatar to start with, its only your starting avatar, you can easily upgrade and modify/buy new avatars to suit your needs, including furry ones, or even a few mewtwo's i seen about (none that great tho). its much easier to get money to do these things if you have payment info on file you can buy linden dollars at the current exchange rate. (yes theres an actual exchange rate between linden dollars and regular money, many people own businesses and make their living in secondlife)

ALSO

You need a broadband connection to play this really, since all the content is streamed to you as you go, think of it as a large 3 dimensional world wide web... everyone can put their own content online and you can go around and view it, but as you go from website to website or area to area in SL, things have to download before you see them. This is called "Rezzing" coined from the movie Tron. The program itself isnt much, under 50 megabytes, i think its 36 last i checked...

[mewrei]

Originally Posted by Antantaru

Linden Labs is a highly trusted company and your information is totally secure with them.

How about when Linden Lab got hacked and had their credit card numbers stolen? XDD

Do yourself a favor, do the billing arrangement with PayPal. Somehow I trust the security of PayPal to the Nth degree more than the shoddy practices at Linden Lab.

The program itself is fairly simple and a small download, but don't let that fool you. I watch the monitor on mine and see it's easily chewing up around a megabit worth of bandwidth for 2-3 minutes while things are rezzing.

Also, graphics card. I didn't think it meant too much but get an OpenGL compliant graphics card that has some processing power. My 8600GT does decently at around 20fps average. Depending on if Ant has too many particle things turned on.

Also, keep in mind, RAM. You'll need it. I'm sitting here watching SL chew up around 700MB of it. You can probably turn a few things down to negate that.

And before anything, keep in mind that this game is one of the single biggest wastes of time and money ever.

[SuperSpymewtwo]

Originally Posted by mewrei

And before anything, keep in mind that this game is one of the single biggest wastes of time and money ever.

Aye, this is so x3

Which is why I am rarely on... The same thing applies to those on WoW quite a lot. Although, I much prefer SL over WoW IMHO (and left it for SL last summer).

I sometimes wish there were two of me xD One to play SL while the other takes care of the other stuff


... and this topic has a mad face by it o.O *pokes it with a rose*

[Leon M.]

I say we cause a world of destruction that send all of SL to the depts of hell it self bring nothing pain and misery to all that get into own way in the great name of the all-might purple one and show those disbeliever the wrong of there way.......




























.... or we can just have a party. XD

[GamzGuy]

Originally Posted by BluMiuDue

Instead, stuff money into your mouth and make obscene chewing noises.

If you're gonna eat five dollars...shouldn't you get more meat?


I like SL myself...used to be really laggy and eat up a ton of computer memory, but that hasn't been the case with my newer Vista desktop. Powerful bugger...
Only problem I have these days is my addiction to the game and the temptation to constantly be shelling out four bucks for an extra L$1000.

[Jaxtwo]

I'm using it for my educational research! That's why I love sociology, the only field where you can make anything interesting enough for topic.

[RehcaerpM22]

All those tons of gigabytes streaming, thousands of servers, and milions in hired land cost just for virtual sex.

[Jaxtwo]

And science!

[Aeris Avalon]

Ya'all don't WANT to know what I'M using it for!

[GamzGuy]

Originally Posted by Aeris Avalon

Ya'all don't WANT to know what I'M using it for!

Oh, I'm sure we don't need to...cuz fifty bucks says we're all doing the same thing on it. ;3

[Jaxtwo]

No waaaai! haha

[Leon M.]

About a good 75 or more % of Second Life economy is Sexual related activity. I think~

¬_\\

[RehcaerpM22]

And 50% of that is Ant.

[Aeris Avalon]

It's awesome for long distance relationships.