Second Life "Game Review" : "What Is Second Life" Part 2

By Nydia Tungsten

Most of you that have read my articles know I have done a “What is Second Life?” article. But this time, something very personal happened to me and it started me thinking, with everything I have said about Second Life, I have missed a LOT. Here is my chance to correct that.

It is 4 a.m. and I am unable to go to sleep so I sit here gaming and listening to my REALLY off the wall music as I play different games. I realized, out of every MMO I play or have EVER played, SL is the most in depth format of the MMOs. For example, when SL first came out, I remember hearing people laughing at those “idiots” that spend real money for virtual items, which I have to admit we do (land, homes, furniture, parties, ect…ect…). BUT, so do they. They pay monthly fees to play their MMO, some up to $20 USD a month AFTER they pay the $60 to $75 USD to buy it. THEN, they pay those little extra’s to give them an edge, i.e. that nice pay for only main battle axe or buy extra gold to get those better rounds for tanks in the MMO “World of Tanks”. And now some MMO’s are starting to offer a “home” that you can make and have it look how you want it, so you have people paying extra to decorate those homes.  Yeah, they look nice, but what can you do with them? Nothing except make them look pretty and never go in them again. But yet, you paid for them and continue to put money into a “virtual world.” Now, let’s flip the coin here. For the same money you put into the average MMO, you can get twice that in SL and do MORE.

  In SL, not only could you get a home and make it look the way you want it to, you can even make the items yourself so it is TRULY a one of a kind place that you can be proud of.

   A place you can take your friends to more than once or twice before they get bored of just standing in the same spot and just looking. In SL, you can interact with almost EVERYTHING in the grid INCLUDING other players.

   Yes, there are the sex beds, but there are also so much more! You have swings, movies, chairs, desks, you can hug other players, they can hug you (both with permissions asked and given). You can make true friends there from all over the world.  The other MMO’s have certain servers for certain parts of the world so you can’t ever meet someone from…say.. Russia. I used to go to a club where 99% of the members were Russian and another for Germans. You can travel the world in the space of five minutes.

    Now we come to my experiences. I had an accident; I tripped over two playful dogs and took a bad spill involving a concrete slab. And then family issues ensued, and then I woke up to find myself with “Bells Palsy”. For those that don’t know what it is (like me until I got it), it has a lot of the symptoms of a stroke where the right side of my face was paralyzed but this is caused by pinched nerves and not a clog in the brain. I even have to wear an eye patch to keep my eye from getting gunk in it or drying out so that is why I wear an eye patch in SL as well.

      When I was FINALLY able to get back into SL after being gone for a more than a week, I found candles on my mantel from my loving Angels to show me they were thinking of me and missing me. They are still there and I get misty eyed every time I see them. The people of Second Life have become a like a family to me. I don’t know of any other MMO you can get so involved with others OUTSIDE the grid like you can with Second Life.

   You can even marry that special someone in your life, no matter which you prefer, you can marry them here. I know this first hand because I married someone so very special to me. Brandi is a part of everything I do in SL now, and I know of many others that have done the same; some have taken it to the next level and hooked up in real life too.

   I am so proud of my accomplishments in SL. I have come a very long way since I was first “rezzed”. I have come to know and love each of my Angels, without whom I would be nothing and have nothing. So, let me publicly thank my family group “Nydia’s Angels”. Thank you, my Angels.

    I have been adopted by several people in SL as well, one of which is Skylark. She adopted me from almost the start of my life in SL. She taught me about clubs and how to run them, also a bit about land, and I have taken that knowledge and ran with it. At one point, I had 6 active clubs and administered over 14 sims, but those numbers have come down now due to a lot of factors. But one thing remains, it was so much fun to learn about it and make a go of it.  Let’s see you make money in your real life (legally) from any other MMO, then let me know so I can try that as well.

   SL is also great for those who have self esteem issues. In SL, you can look how you feel you deserve to look. I know of many that are disfigured for some reason or another but here in SL, they can look how they feel, be who they are. Like myself, I am a little white vixen that I think looks nice and I have adopted that fursona  in all my online dealings.

   Until SL, I never even had an email address of my own. With the help of my friends and family in SL, I opened and bloomed and grew and tried a lot of things I would never have tried in real life. I am becoming more of who I truly am.


 So, to sum it up, SL is not just a game, but also a wonderful tool that can be used by so many people in so many ways, because no matter what you’re into, you will find it in SL.

    As soon as I am over this Bells Palsy, I will try and do more stories about more games, but….until then
GOOD GAMING TO YOU!

Nydia Tungsten