I have been hanging out on Second Life for a bunch of years.... For those who dont know what Second Life is, its pretty much a gathering of people from all around the world. There are zones and rules and security that can block people from zones or allow people into them. There are moderators who can teleport problem people out and keep people out by use of ban lines so the people cant come back to an area until the ban is lifted or the ban can be permanent. People have all sorts of interactive places and there are some clean places as well as some really off the wall places. You could see advertising in this virtual world for real places that you could go to irl ( in real life ) such as there is a church that has a schedule and people can attend mass as their avitar for example. There are movie theaters that play streaming video content that is of all ratings, some theaters are clean and play movies like The Jerk with Steve Martin for example and some of which are 18+ in the red light districts that there are multiples of there have that content. There are fun parks and someone reconstructed and coded up a Disney World there to which you can take a seat and go through the Haunted House and the Pirates Log Ride and watch the electric parade festival that happens at timed intervals from very creative artists and coders.
Dancing is very common there and its more of a instead of having a bunch of people standing in a room doing nothing, their avitars get onto dance pads or dance balls some of which are marked by color for Blue = male and Pink = Female so that when dancing as a couple the female isnt carrying the man around in her arms as a male would do. There are no rules that restrict this so a female could carry a male avitar around dancing and cause some laughs. But in places like The Shelter, its a line of dance pads that strangers will generally get on and dance in a line together and chat in a open chat window, as well as you can also whisper each other privately was well if you found someone you wanted to chat with or they found you and didnt want everyone to know what was being chatted about. While at places most places have streaming radio or juke boxes as well as DJ's that go there and live it up as actual DJ's playing music by request as well as whatever they want to play. It makes for some fun times and sometimes funny times when a DJ messes up because they went to a smoke break and didnt get back in time to change the song etc or even worse the bathroom break irl in which the song ended and they come rushing back to get the music going again and usually state sorry and why making the whole room laugh.
There are people there who want relationships, as well as people who just want quick gratification, as well as people who just want to socialize, as well as people who just like the thrill of exploring all the many places that others have created, additionally there are all sorts of avitar types and groups such as you can be a Vampire or a Lycan or a Hybrid and use the Bloodlines system and live in a castle with other people who live and act there as vampires with rules that may be lose but are generally strict. There are also clans in addition to groups. In clans the order is generally that others who have a status above yours calls the shots and they may require you to interact with them or your thrown out of the clan. There are clean clans and there are very very dark clans where what is illegal in in real life is fair game there and it can be a very scary place to someone getting mixed up with that group.
Everything you can have in real life you can have there, I have muscle cars and a chopper motorcycle that I can give people rides in or on. I have a house there that i play a small amount of money rent to the SIM server landlord so that its my personal space, but you can be there without any property ownership or without spending money renting. There are many things that are free, many places to get free items such as a new outfit or new hat or new boots, or new eyes, or new hair, or just about anything else you want to alter on your avitar. *There are even body parts that should be hidden behind clothing to pick from for males and females of various selections.
In addition to what you can have in real life, there are some really interesting alien planets and places to visit like taking a space shuttle to the moon and you see earth going away and you land on moon and there are bug creatures that slowly come towards you and you feel like they are going to hurt you, but they dont kill you. You can fall from the highest point and hit the ground and bounce. Its like the matrix sort of in which you could even have a dodging bullets animation created and someone shooting at you. The only death in the game is for those who become part of Bloodlines, and thats only if you dont feed, but when you die as part of Bloodlines not feeding it just sets your stats to 0 which is DEAD, and so you then have to start all over again with Bloodlines or give up on it like I did and have Vampires and other people with HUDS that scan for life form types remind you that your dead even though your able to do everything that a living person can do on Second Life. HUDS are a script interface that interacts with Second Life and your account to be able to make quick changes to your avitar or environment as well as able to scan and detect what life forms are in rooms and their distance in which icons show for Human, Vampire, Lycan, Hybrid, and others such as souls that are lost in limbo because they were bitten and their soul taken by a vampire but by which the vampire died and the souls they had lost as a result of their death etc.
Everything that is Good and EVIL in real life also exists in Second Life. There are great people on there to have conversations with as well as there are some really really screwed up people there. There are also GRIEFERS there and you have to worry about them. You dont leave your avitar unattended in strange places unless you want to come back to yourself and find that your avitar now cant move as your have been folded up like a box because they have scripts that can target others and make for an unpleasant experience there. As well as some that like to target people who are out having fun and keep spamming them with water balloons etc where your trying to have a nice walk with girlfriend and you have this guy that is throwing them at you and your girlfriend and you both are pretty much like ok lets teleport to some other place and hopefully they wont follow.
Items there in addition to free can also cost money. Real Money, and some items are insanely expensive and people pay crazy money into it. They also have places that have chairs where if you sit in the chair for a set amount of time and arent kicked out by others you can get free stuff as well as chairs that have a letter above them and if your name starts with D which mine does, you take a seat in the chair and then it sounds like you hit the jackpot and the item that was being given away from free you get into your inventory, additionally if you see a ? its a wildcard and a free for all for anyone to sit down and get for free. They also have places with money trees and piggy banks where in order to draw traffic to places to get people to go to places they will have money trees where they randomly spawn real money called Linden and represented as $L .... 2500 Linden is worth about $10 USD it fluctuates on a market as people buy and sell it to buy stuff in Second Life or sell it back to convert it back to Real Money. Gift Cards and PrePaid Credit Cards cant be used to buy this virtual currency because there are restrictions on converting real money into virtual currency using prepaid cards to try to put a stop on money laundering etc.
Ok after sharing all that... more could be said but not going to write a book...
Avitar Appearance is the same as IRL Appearance... If someone doesnt look like the type of person you would want to associate with, then you wont. But if they look pleasant etc then they would more likely draw attention to themselves, ESPECIALLY IF FEMALE
The default appearances that they give you are kind of boring. I ended up spending about $5 to create the appearance that i wanted by buying special items that couldnt be acquired for free, while I also have other items that are free. In the 8 years I have been on Second Life I have spent probably around $200 USD between rent, and buying items like muscle cars and chopper motorcycles and some avitar appearance stuff when I wanted to look more real and there was a skin that made me look less of a cartoon and more realistic. There are MESH items that even make hair very detailed and flow with movement, and there are AO's with affect how your avitar behaves with body language. Mine is using a Dangerous AO which gives my 6'2" biker dude with leather and long hair, chains and tattoos have a cool and strong man walk. This appearance seems to get lots of attention from the ladies and I already have one I'm committed to there.
Sadly though there is about a ratio of 10 to 1 for female avatar objects to mens. Mens clothing is not as much where as females have a 10x greater variety of clothing accessories and skins and appearances.
You can look like almost unlimited selection of appearances from human, to animal, to a mix of species, or alien, or take on a skeleton appearance or ghost, or pirate, Pac Man, cartoon characters, and more.
To be more likeable it really comes down to what kind of person you are and what type of people and interaction your interested in. If you can hold a conversation with others and gain interest in whatever your talking about then you dont really need avitar that grabs attention. But for guys who start accounts on there and they are looking to find a relationship or are the type that are shy and waits for others to talk to them, entering a room and standing out in a good way such as attractive to females etc can get conversations going quickly.
Lastly there are profiles and in the profiles you can share all sorts of stuff, and there is a tab for REAL LIFE to where you could share a picture of yourself real life, or just state as many do that SL is SL and RL is RL which basically means that they are not interested in sharing their real identity and appearance. There is also a line on the main page of profile that shows if your married or not. I am married to my girlfriend on second life, but this doesnt stop whispers from other females from trying to steal me away from her. Most respect that and dont try to steak you away, but there are also others who they dont care and just want to get with you for some adult behavior and I am not that way. But many on there are.
They even have where you can have children going through the whole process of making one the same as IRL and so some people role play as husband wife etc. I myself am just myself and dont do that RP stuff, however I have multiple accounts there and my Vampire does RP as a Vampire which is a part of 7's Family, a large vampire family. With the vampire I hang out in places that are of the vampire setting as well as industrial clubs with industrial music and stuff. In that group of people you have a strong dark and goth following of people. But I know many great people where they play on there as a vampire and IRL you would never ever expect them to be a very dark and interesting vampire. But its also where more of the odd balls are found in which you have to keep an eye out for those wanting you follow them to the darker depths of Second Life where you might find yourself in a pretty scary place even when its virtual and you can walk away from it by exiting the viewer at any time.
I use the Firestorm Viewer and have been using it since 4.7.1 its now onto 5.0.3 I think. Just the other day they killed off support for 4.7.7 which i had been using for a while. The Firestorm viewer has way better controls and options than the default viewer. There are a number of different viewers out there that support SL and OpenSIM. I have an OpenSIM private world on my one computer that I use for messing around with building objects and scripts without affecting the real Second Life world.
So, if I change my Avatar,
- will I become more likable ?
You might draw more attention to yourself depending on what type of attention your looking for with a different appearance. Likeable really comes down to how well you relate with others and your attitude really. If your cool and get people to laugh and stuff like I do, you can have a whole room going on a chat subject and people giving you friend invite requests, as well as enter a place you haven't been to in a while and have people saying long time no see because your memorable to them.
Your article looks like its from 2006 and SL came out around 2004. There was a time when people were making LOTS of money making and selling virtual objects. The days for that have dwindled. Money can still be made, but not the kind of money of 10 years ago. Whoever came out with Bloodlines and all the objects you need for that system has got to be a multimillionaire. There is an amulet that you can wear so that you no longer need to feed from blood dolls, or tanks of blood, or from random people. You wont die as a vampire because its almost an exploit item that you can remain a vampire if you cough up $45 USD and wear this amulet then we will allow for you to cheat the system and not have to feed as the amulet with freeze the timer that consumes blood so that there is no requirement for blood or death if you dont feed. Just about every vampire out there and there are well over 100,000 of them bought this amulet. Myself on my vampire, I feed and im good, and i save myself from wasting $45 on a virtual object. If it was $10 I'd buy it, but $45 is insane to me for this object.
